[ update ] I did not end up finding what I was looking for, so I made a community instead. It is called Rationale and is @feddit.nl .

As this is a new venture, and I plan on being highly experimental, it will take some time for the vision to be fully realized. But I am honored for any and all support.

If you have any suggestions, DM me or leave a reply on this thread (for open discussion).

I am a dev. The example I gave was meant to be a POV, but in hindsight this was not clear. Because of this, I cannot meaningfully answer your question.

This topic still deserves genuine and transparent research. I have no doubt there are people already working on this, but I have not seen any notable results.

[OFF-TOPIC] To be completely frank with you, I’ve think that our communities (federation and open-source) are too splintered. Not in the sense of head count (this is good) but in terms of duplicating and abandoning work (this is bad). We really need a way to get a community-pulse on what is generally needed/wanted. I am not sure what the solution for this is, but I know there is one.

We actually agree here. I am not sure what to reply since there’s nothing to talk about. I will concede that my example wasn’t the best.

As I said prior, people should come with a well thought out hypothesis - those that do not will be filtered by downvotes. And if anything, having so many different perspectives (because its the internet) would eliminate edge-case hypotheses.

Obviously this is assuming everyone is acting in good faith (which is extremely unlikely) but, as I said prior, this is what mods are for.

I’m on the 411 because I was curious if anyone figured this out and had a functioning community around it. I think Lemmy, and the internet as a whole, would really benefit from a community like this existing.

This is true, but only for now.

The point of decentralized social platforms is to eventually include everyone. This is not to say this is Lemmy’s goal, but it is certainly the goal of its users. The tech-illiterate will show up en-masse (they always do) and what will be our answer for it? From what I see, we have none - this is no different than living on borrowed time.

We have to remember that “enshittification”, before all else, is a cultural issue. When the people that have this culture arrive, the whole platform will suffer for it (hence what I said earlier). Humans are just better with dealing with this in real-life, but the internet poses a lot more challenges that I just do not think we are ready for.

You make an excellent point, and I’ve never thought about it this way before.

Devs are not newbie friendly at all. We were all noobs at some point and (if we’re being honest) remember the excruciating pain it took to become versed. Most people are not going to go through this, so FOSS naturally loses a lot of non-tech talent (including UX).

What I didn’t think about is that there really isn’t a way for UX people to contribute at all. GitHub Issues, at most, allows for people to make feature-requests - but beyond that it’s just not viable.

For example, I am a UX designer and would like to contribute or iterate a layout. My demonstration includes several images and a video. First off, where do I do this? I could use GitHub Issues, but this is an extremely painful process that is likely far removed from my normal workflow. I could use YouTube, and then link on GitHub issues - but then I have to jump through several annoying hoops for a still sub-optimal workflow.

Git itself also has worked very poorly with binary files (png jpg mp3 wav…) until the recent advent of git-lfs. Binary iteration using base git is just a non-starter.

I am shocked to say it, but I cannot think of any development UI that is actually decent for non-tech people. If anyone does FOSS UX, and I am wrong about the tooling, please correct me.

This is a great suggestion and really scratches a lot I was looking for. I also stumbled across archives of the original blog - which were excellent.

The only issue is the perspective things are told from. People come there with solutions but it’s more of a “talking at you” than “building a solution together”. If I had to make an analogy, it’s like shareware versus open-source - both great, but distinct.

It’s not quite what I’m looking for, but I still highly recommend.

TIL, thanks for the heads up.

I am still interested in the concept of cataloguing threads from really intelligent people - like Wikipedia for Lemmy. Have you ever seen an insanely helpful thread and been like “this needs to be archived”? I have at least a dozen times.

A magazine is a really interesting concept, I will keep that in mind.

The problem with hyper-focused communities is that they tend to not focus on the general problems people face. This is not to say that it isn’t important, but it is harder to “connect the dots” or “get the big picture”.

Thanks for the suggestions, I checked them out

nostupidquestions has the spirit of what I’m looking for, but isn’t quite there (lack of scrutiny).

Yeah, it is quite discouraging. I feel this is what the internet was made for, but I have yet to find anything like it anywhere. I will also admit that upkeep of this type of community would be challenging considering bad-faith actors, bots, and ragebait being so effective.

What I am looking for does not seem to fit neatly into any one category, so I’ll try to use a POV. I am a person, and see something in my community that is a reoccurring problem. I do not know how this can be fixed or what steps I can take to try to fix it, so I go to _____ on lemmy to ask.

My example was not the best. I thought it was straightforward, but can now see that it can be interpreted in many ways - I’ll probably update it.

You are correct, but I am not attempting to avoid poltics. I just wanted to make clear that r/politics is not what I am looking for

I am going to assume you are disgruntled, and answering in good faith.

Perceived issues are the point. People do not necessarily have to comment on said issues if they are not affected or interested. This is not to say things cannot get off the rails, but this is what community culture and mods are for. Do not forget science only exists because practical people perceived issues.

Picking a hypothesis is the point. People will be discussing why the problem is occurring. There ideally would be scientific evidence or real strong correlating factors on why a problem is occurring. It is the communities job to downvote abysmal hypothesis. I would like to point out this is exactly how academia of all types function.

Once there is a hypothesis (or hypotheses) that people agree on (filtered by upvotes/downvotes) the community will discuss potential solutions to the problem.

This type of community requires some maintenance to work, but that’s why I am asking if it exists.

Mastodon seems to be in a weird middle that a lot of community platforms fall into. There are a lot of memes (way too many honestly) but they are political memes. I would imagine this is because a lot of people are genuinely worried about their future, but do not want to risk their life nor come off as “cringe”.

This is not surprising, given that we are living in extraordinary times, but it is frustrating. I would like for intelligent and practical people to come together and talk about solutions - but we’ve generally been reactionary. You want good and spicy meem - but we’ve generally be reactionary. Like I said, its frustrating.

Agreed, this has always been a major disconnect.

I’ll also say that devs are notoriously bad at “being a noob”. A lot of software just takes too much investment to get working - those that do not tend to be extremely predatory (i.e Facebook).

Devs need to create dead-simple software that has UX which caters to common actions humans would do.

I agree with the sentiment of this post. In fact, I was trapped (and extremely discontent) on Facebook for the first half of my digital-life; before finding open-source - and the rest is history.

I am afraid that we are not doing nearly enough however. This (like most things in this world) is a multilayered issue with no quick-fix, but the core of it is that many (and I mean MANY) of us are tech illiterate. Worse so, even more of us are math illiterate.

This generally means that most cannot cope with the current world we live in, and are experiencing extreme levels of inertia. I was here at one point, so I know how difficult this transition is.

An open web existing (on its own) won’t do much - its the culture that needs to change. We need to be equipped to think, fight, and adapt - or our spaces won’t survive. We are in a constant arms race with bad actors and ALL OF US need to be capable to win this fight. When the bots come to Lemmy (and they will), are most of us prepared to handle filter-lists, run servers, and potentially create a web-of-trust? I doubt this.

I would really like to see a return to real-life communication for most things (as humans are, from birth, well adapted to this) and the open-web only be used for automation and coordination. I think the most freedom comes from stability and the internet (in general) just does not offer that.

Common sense is not a “gotcha”, its common sense. I don’t know why everyone thinks this a win/lose thing.

You can find many mass killings from capitalist regimes too, its just a very pointless thing to bring up. Nazis do not care how you trade your goods. You have Capitalist-Nazis, Communist-Nazis, and Anarcho-Nazis. They are all Nazis and are not welcome.

Equating a Communist to a Nazi is total horseshit. You can also equate a Capitalist to a Nazi. Or an alien to a Nazi. But its a completely bad faith and ridiculous claim. Convo ends here - done engaging.

Small town suburbia is viable, but most suburbs (at least that I know of) are not small town - they are urban sprawl. Most of the cost is from strained infrastructure, usually due to overextending a city, which is likely not present in your town. I still would not recommend small town suburbia due to points 2 and 3, but it works.

I will note that most US suburbs are insolvent; I cannot speak for Australia. This is part of the reason why a lot of cities have genuinely abysmal infrastructure, because they cannot afford upkeep. Also keep in mind that due to point 2, property costs in the city rise because expansion becomes way more expensive because you have to tear apart suburbia.

I believe housing choice is a good thing. The problem is that suburbia almost always takes away housing choice for everyone else.

1. Suburbia is not cost viable.

Notice how suburbs are almost always built around cities and almost never on their own. There is a reason for this; they are heavily subsidized by the city and its infrastructure - eventually killing off the city due to extreme maintenance costs and uncooperative tax base (NIMBYs). This is a parasitic relationship, fullstop.

2. Suburbia is not recyclable.

It is extremely difficult to reuse suburban infrastructure for non-suburban purposes. This effectively eliminates scarce land until a patron spends 10x removing what it costs to install (not happening). This is why suburbs are often just abandoned instead of repurposed (see any rust-belt suburb).

3. Space should not come at the cost of the future.

To navigate suburbia (only viable by car) is to put massive strain on the human body and environment. We were built to walk. If you do not, you will become fat and die (see America). Cars pollute the air to no end, and “third places” can never truly be established - killing communities.

Wanting space is fine, but people should find a way to do it sustainably without harming themselves and everyone around them.

You are confused about what point you are trying to make. Capitalists have killed billions. So have nazis. Nazis aren’t welcome because of that. Neither should capitalists. You launching into a tirade about communism is changing the subject and actually strawmanning.

If you cannot see the point after this, it’s beyond saving.

I never said it wasn’t the truth, I said it was a bad faith argument. You’re bringing up the death-toll from Communism to call them Nazi-equivalents while ignoring the significantly higher death-toll from Capitalism. This is the textbook definition of deflection.

The actual reality is that, no matter what economic system you follow, if you want to kill and oppress people; you will kill and oppress people. Nazis are very clear that they want to kill and oppress people.

There are people that romanticize Communism, I do not (as I’ve said, it’s not a good system). I can still see that Communism is not calling for the death of others for social stability, even if Mao/Stalin/Putin/Xi themselves are.