I’m curious what, if any, guidelines people self-impose to try and engage in a productive way online (both on Lemmy and elsewhere). “Netiquette” if you will.

A couple of rules that I think are good practices, but still see too often, are:

  • don’t pile onto the most downvoted comment. Kinda like don’t feed the trolls, but it’s more about not letting yourself get rage baited. Instead, downvote them and move on.
  • don’t give a non-answer to someone’s question. Ex. if someone asks how to do X, don’t answer with, “Why are you trying to do X? You shouldn’t want to do X. Do Y instead.” Instead, explain what it would take to do X, and then offer Y as a possible alternative and why it may be a better option. But assume they already know about Y, and it doesn’t fit their use-case.

For that last one, finding a thread where someone has asked the exact question you want answered, only to find a thread full of upvoted non-answers is up there with the dreaded “nvm, I figured it out - 10y ago”.

  • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.ml
    2·
    19 hours ago
    • Read the room. If it looks like a glorified echo chamber you’ll get downvoted to oblivion. If you try to debate you might get banned. This is usually the case with news and political groups.
    • Don’t get pulled into pointless fights with trolls. You can usually spot them because they try to take the discussion on a radical detour or pointless pick a fight. Don’t let yourself get baited.
    • Don’t tell people to “google it”. They are probably looking for other’s insights. If you can’t answer their question or add to it then don’t respond.
    • If a topic is upsetting and you feel the urge to rant it is best to just walk away from it.
    • Try to take the high road and be polite even if they aren’t. Win by being nice, others will notice it.
    • Finally, if someone is just totally unreasonable or even sounds nuts don’t engage them. Block them if necessary.