There are two parts to this question. One on the online community, one in the real life observations.
Online:
This is a problem I've been having with the Voat community. Everyone seems so passionate about arbitrary things, and yet, I see hardly anything being done to create, or amend the issues. We're not technically a community; in fact, it's a strange crossroads of communities that happen to all be residing in the same space.
I got here three months (well lurking, I think my profile says 1) ago. When I joined, I felt like I found home. People would argue with each other, reach a compromise, all without downvoating. I met some great friends, all of us passionate about writing. And now, a good majority of them have left due to the culture change.
Instead of discussion, I find more and more "Fuck you faggot you SJW cocksucker" sort of deals. They didn't like this. They left. I took a hiatus for awhile. But I notice more and more this mindset of witchhunting, hive minded anger, without any solution but to ban users (Not in Particular @She but also many, many others). I feel like we could be better at open discussion, without the name-calling. It weakens arguments --- granted, I've seen several good arguments going on, but it all revolves around downvoats instead of null debate.
In Real Life:
More and more, people get angry. They're angry about everything. And They offer no solutions, not feasible ones anyway. I'm pretty laid back. I try to not get angry these days, though sometimes something gets under my skin, but everyone seems to make it a black and white issues (sometimes literally) without ever seeing the facts.
My question to you, voat, is that.....
How do we take our passion and make it into something constructive? How do we regain control, and instead of only being angry and passionate, we become motivated and passionate?
I apologize for rambling. I'm getting fed up with anger with no constructive direction.
EDIT: This discussion is amazing! I haven't read through everything yet, but I'm so happy you all are really getting into this! thanks!
view the rest of the comments →
[–] xeemee 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
i suspect that some of the strife is caused by reddit users/admins who have an interest in protecting their community by destroying the competition - apparently Voat is the most popular reddit-like platform besides reddit
some problems are also caused by the anonymity afforded by the net - it's easy to be a dick when you're not looking someone in the eye, however, if you want free speech, then you have no choice but to grant others the same
and other problems are cause by tensions in our individual lives and the shitty situation throughout the world regarding war, nearly worthless education systems, etc., etc., etc...
there is much more to be said about the erosion of basic compassion that exists in society today and who/what is responsible, but i think -- hope -- that major changes are on the horizon - there's more of a focus on supporting local businesses, eating healthier, sustainability, etc., and that will trickle down to our world community as well i would guess
your post very much reminds me of the documentary i just watched about the birth, life and death of the bulletin board systems (BBS), the precursor to the internet - when they started, you would typically dial in to your local node to avoid long distance charges and so these small communities were pretty close and used to physically meet to shoot the shit sometimes
as the system and technology grew, the nodes could talk to each other and some of the closeness was lost
then the internet took hold and virtually all of it was lost
some of the people interviewed in the film said they missed the closeness of the BBS system
why isn't there local forums, like for every town? meetup.com seems to be the closet thing to what i'm envisioning i suppose