Comment on Looking for feedback: First draft of multi-level guidelines for Fedecan and its various platforms (lemmy.ca, sh.itjust.works, piefed.ca, pixelfed.ca)

ZERONOVABLOSSOM@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I’m just going to give you my understanding of these questions, not sure if it coincides with the intended meaning of the people who drafted the rules, so they can correct me if I’m mistaken.

  Why the specificity with eating disorders and what would be considered sensitive content for said disorder?

  I believe that online forums have often been implicated as contributing to and worsening eating disorders such as anorexia, and thus it’s important to be especially vigilant about creating such an environment here.

  If I’m talking about eating certain foods to better my mental health, is that considered warranting of a content label? Should I be labeling all food related things with a warning? If I talk about nutritional facts for an item, is that considered a sensitive topic and I should label it?

  I would say the answer is no for all of these questions. It will depend on the tone and context of the post/discussion, which is somewhat subjective. But the rule is not meant to stifle general discussion about food or nutrition, only to combat instances where such discussions become clearly and verifiably medically detrimental. I would assume that moderation action on such topics would only be taken in very clear instances of problematic patterns of behavior from certain users/communities.

  Sockpuppetry is when an individual uses an alias account for any of a variety of nefarious reasons. The alias, known as a sockpuppet, could be used to agree with or praise the operator’s actual account. Alternatively, it could be used to harass other users, or create a caricature of a viewpoint or group that the user intends to disagree with or mock.

  Sockpuppets could also be used for astroturfing, where an individual or group attempts to create the illusion of popular support for a position that is actually relatively unpopular among the general public. This happens frequently with in politics and corporate public relations/marketing. One example would be when tobacco companies set up the National Smokers Alliance in order to protest against smoking bans and increased taxes on tobacco. It was portrayed as a collection of individual smokers who were against the increased regulations, when in fact it was simply created/funded/operated by corporate executives who were attempting to give the impression of a grassroots anti tobacco regulation sentiment among the general public.

  Guerrilla marketing has some overlap with astroturfing; it’s basically when a company advertises something while trying to hide the fact that it’s an advertisement. Here’s an example (many more can be found on the Wikipedia page):

  Sony Ericsson used an undercover campaign in 2002, spearheaded by Jonathan Maron, when they hired 60 actors in ten major cities and had them accost strangers and ask them: “Would you mind taking my picture?” The actor then handed the target a brand new picture phone while talking about how cool the new device was. In this way, an everyday activity was converted into a branding event.

  This example would also be an instance of astroturfing.

  SEO is the acronym for search engine optimization. Internet search engines such as Google use algorithms to find relevant content. By spamming a large quantity of text/links, people can attempt to manipulate the algorithm to make their content or website show up on as many different Google searches and as close to the top as possible, even when it is not actually relevant or useful information.

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  • otter@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Thank you! That is in line with what I would have said. I’ll add on some remaining thoughts

    I’ll tag @ZERONOVABLOSSOM@sh.itjust.works for the reply as well, thank you for raising the discussion about these areas. There are already some lines that I want to improve based on the discussion here.

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    Mental health && Eating Disoders

    As imaqtpie has mentioned, that bit was included because of past issues with social media platforms around those topics. I’ve also found that the culture on the Fediverse has a focus around tagging content so that it is easier for users to control their online experience, especially on the Mastodon side.

    I agree with imaqtpie’s stance on those questions. While I want to wait for more discussion before proposing changes, right now I’m leaning towards separating the mental health point from the other two. Graphic content and sexual content is easy to identify, and people expect that content to be labelled. Discussion around sensitive topics might sometimes need a label, but that would be situation dependent. We could include a line to say that people can use their best judgment on when to label such content, or most it to another section entirely.

    An asterisk with a definition somewhere in the rules would be nice. I could look it up but I worry my understanding of these terms will differ from what you’re meaning.

    That is a good point, we can definitely do that. Maybe some expandable cards (which look like this ) with the text “What is sockpuppetry”, and a longer explanation with examples underneath. I could take from the examples @imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works shared if that would be ok?

    There is likely a better term for the SEO point, but I’ll have to think of what to call it. It’s pretty obvious when it happens on Lemmy, since the account will primarily post links to the website that it is trying to promote. Before we enabled registration applications on Pixelfed.ca, we were getting a lot of accounts with bios that included links to gambling sites or sketchy online businesses.

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