this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2024
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There is a well-known internet proverb, the bullshit assymetry principle:

"The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it."

Anyone who has been in a few software chatrooms, a political communities, or any hobby groups has probably seen the eternal fountain of people asking really obvious questions, all the time, forever. No amount of patience and free time would allow a community to give quality answers by hand to each and every one of them, and gradually the originally-helpful people answering get sick of dealing with this constantly, then newcomers will often get treated with annoyance and hostility for their ignorant laziness. That's one way how communities get a reputation for being 'toxic' or 'elitist'. I've occasionally seen this first hand even on Lemmy, and obviously telling people to go away until they've figured out the answer themselves isn't a useful way to build a mass movement.

This is a reason why efficient communication matters.

Efficient teaching isn't a new idea, so we have plenty of techniques to draw from. One of the most famous texts in the world is a pamphlet, the Manifesto of the Communist Party, a way for the Communist League to share the idea of historical materialism to many thousands using a couple of dozen pages. Pamphlets and fliers are still used today at protests and rallies and for general promotion, and in the real world are often used as a resource when someone asks for a basic introduction to an ideology.

However, online, we have increased access to existing resources and linking people to information is easier than ever. I've seen some great examples of this on Lemmy with Dessalines often integrating pages of their FAQ/resources list into short to-the-point replies, and Cowbee linking their introductory reading list. So instead of burning out rewriting detailed replies to each and every beginner question from a propagandised liberal, or just banning/kicking people who don't even understand what they said wrong (propaganda is a hell of a drug), these users can pack a lot of information into their posts using effective links. Using existing resources counters the bullshit assymetry principle. There's a far lower risk of burnout and hostility when you can simply copy a bookmarked page, paste it, and write a short sentence to contextualize it. No 5 minute mini-essay in your reply to get the message across properly, finding sources each time, getting it nitpicked by trolls, and all that. Just link to an already-polished answer one click away!

There are many FAQ sites for different topics and ideological schools of thought (e.g. here's a well-designed anarchist FAQ I've been linked to years ago). There are also plenty of wikis, like ProleWiki and Leftypedia, which I think are seriously underused (I'm surprised Lemmygrad staff and users haven't built a culture of constantly linking common silly takes to their wiki's articles. What's the point of the wiki if it's not being used much by its host community?).

Notice that an FAQ is often able to link to specific common questions, and is very different from the classic "read this entire book" reply some of you may have seen before - unfortunately when a post says "how can value com from labor and not supply nd demand?", they're probably not in the mood to read Capital Vol. I-III to answer their question no matter how you ask them, but they might skim a wiki page on LTV and maybe then read further.

(Honestly, I think there's a missed opportunity for integrating information resources into ban messages and/or the global rules pages, because I guarantee more than half the people getting banned for sinophobia/xenophobia/orientalism sincerely don't think anything they said was racist or chauvanistic - it's often reiterating normal rhetoric and ""established facts"" in mass media; not a sign of reactionary attitude. The least we can do is give them a learning opportunity instead of simply pushing them further from the labour movement)

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[–] Randomgal@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Lol imagine thinking people read. You need a communist manifesto in language-agnostic manga version.

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 week ago

Honestly, I think there’s a missed opportunity for integrating information resources into ban messages and/or the global rules pages, because I guarantee more than half the people getting banned for sinophobia/xenophobia/orientalism sincerely don’t think anything they said was racist or chauvanistic - it’s often reiterating normal rhetoric and ““established facts”” in mass media; not a sign of reactionary attitude. The least we can do is give them a learning opportunity instead of simply pushing them further from the labour movement

very true and add something like this to moderation actions as well.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Good write-up, comrade, and thanks for the shout-out! I have seen some comrades make talking point flashcards for easy linking.

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thanks!

I have seen some comrades make talking point flashcards for easy linking.

If you find one, can you please give me a link?

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[–] toastal@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 week ago

Adjacent. Matrix uses a lot more resources & storage than XMPP, making XMPP a more efficient method of decentralized, self-hostable communication (both servers and clients). Having control of your own chat server will prove important with facism on the rise, so owning your own server node + E2EE will prove important—but if the system is too expensive that everyone cannot afford to run it, it isn’t radical tech.

[–] RedWizard@hexbear.net 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Ive been thinking about this a lot and its a real shame Lemmy doesn't have a built in wiki...

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 week ago (3 children)

It is, although I'm also fine with the idea of just using existing wiki softwares instead of adding more maintenance to Lemmy, since dev time is restrictive.

For wiki options, I know the owner of Division by Zero self-hosts a wiki (e.g. https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/c/piracy -> https://wiki.dbzer0.com/piracy), and Miraheze can be used to host most wikis for free.

[–] Boozhwazee@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 days ago

I'd be happy to help set up a wiki. All it needs, realistically, is a server, a database, and something like Cloudflare for when it inevitably gets targeted for DDoS. And some configuration.

The real challenge is to do this with appropriate infosec. The best course of action is probably to ask someone that is already doing hosting for lemmy.ml if they would be interested in also hosting a wiki (we could run a donation drive to fund them) and to offer technical help. Would that be dessalines?

PS this is my new account of a longtime user, just rotating for infosec reasons.

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[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Lemmygrad.ml maintains Prolewiki, and like @comfy@lemmy.ml said dbzer0 hosts a Piracy Wiki.

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 4 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Lemmygrad.ml maintains Prolewiki

Do they? Genuine question. Isn't it just that there is some (or a lot) of user overlap?

[–] redtea@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 5 days ago

Not quite but there's overlap.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 6 points 6 days ago

The Prolewiki page for Prolewiki said it was first proposed on Lemmygrad, but I suppose it isn't 100% correct to say Lemmygrad itself maintains Prolewiki, just that they are tied together by userbase and intentions.

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