I'm a little confused why people are downvoting this thread (and some of the others in this group). I'm guessing folks are using the downvote to mean 'I disagree', but if I'm not mistaken, the effect it actually has is to reduce the likelihood of the thread showing up in the 'All' front page of both the local and remote instances, and hence potentially harms the growth of this magazine/community.
Even if you don't agree with the premise of the thread, that doesn't mean the discussion itself isn't worthwhile. And if you don't agree, maybe post your comments as to why, rather than just downvoting?
Personally, I think downvoting should be a tool to say 'this doesn't belong here at all' rather than just 'I disagree with you'.
Thank you for saying this. I'm keen to see /m/scifi succeed so I'm concerned we avoid what made /r/scifi such a dreary place. You're raising some great community-based questions and concerns and I hope people are paying attention.
I was genuinely surprised to see the downvotes, especially when I can see the effort you're putting into trying to promote activity and discussions here.
I'm not - community behavior is something I think very carefully about and these kinds of potentially-toxic behaviors (passive-aggressive downvotes, no attempt to follow Rules #2 and #3) are exactly why I didn't enjoy /r/scifi.
I think you might have misunderstood my comment - I didn't think you were the one doing the downvoting, I was expressing my surprise that others were downvoting you. Sorry if that wasn't clear!
See, this (along with perpetual anxiety over whether I've worded something the best way) is why I normally just lurk online... but I want to see this group, and Kbin/Lemmy more generally, succeed... so I'm trying to participate more!
For what it's worth from this internet stranger, I think you're doing a great job of contributing! Misunderstandings are inevitable and it's the calm conversation that followed and lack of subsequent flame war that hopefully is helping this differentiate from /r/scifi lol