[Meta] Could we consider avoiding US election questions in this community?

I don't actually see that many political questions in this comm but maybe that's just me. Looking at the top of all time, I mostly notice this one, which honestly is more like a rant than a question (I dislike Trump as much as the next guy but this is clearly not a neutrally stated/good faith question and just a way for the OP to vent their frustration) and should probably be removed on that basis rather than it being a political question.

Honestly looking further, a lot of the political "questions" in this comm are just rants disguised as questions. I think it would make sense to disallow rants. You could say it's already included under the "all posts must be legitimate questions" part of rule 1 but explicitly calling it out and enforcing it would be nice.

Has it been much of a problem? I wouldn't say I've personally seen many at all, at least not enough to consider it an issue anyway. Personally I'd be against such a restriction unless it was dominating all discussion on the community and crowding out other discussion.

I think with political literacy generally being pretty low in the majority of people and the impending American election, there will be people that feel like they have "stupid" questions, and they might not feel comfortable asking in one of the more general politics communities. It does no good to keep people in the dark, especially about politics which pretty much affects everything.

Then the mods would have the messy job of determining what constitutes "political" topics, where no one will draw the same lines as another. What is a fact of life for one person might be an incredibly political topic for another.

I just posted a question about poop, hopefully you find it makes a good palate cleanser.

I'm kinda torn.

On one hand, I actually fucking despise politics in non politically focused communities. It's a personal peeve.

But. This is one of the types of general communities where it's not disruptive when the questions are in good faith. The reddit sub was prone to bad faith political posts. This one, so far, hasn't been. The ones I've seen have mostly been genuine questions with few attempts to beat a drum. I've even engaged on a few, and I usually avoid politics outside of dedicated spaces.

But damn, I do get tired of the glut of them everywhere as the election gets closer and closer. So if the mods here temporarily banned it, I would not object.

Genuine good faith questions about election rules, voting procedures, and candidate policies & positions. Are all things that should be encouraged regardless of country or region.

Bad faith rants or indictments of candidates or parties posing as questions are annoying everywhere.

Discouraging people from seeking information about elections is dangerous and morally dubious at best.

I frankly don't think that's a good time to make such a change. People need to be as well-informed as possible, and if allowing questions pertaining to the election brings just one more vote, directly or indirectly, it'll be worth it.

This is a defining election, possibly a matter of life and death for many people.

I agree, Lemmy as a whole is rammed full of bullshit US politics and I'm tired of reading about it. The fewer, relevant communities this shit gets posted to, the better IMO.

IIRC most of those communities are for political news and NOT discussion.

It's less than 3 weeks to go.

OneStupidQuestion

Yea good luck with that one lol

Agree

As one of the few folks who have asked such questions, I obviously am against. I don't think the dedicated pol communities are particularly good for honest questions about platforms/political figures; everything in those spaces feels like it's being intentionally spun (even in discussions) in a way that this community does not. (Also, several of the communities you suggest as pol discussion places are... just not? Extremely few questions, most the posts are headlines, discussions don't seem to happen much. Some feel closer to a curated feed of cringe.)

I do agree it could become an issue, and that would justify some division, perhaps tags? But I don't think it is currently very unpleasant, and it will almost certainly get better in 2 months (at least short term).

This is not "Ask Usamerican Lemmy".

This is "Ask Lemmy".

Usamericans need to learn that the world is more than their (small and weird) country.