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What should I keep in mind when creating a Lemmy assignment for college level comp course (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Okay Lemmy Champions… I want to spread the news and increase participation. What do you think about requiring an assignment in which college level comp students need to practice critical thinking skills in the subs of their choice at Lenny? What suggestions would you make relating to each an assignment? What negative unforeseen consequences am I not seeing? Thank you.Very

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Every single person without exception that I've ever told about Lemmy (even/especially those with PhDs) tells me upon our next visit, often with somewhat of a horrified look on their face, that it contains extremist content, then promptly never wants to discuss Lemmy ever again.

Sexually explicit content is easily turned either on or off at will as the user may choose at any given moment. However, "extremist content" cannot bc those who share such refuse to display the same level of sensitivity to self-label it as is done for porn. Granted that it likely surges in waves, but that only means that their first impressions of the Fediverse may or may not be formed by let's say 4 of the first 10 posts that they see calling for the actual, not-really-joking beheading of landlords.

Yes, you can block it (as I choose to do), but again I'm talking first impressions here, before people have even decided if they want to look at 10 more posts, or simply walk away - and let's be honest the latter is a heck of a lot easier than having to learn the intricacies of how the Fediverse works currently. We are nowhere close to the level of e.g. Wikipedia where you (1) click, (2) read, (3) repeat.

Also, I realize that X at this point might be similar? (Honestly I don't know, I don't have an account thus cannot see it directly without one.) On the other hand, it is grandfathered into the public consciousness, having once been Twitter. Therefore a more apt comparison might be Truth Social. Like Truth Social, many people take one look at the Fediverse, and never want to return. Which perhaps should give us pause - bc if something is too extreme for Redditors even then dayum - but setting aside any judgement atm, and most definitely not wanting to impinge upon anyone's freedom of speech, I am saying that the content on the Fediverse most definitely does not seem to match expectations of a "mainstream audience". Particularly not ones not used to dealing with computer coding i.e. Linux (though the people I've been mentioning it to are coders even).

And ofc that depends on what instance you choose to access it from - Mbin would provide a very different experience than, let's say, Lemmygrad.ml, and Lemmy.cafe (the only instance I've ever heard of that has defederated from "the big three") again more than a little different from lemm.ee or mander.xyz, that opens the floodgates wide and barely blocks anything (which makes me wonder how they control CSAM? perhaps they ban anyone who attempts to subscribe to anything related).

I am glad that you remained... but since you asked, I thought I would bring it up.

Keep in mind that this isn't necessarily a conversation about mere preference: you might literally be fired, depending on the rules of your institution, and how much it enjoys freedom of speech. e.g. I would wonder about someone in Germany exposing college kids to a pro-Nazi post (I hear they are EXTREMELY serious about such, and even so much as a symbol posed in a slightly positive light...), or someone in the USA, cough Florida cough, to a post that is critical of Trump or "God" (meaning Trump again, somehow 🙄), or daring to say something like "God loves people, regardless of sexual preference", plus notice how far down I got into this message without even bringing up the Gaza situation at all. People can be quite litigious, and colleges can be quite authoritarian, and therefore I for one would be extremely wary of such - the same as including Truth Social in an assignment - until such time as the Lemmy experience allows itself to become more presentable to a mainstream audience.

Although maybe you can take this feedback and find a way - like proposing to go to mander.xyz but stating explicitly some warnings about keeping the button set to show only "Local" posts, while if you browse "All"... then you have gone beyond the assignment and ventured out into the big wide world and therefore might be exposed to more ah... "variety" of content then you may have realized ever existed!? 😁

Edit: although I blocked it months ago (not b/c I'm offended fwiw, I just find that instance extremely juvenile and an enormous waste of time), browsing [email protected] over the past week I could well see someone wondering what the heck I am talking about - they really aren't that bad, and certainly nowhere close to 4/10 advocating for literal murder. HOWEVER, the USA election season is ramping up over the next couple of months, and I suspect that everyone will once again see what I am saying with their own two eyes very soon now. But if it helps, here is a very short list of examples:

Example, search comments for the word "guillotine"
Example "Guillotines are too nice for AirBnB owners; They should be thrown feet-first into a wood chipper." - I mean... regardless of truth or falsehood on this one... :-D it can be kinda shocking to mainstream normies, yes?
Example

TLDR: Lemmy's content can be rather... "adult", but unlike NSFW the violence tends not to be labeled at all, and therefore could trigger a complaint, and therefore should probably have a disclaimer/warning if you are going to mention it. Well, now you know!

Edit 2: I also am aware that places like Reddit, X/Twitter, and FaceBook also depict violence. However (1) not nearly as much, or as blatantly - e.g. perhaps you have to join a sub to see it, or see/click through a NSFW/spoiler tag; (2) they have a ToS that they at least claim to follow, e.g. remember that guillotine fuck spez in the latest r/place, with the blood splatter? but that type of thing tends to get removed, more often than it does here; and (3) authoritarian colleges (whose nearly sole purpose these days remember is to increase shareholder value) are going to like an authoritarian social media website, rather than one that is loose and open, e.g. many Fediverse instances don't even require email sign-ups, yet their content is allowed to be spread out to all of the others (unless they are explicitly blocked, iirc?).

Right or wrong, literal advocating for actual genocide or not, what matters here is what happens to OP as a result of mentioning Lemmy, and how desperately they need that job or not. And again I'm saying that every time I've even so much as mentioned Lemmy to someone, I see a noticeable cooling-off of our friendship for awhile, so it's definitely got some "issues" that can - and probably should - keep it out of the mainstream.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I popped off of mobile to reply to this but I do not believe that even on a keyboard I will be able to express my gratitude for your thoroughness, reason, and wisdom here.

Yes -- turns out I have a pretty sweet gig and I want to keep it.

Your points reminded me that before Reddit imploded, I had an assignment that I agonized over for many of your excellent points here. The previous president of our school applauded me for teaching A Clockwork Orange. Academic Freedom and all that. But we have a new president and I just don't want to risk it. In fact, my reddit assignment was tied specifically to: r/TIL. That was it. I had huge warnings about traveling beyond that sub.

As I read your contribution here, I was stunned that I had just "gone native." I personally just avoid the ugly on Lemmy and do not even notice it or react to it.

The short version here is this: thanks for your kind and erudite wake up call. WTF was I thinking? I did one term use Lemmy in an assignment where I created kind of a private group called: our class or something like that. Ostensibly this was just where we could reach out to one another to discuss class topics... but the shadow agenda was moving people off corporations and onto the Fediverse. It's so frustrating that they do not care about privacy or anonymity. Oh -- when I had them all try to create accounts in class, we ran into an IP blocker likely created to stop briganding or something.

Anyway -- I'll keep thinking about this -- maybe find a more gradual way to introduce elements of the fediverse... like TIL videos or something to begin.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

You are very welcome:-).

My journey was similar, and in fact from what I hear of people talking, that applies to most and probably all of us (e.g. regardless of what people "say" about opening themselves up to a wider expression of ideas, we all tend to retreat to places that are comfortable or familiar - the only difference is whether we honestly acknowledge that an instance admin has done the work for someone of outright banning people who have dissenting opinions, vs. whether we implement those efforts by ourselves).

Personally I had to put in MONTHS of effort to make the Fediverse "usable", as I switched around between various instances. My start was Kbin.social, which before it went defunct I noticed how much friendlier the Fediverse seemed, compared to Reddit!!! But when it stopped working I switched over to startrek.website and then to my current account at discuss.online, neither of which block hexbear.net (and the former is quite rare in not even blocking lemmygrad.ml, as most others do). The "feedback" to a comment in ChapoTrapHouse and something in lemmygrad.ml, which persisted for WEEKS and WEEKS, each, after what I considered a fairly innocuous comment, almost convinced me to drop social media entirely... but I persisted, and after finally blocking lemmy.ml, I am now quite happy with it. Ofc my personal user blocklist is still quite long - but blocking the big 3 immediately improved by experience by >95%.

Likewise, you can ditch a lot of news stories that have the most clickbait titles by blocking the bots that post them, while retaining the rest of the community that may then have content that you actually want to see. Unfortunately, nearly everything in Lemmy is "opt-out" rather than "opt-in", but... it is what it is, and it can be workable, as we both (& everyone else here) have found. Also, there are shining beacons of hope - e.g. check out [email protected], which is now #9 if you type "news" in the list of communities on your instance and sort by user count, but when it was told to me it was MUCH further down the list iirc, and therefore quite buried and exceedingly difficult for newer people to find, but avoids a lot of the spammy [email protected]. i.e. I am saying that if someone wanted "news", but less of it and only some of the most interesting stuff, then this "Interesting Global News" fits the bill, yet is opt-in rather than opt-out:-).

And therefore our monkey-brains forget all the pain that came before, to get us to this point.:-) Which is healthy, b/c why carry forward that negativity when you don't have to?:-P But then when people looked at me with such a horrified expression on their face, I literally could not figure out why, at first, b/c my own experiences are so VERY different than theirs. Also those kinds of posts don't dominate everyone's feed every day, also we keep hearing of places like X/Twitter that do somewhat similarly so... at some point, isn't that up to you, to curate your own feed, just like literally everywhere else? Like, why would you stay on Reddit but not try out Lemmy then, when this aspect is the same?

But then again, I am a Unix programmer, and most people do not think like us:-). i.e., not everyone is willing to RTFM in its entirety prior to being able to make realistic use of anything here. Also, anytime there is a major election in the USA or UK such posts have a way of popping up all over the world... but since then they have receded (it looks like?), and thus again we forget, until it comes back around again.

Mind you, like you, I would love to see more content-creators here on the Fediverse!!! I mean, I am here, and would benefit from such, and college students are exactly the crowd that might do so - creative people letting off steam by posting interesting material, presented in a funny way? Yes please!:-) But... yeah, all of the aforementioned "issues" are definitely more than a little bit of a minefield, for the uninitiated.

Also, this is where we enjoy chatting, but there is very little to no actual "content" on the Fediverse atm - everything is posted here from elsewhere, and unlike even Reddit, I am not aware of e.g. answers to technical questions given here that exist nowhere else. So like you said that you wanted to share a video but... off the top of my head, I cannot even think of one that would qualify. I did post a Super cool video on viruses in [email protected], but it only got 3 upvotes - I thought at the time in large measure b/c I posted it immediately after someone else also posted the one (oops, I hadn't seen it), and yet that one likewise received no (net?) upvotes. Oh, and both of these of course are merely links to YouTube. So... we aren't all that receptive to "content" of a nature that isn't news, comedy, maybe fuck-cars, and everything technology but most especially GNU+Linux (sort that community Top for this year and see precisely what I mean), oh and ofc nostalgia e.g. Trogdor the Burninator, obviously.

So... it's hard to justify sharing even a video, with all the variety of pitfalls that also await. But... maybe you'll find a way? Being forewarned is forearmed after all, so now you can go forward more safely!:-)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Sorry for the two month delay in reply to your exceptional wisdom. I kept this message “unread” believing that I might own another such thorough reply. Then the term started and it’s all a blur.

I will share that I DID create an assignment on the FEDIVERSE. Very very general with major caveats about their free will and content they will encounter if they are not careful.

Best best response when I dropped the guidelines was a student who clapped her hands in glee and said, “OMG! We can go back to Internet 1.0!” — this is a 19 year old and she was being sincere. I asked her to clarify he thinking for the class and she said, “There was a time before corporations owned the internet when it was just people.” Oh… it was lovely!!

I won’t hear about this experiment for a few more weeks.

But I am hopeful.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

That's so cool! Do be careful but yeah, it is such a wonderful experiment. On the one hand, if I didn't have access to Lemmy, I would never have found out that e.g. after Biden forbade the railway workers from striking (two Christmases ago iirc?), he worked with them for MONTHS to get them all the things they needed e.g. time off with paid sick leave. The corporate media (for the most part) refused to cover it, probably bc it was boring and they couldn't sell ads as effectively with such content as well as something that bleeds and thus leads.

On the other hand, Lemmy also allows disinformation campaigns to spread too, e.g.:

(For one it ignores how both Russia and China are doing genocide - relevant bc on Lemmy.ml where it was posted you are only allowed to criticize such things when the "other side", meaning Western capitalism, does it, so like you can say how the USA aids Israel's genocide but you can not say how Russia is doing similarly in the Ukraine, or China to the Uyghurs, etc. - and it ignores that Trump has said that he will write Israel a blank check to do even more, instead seemingly pointing blame at Biden's administration for doing genocide, all without ever saying so explicitly but that seems the implication, given the timing of it being released just prior to the USA election? Oh well, surely anything that fosters apathy among the voting populace could never influence the outcome now could it...? Edit: And the list of criticisms just goes on and on and on and on like that - still another is how it ignores how most "humanitarians" and even most PEOPLE in the USA are not okay with the genocide that is going on, so how is that not a strawman to say that "none such exist" as that would want to stop it, as distinct from the leadership that might also want to stop it, yet isn't doing so, thus doesn't seem to want to stop it bad enough, though it can NOT be inferred from that, imho at least, that human rights don't exist here at all, or are not cared about at all - that seems quite hyperbolic to me, and again ignores how Trump will now do more than Harris would have.)

Setting politics aside now:-).

You might point people to [email protected], and post to that community yourself anything that you want a new user to know?

Also check out PieFed - it lacks significant polish, e.g. if you tag my username there like @[email protected] I will not receive a notification bc that feature hasn't been implemented yet, but especially for a student has such great resources so it at least is something to be very aware of and kinda show off what the Fediverse has to offer now plus where it is heading in the future. Especially as so many people want to get away from the "tankies" - e.g. Lemmy.World announced wanting to support a different project, Sublinks, though that one might be stalled at this point:-(.

Do let us all know how your experiment turns out? I mean make a post somewhere (and please tag me to make sure I see it!:-) so we can all be enriched by your efforts and the fruit that they bring:-). If you need a suggestion for a community, maybe... [email protected] or [email protected].

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Had I been truly bold, I would have included in the assignment guidelines that they use the platforms themselves to execute their “creative projects” with the Fediverse — this way you’d be able to see what was done “live.” As it is, I used a digital format for their work they are all familiar with… they’ll be presenting live presentations with google slides…

My guidelines are general enough that the hideous things some folks have run into cannot come back to bite me, but as you predicted, some have run into genuinely nauseating material. I’ve just smiled and said, “I hope you clicked away.”

I believe the best response I’ve received after some adventuring in the Fediverse one student came back hooting about how much she has dreamed of “Internet one point oh.” This is what she calls the Fediverse — and she’s not wrong. Zero corporate Shenanigans.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, advocating for literal murder, e.g. of someone who chooses to own stock, we have not only a toxicity problem but overall a quite shocking divergence from the experiences visible on other more moderated platforms, such as X (which also advocates for murder these days I hear, but only in such matters as are soon to be approved by The State, like giving cops free reign to murder anyone they choose - but only lasting for one hour, bc otherwise that would be just ridiculous, you know!?🤪🫠).

On the one hand, getting out from under the thumb of regulations is fantastic, compared to not being able to do thus at all. While on the other, people can be so unfriendly and waste so much of our time having to sift through such nonsense (as is sponsored by The Other, Opposing State).

So yeah, I guess it is a bit like 4chan? (Not that I'm speaking from personal experience, but from the stories told about it, it shares similarities?:-P) But then again, Internet 1.0 did not offer the ability to federate as we now can, so actually I think it's a step forward, more than merely back - yes we are rolling back some features that were quite bad (corporate sponsorship), but we get to keep most of the good - e.g. the ability to view images and even videos directly inside the post without having to leave the site to view them elsewhere and then return. We have the best of both of those worlds!?:-)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Update on the class project. I asked students to report for week 7 about their adventures in the Fediverse.

Out of 23 students, not one genuinely grocks, as it were, the why.

Oh, they can give lip-service to the tropes we’ve been exploring in the SF class— privacy, autonomy, freedom, ethical uses of technology etc but none of them have become inspired, or even curious by these alternative platforms.

I believe it was you who wanted me about this attempt. Perhaps you were right. Not because they’d encounter vile things, which they do but do not blame me for, but because … I have dragged them out of the cave too fast? It’s too jarring for them? Too cumbersome. Requires too much.

The simplest features you and I take for granted in dealing with the mechanics of a Federated platform are simply too challenging and disheartening for these college students.

It’s like the corporations won in a single generation — as they anticipated.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 16 hours ago

I mean on the one hand kinda yeah, and it was always going to be thus. On the other hand, allow me to encourage you by reminding you that your job was not to teach them about freedom & open-source goodness so much as critical thinking skills. So even if they don't get it NOW, so long as they have the tools to get it LATER that will be enough.

If you are in America, then realize that No Child Left Behind did a grave disservice - sorry if you said that earlier and I forgot, though also, I am hearing of similar occurrences all around the world as the wealthy do not see a need for the middle class to exist any longer, hence are pushing to cut back funding for edumacashun.

Add to that how the current generation is all about achievements involving "scores", not really intellectually curiosity - plus, how could they truly know much of anything anyway when the body of knowledge is now so much vaster than what a human brain could hope to comprehend? Which was always true in our lifetimes anyway, but now it's true even for one field or even sub-field underneath a field, plus Googling existed - or at least did, whereas its demise lately might feel like a blip while we merely await its return, being rebirthed from the ashes of a purifying fire, a Phoenix of internet searching if you will? :-P Anyway, in the absolute height of irony, they literally cannot afford to be too curious, or they will be kicked out of college for refusing to "learn".

But give them a few years after leaving it and... maybe they'll turn around, some of them anyway? Perhaps your REAL job is to inspire in them a lifetime love of learning? :-P

It does bug me that spez was correct though - he really did see clearly into the hearts of the lazy bums who endlessly mindlessly scroll through content regurgitated from decades past, plus those actual niche subs that are too frightened to move away. Then again, we can be pretty toxic here as well, just like there, so is it really all that different here, vs. there, except that here we lack the content that they have there? I strongly, vehemently maintain that the MAXIMUM experience here is better, and probably the average is too but e.g. I was reading a post this morning where someone said that they thought that lemmygrad.ml was named that way as a joke and almost joined it, before realizing that it was serious - if they had though, then its being defederated by almost other instance would have enhanced its echo chamber effect enormously, by bringing in next to no outside material, only what is local on that instance itself. And could you imagine joining hexbear, or even making a post there unawares? I still shudder from my own experience of merely making a singular reply to a comment there, all of ONCE (something middle-of-the-road such as "at least Biden brought gas prices down just prior to the midterm elections, which helped Dems win those crucial Congressional seats, which isn't nothing" - and I got my ASS handed to me for several WEEKS and WEEKS where they would just all pile on, long past when I was so done with it, and ngl after I made the same mistake in lemmygrad.ml I very nearly left Lemmy myself rather than put up with such a barrage - all from different accounts, mind you, so that blocking is horribly inefficient).

We are still fairly new, and dynamic, and all of us still learning how to make things work - e.g. https://slrpnk.net/post/15217190. But that's also what makes it "exciting" for some of us. And yet, the interface and interactions are legit less polished overall, so it really does seem to endear itself more to those of us with an "early adopter" mindset. And maybe that's okay, especially for now, and all the more so if that is what keeps us kind and worth coming here to:-).

Don't lose heart. In the assignment sure, but deeper than that, you're doing a good work - which I can say with certainty b/c you care, and that right there is basically everything? The details you'll work out later:-P.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I am not aware of e.g. answers to technical questions given here that exist nowhere else.

[email protected] highlights quality Lemmy-unique content

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If I were to create an assignment, I would make a learning goal the purpose. Learning critical thinking is a good goal, but I wouldn't peg it to Lemmy. If the point is thinking critically about social media sites, then you could offer suggestions of places to look, including Lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Really nice idea... there's a whole lotta garbage out there for students to wade through.