Hi Everyone,
This is the first real meta post here on !formula1@lemmy.world, the community has grown very quickly and there is great engagement on race weekends. We are the biggest F1 sub on Lemmy and it's time to start thinking about how we want this community to run.
First up, to introduce the mod team, alongside myself we now have @wes@lemmy.world and @bwoah@lemmy.world. Wes has been responsible for posting all of the discussion threads for practice sessions, quali and races, and Bwoah is active everyday posting new interesting new content and analysis, big thanks to both of them they have really helped to grow the sub.
Moving forwards; we need some basic rules to keep the sub running smoothly, as a mod team we have 3 that are important to us;
- Be respectful to everyone; drivers, lemmings, redditors etc
This is a welcoming community, and that means being respectful to everyone inside and outside of it. While we understand there are tense moments, it doesn't mean anyone needs to resort to name calling or being derogatory. No hate speech of any kind. That doesn't mean you can't call out a driver or a team for mistakes, but do it in a constructive and friendly way.
- No gambling, crypto or NFTs
There is a wealth of evidence that shows the impact of gambling advertising on everyone, in particular children and those who have suffered from gambling disorder, including increasing intent to gamble. Members of this community should not be exposed to or encouraged to gamble, or partake in risky behaviours that could result in financial loss.
- Spoilers are allowed
Spoilers are a contentious issue, but the majority of fans are watching the race live and are excited about results. For those of use that can't follow every practice and qualifying session, having access to results immediately is better than trawling the web to see what happened. While sometimes it isn't possible to watch a race live, avoiding social media and news sites until you are caught up is something a lot of us are used to, and is the only guaranteed way to avoid spoilers which would be very hard to moderate.
Now, we want some community feedback and suggestions on the following;
- websites that force login or have a paywall When users post content from a website that isn't openly accessible, how should that be handled? A non-editorialised summary or copy of the article in the comments?
- Non English articles
How should the community handle non English articles? Google translate? Fan translations? No translations?
- Social Media Content
Should social media content be linked to, or screenshotted, or both? Many people don't have accounts on instagram, twitter, facebook, and don't want to sign up to read a single comment. Should users credit the original poster in the title eg [Photographer - Lemmy.world]
Spoilers being allowed is a dumb and bad rule. It takes zero effort to not have spoilers in titles and it has a measurable harmful impact on users. I’m not going to be joining and blocking an instance every weekend just because I have to watch a race a few hours later than most people usually.
Agreed. It takes zero effort to have a "Belgium Grand Prix official discussion" post which doesn't alienate people who live in different time zones.
Also, the "don't look at this instance" argument doesn't work. Even if I don't subscribe, the posts still make their way to the All feed.. I don't want to block the community but, with spoilers, I feel like it's necessary.
"2017 Singapore GP Results Discussion" threads do not rise to 'All'. I'm quite involved into F1 but even then I seldom engage with generic threads.
Be honest, you don't either, you're more likely to interact with a "Hamilton wins 2017 Singapore GP after 1st lap crash between Vettel, Verstappen, and Raikkonen". And that's why it's these threads and not stickied ones make it to All.
Because I'm avoiding work at the moment, I went to the old site, sorted by top 'this week' and there were 137 threads rated higher than the top official discussion (post-quali if you're curious). Most of the top ones included spoilers.
So if we were to not allow spoilers we'd severely restrict discussion, in particular among less hardcore fans.
I have a separate app which has F1, MotoGP communities blocked, and keywords filtered. I use it on race weekends when I can't watch live. If you want to engage with this community, watch the race live, otherwise avoid it, we're here to interact with other F1 fans when the interest is highest - during the race weekends.
The MotoGP subreddit did ban spoilers though and they were fine.
When? I've been active there for a long time and don't recall a period when it wasn't allowed.
MotoGP spoilers are currently allowed on the MotoGP subreddit.