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rules discussion (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by laverabe@lemmy.world to c/science@lemmy.world
13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've seen a few complaints over the past few weeks about there being a lot of psuedoscience, and there has been a fair amount of reports.

I figured it would be a good idea to update the rules on the sidebar to clearly lay out what is and isn't allowed.

I think a tagging system might help to keep down on the spam and elevate real scientific sources. These are just a draft and more rules could be added in the future if they are needed.

Current draft (work in progress, add suggestions in comments):

A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.

Submission Rules:

  1. All posts must be flagged with an appropriate tag and must be scientific in nature. All posts not following these guidelines will be removed.
  2. All posts must be peer reviewed and published in a reputable journal, unless flagged as news or discussion. No pseudoscience.
  3. No self-promotion, blogspam, videos, or memes. See list of unapproved sources below.

Comment Rules:

  1. Civility to other users, be kind.
  2. See rule #1.
  3. Please stay on the original topic in the post. New topics should be referred to a new post/discussion thread.
  4. See rule #1 again. Personal attacks, trolling, or aggression to other users will result in a ban.
  5. Report incivility, trolling, or otherwise bad actors. We are human so we only see what is reported.

Flag Options

  1. [Peer reviewed]
  2. [News]
  3. [Discussion]

List of potential predatory journals & publishers (do not post from these sources)

List of unapproved sources:

  • Psypost
  • Sciencealert
  • (any other popsci site that uses titles generally regarded as clickbait)

Original draft:

A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.

Submission Rules:

  1. All posts must be flagged with an appropriate tag and must be scientific in nature. All posts not following these guidelines will be removed.
  2. All posts must be peer reviewed and published in a reputable journal, unless flagged as news or discussion. No pseudoscience.
  3. No self-promotion, blogspam, videos, or memes.

Comment Rules:

  1. Civility to other users, be kind.
  2. See rule #1.
  3. Please stay on the original topic in the post. New topics should be referred to a new post/discussion thread.
  4. See rule #1 again. Personal attacks, trolling, or aggression to other users will result in a ban.
  5. Report incivility, trolling, or otherwise bad actors. We are human so we only see what is reported.

Flag Options

  1. [Peer reviewed]
  2. [News]
  3. [Discussion]

List of potential predatory journals & publishers (do not post from these sources)

I'm not on 24/7 but I'll try to update these when I get a chance.

top 13 comments
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[-] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 12 points 1 week ago

It might be a good idea to make explicit rulings on some of the borderline sources.

If it were me, I would ban ScienceAlert, for example. "A Physicist Reveals Why You Should Run in The Rain" or "NASA Reveals Spooky Eyes in Space, And They're Staring Straight at You." They have a lot of good articles, too, but some of it is clearly just stuff for clicks. Psypost is also a little dubious. Maybe if it's something a scientist in that field would ever read and take seriously, including reliable journalism sources that are talking about science, then it's good, but if it would be viewed as pop-science clickbait, then we need to talk about it.

These are just ideas. I'm just saying that clarifying by name some of the things near the border, maybe after checking with the community, might be good.

[-] laverabe@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

good idea. I'll add these to an unacceptable source list in the sidebar. Most of the reports have come from posts like that so I think a majority of people would agree with limiting posts from them.

[-] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 6 points 1 week ago

Yeah. If there's an explicit list, then it's easy to extrapolate, too, if some source comes in that's not on the list. I'm sure there will be little disagreements about particular sources, but it's easier if there's a clear guideline to follow.

[-] jordanlund@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

Yeah, Clickbait has no place anywhere, even if the article itself is fine...

I swear to god the next time I see "side hustle" in my Google News feed...

[-] jordanlund@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

One suggestion I'd like to see as a differentiator from the Science subreddit... The subreddit really seemed humorless to a degree where it felt like the mods were joyless scholars with giant sticks in a really uncomfortable place (What? Like the back of a Volkswagen?)

I get the need for standards on post quality, I just hope there isn't a heavy hand on comment quality.

[-] laverabe@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

I completely agree.

I liked askhistorians, as I felt like the moderation added to the quality a lot, but /r/science never seemed to achieve that level of quality. Though when they did start with the heavy moderation/clear rules with tags (I think flair was a later addition) it was a marked improvement off what it was before.

I'm open to suggestions, and I'll just leave the draft rules up for awhile to get feedback.

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 8 points 1 week ago

I hope there is a heavy hand on moderation. It's extremely tiring when I see an astronomy article about Uranus with 15 comments, and they're all very juvenile jokes.

[-] FaceDeer@fedia.io 2 points 1 week ago

Yeah, I like a light-hearted approach to life but that one particular "joke" should be shot on sight. I'm convinced it plays an actual role in why we haven't seen much serious discussion of sending a probe there.

[-] arrakark@10291998.xyz 5 points 1 week ago

Yes! Thank you

[-] grue@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

All posts must be peer reviewed

There's a joke in here about recruiting Lemmy expert shitposters to peer-review post drafts themselves (as opposed to the scientific paper they link to), but I need somebody to suggest better phrasing.

[-] ZephyrXero@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I never got the no self promotion thing on Reddit. It's a shame to see it continue here

[-] Kaiyoto@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

It typically was because people kept posting their youtube or stream spam. I never 100% understood it either because what if it was an actual relavant video, then why not allow it?

[-] ZephyrXero@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

But spamming and self promotion are two separate things. Of course spamming should be banned, regardless of source

this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2024
50 points (98.1% liked)

science

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A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.

rule #1: be kind

<--- rules currently under construction, see current pinned post.

2024-11-11

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