I’m curious what, if any, guidelines people self-impose to try and engage in a productive way online (both on Lemmy and elsewhere). “Netiquette” if you will.
A couple of rules that I think are good practices, but still see too often, are:
- don’t pile onto the most downvoted comment. Kinda like don’t feed the trolls, but it’s more about not letting yourself get rage baited. Instead, downvote them and move on.
- don’t give a non-answer to someone’s question. Ex. if someone asks how to do X, don’t answer with, “Why are you trying to do X? You shouldn’t want to do X. Do Y instead.” Instead, explain what it would take to do X, and then offer Y as a possible alternative and why it may be a better option. But assume they already know about Y, and it doesn’t fit their use-case.
For that last one, finding a thread where someone has asked the exact question you want answered, only to find a thread full of upvoted non-answers is up there with the dreaded “nvm, I figured it out - 10y ago”.
Don’t talk about politics or religion if you don’t want to argue since most places are low trust and what you say will be taken in the worst possible way. Lurk for atleast 3 months before posting to get the vibe of the place. The report button exists. Don’t feed the trolls.(see the troll song for why) If you don’t fit in don’t try, no one is going to defend your world view even if its normal IRL. Bare in mind that anything said online can’t hurt you if you properly separate them for the IRL you. (E.g. repeating usernames, same email, ect will ID you.). ALL CAPS IS SHOUTING. Don’t post AI generated stuff unless its upfrontly tagged. Most things aren’t that deep and will be forgotten in 7 days.