3 ms·

I sort of raged on twitter the other day that what we call "community" (while online) is sick. I'll take my example of Astrophotography - the "online community

I sort of raged on twitter the other day that what we call "community" (while online) is sick. I'll take my example of Astrophotography - the "online community" is soul sucking, competitive and not nice at all - sort of hundreds of assholes all competing to be the biggest asshole... Yet, the astronomy clubs that meet in person that are shrinking in numbers and dwindling over the years (the comet just a little while ago was a saving grace here for sure - hope we get more!) are the nicest, most sincere people but they have other drawbacks.. The in human ones tend to socialize around being social in permanence - always meetup at every start party, volunteer, join the board - help it survive - it's hard to do with our terrible work life balance we have today - stay up all night to look at stars and go to work and volunteer? ouch... But the online communities? All it is is bragging rights - nothing is ever good enough, fun enough unless you dedicate yourself to being "That asshole" - and it boggles my mind that astrophotography has that concept at all... Those assholes are often depressed jerks with more money to burn than anyone else can burn and the "community" loves it up. It ends up being all about the insta... all about the reddit points... all about the discord infamy 10 years ago, it was all about "how to buy this web cam and modify it for astrophotography to get fun shots"... today its "dump 50 grand to buy this or your spending money on meme gear lol gtfo you dumbass" how did we get here? The irony of raging on twitter is hardly anyone replied because twitter is all about playing to the algo and it feels like everyone on twitter who has a following just uses it to complain about burnout, depression, ADHD and other illnesses that to me - seem to be a symptom of the "twitter community" - which isn't as bad as Facebook, but is still largely biased to suffering

notacoward 5y ago
> being social in permanence That's a really important point. Joining an online community has become much lower effort than joining an in-person one. Just finding a time and place for everyone to meet is more of a chore than even running a small site online. Depending on the type of community you might also need to deal with recruiting speakers, storing/maintaining shared equipment, etc. My family belongs to a ski club, and it's a commitment in both time and money. It's not a full time job or anything, but it's on the same level as a typical four-credit college course. If not for the fact that the underlying shared interest is physical in nature, the online alternative would seem very compelling. The downside of online is that the conflicts and competition for "internet points" often colors the conversation or even drowns it out. People start to show up who actually don't care as much about the shared interest as they do about having another arena in which to fight. Without the real-world mechanisms that tend to curb the most outrageous behavior, and often with substitutes that encourage it, the need for explicit moderation becomes greater ... but brings its own share of problems. In my thirty years or so of online experience, moderation and moderators have exacerbated conflict and degradation more often than they've helped. Just read the news and you'll see it happening today on all of the big sites. The solution, IMO, is to pay attention to the actual science of how people coexist, and apply its lessons. What are the empirical effects of upvotes and downvotes and other reactions? Of showing or not showing view counts? Of hierarchical vs. flat conversations? Of content restrictions or moderator behaviors? Unfortunately, that kind of examination will never happen where "soft" sciences are disrespected, which is every place where these decisions actually need to be made. Everyone just flies by the seat of their pants, and most of them fly into mountainsides.
tayo42 5y ago
Where did you find an astrophotography community full of assholes? I'm fairly new and haven't seen much problems. Feel like online it's been fairly easy to find info and ask questions
- supernovae 5y ago
  Everywhere... Discord, Reddit & Cloudynights. It seems to be a community that has major GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) and everyone is rushing to one up each other and certain people in the community just get away with dominating the discussions and being assholes. The people that are good at it and help the community seem to go through massive burnout too, love some of the youtubers but there are times they disappear to get away from it all. I was not expecting it to be competitive.. was not expecting to find you only made friends if you spent a lot of time and money on something.. it's kind of "suffer with us and you may be accepted"... they use racist frogs and memes for everything... can't tell what is real and what isn't... most people seem anti-social - makes sense, i am too - but not to the degree as some.. it was just a lousy community compared to in real life astronomy clubs where no one cared if you came with a plastic telescope. If i was 30 years younger, there were some discords with kids that were fun... i got a laugh out of them - but fun in the sense of lol i can't believe you just said that to him not fun as in "this will be enjoyment"

notacoward 5y ago

> being social in permanence That's a really important point. Joining an online community has become much lower effort than joining an in-person one. Just finding a time and place for everyone to meet is more of a chore than even running a small site online. Depending on the type of community you might also need to deal with recruiting speakers, storing/maintaining shared equipment, etc. My family belongs to a ski club, and it's a commitment in both time and money. It's not a full time job or anything, but it's on the same level as a typical four-credit college course. If not for the fact that the underlying shared interest is physical in nature, the online alternative would seem very compelling. The downside of online is that the conflicts and competition for "internet points" often colors the conversation or even drowns it out. People start to show up who actually don't care as much about the shared interest as they do about having another arena in which to fight. Without the real-world mechanisms that tend to curb the most outrageous behavior, and often with substitutes that encourage it, the need for explicit moderation becomes greater ... but brings its own share of problems. In my thirty years or so of online experience, moderation and moderators have exacerbated conflict and degradation more often than they've helped. Just read the news and you'll see it happening today on all of the big sites. The solution, IMO, is to pay attention to the actual science of how people coexist, and apply its lessons. What are the empirical effects of upvotes and downvotes and other reactions? Of showing or not showing view counts? Of hierarchical vs. flat conversations? Of content restrictions or moderator behaviors? Unfortunately, that kind of examination will never happen where "soft" sciences are disrespected, which is every place where these decisions actually need to be made. Everyone just flies by the seat of their pants, and most of them fly into mountainsides.

tayo42 5y ago

Where did you find an astrophotography community full of assholes? I'm fairly new and haven't seen much problems. Feel like online it's been fairly easy to find info and ask questions

supernovae 5y ago
Everywhere... Discord, Reddit & Cloudynights. It seems to be a community that has major GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) and everyone is rushing to one up each other and certain people in the community just get away with dominating the discussions and being assholes. The people that are good at it and help the community seem to go through massive burnout too, love some of the youtubers but there are times they disappear to get away from it all. I was not expecting it to be competitive.. was not expecting to find you only made friends if you spent a lot of time and money on something.. it's kind of "suffer with us and you may be accepted"... they use racist frogs and memes for everything... can't tell what is real and what isn't... most people seem anti-social - makes sense, i am too - but not to the degree as some.. it was just a lousy community compared to in real life astronomy clubs where no one cared if you came with a plastic telescope. If i was 30 years younger, there were some discords with kids that were fun... i got a laugh out of them - but fun in the sense of lol i can't believe you just said that to him not fun as in "this will be enjoyment"