I remember in the early days of /AskReddit, where people were using it for general questions and even emergencies. There were a lot of “my house is on fire and I’m on the second floor, what should I do”, “I think there’s a burglar outside my bedroom, what should I do”, “my partner just choked on their steak, how do I do the Heimlich maneuver” types of posts. It got to be so bad that the mods had to add a “this sub is not for emergencies. Call your local emergency hotline instead, you fucking dumbass” rule to the sidebar.
I think some were trolls, but I think the other side is that people turn their brains off when they panic. They revert back to whatever they’re most used to doing. And if you’re someone who consistently goes to Reddit for answers to basic questions, that’s what you’ll end up doing.
If there were more people across these sites, I’d definitely appreciate the Ask communities being moderated more toward their intentions, like strictly open-ended questions, and treat all questions as not being stupid for those respective communities.
However with only so many people, too heavy moderation can deter any activity, so it’s kinda tricky. 🤔
I remember in the early days of /AskReddit, where people were using it for general questions and even emergencies. There were a lot of “my house is on fire and I’m on the second floor, what should I do”, “I think there’s a burglar outside my bedroom, what should I do”, “my partner just choked on their steak, how do I do the Heimlich maneuver” types of posts. It got to be so bad that the mods had to add a “this sub is not for emergencies. Call your local emergency hotline instead, you fucking dumbass” rule to the sidebar.
I think some were trolls, but I think the other side is that people turn their brains off when they panic. They revert back to whatever they’re most used to doing. And if you’re someone who consistently goes to Reddit for answers to basic questions, that’s what you’ll end up doing.
If there were more people across these sites, I’d definitely appreciate the Ask communities being moderated more toward their intentions, like strictly open-ended questions, and treat all questions as not being stupid for those respective communities.
However with only so many people, too heavy moderation can deter any activity, so it’s kinda tricky. 🤔