Hello! Recently, someone asked if our community on Lemmy allows reposts from the equivalent Reddit subreddit. While I have my personal opinion, I dislike unilateral decisions and I believe Lemmy thrives when communities decide their own path. Therefore, I’d like to poll users to make this decision. Please read the case for and against this decision, and then vote by upvoting/downvoting the comments below.
Why we should NOT allow Reddit reposts:
The goal of the Relationship Advice on Lemmy is not to laugh or get entertainment from people’s issues - we aim to provide help, advice, and comparisons from a genuine desire to help. It is often that people need a reference point to determine if the situation they’re living on is normal or not, if some behavior is healthy or not, if their partner is being dangerous or not, that is the reason this community exists and will be the guiding principle for moderation, always.
A repost means the OP won’t be reading the answers, which goes against the spirit of this Lemmy community, and might feed the idea that we are not aiming to genuinely help our users.
Reposts will, by their very definition, mean OP can not add new information, reply with more context, or otherwise explain misunderstandings - this would mean that replies could potentially be completely unrelated to the actual issue, or create conclusions that aren’t really applicable.
Why we SHOULD allow Reddit reposts:
The case for allowing reposts from Reddit is pretty straight forward: our community is growing in number of followers, but there are zero posts. There are many potential reasons for it: people might be scared or afraid to be the first post, and might be afraid of not knowing how Lemmy users tend to reply.
Lemmy is also currently not the best for discoverability - it’s easier to find new communities when there are daily posts, but communities with less frequent posting start to get obscured and disappear, preventing their own growth.
Finally, there is a case to be made for archiving content from Reddit - even for future reference - and there is value in having discussions here even if OP doesn’t read them, as someone else might read the replies and correlate to their own questions, doubts and relationships, thus being helped indirectly.
Voting
A comment will be made for voting. Upvote or downvote based on your opinion. You can reply with your arguments freely, but please note comments won’t be counted as a vote. After 48 hours, the total amount of votes will be frozen and I’ll publicly state the conclusion.
Either way, please note that if allowed by popular votes, reposts will not be permanent and will be a temporary measure until Lemmy grows to a more self-sustained community.
EDIT: The time for voting was adjusted to reflect the frequency of new votes. Nothing else was modified from the original post.
EDIT: This thread is now locked and won’t be modified - this poll has ended and will be kept online only as a future reference and evidence. Thanks for your participation.
VOTE HERE
Downvote this comment if you believe we should NOT allow Reddit reposts.
Upvote this comment if you believe we SHOULD allow Reddit reposts.
We should, but it should be indicated it’s from Reddit and not a genuine question of OP
I agree, but also this should be for a limited time just to help people migrate over
We should only allow reposts from the original poster. No reason of the person making the post doesn’t need the advice.
I feel like it could create a weird effect where people are less interested in lemmy because they just see it as a reddit knockoff. That could just be me though. I feel like fostering new conversations here would be better. If someone comes here and sees a bunch of reposts from reddit, they might be inclined to just go back there
I would also like to add that reposts could help people who didn’t receive helpful suggestions on their original post get a new insight. Idk about now but there was a time where a lot of relationship advice posts were being reposted to Twitter and a few people found it really helpful. + The relationship advice mods would remove a post because of wind direction so a second chance is nice lolol
I would have to say no, specifically because it’s an advice instance. While I understand advice given could be helpful regardless of reaching the OP, it just rubs me the wrong way. Meme/general information instances? I could see that with sources provided
Eh, I think keeping in mind that people can still offer advise may help others in similar situations. Most people are just lurking and may not want to open themselves up to personal scrutiny. It’s a vulnerable position to be in. Triangulating a strangers post can still be a healthy opportunity for personal growth:)
