this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2025
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49
Do you have any rules you try to follow when engaging with others online? (sopuli.xyz)
submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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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".

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[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Yes, the XY Problem (or in this case, the YX Problem).

I think it's still better to abide by the rule as I wrote it, because IMO it is actually more elucidating for someone to be able to explain how to do X as it is written, and then provide Y as a possibly preferable alternative, than for someone who maybe really doesn't know how to do X just propose Y instead.

It might even be the case that Y is the solution OP should be asking for, but 10y later when someone else finds that same thread, and Y isn't an option for them, the thread is much less useful.

At a bare minimum, don't say "you shouldn't want to do X", either explain how to do X, or be clear about the fact that you don't know how.