Hi all,

I am noticing that a lot of what is being posted is the same outrage clickbait articles on crime and poverty that have overrun other Portland centric communities. These are absolutely important topics, and something I hope everyone is thinking about and involved with advocating for improved policy around. However, I do question the usefulness of a constant deluge of these types of articles.

When we go to a space like the local coffee shop, pub, or bookstore, a place where we immediately feel the “Portland vibes”, we usually aren’t met with a non-stop stream of poverty, drug, and crime news. If I we were, then we would probably leave (or at least I would). Similarly, I feel like our online space can be so much more than just the same daily rehash of divisive arguments that don’t go anywhere.

This is especially true on our Lemmy community, where we are small and still developing a culture. There are not many other types of posts here yet, so the click-bait outrage headlines dominate. Personally, I would love to see more events, reviews of concerts, pictures, slice of life stories, and other things that make this feel like the “Portland vibes”.

This isn’t a moderation decision. It’s more of an appeal. I haven’t removed any links or banned anyone (other than some obvious malicious spam), and I don’t plan to. I haven’t even been down voting.

IDK … what do you think about the future of this space and how we might build a community space that isn’t just local doom scrolling?

  • NightAuthor@beehaw.orgEnglish
    10·
    1 year ago

    As a recent transplant, I would like more upcoming events posts, and suggestions on places to visit. To that end I really enjoy enjoyed /r/ askportland more than /r/portland

    So if we could cultivate more that kind of vibe, that’d be cool.

    • claymedia@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      I’m new here too! I heard that there’s a Portland discord that has some stuff like that. Maybe we can start cross posting interesting things from there?

  • crowsby@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    1 year ago

    When I first came to r/Portland, it was the kind of place that made fun of the oLive comment section. Over the last few years, it became functionally indistinguishable from it, with posters stumbling over each other to find the most nihilistic Eeyore take on any given subject.

    It’d be awesome if we could avoid the same trap here, and I guess the solution is to consciously try to avoid Nextdooring the place up too hard. Like, how many different homeless camp fire articles do we need in a week to drive meaningful conversation?

    • Bucket_of_Truth@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      I showed up during the Slough-people drama. Started with a guy asking why seemingly homeless people were being dropped off on the shore of the Columbia Slough via pontoon boat every morning. Ended with a guy getting his drone shot out of the air by pirates.

      That was my kind of content.

  • murty@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    Would definitely love to see less of the doom and gloom porn that has been so prevalent Portland Reddit. I think there’s certain a time and place for discussing significant news events that happen in town, but I was really really sick of seeing all the doom and gloom porn of Portland Reddit.

    I stopped going to Reddit at the start protest and haven’t been back, and while I’m definitely feeling pretty out of touch on local goings on and Timbers news, it’s been refreshing to not have my day filled with the endless negative posts about our current ills.

    Definitely not saying I want to ignore what’s been going on, it’s pretty hard to ignore, but if/when I need to know about that stuff I’ll seek that news out.

    I don’t know the right answer to make that happen without some more heavy handed moderating (which I am not advocating for either), as at least some of the folks posting that stuff have a clear agenda and will swayed by appeals to out better nature like this. But I am definitely in favor of this place becoming a more positive place for community engagement and not another next door or battle ground for political/ideological troll warfare.

    In short, I am emphatic YES to everything you said!

  • drkhrse96@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    I don’t live in Portland, but I agree with you about the types of posts I would like to find when I go to a community magazine/sub/page. I like to see recommendations of things to check out that I haven’t heard of, small businesses to support, things that make a place unique. I can find the critical stuff almost anywhere else (although there should be discussion on that of course).

    • polymerwitch@lemmy.mlOPMEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      There are a number of options. One for example is to have a weekly mega thread for news, and require it all gets posted there. Maybe with exceptions for major events, elections, etc.

      • mph@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Megathreads make a lot of sense, but I say that as someone who’d just route around them: I keep a tight rein on my news sources and have never considered this kind of site — whether it’s reddit, Lemmy, MetaFilter or other — a useful way to get current events precisely because each forum will eventually develop a character, and that character will influence the mix. Just plain old RSS to a select group of sites for me, with a content blocker to handle the inevitable bad comments.

        Anyhow, I’d support weekly (or even daily) news posts that encouraged people to only start new threads within them on new topics (vs. starting threads with different headlines on the same topic).