UPDATE: Looks like the voting is evenly split (3 vs 2, but one of those 3 was me). As a result, I’ll keep things mostly the same for this community. No big changes coming. We’ll keep this community focused on weird stories/events but I’ll give the “news” part a little bit of wiggle room.

-----Original Post-----

Good evening guys, gals, and non-binary pals -

I know this isn’t the biggest community on Lemmy, but I would love to hear your feedback on the future direction of this place. I’ve been thinking about this for a while and @BlameThePeacock’s recent post inspired me to actually post about it.

The original idea for this community was to be a Lemmy equivalent of /r/offbeat on Reddit. A place for weird, strange, and offbeat things that happen in the news. Kind of like nottheonion, but with a broader scope.

I’ve been noticing that sometimes people post things that are interesting and very much offbeat, but not what you would traditionally consider as news. I haven’t been removing these posts, but I have been aware of them. I’ve even got a report about one of them not being news. Examples: 1, 2, 3, 4

So I guess what I’m asking, would you rather that we stick more to strictly being “Offbeat News” or broaden our horizons to being just “Offbeat”. “Offbeat” would still include weird things that happen in the news but also include other weird but interesting things out in the world that aren’t strictly news articles. I personally feel like the latter would be an interesting direction to take, but ultimately I’m not looking to alienate the people that enjoy this community.

Cheers,

TWG

EDIT: If you’d rather vote instead of leaving a comment, here’s a poll: https://strawpoll.com/GeZAOpGVJnV

  • BlameThePeacockEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    Sorry

    I figured it was okay because it was a recent piece of content :) which I guess is where I drew the line myself on it being “news”

    • TheWaterGodOPMEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      No worries mate! It’s something that’s been on my mind for a while and you finally lit a fire under my ass to do something about it 😂

      Now if only I can take better care of some of my other communities 😬

  • Rentlar
    3·
    1 year ago

    I voted for news but I think we should give that post a pass because it was a video from today.

    As long as it’s about something recent (last month or so) and not just a “TIL” kind of post. I wouldn’t say encourage non-news but my suggestion is to tolerate it up to a certain point.

    • TheWaterGodOPMEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Thank you for that! I’ve added that to the sidebar regardless of how this vote moves forwards. It’s actually just a good rule to have. I’ve gone with “no older than 2 months” to give a little wiggle room and I’ll see how that goes. I can always make it tighter down the line.