Hi Mainchan. So about having "serious" conversations.
Hi guys, I am a refugee from both Reddit and Tildes. I have tried to read up on what is in the future for mainchan and what it is about. I hung around 4chan way back when and I get and appreciate the culture. I ultimately ended up frequenting niche subreddits, because there were still places where long-form ,"serious" and level-headed discussions were being fostered. I have an account on Tildes as well, a recent mod actions made that site untenable as well, although I like the site conceptually.
So now I am here. I like the culture and humour, but my question is whether mainchan can ever be a place to have more serious in-depth discussion? The reason I ask is that having been a mod myself and having plenty of meta discussions, on how we discuss I don't believe it can be had without deliberate design or perhaps a very strong culture.
For example what was very typical on reddit is that the threads that got traction, got exposure. At some point it hits the broad audience of reddit and there is big influx in low effort comments, or people who perhaps doesn't understand the culture, context or have no interest in engaging with it.
Another issue was how there was lack of social context I feel. For example people ended up talking past each other, because the thread had no clear direction. Did OP want a debate? Did OP want a exploratory discussion? Did OP even know what he wants? The result being that people talked past each other, and the people that call for elaboration(or context) and these more "boring" answers did not get upvoted.
More can be said here(ask for elaboration), but it has been talked about on places like /r/theoryofreddit and other places. Both for reddit, tildes and I am sure other sites, this is a central question. How do you promote those quality posts or comments?
So my question is do Mainchan community want the site to be a place for more serious discussion? Has Cicero himself have any thoughts or plans here, and if so what are those?
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I'm sure it's just pity votes. Yes I totally agree. It is a scaling problem if anything and there is no need to act today if ever. It is probably safe to say that most people here are prosumers and see their effort here partially as an investment. So people stay not just for how things are, but for what the site can become. Therefore it is a good idea for people designs sites like these to expand upon their vision or perspective. Everything so far I like(even monetization). Ultimately the end results is what matters, not the specific solutions. By that I mean if the top dawg doesn't consider x to be a problem, then x won't ever be solved(in whatever way). If x is a problem, then I at least know there will be attempts at solving x at some point in the future.
I've only been here a couple weeks (I'm not new, I've been here all summer), but it doesn't seem like pity votes are handed out too often around here. So it may be genuine.
I found this place through reddit (of course) but it was the first reddit-like that I thought, yeah, I wanna come back to this place. The biggest barrier to entry to people will be the chan but also drew me in so win some you lose some. I don't really ever visit 4chan anymore but we can remind people here that the chans weren't all /b/. There was a time you could have the best discussions on the niche boards.
I'm optimistic and I see you are too.