I understand that Beehaw is not a replacement for Reddit, and nor should it be. However, if I wind up ditching Reddit entirely, one thing I’m going to miss is the unbridled insanity of the “Thunderdome” discussions.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, certain communities would handle major events with a serious thread for people who wanted serious discussion, and an accompanying Thunderdome thread for people who just wanted to make memes and blow off steam. In gaming communities, for example, there will likely be serious threads around Summer Games Fest, including Microsoft’s upcoming presentation. But there are also people who will want to make fun of the pageantry of it all and to keep that out of the serious thread, there’ll be a Thunderdome for that.

Politics communities create similar threads for election nights. Take it from me… if you work in Washington, DC and the outcome of an election could seriously impact your job two months down the line? Those are nights when you really need to blow off some steam. Mental health is important, and having an outlet to ridicule the oppressive, wall-to-wall election coverage really helps.

So, I’m curious if Beehaw communities (which I hope we’ll start calling Yeehives) are the place for something like that, or if the users here would rather keep that kind of content off this platform. Genuinely curious, not just looking to start an argument. Thanks!

  •  Rentlar   ( @Rentlar@beehaw.org ) 
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    1 year ago

    Your counter-point is valid and they have had their good moments. I guess to condense my worry in a single run-on sentence: sometimes in communities that circlejerk to combat hateful behaviour in a funny way sometimes get in over their head (2westerneurope4u, balkans_irl), and can easily be interpreted wrong, end up being offensive, reinforcing stereotype or presented out of context in a way that makes it seem hateful.

    I’m not the only person that makes beehaw, so I respect your view that engagement is valuable and it’s worth taking the risk and fixing it if things go south.

    But, perhaps the larger issue is where the heck to host the meme images. At least on the jerboa app, I cannot click on an image in a comment and see a full or zoomed in image.

    Yes I experienced this, not to mention the app went crazy trying to load the images on the “show me your pets” thread.