Ok I hope I won’t come off as an ass here. I’m not always the most eloquent.
One thing that was quite grating on Reddit, was how most “global” subreddits were basically defaulting to the USA.
For example, people would ask questions in general question subs - “Can I legally…?” ”Is a teacher allowed to…?", “How much does it cost to…?” and unless they specify the country, you were just supposed to assume it’s the US, with people from other countries keeping such questions to specific subs.
And this is just a bit weird to non-Americans who always need to specify their jurisdiction or place when it’s relevant.
On Reddit it kinda made sense as Americans were almost half of all users, but with Lemmy, anyone can run an instance from wherever.
There is a bunch of instances dedicated to countries or regions.
But Lemmy.world has “world” right there in the title. So don’t assume everyone is from the same place as you.
Don’t get me wrong, I do love the global community! But I also don’t want to get confused and make assumptions.
So all I ask is some of these things:
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If you’re asking the global community a question, making a comment etc., that is specific to some area(s) of the world, always specify the place, even if it seems self-explanatory.
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Similarly, when using generic terms such as “congress”, “conservative”, “west coast” or “health insurance”, keep in mind that lots of countries have those too in some form or another. Specify what you’re talking about.
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Careful with names of places, especially abbreviation. By CA, do you mean Canada or California? Is IN India or Indiana? Is SD an SD card? UK is an university now? And so on. I personally think abbreviation should default to countries or global organizations, if anything - such as UK, EU, UN.
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When creating/managing a community, use the Display Name to specify what you mean. (I won’t call anyone out but I kinda want to…)
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If you see someone making these assumptions, maybe let them know it can be confusing for the others.
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Consider using (or creating) an instance or community that’s more region-specific or interest-specific . I don’t want to kick anyone out, don’t get me wrong, but everyone can subscribe everywhere, so…
I’ve seen instances for many countries (and the US midwest)… But not one for USA as a whole yet. So, just keep in mind the community is global.
Again, sorry if I come off harsh, it’s not my intent, and I don’t even mean to call out people from the US specifically. It’s just that on Reddit, this has often lead to some toxicity (r/USDefaultism and some other “defaultism” subs) and it would be a shame to bring that here as well.
And you know, just to try to avoid confusion.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
As long as we can avoid the following incredibly common and incredibly frustrating exchange:
Person 1: here is how a thing works
Person 2: you’re totally wrong, it doesn’t work like that at all
Person 1: yes it does, here’s an example
Person 2: no it doesn’t, here’s a personal anecdote
Person 1: I’m at a loss to explain your weird anecdote because that’s really not how it’s supposed to work at all
Person 2: that’s how it always works for me, you must be dumb
Person 1: look, here’s the proof from the people who invented the thing
Person 2: oh, well they don’t do it like that in my country.
Typically, person 1 is from a large country that, in the context of the broader discussion, it can reasonably be assumed they were referring to that country. Like in a thread about Tesla, talking about laws of the road, for example. It’s a totally reasonable assumption to make that the context is the US. Tesla is a US company, most Teslas are sold in the US, etc. Person 2 is from Italy or something. I can understand why person 1 would just assume they’re both talking about the US, though it would be better to clarify. I cannot fathom why person 2 would assume they’re both talking about Italy.
Or say, in a thread about the growth of Chinese megacities, there’s a sub-conversation about marketplaces. Person 1 is talking about China. Perfectly reasonable, that’s the context of the thread. Might be better to clarify but it’s still perfectly reasonable to assume the context is China. But person 2 is for some crazy reason assuming the context is South Africa, or can’t fathom that other places have different styles of marketplace vendors than South Africa.
The only thing I can imagine is that person 2 is like 13 years old and has no concept of life outside of wherever they grew up.
On the internet, Person 2 is more often than not the American. And they get upset when others assume a non-American perspective, even though non-Americans are expected to be considerate. That’s what this post is trying to discourage, Americans acting like their country is the default and there must be a “special context” to speak from a non-American perspective. The Tesla example isn’t even good because they’re sold worldwide.
