What are some of your favorite communities that feature topics like literature, science, ecology, aerospace, technology, politics, history, arts, culture, theory, and debate?
Where do responsible, respectful adults go for discussions and for substantive, high quality posts and comments by decent human beings?
(Not just limited to academic/intellectual topics, could be anything from hobbies to defense contracts to careers to skills. Just looking for respectful, reasonably intelligent, informed, relatively engaged communities.)
Also, are forum aggregators like Lemmy and Reddit even the best places to find such communities outside of listservers, universities, and academic conferences?
So, check out communities on mander.xyz for science topics and slrpnk.net for ecology.
I don’t know yet of any good munis on lemmy for theology, philosophy, or wild theorycrafting, but I’m interested if anyone has recommendations.
Yeah lets get some social science running in this b**** Ü Perspective this techie fest (<3) could use some of
Myself being very new to Lemmy, would you possibly be able to explain how to search by instance? Is it about finding the right app, or is it simpler to just sign up via different instances?
This is where apps are nice. You could also just go to the instance’s website and view their local community list.
looking for… reasonably intelligent…
Fair question, sure, but then you reply with?
…theology…
You’re why we can’t have nice things. 🤌🏼
Maybe we should allow all kind of discussion in online communities? Theology is a valid discussion topic.
Allow it, sure, but insinuate is anything more than the study of systemic superstition that’s hobbled the species and upheld exploitation since the dawn of mankind? That’s irresponsible at best.
Where do responsible, respectful adults go for discussions and for substantive, high quality posts and comments by decent human beings?
I don’t think you will find this Utopia online
That’s been my experience for 95% of Lemmy communities right now, though. I don’t know if it will last but for now, it seems pretty high quality.
Yeah i feel like this is how the early redditors must’ve felt. I don’t want this to get huge frankly
It was. But there were interesting effects from Reddit getting huge, like more niche subreddits and random encounters, like someone posting a proposal pictures and the targets of it being able to find it online. That probably wouldn’t happen on Lemmy.
Probably a worthy trade for better discussion and less bots, though.
There used to be a website called WiserEarth (and then later Wiser.org). This was an internet utopia for intellectual, empathetic discussion about sociopolitical, environmental, ecological, and economic discussion. Really miss that community. But yeah, few. And far between.
I thoroughly enjoy MetaFilter (one of the last surviving community blogs from the 90s) and Tildes (a more recent attempt at capturing the same feel). Text-heavy discourse, minimalist design, human-scale moderation, and moderately gatekept (MeFi has a $5 fee, Tildes is invite-only). PM me if you’re interested.
- !digitalbioacoustics@lemmy.world
- !shortstories@literature.cafe
- !archeology@mander.xyz
- !biodiversity@mander.xyz
- !biohacking@mander.xyz
- !history@ theres like 5 of these
- !humanities@beehaw.org
- !interestingshares@lemmy.zip
- !longreads@ like 5 different ones
- !nameit@sopuli.xyz
- !paleontology@mander.xyz
- !permacomputing@slrpnk.net
- !permaculture@lem.ee
- !philosophy@ 5 of these
- !poetry@ 5
- !psychadelictherapy@lemmy.world
- !roboticsandai@mander.xyz
- !science@ 5
- !soillessagriculture@discuss.tchncs.de
- !solarpunk@slrpnk.net
- !space@ 5
- !strangetimes@lemmy.world
Shameless plug:
Try scrolling through local on a few instances or look at top subscribed communities and you’ll find descent stuff.
I don’t wanna make a list of a 100. Some of these you’ll like, some you won’t, find what suits you.
Instances:
- slrpnk.net
- literature.cafe
- beehaw.org
- mander.xyz
Wow, thank you my friend. This is a wonderful list. Subscribing to most of these!
Edit: also, “InMyMind” is wonderful! Thank you for curating some fascinating content. 👍
The paradox introduced by threads like these is that they flood the communities with shit.
It’s like when you build a really good road or freeway. Everyone starts using it and now it’s not good anymore.
To me, real excellence is self evident and doesn’t need to be recommended outright
I take this point to heart. I have no problem with respectful individuals trying to better themselves through enrichment, and hope that the diversity of Lemmy communities translates to bastions of high quality standards not possible on centralized platforms like Reddit. Like anything innovative and somewhat disruptive, Lemmy is another social experiment. Personally I’m optimistic that moderators of many communities will maintain high QC and exclusivity.
The thing is everyone has a limit with what they can deal with, are shaped by repeated interactions, etc etc.
We need solid systems in place that work and secure integrity of operation inherently - with or without “good” moderators or admins or owners etc
I don’t disagree. I believe that systems not relying on trust, if cleverly designed, can be simultaneously robust, selective, and autonomously correcting. That being said, the forum format itself, while having inherent drawbacks, is my preferred version of the modern commons for different reasons. It’s not the Platonic ideal of the digital commons, nor, hopefully its last iteration, but I’m hoping Lemmy produces superior communities to Reddit, for instance, simply due to their diversity and decentralized governance.
