Submitted 8 months ago by shootwhatsmyname@lemm.ee to [deleted]
Serious answer, the question might be one that broke on the community rules like Rule 5 (“No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda”) or Rule 6 (No meme or troll questions, except on Fridays) and voters are expressing their displeasure.
Silly answer, the question wasn’t stupid. The name of the community is actually “No, Stupid Questions.” The missing comma is a typo.
Rule 5 (“No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda”)
That has the problem of blocking genuinely stupid questions that could be used to educate away ignorance. Instead the only people willing to answer their questions are nut jobs with an agenda. E.g.
Do black people sun burn?
Would get downvoted for being racist cos everyone must know the answer to this (I don’t)
Where does the ‘Jewish conspiracy’ originate from?
Everyone would assume you’re antisemitic instead of educating you on conspiracies by Nazis and Russian slike The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But you know who does answer? Those conspiracy theorists who are more than happy to give you (wrong) answers!
Do women get horny?
Everyone assumes an ‘incel agenda’ cos it’s OBVIOUS what the answer is. No it’s some poor 13yo kid who’s unsure about things so they asked. But you know who does answer (wrongly) those questions liberally? Andrew Tate is FULL of answers and sends them down a very dangerous rabbit hole.
I can’t help feeling a lot of the modern shift towards alt-right bollocks is an almost elitist attitude that everyone has an agenda and there’s no such thing as ignorance anymore. I’m sure that was QAnons next level goal. Sow distrust in people so they refuse to answer questions (downvote, shutdown, ignore) while providing (wrong) answers to people themselves.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to realise Hanlons Razor covers SO much more than people realise.
Stop assuming malicious “agendas” behind everything. At the least don’t downvote things. At best answer people genuinely.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
Every so often, Robert Evans from Behind the Bastards mentions this. I want to know what it is so badly, but also don't want that shit in my search history
I didn’t say I’d downvote in those situations. I would guess that Rule 5 needs to exist for a reason. Without it the community could get overrun with ragebait posts. Personally I wouldn’t consider any of your examples questions to be ones that violate Rule 5, but I’m not a mod and I don’t make or enforce the rules. I also wouldn’t downvote such a question myself, but I would consider reporting it if it seemed like the OP was consistently trying to pull the conversation into fractious territory. Anyway, if we want to to discuss the rules and downvoting vs. reporting, that should probably go in a meta post.
Most questions are bad faith humor-trolling. I downvote those.
But those aren’t stupid questions, they are questions very smartly crafted to imply a certain answer or legitimize a problem. Then they are not stupid, but smart. And often evil.
That is my estimation of it. That’s why I said it. You understand how this works, right?
Yes.
I upvote this post. It’s spot on.
Do we have a highthoughts sub for questions like this?
This is why I stick with kbin. did you downvote me? would be a shame if I literally never find out.
Yes
glimse@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I downvote a lot of posts here because I don’t think they’re questions appropriate for this community. They’re either loaded questions, opinions, obvious bait, or asklemmy material.
If this community is supposed to be the Lemmy version of r/nostupidquestions, the questions should be things that you think should know but don’t. Things that might make you feel stupid asking.
A good question for this sub is “How often do I actually have to wash a hoodie?”
A bad question is “Why is [company] doing [something anti consumer]”
We get a LOT more of the latter here.
FontMasterFlex@lemmy.world 8 months ago
perhaps you need a refresher… NO. STUPID. QUESTIONS.
glimse@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Perhaps you completely missed the point if that’s what you choose to reply with