this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2024
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AskUSA
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Community for asking and answering any question related to the life, the people or anything related to the USA. Though note that political rather than cultural discussions would best go to !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world.
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Indeed. I had a look at DO's rules, they link to the the Lemmy Code of Conduct, which doesn't explicitly address this topic
But then couldn't this topic being discussed on LW as well now, even with the new ToS?
Exactly my point - they aren't forbidding all discussion on the topic? Well, tbf at the very beginning they did panic, then they took 3 days to clarify the ToS, but now such discussion is entirely allowed. Just not outright actual illegal stuff, like that guy wanting to sabotage their physical machines to bring them down - that stuff ofc remains illegal, and advocating for murder is illegal. If anyone wants to find a place to discuss illegal activities, it's not so much that it's impossible but it does sound like something better suited to an anarchist instance? Though it's not something that I'd want to be involved in.
AskUSA was an idea that predated all of this jury nullification controversy, where we wanted to make particularly Redditors feel more comfortable migrating over to Lemmy, despite all the objections like "it's run by tankies" and "it's more for an international audience than me inside the USA". For that purpose, it's progressing along nicely is it not?
Though a truly "free speech" instance like the Magats are asking for, essentially 4chan, isn't something that the vast majority of Fedizens want, and we would defederate any such server that was created.
In-between all of these extremes is ofc a vast middle ground, and yet police really do exist, so my guess is that any instance located within the USA would not be suitable for discussions of topics that come anywhere even remotely close to skirting the law here. But even if that were not true, I still personally would not want to be involved - especially as a moderator! There are too many nutjobs that would be attracted to such, it sounds like an enormous undertaking, plus a highly unpleasant one.
Quoting myself from another comment
I just had a look at https://join-lemmy.org/docs/code_of_conduct.html to check
So if people say "CEOs of private healthcare companies who cause the deaths of thousands of citizens for profit should face the same fate as the United Healthcare CEO", is it acceptable or no? Real question, I don't think it's that clear from the rules.
Also, as those are the rules created by the Lemmy devs, I would really surprised if they prevented any action against CEOs
I'll help out by clarifying: regardless of whether Discuss.Online allows such, I don't want to be moderator of a community that would skirt the law so closely, so I don't want it here in !AskUSA@discuss.online, at least under my moderatorship.
-- the additional, irrelevant details --
I am actually getting quite nervous even meta-discussing this discussion of how people would discuss such matters. I am no lawyer, and I want to stay SO VERY FAR AWAY from the legal line that I don't have to worry about whether - oopsie daisy! - it has been crossed or not. I already have stress in my irl and this isn't helping! Our discussions of creating a place such as AskUSA predated all of this jury nullifcation topic, and I hoped merely to help provide a "welcoming" and "fun" and "safe" place for Americans to enjoy visiting - and I'm still offering to do all of that much - but the rest of this, is getting to be too much for me!? Sorry if I did not realize what you were ultimately pushing for - I'm not commenting on rightness vs. wrongness to want such here, just that I don't think I can help you with fulfilling that desire, which especially in the upcoming changing legal landscape within the USA, is more than a little on the extreme end of what might even be theoretically possible (and quite possibly is not, legally speaking, or else may become so very very soon).
Furthermore, if Discuss.Online was itself okay with it, and someone else wanted to moderate it, then I'm totally okay to hand over this exact community to whoever would step up for such? (in that case... please tell me what buttons to press? I am new to the mod tools here and I don't see that option, or maybe we'd need to get an admin involved? anyway I'm totally supportive of such if that's what people wanted, so I could initiate a request to them in such a case?) I have no desire to "squat" this community name and outright prevent discussions that people feel like should be here.
Though if we want to keep AskUSA as light-hearted and fun, and to put politicaldiscussions@whereverelse, then that works too (in that case I still hope that people would join this community to help moderate it).
I hope this helps paint a vision moving forward?
As I said elsewhere, there's a reason Ask and Casual communities both exist.
A list of questions that could be asked on AskUSA but would still be completely legal
None of those questions would cross any rules, but they would make the community look serious and depressing, but also would allow people to talk about those serious matters.
From what you are saying, you should probably handle a more laid-back CasualUSA community, similar to !casualconversation@lemm.ee , !yurop@lemm.ee , !casualuk@feddit.uk
You can probably open a post to call moderators to take over AskUSA, and open CasualUSA in parallel
The odd part is that I am not subscribed to any such community myself - not even the various Shower Thoughts ones:-). Occasionally I will run into such a post on All or such, and if there is a need then I am willing to help with something but the communities I tend to frequent on my own initiative are like !Fediverse@lemmy.world, !fedimemes@feddit.uk, !tenforward@lemmy.world, and the Fediverse "drama" communities.
So, are you OK to open !casualUSA, and try to find some help for !askUSA? :-)
https://discuss.online/post/14195662
I'll wait to hear the answer before making casualUSA, in case nobody is willing to do the more serious one.
Thank you for the post!
Thank you for walking me through all of this. And now I see the appoint moderator button, on people's accounts, so I should be ready to implement it when it happens:-).
Nice!