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:

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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…)

  • If you see someone making these assumptions, maybe let them know it can be confusing for the others.

  • 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.

  • Kresten
    22·
    2 years ago

    Tb fair, not as an American, when is something world news? The news has to have an origin. Though panic buttons doesn’t sound new, so it probably wouldn’t be worldnews

    • WhoRoger@lemmy.worldOP
      45·
      2 years ago

      I’d say something that may have an international or global effect. Like wars, alliances, global trends, plus stuff outside politics.

      Single-country news can be significant too. The Canadian wildfires are world news to me because they have close to global effect and reflect the overall climate picture. Presidential elections anywhere are too, because they effect international relations and reveal wider trends.

      • Kresten
        9·
        2 years ago

        I agree with that definition, that sounds like world news to me too

      • rockstarashes@lemmy.world
        1·
        2 years ago

        While I agree with that definition of world news, I’m not sure the approach of siloing everything unless it hits a global threshold is the way to go, either. Personally, I appreciate seeing a smattering of events happening elsewhere, even if they’re not necessarily globally important. It’s an easy way to get exposure to things happening outside of my immediate bubble and I think it gives me a better global reference point generally. However, if “non-world news” were to be relegated to their respective local communities, I’m probably not going to attempt to go out and follow dozens of local communities just to see those stories; I will likely just miss out on those perspectives entirely and I doubt I’m the only one.

        • WhoRoger@lemmy.worldOP
          1·
          2 years ago

          Sure, but we only have so much time and capacity to absorb news, so for most people these would be the important ones. I can imagine having a WorldNews community for the top stuff and say, RandomWorldNews for all kinds of stuff.

          I guess you can say we can just ignore and scroll by what doesn’t interest us, but there needs to be some threshold somewhere.

    • goldenbug@kbin.social
      5·
      2 years ago

      I think US news are so integrated (and so abundanr) to overall news in the west that anything flies off as ‘international’. AnimeTitties in Reddit had a nice set of rules in place to avoid this.

      I agree with the overall sentiment; I have gotten confused many a time.