Hello, I’m a Reddit refugee and I was a prolific poster on r/skeptic. I would love a Lemmy skeptics community, but I haven’t found an active one anywhere. Mander seems like a good place for one. If I started one, would people be interested?

  • SalamanderMAEnglish
    6·
    1 year ago

    Personally, I also visit communities such as r/skeptic and also r/conspiracy for interesting discussions.

    There are already some c/skeptic community in the fediverse:

    !skeptic@lemmy.world

    !skeptic@sh.itjust.works

    Mander seems like a good place for one.

    I am not so sure. Skepticism fuels scientific inquiry, and yes, people should be skeptical when discussing science. And this skepticism should show up in every community.

    What worries me about a community dedicated to ‘being a skeptic’ is that, in my experience, this is a space that can easily concentrate polarizing views - about religion, gender identity, politics, who is misinformed and who isn’t, conspiracies, etc. These become spaces to debate charged political and social issues, and science is rarely the priority.

    I think that we have more than enough polarizing spaces in the internet and in the fediverse, so I really try to make an effort to minimize the volume of polarizing topics in this instance.

    It is very rarely a hard ‘no’ for me. You are of course free to create a skeptic community, and it is possible to create a community that does not fall into the ‘traps’ I’ve mentioned. If you choose to that, I would appreciate it if you are at least mindful of the mission of avoiding polarizing spaces and trying to stick to the topics of science and nature.

    I suspect that a large number of people are interested in discussing socially relevant and politically charged topics in a skeptics community, and so my recommendation would be to use the communities that I mentioned above.

    • Flying SquidOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Hey Salamander! Good to see you on this side! I’ll check those out, thanks. I’ve been looking but couldn’t find anything active.

      EDIT: Looks like both of them have been inactive for days. I understand what you’re saying about here, but I think if we keep it on a scientific level, it will work. I agree that skepticism is often more social and political, but maybe we can keep those posts off of here? Maybe I should just use one of those others and try to liven them up? Not sure.

      • SalamanderMAEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        but I think if we keep it on a scientific level, it will work

        You are welcome to try! _ I am just letting you know my immediate thoughts and worries, so that later on I don’t end up surprising you if things become too polarizing and I see the need to step in. But I am always in favor of trying things out.

        • Flying SquidOPEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          Sure, I totally understand. I’m still thinking about whether or not I want the responsibility of moderating it, so I’m still mulling it over.