9mo ago

tumblr reading comprehension: electric boogaloo

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I feel like with all the writers and grammar Nazis there, this problem is actually very minor on Tumblr compared to the rest of the internet.
- Strong grammar skills isn't the same as comprehending, though. Being able to write, being able to write well--is also not the same as comprehending what someone else has written. Let alone what someone means by what they've written.
  "thatguyfromthatwebsite" seems to have read and interpreted the language properties of the greentext, but was not able to comprehend it, not able to take one single step beyond the text to what the author intends it to mean.
  
  Most of the posts that come across my feed there are lengthy analysis of writing that show they understand it and also have critical thinking skills; which is why I say that.
  
  I'm sure that your observation is true, you've probably self-selected critical thinking people and not a random sample.
  
  Maybe. I don't know how their algorithms work. I only follow 2 people: Puchiko and P.M. Seymour and I hardly actually see them on Tumblr itself 🤷🏻‍♂️
- There's an easy experiment I've accidentally run.
  Find a thread with a consensus emotion. For example, say that something is a scam, so you have outrage, mistrust, and scepticism.
  Take some words from the opposite emotion, calm, trust, believe. Use them to make a point that agrees with the consensus. Watch the downvotes roll in.
  People will focus on the emotions from the individual words and not think at all about their meaning as a whole.
  
  Can you give me an example?
  
  Here's one at -2 that's all facts, but doesn't agree with the sentiment of the thread.
  https://lemmy.world/comment/7823893
  I'm clearly not a fan of Spez (I'm here, aren't I?), but people constantly exaggerate the editing incident.
  The fact is that he took a bunch of comments that said "fuck u/Spez" and made them say fuck [the commenter].
  That's a problem because it demonstrates what could happen with more subtle edits. It creates reliability issues. But those more subtle edits aren't what actually happened. People constantly take the potential for harmful abuse and act like the harmful abuse actually happened.
  
  Counterpoint: the potential for harmful abuse from a source that has proven itself willing and capable of it, can in itself be harmful abuse. With that action Spez pointed out "your reality is mine. I can make you say anything I want and there's nothing you can do about it." So, then, people stopped saying things, one of the contributing factors to which was the fact that Spez could just sockpuppet your account whenever he wanted, to say anything at all.
  That sounds like an abusive relationship to me. It creates reliability issues like you said, it breaks the bond of trust, and that won't be restored. The damage is done at this point regardless whether he ever took it farther than the initial threat.
  
  I mean a comment that does this
  Take some words from the opposite emotion, calm, trust, believe. Use them to make a point that agrees with the consensus. Watch the downvotes roll in.
  I'm just not quite understanding what you mean. It doesn't have to be a real comment.
- YMMV, but I've had more issues with people being this obtuse here on Lemmy than I've ever seen on Tumblr.
  Plus, Tumblr is basically all queer content creators who have been on the site for 10-14 years. Subtext is like oxygen to them at this point.
  
  It's like some people want to read things in the most obscure way possible.
  
  Lemmy is absolutely the worst I've ever seen with failure to comprehend basic things, and then also getting angry about it.
  
  Lemmy.world has an insane bot problem atm

194 comments