Oh let me be clear, I think we are toxic as fuck here. Setting aside the constant trolling barrages by Hexbears, the fact that the fights between tankies and others pervades EVERYWHERE (even/especially shit posting, memes, and for some reason especially comics), and do you really think that a Windows user will feel at home in this shrine to Arch btw Linux?

It can also be a fun place to be, even chill depending on where you go. But to a user looking at us without any blocks (for users, communities, even whole instances), it looks very different than it does to most of us. Especially if they use Windows are right-leaning on the political spectrum. Sigh, e.g. whether women should have the right to do whatever they want with their own bodies is somehow “political”, so looking at how we talk from the perspective of let’s say a teenager who never knew any different than what they were taught, we are not terribly welcoming. We can be a pretty self-righteous bunch. 🤔

Remember, messages require the consent of both parties as to what they mean: you can intend to convey whatever, but they decide what they feel having received that. And if they feel that being here was “grating”, and they did not feel “welcomed”, and say that other centrists to right-wingers are likely to feel likewise, then that’s their decision and they have a right to feel that way (because it is subjectively true:-).

Which brings me back to: it’s fine to not want right-wing people here. So why not be honest about that? We’re toxic AF, and also unwelcoming to people unless they pass the moral purity testing, which never ends. 😋

A lot of people on Reddit are from the USA, and are centrists to right-wingers by their standards. Ironically these often think of themselves as left-leaning (e.g. critical of Republicans locally) but without realizing that they are actually solidly on the right in comparison on the global stage. e.g. Bernie Sanders supporters.

So that can be quite a rude awakening for the uninitiated, to be told (truthfully) that you are right-wing. Also, some people - including those on the Threadiverse - sometimes just want to shut out politics for like 10-30 minutes a day, which is extremely difficult here as it pervades just about every single corner, without EXTENSIVE and ongoing efforts to keep it at bay.

And those factors interrelate, like if you disallow politics then you end up having next to no content, whereas if you allow it then a good fraction of the viewers stop engaging.

I am not saying that we need to be more welcoming to right-wingers, I am saying that it is a choice and we should honestly acknowledge that. We choose to make Redditors feel unwelcomed here, for the most part. If that desire were to change then it would require much effort to enact - a lot more than current moderation capabilities support. Hence those people will elect to remain on the likes of X, Meta, Facebook, or X where they feel welcomed. The toxicity that you know how to deal with, rather than a new brand of it that you don’t, and all of that.