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:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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…)
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If you see someone making these assumptions, maybe let them know it can be confusing for the others.
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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.
I wish people would learn and use the ISO 3166 codes for their area. For example, US-DC, GB-LND, AU-ACT, etc. Unambiguous, easy to look up, short to write, etc. Just takes a super quick search. I know it’ll never happen, but standards are great!
The problem with standards is that they are named shit like ISO 3166. The standardization organizations went to far and standardized the naming of standards.
It should be something like “globally unique area codes”, which also makes a nice acronym.
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.
Last year, or the year before, I was on a private Discord server. Some new user just logged in, and I asked them “Where are you from?”, and they replied “I’m from Cali.” I thought to myself “Wonderful, a Colombian dude whom I can speak in Spanish with”, until some other user asked “How is the weather in Los Angeles?”. Dude, to me Cali is not California, but a Colombian town.
This is written by a Spanish user.
See, to me that speaks to a lack of awareness. I live 30 minutes from a town called Dublin. But if someone on the internet starts talking about “Dublin”, I’m going to assume the city in Ireland, not the town near me.
Cali is the actual name of the Colombian city. "Cali” is, as @jcb2016_, said, just a ghetto way of saying “California”.
In any case, the lack of awareness comes from whoever defaults everything to the USA.
Cali, Colombia: 2.2 million residents
California: 39.2 million residents, not to mention much more recognizable in the broader English and Spanish speaking culture
It’s not “just” a ghetto way of saying California, it’s a very common phrase across the English speaking world, like saying “US” instead of “United States”. You didn’t recognize it. That’s fine. You don’t have to be offended by it. Next time you’ll know.
To me this says you’re intentionally looking for something to get offended about. Most people would go “ha, funny mixup” and then move on with their life.
“See, to me that speaks to a lack of awareness.” and now "To me this says you’re intentionally looking for something to get offended about.”
Nice way of going around life just making wild assumptions about everything so your imagination carving for drama gets pleased, but no one is getting remotely offended. Plus you’re wrong, ask any Spanish speaking person where Cali is and they’ll say Colombia.
Illuminate me with your logic then… If I say I’m from Mexico, am I from New Mexico USA since it’s much more recognizable in the broader “English and Spanish speaking culture”? Or am I from Mexico City since it has more residents?
But all righty then, let’s just inherit the Reddit way and dismiss this entire thread (buncho’ offended foreigners looking to get offended, pshh…), and just default every conversation, place, name, and topic to the USA. 👍
The weird part here is that when stumbling into a bunch of strangers online, the logical thing to start with would be the country, and not a slang name of one state.
Imagine someone on CoD tells you they’re from Gròśč, you’d probably be like wut?
California has 39 million people in it, is the size of Italy, is the 5th largest economy in the world, and has a massive cultural presence. It’s not “just a state”. Anyone who speaks English or Spanish should be aware that California is part of the US, much like everyone should be aware that Spain is in the EU. It’s part of the common body of knowledge we should all know.
Reminds me of the time my dad met someone with a thick southern accent who said he was from LA - Lower Alabama
I know that because I actually had the same exchange once years ago and it also took me a second to put together.
Great post. I absolutely agree, this was always a bit weird on reddit. I have seen people getting flamed on PC building subreddits for considering components that were expensive in the US (but where relatively cheaper here in the EU).
It would be great if we can really keep Lemmy a global community!
And vice versa. Someone ridiculed me on Reddit for saying CPUs were still extortionately expensive, until I showed them that the CPU they were referencing cost over double the US price here in Sweden :/
So you were having Sweden defaultism? In an English speaking sub, on an American website, with primarily American users, you said “CPUs are still very expensive” and expected people to just understand that you were talking about Sweden?
It’d be really great to not have to translate from Fahrenheit and the imperial system too.
I always used to state both on Reddit. It’d be nice if people could think about doing that too…you know, given how many more people use Celsius/metric. No shade ❤️ it just gets annoying that it’s the default.
Have no idea how to do that conversion lmao. I know that 0 is freezing so can somewhat estimate but not really /:
For distance it’s a bit easier cause a meter stick is a yard stick and American football lol. Pus every teacher had one “in my day” (I’m only 33 lol)
Imagine if the conversion of US to SI would finally start on Lemmy
This isn’t a problem that’s unique to Reddit. Americans live in a fairly big country with a lot going on and do have a tendency to forget that there is a world outside (source: I’m from the UK and worked in the US for a while).
It’s particularly obvious on Reddit because it is actually a very international community and so you see the mismatch much more obviously than you would chatting to an American at home. It’s a fairly built-in feature of American culture, but yes it would be good if this was a space where people were always gently reminded of accidental US focus.
As long as we can avoid the following incredibly common and incredibly frustrating exchange:
Person 1: here is how a thing works
Person 2: you’re totally wrong, it doesn’t work like that at all
Person 1: yes it does, here’s an example
Person 2: no it doesn’t, here’s a personal anecdote
Person 1: I’m at a loss to explain your weird anecdote because that’s really not how it’s supposed to work at all
Person 2: that’s how it always works for me, you must be dumb
Person 1: look, here’s the proof from the people who invented the thing
Person 2: oh, well they don’t do it like that in my country.
Typically, person 1 is from a large country that, in the context of the broader discussion, it can reasonably be assumed they were referring to that country. Like in a thread about Tesla, talking about laws of the road, for example. It’s a totally reasonable assumption to make that the context is the US. Tesla is a US company, most Teslas are sold in the US, etc. Person 2 is from Italy or something. I can understand why person 1 would just assume they’re both talking about the US, though it would be better to clarify. I cannot fathom why person 2 would assume they’re both talking about Italy.
Or say, in a thread about the growth of Chinese megacities, there’s a sub-conversation about marketplaces. Person 1 is talking about China. Perfectly reasonable, that’s the context of the thread. Might be better to clarify but it’s still perfectly reasonable to assume the context is China. But person 2 is for some crazy reason assuming the context is South Africa, or can’t fathom that other places have different styles of marketplace vendors than South Africa.
The only thing I can imagine is that person 2 is like 13 years old and has no concept of life outside of wherever they grew up.
On the internet, Person 2 is more often than not the American. And they get upset when others assume a non-American perspective, even though non-Americans are expected to be considerate. That’s what this post is trying to discourage, Americans acting like their country is the default and there must be a “special context” to speak from a non-American perspective. The Tesla example isn’t even good because they’re sold worldwide.
The only thing I can imagine is that person 2 is like 13 years old and has no concept of life outside of wherever they grew up
I feel like this is it 90% of the time
As a non-American I really appreciate this
I 100% agree! As someone from the US I always disliked that even subs which were supposed to be global would default to being US subs unless the poster specified. I too love the idea of a global community and I think that assuming where someone is from kind of takes away from that.
Literally why /r/worldnews was created and why its #1 rule was no US news, because /r/news (a global news subreddit at the time) was so dominated by internal US news.
That’s not true, /r/worldnews and /r/news were created on the same day, and /r/worldnews is actually 3 hours older than /r/news
There are about 450 million people who speak English as their primary language. About 300 million of them are American.
If you’re communicating with a stranger in English and you don’t know they’re nationality, the odds are heavily in favor of them being American. Like it or not, we’re the default.
Except that billions of people can communicate in English, so your assumption is completely off. Not everyone speaks only one language or only uses their primary language on the global network.
Your assumption is completely off. My assumption is completely correct. I was talking about native speakers, as I clearly stated in my post. Your assumption that I meant to include everyone who can speak English is off.
I can speak Spanish. It is correct for someone in a Spanish speaking community to assume I’m from a Spanish speaking nation, because that’s the most likely scenario.
If you read English on the internet it’s more likely that it’s not written by a native speaker, since there are more people who write in English as a secondary language than there are native speakers.
And you can usually tell the ESLs because they usegrammar in an unnatural way, either very stiff and formal or with a heavy dose of influence from their native language.
There are about 450 million people who speak English as their primary language. About 300 million of them are American.
Yeah, though you gotta remember that a lot of people do use English online even though it’s not their primary language. I’m American, but I frequent /r/europe on Reddit. For pretty much the majority of people there, English is a second language.
And English is kind of the global interchange language, and that’s likely to continue to get more-common, so it’s a phenomeon that will likely grow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers
That’s ~1.45 billion people who can speak English as a first or second language. The US is the biggest single chunk of that, but it’s not the majority.
It’s actually closer to 1.5 billion TOTAL speakers of English. Most English speaking people learned it as a second language.
Edit: billion not million
True. Additionally, the US doesn’t even have an official language, English or otherwise. Americans don’t have a monopoly on the language. No one does. Not even the English.
*billion
Thanks. Not sure why I typed that lol
I knew you were American because you used “they’re” instead of their
It’s the public schools, trust me. lol
It’s autocorrect.
It’s the pubic stools.
It’s autowrong
Autocorrupt as a friend of mine used to say.
I thought the same thing today lol
Some /m/worldnews thread and the topics was ‘Texas installs panic buttons for classrooms’…yeah nice 'world’news. I guess when your whole world is the USLol “World News” never is and never will be until mods start deleting articles that are entirely American. One of the top posts from [email protected] is that an Evangelical Christian from America died…
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
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.
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.
I agree with that definition, that sounds like world news to me too
I agree. I may be guilty of it, being from the u.s. and all, but I try to make effort to add detail for global community when it comes to location-based topics.
It’s crazy how big u.s. is, it can’t help but default, plus we’re largely idiots here lmao.
Ask me to convert 1 foot to millimeters…ain’t happening without a chart lol. Damn public education system!!!
I’m gonna make a conscious effort everyone.
1 foot is roughly .3 meters (which is 300 millimeters) :)
Oh snap! I’m gonna keep a laminated lemmy conversation chart on my at all times (:
I’m from the US, and I understand the frustration. But something to keep in mind is that reddit was built in the US, so the first users of the site were also from the US. Hence the original subreddits defaulting to the US.
At the same time, I propose that the fediverse doesn’t turn into an “America Bad” circle jerk like it turned in to on reddit.
No, it’s a consequence of normies.
The original Reddit, like Slashdot, and Dig to a lesser extent, defaulted to a global community. These places started out by attracting nerds from across the globe. Nerdy communities are internationalist, and fluent in English. So there was a tacit understanding that English was simply Esperanto and that anyone could be from anywhere.
Slowly getting mainstream, Reddit started attracting randos. And American randos apparently associate English with themselves, completely lost to the fact that something like half of the planet uses it as a common language. So I sat and watched as the overall tone of the place went from a spaceship, to Chick-fil-A, Podunk.
Sauce: English as a second language and been there from the start.
I don’t think you understand. The heavy majority of users were from the US, if 95% of the posts are about the US, it’s safe to assume it’s the default. The website was built in the US.
It’s akin to going on a forum for Japanese news and being upset that everyone’s speaking Japanese and no ones specifying that they’re talking about Japan.
That’s besides the point anyway, people not from the US are frustrated that Reddit defaulted to the US, and I get it. I would be too if I wasn’t from the US.
I’m ALSO frustrated because the US can come up out of no where on reddit and everyone starts the US apart from seemingly no relation to the original post.
If you saw some of the comments on reddit that were shitting on the US about literally ANY other country, you would without a doubt be pissed off, especially if it was your own country. And it happens ad nauseum when it comes to the US.
I don’t think you understand. How do you know that the heavy majority of the users (of the early Reddit) were from the US? You are repeating the viewpoint that the place started out as US-centric — any concrete data here? Why do you think that the country where a web site was built in matters here?
I’ll reiterate: English is fundamentally different from Japanese because it is widely used as a second language.
No no, you don’t understand brother. Have you ever looked at the user stats by country for reddit? Literally right now something like 50% of users are from the US. Early on, the number was even larger.
Here’s a source for reddit users based on country in 2022. The number one spot, 47% of users are from the US, number 2? Oh that’s the UK with 7%. So even to this day, the US still has the vast majority of traffic to reddit when compared to any other country.
How’s that for concrete data?
It’s good data, but we know it’s been overrun by Americans.
Early on, the number was even larger.
This is something that we don’t know.
Early on, it was about random programming links and stuff that such crowd cared about. Then a bunch of people poured in and confused the language with the locality.
Okay, so I provided a source. Do YOU have any concrete data about early reddit or are you just arguing in bad faith?
Is it really not a safe assumption to make that since the website was founded in the US, and today has a vast majority of users from the US, that it wouldn’t have been the case early on?
If a website is built in your country, isn’t it a safe assumption that the majority of users would be from your country?
I’m arguing in good faith, since this is a new place and I’m (still) trying to foster discussion. Unfortunately, I could not find any published data on the visitors of the early Reddit.
So the best that I can do is offer first-hand account: cca 2006 Reddit was not US-centric. For that matter, almost no community on the Internet was, be it forums or IRC.
If a website is built in your country, isn’t it a safe assumption that the majority of users would be from your country?
This is complete nonsense. Why would it work like that? Are most of the Spotify users Swedish?
I don’t think you understand. How do you know that the heavy majority of the users (of the early Reddit) were from the US?
I was there, we took surveys.
Looks like the America Bad nonsense has already started here smh
I suspect you’ll find that just in general, any global social media is going to have a lot of people who don’t hold the US in very high esteem. It’s not a Reddit thing.
To be honest the most I’ve seen it anywhere, be it Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. Were without a doubt YouTube comments, and random reddit posts and comment sections that had nothing to do with the US.
Reddit was >75% US users for a long time. It just wouldn’t have been practical to specify the US on every post when it was almost always about the US anyways.
Yep, a lot of people don’t seem to realize that. Must be US Defaultism /s
