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.

  • 𝖕𝖘𝖊𝖚𝖉@lemmy.world
    12·
    2 years ago

    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.

    • Lilkev@kbin.social
      4·
      2 years ago

      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?

      • 𝖕𝖘𝖊𝖚𝖉@lemmy.world
        8·
        2 years ago

        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.

        • Lilkev@kbin.social
          3·
          2 years ago

          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?

          • 𝖕𝖘𝖊𝖚𝖉@lemmy.world
            6·
            2 years ago

            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?

            • Lilkev@kbin.social
              2·
              2 years ago

              Here’s a time line.

              Users couldn’t even create their own subreddits, as in, Reddit themselves opened all of the original subreddits from the time reddit was founded (EDIT: June 2005) until January 2008.

              Reddit, being a US company, would obviously default the subreddits to the US.

              Are most of the Spotify users Swedish?

              Early on? Probably, yes.

              • 𝖕𝖘𝖊𝖚𝖉@lemmy.world
                6·
                2 years ago

                We’re just talking past each other.

                People from the broader “west” look at the Internet, see a global network, and switch to English to maximize the reach.

                (Certain) people from the anglosphere see the network is in English, and conclude it must be local to them.

                Also this.

                • Lilkev@kbin.social
                  3·
                  2 years ago

                  (Certain) people from the anglosphere see the network is in English, and conclude it must be local to them.

                  So if we go with the assumption that Reddit hasn’t always been majority users based in the US, why didn’t anyone speak up early on about subreddits defaulting to the US? Why didn’t people create alternative subreddits early on for their own country?

                  Also isn’t your point about people from the anglosphere assuming the English language means it’s local to the kind of proving my point? The majority of users thought “oh the website is in English, must be local to me” and defaulted to the US?

                  Not sure what your point is with the web archive link, tbh.

    • Aesthesiaphilia@kbin.social
      2·
      2 years ago

      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.