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    8. In my opinion, censorship is a bad way to combat hate speech.

      ~talk Text 411 words
      (Let me make this clear before you continue reading, I don't know any good solutions) Recently, all over the internet, I feel like I am seeing more and more companies filtering out content that...

      (Let me make this clear before you continue reading, I don't know any good solutions)

      Recently, all over the internet, I feel like I am seeing more and more companies filtering out content that are considered hate speech. I personally do not like this for two reasons.

      1. I think it is a band-aid solution. People who have their voice taken away from themselves are not suddenly going to change their mind.
      2. In a way, it is a form of removing freedom of speech. Now, I understand that a lot of the companies that are censoring hate speech are doing it primarily for the sake of sponsors, but I mean this in a more broad scope.
      3. It is effectively hiding societal problems.

      I think one argument for the increased censorship is: even if it doesn't combat hate speech, it stops the spreading of hate speech. By spreading, I mean more people believing that hate speech. Though at first this could be a good idea, I think it is the wrong way to go about it. I really don't know what exactly is the right way to deal with this issue. Maybe more inclusion of different communities? Maybe education? Learn how to think critically?

      Here are a couple other things I have been thinking about, but I am not too sure about. I do not know if they are true or not, but if any of you could provide more insight, I would like to know more:

      1. Hate speech is actually lower than ever. The reason why some people feel like it is higher is because the hate speech is entering to people's bubbles through the internet. Before the internet, there was still that kind of talk, it was just in a different medium.
      2. Though not hate speech, but in a way related, with Anti-vax, the people who are most susceptible to converting to an anti-vaxxer, are parents. A lot of times these are the people who didn't grow up with the internet, the way they view the internet is not exactly how younger people view the internet. There is more doubt in what we see online between younger people than older.

      And I have had people say I must be a white upper class person to have these kinds of opinions. No. I am not white. Not upper class. I have dealt with racism in one way or another for all of my childhood, less so as an adult.

      28 votes

    14. Experimenting with a way of avoiding deeply nested comment threads

      ~tildes.official Text 555 words
      One of the difficulties with a nested/tree commenting system is finding a way to deal with threads that get very "deep", when people continue replying back and forth under the same threads. The...

      One of the difficulties with a nested/tree commenting system is finding a way to deal with threads that get very "deep", when people continue replying back and forth under the same threads. The deep threads end up getting indented very far, and this looks bad, can be hard to follow, and wastes a ton of space (especially on smaller screens like phones).

      I'm not a huge fan of any of the ways that I've seen other sites try to handle this, so I've been trying to figure out if there might be any other possibilities that would work well. I've noticed that in most of the cases where a thread gets very deep, a lot of the depth comes from back-and-forth replies, where there's only one comment on each "level". So I'm testing a method that will flatten those sections out and just put a note on each comment that it's a direct reply to the comment above it.

      Specifically, the current method (which is now live), works like this: if a comment is at least 4 levels deep and only has a single reply, don't indent the reply any further. Instead, keep the reply at the same indentation and add a note at the top of it indicating that it's a reply to the above comment.

      I managed to implement this entirely through CSS, by writing what's probably the worst best chunk of CSS (really, SASS) of my life, which I want to show off here. If you don't know CSS and can't read this, trust me, you're better off:

      .comment:not([data-comment-depth="0"]):not([data-comment-depth="1"]):not([data-comment-depth="2"]):not([data-comment-depth="3"]) {
  &[data-comment-replies="1"] {
    & > .comment-tree-replies {
      margin-left: -1px;  // compensate for border

      & > .comment-tree-item > .comment > .comment-itself {
        & > .comment-text::before,
        & > header > .is-comment-deleted::before,
        & > header > .is-comment-removed::before {
          content: "(Reply to above comment)";
          font-size: 0.6rem;
          font-style: italic;
          margin-right: 0.2rem;
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

      One of the really interesting things about implementing this entirely in CSS is that we can easily change what level it happens at based on screen size. So I have it set to always start at depth >= 4 right now to help with testing and deciding whether it works well or not, but if we decide to keep it I could easily change the threshold to higher on desktop and keep it lower on smaller screens.

      As an example of how it works, the previous ~tildes.official thread works really well. @Amarok and @cfabbro had a long discussion about music metadata that went very deep. The thread ends up 16 levels deep, but this new change makes it so that it only indents by 5 levels instead of 16. Here's a comparison between how the end of the thread looks on my phone: before this change vs. after this change (yes, something's not quite right with the indentation lines yet).

      Let me know what you think. I'm mostly concerned that this might make it a little harder to follow long threads since the information from the indentation is lost, but I think we need to test it out in real threads for a while to see if that actually ends up being significant or just takes a bit of getting used to.

      76 votes

    16. Which smartphone and carrier are you using? (USA only)

      ~tech Ask (survey)
      For the past five or so years I've been using prepaid mvno carriers (in the us btw) and buying my own phone. It's somewhat of a frustrating experience trying to figure out which phones will...

      For the past five or so years I've been using prepaid mvno carriers (in the us btw) and buying my own phone. It's somewhat of a frustrating experience trying to figure out which phones will actually work with which carrier. There's a lot of very attractivly priced phones from Chinese companies that unfortunately just don't support the u.s. LTE bands that i need. Im not really the kind of person who wants to buy a $600+ flagship and carrier offerings are generally abysmal and overpriced.
      I also don't feel like I have very many options for carriers as I Live in a fairly rural area where t-mobile gets fairly spotty coverage. I have seen compelling options for Verizon if I wanted 4+ lines (it's only me and the wife right now, so that doesn't help us much) .
      I'm definitely jealous of people in Europe and parts of Asia when it comes to cellphone and internet options.

      16 votes

    20. MLS Week 8: All Matches Discussion

      ~sports.football Ask
      LAFC @ Vancouver RSL @ FC Cincinnati MNUFC @ Toronto FC Houston @ LA Galaxy Colorado @ Chicago Montreal @ Philadelphia Vancouver @ Orlando FC Dallas @ Atlanta Portland @ Columbus NYRB @ New...

      LAFC @ Vancouver
      RSL @ FC Cincinnati
      MNUFC @ Toronto FC
      Houston @ LA Galaxy
      Colorado @ Chicago
      Montreal @ Philadelphia
      Vancouver @ Orlando
      FC Dallas @ Atlanta
      Portland @ Columbus
      NYRB @ New England
      SKC @ San Jose
      NYCFC @ DC United
      Seattle @ LAFC

      8 votes

    25. Nootropics & Student

      ~health Ask (survey)
      What do you guys think about nootropics for Uni student, is it safe, efficiency and helpful especially for normal people? Did you tried any of them ? And what is your opinion? I'm interested in...

      What do you guys think about nootropics for Uni student, is it safe, efficiency and helpful especially for normal people? Did you tried any of them ? And what is your opinion?

      I'm interested in mood/motivation & memory drugs.

      I have done a bit reswarch over internet, but I'm not sure about what I did read.
      And sorry I don't know if this post should be here or in ~envo

      7 votes

    34. Do you enjoy programming outside of work?

      ~comp Ask (survey)
      I have found this to be a semi controversial topic. Its almost becoming a required point for getting a new job to have open source work that you can show. Some people just enjoy working on...

      I have found this to be a semi controversial topic. Its almost becoming a required point for getting a new job to have open source work that you can show. Some people just enjoy working on programming side projects and others don't want to do any more after they leave the office.

      Whats your opinion on this? Do you work on any side projects? Do you think its reasonable for interviewers to look for open source work when hiring?

      16 votes

    41. Does anyone have any experience in renting their home out and being a landlord?

      ~life Ask
      I am helping my parents rent out their place in Seattle. I posted it on Zillow, we got tons of traffics and interest. I now need to get the rental agreement in order. Does anyone have an informed...

      I am helping my parents rent out their place in Seattle. I posted it on Zillow, we got tons of traffics and interest. I now need to get the rental agreement in order.

      Does anyone have an informed opinion on where to get the agreement template from? I see at least 2 good options, please help me choose.

      1. Legal Zoom ($29)
      2. eForms (Free)
      7 votes