Hi all, as with most of you, I’m an immigrant from Reddit. I never used to go on to the NZ or regional subreddits because frankly, I felt very unwelcome and those places were extremely negative.
How then do we build a new community that is based on being positive and accepting, even of those with different points of view, political leanings, religious beliefs or lifestyles? Everyone deserves a voice, no one deserves to be shouted down or made to feel unwelcome or belittled because they have differing thoughts.
Even festering cunts like Brian Tamaki and his ilk, deserve a seat at the table. We live in a free country and that means everyone should get a voice. Everyone gets to speak their piece, even if you don’t like it.
How do we stop this community devolving into yet another online echo chamber?
If this place becomes tolerant of obvious trolls and becomes a right-wing shithole, I’ll find another instance to use and I hope others do the same. Have no interest in listening to idiots who parrot the same selfish crap all day long.
That aside, I think r/nz’s biggest failure was the overwhelming negativity towards everything. I noticed it became particularly bad during the 2021 lockdown and then never got better. Yes house prices suck and politicians suck and crime sucks yadadada. But sometimes people fail to see the bigger picture. At the end of the day I consider myself lucky to live here and not in some festering third world shithole, and am proud to call myself a kiwi.
Having politics siloed off to one part of the site is probably a good step. It doesn’t all need to be political. More importantly, repeating the stuff that upsets you in every fucking thread does no good. Perhaps we need a space like r/casualnz as well, something for specifically lighthearted discussion. Some positivity to balance out the negativity that will inevitably come from discussion here.
All excellent points. There is the offtopic NZ chat, which I think will encompass that light-hearted niche you’re talking about.