Off Topic Discussion Megathread

[Theodric]

I don't bother with Reddit. The majority of users there aren't interested in a civil discussion and will actively abuse the downvote function at every possible turn. Often over matters that are entirely inconsequential such as liking or disliking specific characters in a fictional setting.

[TheMightyMollusk]

I was on a forum that had a downvote button for a little while. It just encouraged people to downvote people they didn't like, whether they'd actually read the post or not. The button was removed in less than a week.

[ItMe]

I was on a forum that had a downvote button for a little while.

Out of curiosity, which forum was this?

[Kolsykol]

So someone downvoted your commission? Joking aside the big issue with the 14 reddit is that there is an art specific spin off reddit that get neglected while at times the main reddit is swamped with art and little else.

I don't have a Reddit account, I am not talking about myself but a trend I see when I look through Reddit which I still do.
It's a Reddit page for the fans, so ofc people are going to post their art or commissioned art and cosplay.
But people act like art is this great interruption to their highly intellectual threads and posting when in reality it's mostly shitposting.
If art didn't belong there the mods would ban it.
And people also seem to think that if they scroll down and one in twenty posts or something is art that it equates to '' flooding '', you can even hide tags that you don't want to see I think so even if you don't want to see it you can simply hide it.

And I think that if anything that is even remotely even just a little bit suggestive gets treated as '' Hentai '' then maybe things have gone a bit far.
Even moreso if it's from the actual game too.
Like on the Tekken subreddit I've seen Ling in her ingame costume get tagged as NSFW for being cute ( shirtless dudes and male characters in speedos is alright apparently tho ).
It's just ridiculous.

It's probably not all that fun either if you're a cosplayer and you post your cosplay and the whole comment section is people being extremely rude and mocking your physical appearance no matter what, it's not healthy for a community and just makes people feel miserable.

And I mean if you actually legit go to the Reddit page and scroll down.
Be honest here, is it really '' art and little else ''?

I was on a forum that had a downvote button for a little while. It just encouraged people to downvote people they didn't like, whether they'd actually read the post or not. The button was removed in less than a week.

There's pros and cons with it, but I really do think that the cons of downvotes heavily outweigh the pros.

To some extent it's true that people should just ignore it, but at the same time that's not how human beings actually work in reality.
And when it comes to art and cosplay it is very personal to a lot of people.

The reason why I am talking about this is because while I've felt this way since forever about Reddit, I've seen some artists and cosplayers as of late genuinely be negatively affected by it.
And it's also worth considering that it's not always them posting it, often times it's other people posting it and then they get to see the negativity and sometimes even get people from Reddit coming to their other social media just to trash them.

To be honest the 14 reddit has been a meme for ages. From self promoting (usually) lewd art to getting departnered from Discord due to Lalafell "stuff". Its an ever burning trash fire.

I am not going to defend lewding Lalafells and that kind of '' stuff '', like I am not that far down the rabbit hole and I do understand the problem with it from an optics pov.
But I really do think that peoples definition of '' lewd '' is downright petty and insane sometimes.
And it's also extremely biased against female characters.

[Caurcas]

Reddit as a whole is just a trash fire my dude. Also ironically the crapposting 14 reddit is better than the main one. However, to answer your other point it's just people being tired of lewd posting that becomes the norm if unchecked.

[Kolsykol]

Reddit as a whole is just a trash fire my dude. Also ironically the crapposting 14 reddit is better than the main one. However, to answer your other point it's just people being tired of lewd posting that becomes the norm if unchecked.

Except that it's not the norm.
And '' lewd posting '' is even more rare I mean cmon, again go and actually have a look how can you say that?

Part of my point was also the contrast between the comments and the votes on the actual post itself.
Some posts definitely do get downvoted or are a bit more mixed, but even if the post has like 95-99% upvotes the comment section will still be full of negativity and toxicity with positive comments being downvoted.
So why do those negative people get to decide on behalf of the 95-99% people who clearly don't have an issue?

The truth is too that you can hide NSFW tagged art.
Again I do think that the tag gets abused A LOT, but even if you have like some personal issue with '' lewd art '' you can hide it.
And even if you don't hide the tag you literally have to go out of your way to actually click '' show me ''.
But instead people choose to actively expose themselves to it and then throw a tantrum about it in the comments and bully people about it.

People are acting like some angry religious aunt who watched South Park on purpose and then got really mad that they heard the F-word and decided to group up with other aunts to bomb with angry phone calls.

As an Artist, I can say there are a lot of great places to post artwork; Reddit is sadly not one of those places; at least from my experience; as it feels a lot of the time reddit users are very much going to favor what appeals to them the most and very rarely will look at something as a piece of art, but instead as a image of whatever they prefer to be looking at.

I don't exactly blame them, Reddit isn't a art website; although there are art focused subreddits, and those fair much better, but i personally prefer something like DeviantArt, ArtStation, Behance, or Fanfictiondotnet.

EDIT: Nuts, i should post something of substance, xD; uhmm, here's a piece of artwork i was making for Cyberpunk that i never finished.

Really cool art, I enjoy the thick lines especially I am a big fan of that type of lineart.

While it's true that Reddit isn't an art website, the Reddit in question is a page for the fans of the game and they still do have art tags etc.
I mean Reddit isn't dedicated to one thing, but one thing that is part of Reddit is art.
Otherwise a tag wouldn't exist for it.

I mean if we were talking about a political Reddit page for example I could understand people getting mad about it.
But when we're talking about fanart for a video game on the Reddit page for the game I think people getting upset about it are being pretty dumb.
And it's very specifically biased against art too, then these same people sit around shitposting and posting copy pasted memes etc.

Edit: Also I totally agree with you about people being super biased towards what appeals to them personally and that's also part of the issue.
People act insanely entitled and they'll praise art that they personally like but then act as if art they either dislike or are indifferent to don't have a right to exist altogether.

[Caurcas]

Once again, there is a subreddit for 14 art. Nobody uses it and instead dumps them onto the main one.

[Rilifane]

I was on a forum that had a downvote button for a little while. It just encouraged people to downvote people they didn't like, whether they'd actually read the post or not. The button was removed in less than a week.

What I dislike about downvote buttons is that they are an easy way out to disagree with someone or trying to make their input look worthless without ever owning up to it.
Upvote is fine because if you agree with someone, the opinion has already been stated and the reasons for it aswell (usually). But if you disagree with someone, I feel like you're in a position of "having to deliver". You have to give a reason why you think differently, because a simple "You're wrong" is about as useful as a downvote or saying nothing at all.
It adds nothing of value.
But if you have to write an actual reply to something you disagree with you're putting yourself out there, the opinion has a name attached to it and it doesn't matter that it's only a forum name. That alone serves as a barrier that discourages many people from writing that they disagree without giving a reason for it.
But pushing a downvote button is easy and anonymous.

[ItMe]

snip

That is a keen observation, and one I haven't heard before.
I think you're totally spot on.

[Theodric]

I think a lot of Reddit's problems can be attributed to a troubling lack of the 'live and let live' mentality.

The internet is home to people from all over the world. From all sorts of different backgrounds, cultures, countries and belief systems. Yet even something as minor as liking or disliking a specific type of food or a fictional character is enough to draw the ire of a very vocal and spiteful portion of posters on Reddit.

The same individuals are often overly invested in the idea of pressuring others to think and feel exactly like they do. To a pretty alarming degree. It is what it is, I suppose - my personal thoughts on the matter are that the pendulum is probably going to start swinging back in the opposite direction. As it always has throughout history. I just hope it doesn't move too far and comes to rest in a sensible position.

I've had some pretty negative experiences over there, personally. Something as innocent as answering a question about a favourite character can unfortunately turn into a nasty debate because some people can't separate reality from fiction and believe that supporting an antagonist in a fantasy game is equal to supporting murder in the real world.