We’ve seen people ask questions in bad faith. Where they come in with an agenda, or troll and provoke with replies.
Do you get the sense some people do the same with answers?
I thought this would be a fun sub where foreigners ask questions, ranging from the intricate to the absurd, and locals would answer earnestly. With the understanding that askers have a different background and upbringing. And are often wholly unfamiliar with American life.
But sometimes the replies are defensive, or even combative. It can approach even a mob mentality.
It’s in stark contract to the attitudes of people I interact with in daily life. Everyone I meet is pretty chill.
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It’s the internet, so yes.
Mostly, I think that any topic that takes off trends towards helpful and the trolling takes a back seat.
I know I do sometimes, but it all depends on the topic of the question, the way the question is phrased, how many times it has been asked, how op is responding to questions, etc.
Yes. Absolutely. There are a decent amount of people in this sub who always assume that any, “we do it this way where I live” comment means, “my way is better.” Sometimes people just want to share how their country/culture does something and want to learn how others do that thing. I think people need to give a lot more benefit of the doubt here.
I’ve certainly given alot of sarcastic answers, but not to any question that isn’t obviously in bad faith. If someone’s asking a legitimate question, they deserve a legitimate answer.
Yes, and its very frustrating.
maybe
i just love being able to share my experiences with living my life as an american. it’s fun and makes me think about my life
Oh absolutely. Bad faith answers are an unfortunate fact of life across Reddit in general.
Oh I see it with some answers. I felt bad for the person from Poland asking if we all went to Ivy League Schools today and seeing some of the snarky answers to the question. At the same time I think the mods in this group do a great job at discerning when stuff should stay up or be removed. Some of the best at using their discretion
I’ve noticed bad faith answers when posting here as a foreigner. There a few commenters who have a bit of an obsession with the UK, Germany, or Canada. One user has DMed me and several other British posters here to specifically whine about the UK.
Now I don’t particularly care if someone does or doesn’t like UK. It does make me less likely to post here if I see a comment that’s full of bullshit (*’All Canadians/Germans/Brits hate America blah blah blah’*) sitting at the top of the thread because I’m not posting here to argue with someone.
This subreddit is probably the largest subreddit I regularly use. On the whole, it’s very well-moderated.
Yes, all the time. The worst is watching posters getting downvote nuked for just asking a question, or neutrally saying something that happens to be wrong. Like yeah, people are going to be wrong, that’s what the sub is supposed to be about, education. It honestly annoys me. We should try to be more gracious. The sub would be a lot better for it. And I know that’s a fact because this place during the last presidential election was downright cordial. If we can be friendly enough for politics we can be friendly enough for some Austrian guy who thinks Friends is a documentary.
Yes, all the time. People are really grouchy and get sarcastic. And the culture of downvoting is terrible. Downvote button is there to deal with spam and comments that don’t contribute to the discussion; NOT comments you personally disagree with.
People are jerks on the internet. And reddit is even worse than average internet. Let’s try to be better.
Yeah definitely, it’s one of my main annoyances with this sub even though I love answering questions here. Though I honestly tbf should’ve expected this kind of thing when I joined this subreddit over a year-2 years ago now. Because this subreddit is an American specifically dedicated sub, so you’re inevitably gonna attract the people who are more sensitive about the country. And I did expect that, but still, I joined because I love answering questions in general and giving my opinions on various topics as I’m a very opinionated person who likes to express them somehow since I don’t get to do it much irl. (I don’t really have friends and hardly anyone wants to talk about things I want to)
So I thought why not this sub since I live in America and this sub is pretty active, I didn’t really join because I’m hyper patriotic or anything. But I suspect that’s why some do join, so that’s why you sometimes see smart ass answers from people here. Like when a foreigner asks a question of what we think about their country or something and they reply “we don’t”. Even though it should be obvious they mean what do we think of their country’s culture/do we like it/dislike it, not asking if we think about their country 24/7 or if it just crosses our mind in daily life. For me I always try and be as polite and sincere with my answers as I can on here, so I’m doing my part at least.
Yes, some people on this sub can be trigger-happy, taking the smallest misunderstanding, and turn it into a reason for a fight.
Yup…definitely. No offense taken here. America has pros and cons and the tables could be EASILY turned on anyone posting such things.
Foreigner here. I’ve asked quite a few questions and have many more up my sleeve because I’m genuinely fascinated by the US. I know more about US politics than my own country’s.
I always get absolutely slammed. Everyone takes so much offence to the most innocuous questions when the OP is just curious about something and not espousing their own beliefs or criticising the US. Posts by foreigners are always downvoted into oblivion, and I can only assume that’s because the Americans think everything is an attack.
It’s Reddit. Hell, it’s the internet. Those aren’t the top answers for a reason though. The mods are pretty good at removing stuff that breaks the rules.
There are posters who almost seem angry that foreigners are asking them questions. Like “I don’t know what the hell that is” or “what a stupid question ” sorts of responses.
I honestly don’t know why someone would even post if they didn’t want to, so much, but there are people who react like you’re interrupting their smoke-break or something.
That’s a bit different from people who have been trolled for a bit too long and assume that anyone asking the same question as a troll is also a troll. (From an asker’s perspective, there’s no practical difference in the reaction.)
Part of the problem, I suppose, is that there’s a definite winner/loser undercurrent to a lot of Reddit these days. If I frankly discussed a serious problem I had as an American, someone would definitely say something in the genre of “Hah! I knew it!” or crow about how TheirCountry is better than that. That can make people defensive.
This is all different from people who are what we used to call “agenda posters”. I don’t blame people for having an allergic reaction to them.
Reddit has a lot of weird users, much of this site is bad faith or arguments/rage cycles.
One thing that I think a *lot* of people here forget is that 1) Reddit generally skews much younger than this sub 2) a lot of Reddit users are not fluent in English. Since this sub doesn’t require flairs we don’t always know where people are coming from. So a question like “why do you Americans…?” might come across as an accusation to us, but it may be neutral to a person with limited experience with English. I’ve seen people get downvoted to hell when they’re genuinely trying to understand an explanation and they’re not coming from a bad place. I promise most people are not trying to create SAS material, we can learn to be less defensive.
Yes, I’ve personally noticed this and often times think the level of snark in replies can be uncalled for. Regardless of how many iterations of a past question are asked.
Yes. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell when someone is asking a genuine question or a bad-faith question, but the follow-up comments usually clear that up. I wish we would be a little more patient with these users. If they’re belligerent trolls, then by all means, downvote. If they’re just trying to understand, give them a little leeway.
We are a little defensive here, but it’s mostly because so many people ask bad-faith, trolling questions. The rest of reddit outside this sub is downright hostile. It can be a little exhausting sometimes.
Oh god yes. It’s gotten so bad lately, I’m surprised any non-Americans even ask questions at this point. This subreddit is full of reactionary assholes that are so defensive for no reason. No, not every Australian that asks a question is here to secretly make fun of you.
Just yesterday I called out /u/morosco for being an asshole because the OP was German. They doubled down and said it was justified because most Germans are only here to ask questions in bad faith, blocked me and I ended up getting downvoted. And that’s not the first time I’ve seen shit like that. It’s so pathetic.
Yes…and it’s rude. Especially with foreigners, we should try to give the OP the benefit of the doubt.
I think most frequent this sub with intentions of friendly cultural exchange. The rare time you get a foreign poster with a friendly question, you see lots of positive feedback.
The majority seem to be people coming to soapbox or reinforce what they’ve been propagandized to look down on Americans (or punch up) over. The frequency of those posters sets the tone for the sub. It’s all over social media – this just gives those kinds of posters the opportunity to engage and argue with Americans.
Some people are just really naive and it’s good if they can interact and learn something , but too many post in bad faith and deserve the snark replies. It’s also Reddit culture in general. /r/askeurope /r/askcanada etc arent the friendliest places for Americans either. This is a rare sub on Reddit where Americans will push back rather than kowtowing and self-denigrate – which is shocking to people who thinks that should be the normal response to overwhelming toxic attitudes on social media.