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:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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…)
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If you see someone making these assumptions, maybe let them know it can be confusing for the others.
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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.
This isn’t a problem that’s unique to Reddit. Americans live in a fairly big country with a lot going on and do have a tendency to forget that there is a world outside (source: I’m from the UK and worked in the US for a while).
It’s particularly obvious on Reddit because it is actually a very international community and so you see the mismatch much more obviously than you would chatting to an American at home. It’s a fairly built-in feature of American culture, but yes it would be good if this was a space where people were always gently reminded of accidental US focus.
As a non-American I really appreciate this
I personally agree. I’m from the U.S. but also have been an expat for over a decade. Honestly it bugs me too how much Reddit, as well as other sites, just use the U.S. as the default. The U.S. is definitely important, but it’s not the center of the world.
I wish people would learn and use the ISO 3166 codes for their area. For example, US-DC, GB-LND, AU-ACT, etc. Unambiguous, easy to look up, short to write, etc. Just takes a super quick search. I know it’ll never happen, but standards are great!
The problem with standards is that they are named shit like ISO 3166. The standardization organizations went to far and standardized the naming of standards.
It should be something like “globally unique area codes”, which also makes a nice acronym.
Well, FWIW, ISO 3166’s full name is Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions. “ISO 3166” is just easier to type and refer to.
Though GUAC would be a great acronym, lol.
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.
Last year, or the year before, I was on a private Discord server. Some new user just logged in, and I asked them “Where are you from?”, and they replied “I’m from Cali.” I thought to myself “Wonderful, a Colombian dude whom I can speak in Spanish with”, until some other user asked “How is the weather in Los Angeles?”. Dude, to me Cali is not California, but a Colombian town.
This is written by a Spanish user.
Reminds me of the time my dad met someone with a thick southern accent who said he was from LA - Lower Alabama
I know that because I actually had the same exchange once years ago and it also took me a second to put together.
See, to me that speaks to a lack of awareness. I live 30 minutes from a town called Dublin. But if someone on the internet starts talking about “Dublin”, I’m going to assume the city in Ireland, not the town near me.
The weird part here is that when stumbling into a bunch of strangers online, the logical thing to start with would be the country, and not a slang name of one state.
Imagine someone on CoD tells you they’re from Gròśč, you’d probably be like wut?
California has 39 million people in it, is the size of Italy, is the 5th largest economy in the world, and has a massive cultural presence. It’s not “just a state”. Anyone who speaks English or Spanish should be aware that California is part of the US, much like everyone should be aware that Spain is in the EU. It’s part of the common body of knowledge we should all know.
Cali is the actual name of the Colombian city. "Cali” is, as @jcb2016_, said, just a ghetto way of saying “California”.
In any case, the lack of awareness comes from whoever defaults everything to the USA.
Cali, Colombia: 2.2 million residents
California: 39.2 million residents, not to mention much more recognizable in the broader English and Spanish speaking culture
It’s not “just” a ghetto way of saying California, it’s a very common phrase across the English speaking world, like saying “US” instead of “United States”. You didn’t recognize it. That’s fine. You don’t have to be offended by it. Next time you’ll know.
To me this says you’re intentionally looking for something to get offended about. Most people would go “ha, funny mixup” and then move on with their life.
“See, to me that speaks to a lack of awareness.” and now "To me this says you’re intentionally looking for something to get offended about.”
Nice way of going around life just making wild assumptions about everything so your imagination carving for drama gets pleased, but no one is getting remotely offended. Plus you’re wrong, ask any Spanish speaking person where Cali is and they’ll say Colombia.
Illuminate me with your logic then… If I say I’m from Mexico, am I from New Mexico USA since it’s much more recognizable in the broader “English and Spanish speaking culture”? Or am I from Mexico City since it has more residents?
But all righty then, let’s just inherit the Reddit way and dismiss this entire thread (buncho’ offended foreigners looking to get offended, pshh…), and just default every conversation, place, name, and topic to the USA. 👍
Plus you’re wrong, ask any Spanish speaking person where Cali is and they’ll say Colombia.
No, they won’t. Especially as you described the conversation that elicited the anger as occurring in English, on a predominantly English platform. If you were in Spanish speaking, South or Central American forum speaking in Spanish? Then yes sure. The situation you described, then no.
As I said elsewhere in this thread…people with a mindset like his are probably 13 and very sheltered/insular. Imagine the kind of person so ill informed as to not know “Cali” usually refers to “California”, and then the type of person to get offended about it…
ask any Spanish speaking person where Cali is and they’ll say Colombia.
I asked 4. “When I say Cali, what place do you think of?” All 4 immediately said California. One also said, “oh yeah I guess that’s a city in Colombia too right?” He’s from Chile.
Just face it. You’ve got a small, local view of the world. The vast majority of the globe is familiar with California, and not with one city in Colombia. Take this as a lesson that you should broaden your horizons.
Also
If I say I’m from Mexico, am I from New Mexico USA
That just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Mexico the country is far more widely known than New Mexico the state. Someone says Mexico, everyone assumes the country.
Same as my Dublin example above. If I say I went to Dublin when talking to my neighbor, they’ll probably understand I’m talking about the city near me. If I say it to a stranger on the internet, they’ll think I was in Ireland. That’s normal. I wouldn’t expect them to know that Dublin is the name of an American city. I need to clarify.
Again, I think you just don’t have much experience in the world and only know what’s common in your little corner of it. You’re in a global community now and you need to learn what’s normal here.
Proceeds to write a whole comment about how not offended they are actually. Cali is an incredibly common shortening of the most populous and one of the most talked about US states. It’s also common in American media, which in my experience many foreigners consume. American media that was probably made in Cali. I think they could just chalk this up to a regional misunderstanding and forget it, unless it is just an easy way for them to start arguments with Americans. I’m just surprised it’s not Europeans this time, I thought they had it trademarked.
Well, the Americans also seems to have to specify their jurisdiction because each state has its own laws (not to mention no standardized law enforcement).
I thought the same thing today lol
Some /m/worldnews thread and the topics was ‘Texas installs panic buttons for classrooms’…yeah nice 'world’news. I guess when your whole world is the USLol “World News” never is and never will be until mods start deleting articles that are entirely American. One of the top posts from [email protected] is that an Evangelical Christian from America died…
Tb fair, not as an American, when is something world news? The news has to have an origin. Though panic buttons doesn’t sound new, so it probably wouldn’t be worldnews
I’d say something that may have an international or global effect. Like wars, alliances, global trends, plus stuff outside politics.
Single-country news can be significant too. The Canadian wildfires are world news to me because they have close to global effect and reflect the overall climate picture. Presidential elections anywhere are too, because they effect international relations and reveal wider trends.
I agree. I may be guilty of it, being from the u.s. and all, but I try to make effort to add detail for global community when it comes to location-based topics.
It’s crazy how big u.s. is, it can’t help but default, plus we’re largely idiots here lmao.
Ask me to convert 1 foot to millimeters…ain’t happening without a chart lol. Damn public education system!!!
I’m gonna make a conscious effort everyone.
1 foot is roughly .3 meters (which is 300 millimeters) :)
Oh snap! I’m gonna keep a laminated lemmy conversation chart on my at all times (:
There are about 450 million people who speak English as their primary language. About 300 million of them are American.
If you’re communicating with a stranger in English and you don’t know they’re nationality, the odds are heavily in favor of them being American. Like it or not, we’re the default.
Except that billions of people can communicate in English, so your assumption is completely off. Not everyone speaks only one language or only uses their primary language on the global network.
Your assumption is completely off. My assumption is completely correct. I was talking about native speakers, as I clearly stated in my post. Your assumption that I meant to include everyone who can speak English is off.
I can speak Spanish. It is correct for someone in a Spanish speaking community to assume I’m from a Spanish speaking nation, because that’s the most likely scenario.
If you read English on the internet it’s more likely that it’s not written by a native speaker, since there are more people who write in English as a secondary language than there are native speakers.
And you can usually tell the ESLs because they usegrammar in an unnatural way, either very stiff and formal or with a heavy dose of influence from their native language.
Lol dude. Plenty of people who speak English as a second language can speak (and write!) fluently and “naturally” with few errors.
This is confirmation bias. You assume anyone who writes a certain way online is a native speaker, but you have no way of actually knowing that unless they explicitly say so.
I do not assume anyone who writes a certain way online is a native speaker. I assume anyone who writes a certain way is an American. We are the largest group of native English speakers online, especially in forums that aren’t dedicated to a specific country.
usegrammar
Ah, so I see English isn’t your first language?
A typographical error is not a grammatical error. It’s nice to see people will always fall back on attacking the person when they don’t have a valid point.
You know, my favorite thing about Lemmy showing both upvotes and downvotes is that not only do we see that a lot of people disagree with you, but more specifically that, since you’re the only one upvoting yourself, literally everyone else can tell that you’re wrong.
You know it’s not that hard to just admit that you were wrong. It was an easy mistake to make, so just admit it and move on. Realize that you can learn and improve. Doubling down just to make yourself seem more like an idiot is never the answer. Everyone is capable of being stupid and making mistakes, but it’s the real idiots who are incapable of learning from them.
It’s actually closer to 1.5 billion TOTAL speakers of English. Most English speaking people learned it as a second language.
Edit: billion not million
True. Additionally, the US doesn’t even have an official language, English or otherwise. Americans don’t have a monopoly on the language. No one does. Not even the English.
*billion
Thanks. Not sure why I typed that lol
I’m from the US, and I understand the frustration. But something to keep in mind is that reddit was built in the US, so the first users of the site were also from the US. Hence the original subreddits defaulting to the US.
At the same time, I propose that the fediverse doesn’t turn into an “America Bad” circle jerk like it turned in to on reddit.
No, it’s a consequence of normies.
The original Reddit, like Slashdot, and Dig to a lesser extent, defaulted to a global community. These places started out by attracting nerds from across the globe. Nerdy communities are internationalist, and fluent in English. So there was a tacit understanding that English was simply Esperanto and that anyone could be from anywhere.
Slowly getting mainstream, Reddit started attracting randos. And American randos apparently associate English with themselves, completely lost to the fact that something like half of the planet uses it as a common language. So I sat and watched as the overall tone of the place went from a spaceship, to Chick-fil-A, Podunk.
Sauce: English as a second language and been there from the start.
I don’t think you understand. The heavy majority of users were from the US, if 95% of the posts are about the US, it’s safe to assume it’s the default. The website was built in the US.
It’s akin to going on a forum for Japanese news and being upset that everyone’s speaking Japanese and no ones specifying that they’re talking about Japan.
That’s besides the point anyway, people not from the US are frustrated that Reddit defaulted to the US, and I get it. I would be too if I wasn’t from the US.
I’m ALSO frustrated because the US can come up out of no where on reddit and everyone starts the US apart from seemingly no relation to the original post.
If you saw some of the comments on reddit that were shitting on the US about literally ANY other country, you would without a doubt be pissed off, especially if it was your own country. And it happens ad nauseum when it comes to the US.
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.
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.
Looks like the America Bad nonsense has already started here smh
Reddit was >75% US users for a long time. It just wouldn’t have been practical to specify the US on every post when it was almost always about the US anyways.
