It was probably suggested before, but the topic is not raised too often so here goes the solution:
- We introduce two types of threads - normal and "controversial/heated/political" (probably there is a better name)
Normal type is for "technical" discussions, where the best answer is accepted as best by some very large percentage of people, lest say 90-99%. The treshold could be a matter of discussion, but you get the idea. So that would be questions like "How to fix dead radiator in PC", "Whats best way to do this or that"
Controversial is for discussion where there is potentially lot of disagreement, but also where there could be just some disagreement, but we want to hear other points of view. So all of the political things, questions about genders, etc, everythign that creates heated conversation. Probably could also be used for humourous topics.
The thread type is set while opening a thread, but it can be changed any time during the discussion by forum moderator
- We leave normal type discussion as they are on reddit/lemmy whatever. For controversial first when user enters the thread, all of the comments are sorted in random order. All of the comments vote scores are hidden. Now user casts votes in "one go". Only until they finish casting votes, other votes are visible for them. Changing already casted votes on these threads is NOT POSSIBLE. They unfortunately cant vote on new comments which were added after they voted. THey are only allowed to vote once. TBH users dont usually come back to threads after they visited them once so its not like we make some common behaviour impossible
This way we eliminate sheep behaviour and demand making their own decision by user. And we force user to be responsible for making a decision. Someone might argue that we sometimes change mind, but it doesnt matter, cause the number of times we change minds is really tiny and the gained changed behaviour is far more valuable. After everything is visible for user they can now sort by most popular comments which is now available.
That should be it. We also might introduce thread freezing if necessary.
What do you think? And also, since lemmy is open source, do you think there is a change that some bigger instance migght create a fork that introduces some of these changes as an experiment?
If USA wants a deal with Russia, I only wonder what can they offer that Europe cannot. They have bigger energy market that's one thing. But USA has it's own resources, will they want to buy oil and gas from Russia in big quantities? They also can't make Russia too strong if they for example want to give them some high tech. Cause Russia will always (?) have better relationship with China than with US (will they?) and if there is 3WW, in current world I think we all agree on the fact that Russia pairs with China against NATO. What else can they offer? I guess keeping supplying Ukraine with military equipment is also some kind of lever. US could just hide this fact from the public. There is also a matter of sanctions but how big of an impact do they have on Russia in reality?
And how does China fits in this?