What are the least welcoming online communities?

September 1, 2021 1:07 PM

I'm starting some research into online communities, and one thing I've noticed is that some large internet communities/interests are much more welcoming to new/unestablished members than others. For some topics, if you publicly post "I really like X" you will generally get encouraging responses that assume you will positively contribute to the community. But for others, you will get accusations of being a "fake fan" and hazing/harassment behavior designed to keep you out. What large communities and subcultures seem generally distrustful towards strangers?

The communities I'm most familiar with (gaming and related subcultures) definitely have a reputation for not being very welcoming. Obviously other communities with a strong demographic overlap with gaming (ie comics) are similar, but I'm interested in the more detailed reasons that might make a particular community (1000+ people so larger than a forum where everyone knows each other) more or less welcoming than others with similar demographics. I'm posting here because I haven't had much luck finding hard academic research on this topic, but I'd appreciate any links to hard data. I have my own suspicious as to what might make a particular group more or less paranoid, and I'm sure others do too so feel free to speculate about why. Thanks!

posted by JZig to Computers & Internet (17 answers total)

The Mr. Money Mustache forums can get pretty spicy for people who show up without a cursory knowledge of the FIRE movement and principles, or those who try to justify "facepunch-worthy" behavior.
posted by SinAesthetic at 1:28 PM on September 1, 2021 [3 favorites]

Some but not all sites intended for tradespeople (plumbing, electrical, etc) are either explicitly or implicitly "NO DIY" for advice and questions. Many are fully open for registration and browsing, but have heavily community policed limits on who can ask questions and where those questions are appropriate. One example here, with a clear description of the policy. Not all communities have these rules, here's a one focused in the same area that does not.

I bring this up because those communities may be more open about intentional gatekeeping rules that may mirror some of the implicit gatekeeping you see in other areas.
posted by true at 1:31 PM on September 1, 2021 [2 favorites]

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but my account on the Hyster Systers forum was banned, as I am a transgender male. I made an account there for support for a Hysterectomy, due to Fibroids.

Their Transphobia against non-women with uteruses is even enshrined in their Guidelines.
posted by spinifex23 at 1:32 PM on September 1, 2021 [3 favorites]

If you're specifically interested in hazing rituals, a member of a community I was part of back in the 90s wrote a whole thesis about hazing on our AOL message board. It's a pretty fun read tbh. (For the record, I found the group very welcoming as a young teen, but you definitely had to go through a process.)

Kind of like the tradespeople forums, r/askcarsales can be fairly hostile to people who come in and ask questions they don't like. They're very clear about their rules and violators are not tolerated. I'd imagine they tend to be hostile because, well, people are dicks about car salespeople.
posted by goodbyewaffles at 1:54 PM on September 1, 2021

Femaledatingstrategy.com and the accompanying subreddit. They have a very narrow view of men, women and what hetero relationships should look like. All their beliefs flow from there, which includes being anti-porn, anti-sex work, anti-BDSM and anti-casual sex. They have specific terms for shitty men ("scrotes" or NVM - no value male), women who are desperate for male attention/put men ahead of themselves to their own detriment ("pickmeisha") and good men who know what they want and are supportive of women (high value male - HVM). They trash liberal feminists ("libfems") a lot.

Parts of their message is good - work on yourself and vet, vet, vet the guy you're dating. It's better to be alone than in a shitty relationship. But if you don't agree with their positions, you're out. They also say that FDS is not a debate sub.
posted by foxjacket at 1:58 PM on September 1, 2021 [4 favorites]

The Mr. Money Mustache forums can get pretty spicy for people who show up without a cursory knowledge of the FIRE movement and principles, or those who try to justify "facepunch-worthy" behavior.

I don’t think this is a good example because “face punch” thing is meant to be a kind of tough love, not as a way of excluding outsiders. They’re actually very welcoming of newcomers, but, yes, spicily intolerant of spendy behaviors.

I would say dog training forums can be very cliquish. A lot of people know each other in real life, they have super-specific shared opinions about pretty much everything to do with dogs, and there’s a lot of arcane history and terminology involved. Definitley I have never seen the kind of dickish behavior you see on Reddit, for example, but it takes a long time for an outsider to become an insider.
posted by HotToddy at 2:44 PM on September 1, 2021

I find "stack overflow" community pretty harsh if you don't read through the etiquette and/or search the archives for your problem first. If you post an FAQ, expect to be lambasted, then moderated for not following the rules.
posted by kschang at 3:25 PM on September 1, 2021 [8 favorites]

Response by poster: meant to be a kind of tough love, not as a way of excluding outsiders

Kind of hard to tell the difference as an outsider. What other things make it "welcoming of newcomers" to help and counteract that?

A lot of these examples seem to fit into the "We don't like people who ask stupid questions" group, which I hadn't really thought about before but is pretty widespread
posted by JZig at 4:12 PM on September 1, 2021 [1 favorite]

Seconding the Stack Overflow / Exchange sites. On a busy one (say Ask Ubuntu) you'll find several high-Brownie Point members hovering at all times. If you ask a question that's unique but say has a couple of tags the same as an accepted answer, one of the hoverers will flag your question as a duplicate within minutes, and the rest will pile on. The result is that your question can get closed quickly because the folks who live on the site only exist for getting more points, not to actually promote useful answers or even read questions.

The Stack sites over-reward early participation, too. There's a site on which I have one of the very highest ranked answers. Not because it's an amazing answer (it's true and fairly complete, at best) but because it was an answer to one of the first questions on the site. It still picks up points, almost a decade later.

The least welcoming sites I've found are pretty much anything to do with ham radio. There are opinionated, lonely elderly guys with too much time on their hands bickering about … well, everything. On some boards, you are perma-wrong unless you got your Morse ticket during army training for the Korean war: something most of us are prevented from doing purely by age. Curiously, some of the most skilled and knowledgeable hams are also the most kind and helpful, and wouldn't be seen dead on those websites.
posted by scruss at 7:38 PM on September 1, 2021 [3 favorites]

> A lot of these examples seem to fit into the "We don't like people who ask stupid questions" group, which I hadn't really thought about before but is pretty widespread

StackOverflow goes beyond that, into people actively enjoying (and getting upvotes for) being assholes about newbie questions. I think that it actually harms the point of the site, which is nominally for people to get help. It's SO common to see somebody who is confused and therefore unclear post a question, and then get jumped on for not asking it perfectly.

Given the community's behavior, it's basically the LAST place I'd turn with a question, and I would craft it very defensively. I've been programming for ~18 years now, and have asked exactly 2 questions there (I just checked!).
posted by Metasyntactic at 7:40 PM on September 1, 2021 [8 favorites]

Were you also including Facebook groups in your study, or were you focusing more on old-school forums? (Some are helpful and welcoming, others are pretty much shitshows. Still others are in-between: friendly and helpful, but good luck if you inadvertently strike a nerve..). Different communities/forums based around even a (near-)identical subject can provide very different experiences indeed.
posted by gtrwolf at 10:51 PM on September 1, 2021

Not exactly an enclosed community, per se, but this Guardian article highlights the "more or less pure stream of all that is tender in the human heart" in the comments sections of ASMR youtube videos.
posted by Thella at 11:38 PM on September 1, 2021

This is probably controversial, but you may be interested in looking at MetaFilter itself.

Until the last few years, I was baffled by why some of my relatives just would not engage on certain topics, and now I feel it viscerally, and have a much better understanding of why liberals struggle so much with their messaging. I think we tend to attack our own.

There are topics where expressing an opinion that isn't aligned with the site's consensus will get you absolutely shouted out of the conversation. I'm far more progressive than the median US voter, but still will not participate in a lot of the social/political conversations here because it's not safe to express my doubts/uncertainties or ask honest questions that I have. I think there are some valid reasons for this, including the tolerance paradox and wanting discourse to be above the 101-level, but I also think that it goes too far.

So, while I obviously get something out of MetaFilter, the site culture is challenging enough that I absolutely do not recommend it to other people.
posted by Metasyntactic at 12:40 AM on September 2, 2021 [34 favorites]

Regarding what Metasyntactic said, This metatalk thread from 8 years ago might be a good starting point.
posted by true at 6:45 AM on September 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

Everything2 was pretty intentionally prickly to new posters and I think it played a part in why it faded out faster than peer sites.

E2 wouldn't blink an eye if you, or I, or the vast majority of noders here, left and never came back.

I'm far more progressive than the median US voter, but still will not participate in a lot of the social/political conversations here because it's not safe to express my doubts/uncertainties or ask honest questions that I have.

Same. In the thread after Biden cinched the nomination last year, I posted a gentle suggestion that people disappointed that Bernie didn't get it remain calm and focus on defeating Trump that a mod nuked while allowing people to scream about how they were going to get Biden impeached to stand.
posted by Candleman at 9:47 AM on September 2, 2021 [2 favorites]

Another data point: I sometimes watch MGTOW (aka Red Pill) content for the entertainment value. For the record, I am a centrist and a skeptic. I decided to support one guy for his mostly moderate MGTOW views by joining his locals.com channel, paid. It was to my dismay to find other channel participants are mostly ardent antivax alt-right conspiracy theorists who used every chance to derail the convo to antivax, to "dems are out to take our guns" and such talk.
posted by kschang at 11:04 AM on September 2, 2021

I came to say Ask MetaFilter, for exactly the same reasons that Metasyntactic expressed above.
posted by thereader at 3:12 PM on September 2, 2021