It feels like people are a lot nicer here than on Twitter and Reddit, and even when people disagree, it’s generally civil and not an all-out flame war. Also, there’s no algorithm promoting outrage all the time.
For me, the anticipation of toxicity was a huge deterrent for me ever participating in real discussions, but here I feel like I can be myself.
I think it’s healthier this way.
Add to it, some of us habitual lurkers (me for example) find it not as meaningless to comment. Didn’t want to do it often because most comments get buried and it would feel empty and kinda pointless.
That’s why you gotta hijack comments that are already upvoted.
I stopped regularly using reddit years ago once i realized it was just a boring hivemind circlejerk. I’m pretty new to this lemmy and fediverse thing and I think it’s really cool and refreshing how down to earth and not circle-jerky the communities are. The potential for something awesome is exciting.
Probably because all of us are real people struggling to find an alternative to Reddit where we used to spend our time in. No bots, no algorithms, just real people trying to make our new home a better place.
Yes. People aren’t just saying stupid jokes.
What The fuck did you say to me?
Yet. I think there’s a critical mass aspect to this. The Eternal September of Lemmy is yet to happen
It also comes down to what instance you happen to visit. Lemmygrad for example is a legit tankie cesspit. There’s currently a popular post about Greta Thunberg and it pretty quickly devolves into calling her a traitor, because she met with Zelensky: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/902175?scrollToComments=true . Among other things you will find plenty of justification for the Russian invasion and their war crimes. And the admins openly support trolling outsiders. I’m on the left and I don’t have an issue with Marxism or the concept of communism, but fuck that instance.
I had no idea what “tankie” even was until recently. The internet is so weird.
I think the broad problem with reddit and the like, which will leach into Lemmy with time unless we change things, is the slicing and dicing of the topic that is to be talked about.
When you do this (“oh sorry this is r/typewriters, you should post in r/typewriter_repair instead!”), you treat people as vehicles for content. We make echo chambers and don’t communicate as whole individuals.
So far Lemmy doesn’t have this divide. So far…
When I was on Reddit, I responded to a guy in latestagecapitalism who was talking about how Stalin wasn’t that bad, and how everything we hear about the Soviets is fake information, made up as Western Propaganda.
I chimed in telling him I’m Romanian, and how my grandpa was in WW2. I told him that my grandpa would always tell us anecdotes about how the Russians acted vs everyone else, and if anything it was worse than what we usually think of. Then I said that Stalin is too well known for it to all be fake.
Well the response I got was the guy called my grandpa a liar. Then like 10 minutes later, I got permanently banned from the subreddit.
That is when I learned what a Tankie was lol. And that the subreddit was infested with them.
I took one look at Lemmygrad, and oof.
I can’t stand lemmy grad and I hope every instance defederates soon. They’re absolute scum of the earth edgelord contrarians and nothing more.
I haven’t seen them until this was mentioned.
I hope users one day have the ability to block entire instances on their own.
I sincerely hope it doesn’t. If Lemmy reaches the same levels of toxicity as reddit then I will be moving to a new platform with less people and hopefully less toxicity. Lemmy has opened my eyes to the fact that I don’t have to constantly deal with assholes in order to engage with people online. There are tons of good quality, friendly communities online, you just have to find them.
If Lemmy reaches the same levels of toxicity as reddit then I will be moving to a new platform with less people and hopefully less toxicity.
That’s called “defederating”. The strength of a federated platform, is you don’t need to switch platforms just to switch communities.
Good point. I’ll probably be on lemmy for a good long while in that case 👍
Err… can’t you just stick with smaller instances that don’t federate with the ones you don’t like?
Isn’t that the point of decentralization?
Wait until the dummies figure it out. This is one reason I dread interacting with threads users.
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Summerfags were originally collegefags.
Who knew?
Lemmy is new and it’s not very big yet. If it grows big enough it will be eventually
Sure, but it took years for reddit to devolve into what it is today. It started out as a really great place to read interesting articles on all kinds of topics and have intelligent discussions about them afterwards. Reddit hasn’t been like that in a very, very, very long time but what we have going on here right now is very close to that.
I’m afraid the bots and techniques to troll, manipulate, etc. that have been developed for Reddit, can directly translate to Lemmy. Instances that grow big fast, are likely to get targetted much faster than Ye Olde Reddit was.
I feel like there isn’t a “hive mind” on Lemmy like there was/is on Reddit. Even if just a few folks disagreed with your opinion on Reddit, everyone else felt like they HAD to downvote it too and then the next thing you know, you’re being downvoted to oblivion. Here, it seems that folks actually respect your opinion whether or not they agree with it; and while you may get a few downvotes or more, people aren’t afraid of upvoting your comment either.
Such a different vibe and I’m here for it!
I think a hive mind will develop, just based on the nature of the format. In any community there will be prevailing opinions that are upvoted and dissenting opinions that are downvoted. People are still settling down and searching for their specific corners to camp in, which is why you’re probably seeing more variety for the time being.
Plus Beehaw exists, so there’s your hive mind right there. Get it? Cause they’re bee themed? Beehive?
Is Beehaw like Lemmy? The world feels like it has exploded since Reddit died (imo), I have been never on the niche parts of the internet but this is so interesting and i like it. So is Beehaw worth checking out?
He was joking. Hive mind and Bee -haw. Bees make hive. Source: I do dad jokes too.
I understand the joke lmao, I’m just asking in all honesty.
Beehaw is a Lemmy instance that defederated from a couple of large instances. Lemmy.world being one of them
And they all act like a hive mind, massive circle jerk?
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I find the quality of content to be way higher. People aren’t desperately trying to stand out or fit in with a crowd.
You’re right about the mods, though. All it takes is a large number of reports and they will usually come up with a reason to reprimand you, even if you aren’t breaking any rules.
This, of course, has been and will continue to be abused to drown out people with dissenting opinions.
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That’s not true.
Disagree. I’ve already seen extremely heated discussions.
Let’s enjoy it while it lasts
Not enough people remember pre-Digg Reddit. It was a lot like Lemmy is now. It will all come crashing down eventually.
They always do. Though in lemmys case I imagine it’ll be bigger instances running off with delusional admins thinking they’re some exception to the rule.
I can see some corporation coming along with a very strict adherence to whatever rules they set out becoming a major player in the fediverse.
Usually it’s when mods moderate with an agenda that their instances go to shit.
It’s wild. Maybe it’s a honeymoon period where we’re all in this big spaceship together, or maybe that’s just what it’s gonna be like! There’s a sort of liberating feeling of being on Lemmy that I think brings out the best in people
I think the transparency goes a long way to keeping the platform (instances) high quality.
That’s the dumbest shit I’ve read today. Delete your account please /s
I’m not counting on it staying that way, but that’s ok. Upvote systems, dedicated channels, etc, will always promote a type of groupthink but you can always opt out of a community. Like if Lemmy gets it’s own r/conservative, or something, I would likely not comment there.
That said, there are definitely malicious actors at play on most mainstream platforms, stoking anger and divisiveness. Even proof that fake news is spread for that exact reason. You won’t see that here for a while but if it does come, I’m not sure if this system is setup to protect against it.
One big reason I don’t really want it to be too successful.
In my view, big tech was actually pretty ok until politicians and companies realized they were large influence markets and started messing with them. It doesn’t matter left or right, at that point the platform is broken because you’ve got all kinds of special interests spending money to push their thing.
If it can be big enough to be fun but small enough to fly under the radar, mission accomplished.
I think it should have one, though. That’s where I’m pretty much permissive, people can have shit opinions if they want. At the moment I’m getting spoonfed all kinds of crap in my feed just because there’s not enough activity to direct content I would actually be interested in. Maybe a touch of the echo chamber isn’t a bad thing, up to a point. I’m not sure.