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.
I haven’t been able to quite put my finger on why I’m commenting more here and this nailed it.
Yep, I can now see how much of a cesspool Reddit has become when going back and forth between the two platforms. Part of me wants to see the platform grow bigger and bigger, but I fear the same will eventually happen if it gets bigger.
This kind of social media actually seems to work better with smaller communities. Reddit used to have some great niche subs.
I was also a lurker in “the other place”, but convinced myself to participate here since I wanted to help lemmy feel “alive”. Now I really like it and comment regularly.
I’m right there with you guys, would rarely comment on Reddit, but lemmy has been so great and I want to help it flourish as much as I can.
Definitely feels more comfortable here. At first, I thought I wanted all the other refugees to come here and recreate Reddit. But after a few days, I kind of hope no more do. It’s such a nice place here as is.
Not only is it a nice place, but the general vibe feels way more wholesome that the other platform.
same here, I joined lemmy just a few hours ago and it already seems so much better than what reddit has become now.
I was also a habitual lurker. In all my time there I posted maybe 3 comments and that was only because I wanted to be helpful and I knew the answer to very specific questions.
I’m not a very confident person in my interactions with other people, but got inspired by others like yourself that I should be the change I want to see (or something like that, I’m paraphrasing). So I took a deep breath and just started posting whenever I had an opinion, or thought of something that tickled my funny bone. And I have to say I’m enjoying it so far, people are positive and I love the sense of community I’m feeling.
I’m glad I took that step.deleted by creator
That’s fine too. You should do what you feel comfortable with.
This, most of my reddit feed has posts with thousands of comments already. Here, I feel more a part of the conversation.
I love how the number of upvotes on this comment speak to the point your making. And now so am I (former lurker)
Same here m8.
That’s why you gotta hijack comments that are already upvoted.
I have lurked for over a decade on Reddit and finally see value in commenting/posting on Lemmy because the engagement is great!
Habitual reddit lurker checking in! Commenting on Lemmy bc I want to be a part of something. So far everyone here has been very nice.
A small handful of people are working to change that, you find them here and there. Easy to identify as they downvote based on “I don’t like that.”, they’re not really capable of greater complexity usually. Or that’s how it seems anyway.
We should expect it to get worse though, as our population grows. It’s inevitable, the internet is the internet. Our initially strong culture is an excellent sign though, if our growth continues at a measured pace, we should be able to maintain it for some time.
Especially the upvote/downvote system drives bandwagon behavior. If a post gets like 3 downvotes and the next gets 2, people just look at the votes and assume who’s right and follow that. They will literally think votes decides what’s right. Though when you’re on the other side of that, it’s also important to know that votes don’t matter and it doesn’t mean you’re wrong. It’s also important to know when to leave a conversation when it stops being a discussion and turns into an argument. Arguments are literally useless and just aggravating, which people won’t admit that they love.
The reddit behavior certainly still comes out. But an upside about decentralization is you can block the instance they’re from since that annoying behavior tends to follow the same company and you probably block a lot more annoying people as a result.
I’ve looked at comments I didn’t feel like reading, looked at the score then voted based on that. This is a bias we’re all subject to, knowingly or not.
You see a comment had -20 downvotes your interpretation of the contents is immediately swayed to side with the majority. Removing downvotes
looking at you beehawalso doesn’t solve this problem. Less likes than the person who responded to you? You must be wrong.So I’m glad Lemmy, at least the browser version, shows both up and downvotes by default and the total score is hidden away in the top right. Helps remove a little bit of bias.
I don’t think hiding the vote count is a bad idea though. Keep the upvote/downvote system and let it sort which comment is on the top and whatnot, but who does seeing the score really benefit? There is no winner or loser, and the score doesn’t matter, so why is it kept anyways? The goal in the end should conversation.
Yes, it absolutely does. But I think it’s still worth it to have a downvote system.
I’m glad we can even see the exact ratio, too. The more transparency, the better.
At the same time, it would be cool if users could just sort by means other than votes. If you’d like, it’d be nice if you could hide the votes altogether so you don’t see them. I wouldn’t do this, but I support having the option to for those who would.
We have the momentum now, and that makes a world of difference. Lemmy isn’t beholden to any “engagement” metrics, so all the dark patterns that infect other social media have no incentive here. The internet wasn’t always toxic (as a general statement). People engage more in conflict than in an interaction with no winners and losers, we’re just hardwired that way. The “Web 2.0” crowd hijacked that to keep us in front of more ads for longer, “Hur-dur, number go up.” Without those institutional incentives I’m very hopeful that the strong foundation of the Lemmy community can “hug it out” with the few rage baiters that are bringing their bad habits here.
Bad, nasty people are not few in number, you’re describing a very significant percentage of the Earth’s population. Billions of them, probably. My irl sample has a great many, at least.
But we can certainly do our best. If we want to see a certain type of world, we are ultimately responsible for fighting for it, or we’ll never even deserve it in the first place.
edit billions, not trillions
I don’t believe that’s the case, we have a tendency to put bad people in a spotlight so they end up being a part of our life more than they should, but not because they are so common.
I think it doesn’t help that a lot of our understanding of how people act is based in debunked psychology studies from an era where cocaine was part of a healthy and complete breakfast.
This is a worthy debate. But I think to really get anywhere you will need new population studies like that.
I’m going off my strength in the subject of history, mainly. Norms were once quite different from today. Humans did not naturally acknowledge rights, they acknowledged tribes of various sorts.
What The fuck did you say to me?
I said you’re wonderful stranger. Keep being you (unless you are a dickhead. But I’m sure you’re not)
What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I’m the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You’re fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You’re fucking dead, kiddo.
Big. Meaty. Claws.
That’s the dumbest shit I’ve read today. Delete your account please /s
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?
This happened a few weeks ago when a bunch of people from reddit first started hopping over. They gave some reasons for why they were doing it. Like how they want to curate a specific type of instance, keep it smaller, they don’t want people that have very different opinions from them because they want a safe space, moderating was becoming a challenge. Some people from other instances were saying that Beehaw seems like they want a walled garden. It’s too bad because they had some good communities.
No. We don’t ; -)
Does anyone else feel like we’re kinda waiting for the other shoe to drop though?
We did see a bit of drama that resulted in various instances being defederated, and even if Lemmy is more resistant to corporate bullshit there are some people and groups out there whose sole purpose seems to be ensuring that nobody else can have nice things.
I’m hoping that the people who contributed fine work towards tools for Reddit will be willing to help improve Lemmy as well, but as the same time users need to understand that while the experience is very “Reddit-like” there are some serious differences in technology and implementation that are going to lead to interesting and potentially unforeseen bumps in the road for the future
Yea, I think as soon as there’s enough people, like where you feel you can no longer write a multi paragraph comment, is when it will have dropped.
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Just you wait m8.
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.
Fark?
Also, pre-digg, most people used webforums like vbulletin or phpbb. Which, honestly, I prefered to this centralization of information you have today on reddit/discord/etc.
Complete with lemonparty hackers lmao
I like lurking, with a comment here or there. I have noticed the comment sections are giant circle jerks with everyone congratulating each other on how smart and civil they are. Better than aggression and trolling but still… ew.
That was a very insightful point and I appreciate your delicacy in delivering it. Congratulations.
i used to love r/yourjokebutworse when it was still new. then people started doing the exact same thing in the comments that they were making fun of. im jerking myself off writing this i know
So many posts right now are “DAE think Lemmy > Reddit?” If anything, people are more anonymous here, so it is only a matter of time before the amount of users brings in more toxicity. But just like reddit, users can avoid toxicity outrage baiting, and other issues by joining better (smaller) communities instead of echo chambers.
You have noticed normal adults. Congrats. Nothing gross about civility.
I dont think civility is gross, but I do think gloating about is gross.
Literally no one is acting any different than on Reddit, but somehow everyone is pretending they are.
Like they didn’t just come from reddit themselves lol.
I’ve seen way more arguing than agreeing, but maybe it’s the communities I frequent.
I already see it and it bums me out. People are already stepping in a discussion just to be aggressively mean for no reason. I hope we can reply to them with patience instead of feeding the monster (or, just, y’know, don’t engage)
Grumblegrumble this is our chance to be different!
People are already stepping in a discussion just to be aggressively mean for no reason
YOUR MOTHER!
This made me laugh way too loud at the break table, I love you
And my axe!
Gonna need a lot of Axe after your mother!
Heyoooo!
More like some Raid, she’s been pushing daisies for a while.
Also eeeww…
Yep, that and people bringing along all the mindless echo chambers and circlejerking I was hoping to leave behind on reddit.
People hated reddit for these reasons, and many of us left reddit for these reasons, and now these toxic assholes are doing everything they can to make lemmy just like reddit.
I wish those people would just stay on reddit. If they want to make lemmy like reddit why did they even leave??
So… people should disagree with each other just to disagree?
If you’re talking about biased mods, then I completely agree. But as far as the community, of course people are going to agree with what’s popular and disagree with what isn’t.
That’s what makes things popular and unpopular.
This is a real braindead take and I’m not sure what point you are trying to make here. If you can’t tell the difference between circlejerks and echo chambers, and people simply discussing things they mostly agree with, that’s your own problem.
Doesn’t mean it’s not a real issue or a thing that even exists, that’s just a silly thing to even say.
Lol, what?
I’ve been trying my best to reply to such comments with kindness and what they could have done to make their comment more constructive. Lot’s of people react on emotion and sometimes they just need a bit of guidance to engage constructively. Others that are both unhelpful and rude get a report also.
I was aggressively downvoted for saying conservatives aren’t all greedy selfish assholes, and providing links to liberal sources to back up my claims.
The left hates it when people who aren’t the left are allowed to speak.
Do you think -and I really mean this in earnest- that saying people unfairly slander conservatives and then unfairly slandering the left is counterproductive?
I didn’t slander shit. I posted two facts. Facts can’t be slander. You know I’m right, and you’re perfectly capable of using a search engine so don’t even bother going that route, I’m not here to teach you.
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.
Didn’t Romania fight on the Axis side for the majority of WW2? Wouldn’t fighting against the Soviet Union potentially colour someone’s thoughts on them?
It’s complicated. A military coup happened against the King and put fascists in power. That’s when getting friendly with Germany happened. Later on the King regained control and that’s when Romania switched sides to the allies.
And lol no, I don’t think fighting on the axis is the reason why people have a sour view on Russians and the USSR. I think the way the Soviets treat people is the reason they have a bad reputation.
You think it’s an accident that as soon as the USSR broke up the bordering countries tried to join NATO asap?
Interesting stuff.
Thanks for the history lesson.
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?
How dare you say something like this? Who do you think you are?!
j/k of course. This community has definitely been like a breath of fresh air after metaphorically living for years in a crowded bunker where everyone was constantly passing gas. I’m happy to be here.
[cracks fingers]
You…
Me about to tear this guy apart:
No, you! Grabs pitchfork.
Lemmy is new and it’s not very big yet. If it grows big enough it will be eventually
This, we’re still on our honeymoon
Maybe also because of the learning curve. Those who find to bothersome to set up accounts on their preferred instances will just give up and stick to whatever toxic platform they’re currently using. In other words, I’d like to think of fediverse users as smarter than most.
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.
There is always a balance between quantity and quality.
Defederation will likely be a useful tool if we start growing too big. But also reddit, Facebook, twitter will still exist and capture the worst users.
I believe there is a critical mass of smart people that can repel idiots from a platform, which we have and need to protect. But that’s just my intuition, I’m not really sure.
this tbh no platform survives a flood of new users
Is it the volume of users or volume of cretins and bigots? I feel that if you flood any site with 100k Shakespeare’s and Dali Lama’s the discourse would improve. Lowering the bar of entry into any technology dillutes the quality, e.g. driving. Perhaps the only solution is to make it easier to move on. The federated nature of this platform is a move in that direction and cause for optimism.
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 like the mental imagery of us all being in a Lemmy-shaped spaceship, traveling to an exoplanet to start a new society because the Earth was destroyed by corporate greed. We’re all laughing and joking together, there’s free pizza, lots of nerdy discussions, and the atmosphere is jubilant, having escaped our dystopian living conditions and feeling hope for the future.
This is the best. I loved Reddit but I’m glad to have moved on. I still log in sometimes just to unsubscribe from old subreddits haha
I cannot figure out how to unsubscribe using the official app, so I figure my account is just abandoned. Not that I contributed much anyway.
The official app sucks and same
I think the transparency goes a long way to keeping the platform (instances) high quality.
My very first ever post on Reddit,12 years ago, the first commentor called me a fa**ot and the second commentor told me ‘KYS’. I posted a picture of a dog sitting in the driver seat of a car with his elbow hanging out and he was wearing a sweater. It was discouraging to say the least and burned me pretty bad. I deleted the post, tried to wipe it from my memory, continued on reddit for the next decade treading lightly knowing how toxic and mean it could be.
Here’s the picture in case you want to see it and say nice things. I thought it was worthy.
this is the kinda shit that’ll do real numbers here on lemmy
What a disguished looking dog. Is that a cardigan? Thank you for contributing fellow lemming.
It is a cardigan with a collard shirt. The way his elbow is propped and the glare he’s giving me…one of the luckiest days of my life.
I totally don’t see that as a glare - to me it’s more like “hey there”. Relaxed, bit of eye contact. Lovely.
I think you lost a sylab
I love that he even has a nice collared shirt
Cute and meme-worthy!
Since you said so… https://imgur.com/a/Ao7j3yY
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He is my spirit animal and reddit origin story. A friendly lemmy user suggested I turn him into a meme. He is so worthy of being seen. I parked next to this dog 12 years ago, took this pic, best day ever.
havent used this word in years but all i can think is “this dog has swag”
Definitely cooler than me and most the people I know
I’ve been at various points on reddit where I would open the replies in a background tab and just close it without reading them… or, and maybe this sounds weird, hold my hand up over replies so I could screen them without reading them so I could ignore insulting or provocative replies and not be tempted to engage.
I quite litterally never posted or commented anything on Reddit, just couldn’t stand being absolutely shitted on if I said something wrong.
I’ve commented plenty enough but did definitely decide often that it wasn’t worth it. I do try to consider people’s interpretations of things I say, but words still don’t always come out as intended. Sometimes I’d hava a hit. Occasionally I’d be down voted somewhat heavily. Usually I’m stressing over what I say and it gets maybe 10 upvotes…
At this point I’ll probably still do that contemplating before posting thing, because frankly, despite it not really impacting my life, it can still hurt to be down voted on a comment you carefully wrote and curated.
