I think the nazi bar argument holds only partially for Lemmy. But yes, I do largely agree that especially lemmy.ml really does a stellar job tarnishing the image of this section of Fediverse.
Mostly the context here is that it is something that people report as their reason for giving up on the Threadiverse. In that sense, it even being true or not is irrelevant in that it is a problem that substantially hinders growth either way.
That said, I do sadly think it is true. I often block communities where this happens but whenever I take a peek at them anyway I see daily calls for actual murder even in like meme communities. Separately from the utility of such actions, it becomes wearisome to always have to read or be forced to block the vast majority of the Threadiverse in order to avoid such. Case in point: 🌽 (an effort to fight against all the doom and gloom USA politics posting).
Edit: but here is a test that you can do. Imagine you are a mainstream normie user, scroll through All or better yet just go straight to [email protected] and reply to a comment there something to the effect that things were slightly better under Biden’s presidency than under Trump. When I said something the tiniest bit positive (something like at least he lowered gas prices and that was something), I got replies for WEEKS and WEEKS afterwards, long after I stopped responding. And then I did the same thing in a community on lemmygrad.ml. After which I nearly gave up on Lemmy entirely, because it simply wasn’t fun (or worthwhile to me).
Now arguably that is not so much my fault, nor theirs either as that is the purpose of that community and they should be free to do as they please? The issue there - setting aside for a moment the most major considerations of an echo chamber effect where edgelords are encouraged to spill their vitriol rather than speak in a more measured capacity - seems to me to be a mismatch between the usual expectations of someone new coming over from the likes of Reddit, Threads/Facebook, etc. Getting dunked on when you never had an opportunity to read the community sidebar text (Lemmy won’t show it, if you arrive at the post via All, plus many apps seem to go to some lengths to actively hide it behind like 5 clicks in various sub-menus) is not a pleasant experience, and when you see that >90% of posts on Lemmy, if they are not Linux or anime or furry, are related to politics especially USA politics, then I can well understand why someone new does not want to dig through all that trash just to find something worthwhile to read.
Face it: setting aside a superior protocol, what actual content do we have here, that would entice someone to come her from Reddit? We are toxic, and the tools are not easy to use. (… YET! Though PieFed is changing all of that, e.g. the introductory wizard for new users, yay!) Which is why defederating from places like Hexbear is something I strongly support, thereby making it opt-in rather than forcing people to try to find a way to make it opt-out (which on Lemmy is impossible - there is no true instance block, only a horribly misnamed community muting option, which blocks only the tiniest portion of the content from an instance, i.e. it does not in fact block it at all.)
I think the nazi bar argument holds only partially for Lemmy. But yes, I do largely agree that especially lemmy.ml really does a stellar job tarnishing the image of this section of Fediverse.
Mostly the context here is that it is something that people report as their reason for giving up on the Threadiverse. In that sense, it even being true or not is irrelevant in that it is a problem that substantially hinders growth either way.
That said, I do sadly think it is true. I often block communities where this happens but whenever I take a peek at them anyway I see daily calls for actual murder even in like meme communities. Separately from the utility of such actions, it becomes wearisome to always have to read or be forced to block the vast majority of the Threadiverse in order to avoid such. Case in point: 🌽 (an effort to fight against all the doom and gloom USA politics posting).
Edit: but here is a test that you can do. Imagine you are a mainstream normie user, scroll through All or better yet just go straight to [email protected] and reply to a comment there something to the effect that things were slightly better under Biden’s presidency than under Trump. When I said something the tiniest bit positive (something like at least he lowered gas prices and that was something), I got replies for WEEKS and WEEKS afterwards, long after I stopped responding. And then I did the same thing in a community on lemmygrad.ml. After which I nearly gave up on Lemmy entirely, because it simply wasn’t fun (or worthwhile to me).
Now arguably that is not so much my fault, nor theirs either as that is the purpose of that community and they should be free to do as they please? The issue there - setting aside for a moment the most major considerations of an echo chamber effect where edgelords are encouraged to spill their vitriol rather than speak in a more measured capacity - seems to me to be a mismatch between the usual expectations of someone new coming over from the likes of Reddit, Threads/Facebook, etc. Getting dunked on when you never had an opportunity to read the community sidebar text (Lemmy won’t show it, if you arrive at the post via All, plus many apps seem to go to some lengths to actively hide it behind like 5 clicks in various sub-menus) is not a pleasant experience, and when you see that >90% of posts on Lemmy, if they are not Linux or anime or furry, are related to politics especially USA politics, then I can well understand why someone new does not want to dig through all that trash just to find something worthwhile to read.
Face it: setting aside a superior protocol, what actual content do we have here, that would entice someone to come her from Reddit? We are toxic, and the tools are not easy to use. (… YET! Though PieFed is changing all of that, e.g. the introductory wizard for new users, yay!) Which is why defederating from places like Hexbear is something I strongly support, thereby making it opt-in rather than forcing people to try to find a way to make it opt-out (which on Lemmy is impossible - there is no true instance block, only a horribly misnamed community muting option, which blocks only the tiniest portion of the content from an instance, i.e. it does not in fact block it at all.)