As a long time Reddit user, there’s something about Lemmy and the fediverse that feels really refreshing and new. I think it has to do with a few things…
- People are more respectful of each other and interested in discussion and being social.
- Less trolls (users are probably older?)
- Due to it not being absolutely huge, I feel like people will actually see my posts and comments instead of being lost in a sea of content. I suppose once Lemmy grows this will change, however the cool thing about the fediverse are the new servers. So you can stick to the server when you want smaller community discussion and go to “all” when you want more populated threads.
- The clean UI feels refreshing and clean, almost like the early internet.
What have you noticed? Do you find it refreshing too?
This is how Reddit felt 15 years ago. This too can slide in the wrong direction, so we’ll have to be cautious
There’s no way to prevent it entirely. A larger community will slide that way.
I do think that it can be less encouraged though.
Advantage is if this thing slides in a direction the majority disagrees with it can be forked. On reddit all changes had to be accepted or you could leave. With lemmy and ActivityPub it’s easier to fork the service and have it run in semi parallel to the OG. (Granted forking should only really be done if shit goes sideways)
Edit: besides, due to the open source status the community has more of a say in where things go
No repost bots, karma farming, or idiots (mostly). The learning curve to joining the fediverse filters out your average facebook/twitter type that Reddit is filled with today. Lemmy right now is how Reddit was a decade ago
The learning curve to joining the fediverse filters out your average facebook/twitter type that Reddit is filled with today.
Let’s call a spade a spade lol this is honestly it.
I find it a lot more like old forums, and there is a loooooot less ragebait (post about Matt Walsh and his piss fetish, Tim pool and his homoerotic fascism, etc).
It’s very refreshing and I find myself spending less time on here (searching for interesting content) but more time engaging (instead of lurking)
You don’t have your post deleted for forgetting a minor rule and there’s a chance that your post will be seen instead of hidden under countless new posts.
Even worse when you browse /r/all, find an interesting post about some topic, join the discussion, type out a long reply, hit send…
And 3 seconds later you get an automod message that your comment was removed. Because you aren’t a subscriber to that (default!!!) sub, or you aren’t verified, or you used a word they don’t like.
And even worse: You join a discussion, got some good points back and forth, everything is great. You try to reply to the latest comment in that chain to keep the conversation up and suddenly your comments get blocked. Because it was a /r/blackpeopletwitter post (you didn’t even notice as you found it on /r/all) and at some point they only locked it down for verified black users, kicking you out of the discussion.
I mean sure, have your own space on Reddit (even if it’s basically racism), that’s fine. But then subs like these shouldn’t be default subs on /r/all when they constantly lock down threads.
Passion. The people here care enough to have not only left Reddit, but to have made a new community here.
I love this comment. I want to believe it to be true.
Other people have made good points, but one I’ve noticed is that there’s no advertising or profit motive (so far) and there’s also no leadership that encourages dark patterns like increasing negative engagement through encouraging stuff like doomscrolling or starting or continuing arguments.
I’m on Kbin, and I like how by default all the notifications are turned off. So people aren’t automatically told to respond to every little thing they participate in. If they really care, they have to manually go back on check on things they wrote about or were engaged in. Makes it less likely that people will argue endlessly, lowering the quality of posts and replies, and derailing them with long subthreads of off topic discussions or arguments.
Ok so let me throw out some old timer wisdom. This is what the social media/forums/the Internet are like when the cream is skimmed off and the 90% of users who only browse, and the 8% who only vote are gone. Enjoy it while you can. The summer always ends.
Absolutely, my first thought was this is what internet was in the 90s and 00s. Slow, good yarns, and lame jokes.
Tbh there’s already too many memes here though. Half my front page is 196 and German me_irl sometimes.
Unfortunately some communities don’t seem to exist without the froth. The FIRE community seems difficult to recreate here, or local subs. But do you all remember when r/Bitcoin was mostly programmers?
The FIRE community could use the existing Mr. Money Mustache forums. Only hiccup is, I believe, that it is difficult to get a new account (not sure why that is, maybe that’s an old problem and it’s easier now). I’ve lurked that forum for years; they seem like a friendly, helpful, well regulated, un-frothy bunch.
This is exactly it. I haven’t come across a forum where the “summer syndrome” wasn’t permanently present in a decade. I’ll be lurking around here to see if this is going to finally be it.
The funny thing is on Reddit I was mostly a lurker/content consumer. There was little incentive to actually post because your post or comment was likely to just be drowned out in the absolute torrent of other posts/comments. Here I’m actually able to be heard.
I was a bit late one the social media train, isn’t that where the “Eternal September” thing came from?
That’s because way back in the past, every September, a bunch of students who’d never had home internet access would have access via university for the first time. It would take some time for them to pick up the culture, so there’d be a month or so of questionable posts.
Totally agree man, it’s a refreshing change lol… I’ve popped back to a couple subs I check and noticed the difference right away over there.
It is indeed refreshing. But not sure how long it will last.
By now, we’ve all been around the internet long enough to know that good things never last. That’s really life: Everything’s impermanent. Lemmy will probably suck someday, as will much of the fediverse. But I’m grateful it’s good right now and for the foreseeable future.
It could suck someday, but it doesn’t suffer from the same things that made myspace -> facebook -> reddit suck. No money hungry executives profiting off underpaying employees to implement features no one asked for and selling astroturfing as a service. At least it doesn’t seem that there’s astroturfing as a service here yet.
You’re right. The fediverse is definitely in a better position to ward off the suck.
No money hungry executives
I think that’s going to be the key difference. You can destroy something good, but to really destroy it takes an executive.
Let’s hope it keeps that glimmer!
Just wait until September… ;)
The flood will eventually come
Haha, I was around then, when AOL got big it was like, well there goes the neighborhood.
I love how when I’m creating a post, it acts as a search box that finds similar already existing posts.
I think because everyone has their own corners, the common spaces don’t need to be as toxic. Also, Lemmy’s population is self selected because of the still high bar to entry. Lemmy basically feels like early Reddit. The hostile influence of moderators and the backlash anger everyone feels from being mistreated by them into silence is not yet here.
Because it is?
I have also noticed the absence of alt-right/populist right-wing people. But that could go under your point 2. It’s refreshing nevertheless.
Also less guerilla marketing. Not missing that shit one bit.
Are trolls more likely to be alt-right? Idunno, I think all sides can have the same ratio of trolls in them.
I’m sure for many trolls the goal is mainly to cause a reaction, and I think the alt-right stuff is an easy way to do so. Maybe that’s a better way to put it.
Then there’s the crowd that populated r/the_donald back in the day. Not sure how much of that was just trolling, but I’m certainly glad not to see that activity here.
True, but there’s also a lovely Venn diagram where a significant overlap exists. No one’s perfect, but a certain mindset definitely leans more towards being a dick to people than not.
There are less reposts bc its newer and bc there is a lot less bots
For me the vibe here resembles that of hacker news. So I’m inclined to think the population here is early adopters and technically inclined.
