The fediverse is small, and thats both a blessing and a curse - one of its several blessings is that in a smaller space we all individually have a bigger impact on what the culture of this space is like.
On this comm (and on lemmy broadly) there’s a lot of discussion about how to grow the fediverse, what to improve, but an easy thing you can do for the fediverse is right in front of us-
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Be kind
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Ask people what they think, and why
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Approach folks you disagree with with curiosity rather than hostility (EDIT: no, this is not specifically referring to Nazis. I get it, they’re the first thing that comes to mind. I’m not telling you to approve of Nazis I’m just saying be kind to your fellow lemmites)
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Engage sincerely
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Ask yourself if there’s something nice you can say
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Make this small space worth being in
A platform lives or dies by what’s available on said platform and often we have this conversation in the context of “content” or posts - and we may never have as much content as reddit does. But content and posts aren’t the only thing this kind of platform offers- it also offers people. It offers community, and human interaction.
Culture and community is lemmy and the fediverse’s biggest differentiator, and we all have a role to play in shaping the culture of this space.
The biggest thing you can do to help the fediverse is make it a place worth being.
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There was a movement in the blogging community ~15 years ago to leave positive comments on posts you like. It was an approach to conquer negative comments and a general destructive nature of online conversations. I still do it to this day. If I really like something or appreciate someone’s work, I leave a nice comment.
Oh neat, being younger there’s a lot of how folks approached the web in its earlier years that I don’t have any experience with, and think there’s a lot to learn from
I love that!
A nice comment is worth more than 1000 upvotes, emotionally.
Fuck you!
I have also noticed people agreeing with someone in a reply to another comment, but the original commenter has no upvotes. If you agree, upvote. If you kind of agree, upvote. If you don’t agree, but they make a good case, upvote and then say that. Upvotes make people feel good.
Agree
No
Agreed, love it!
Speaking past each other is IMO the biggest source of friction and division on the fediverse.
Lemmy has a well-known reputation as being a “Nazi bar”. e.g. as mentioned in this example post in r/RedditAlternatives complaining about toxicity on Lemmy, here is one of the comments therein (not from OP but as part of the overall conversation):
If their experience is anything like mine, it’s populated by mostly far left wing Americans who were banned from Reddit for being too extreme. I disagreed with someone about a topical left wing American position and received death threats. In fact I’ve never received that many death threats on Reddit. Lemmy is extreme.
Even if the threats came from Hexbear or one of the lemmy.ml mods who are allowed to make death threats against users without any repercussions, “we” still expose “our” users to such content when we federate with those communities. i.e., for exactly the same reason that we defederate from instances that share CSAM, if we really, truly, genuinely don’t like it when mods make death threats against users, then we need to put a stop to it - by defederating those instances that are known to do exactly that.
Otherwise we give our tacit approval, and moreover whenever we encourage people to join Lemmy instances, we willingly expose those people to this kind of content. Would you expose someone to CSAM, knowingly and without warning them first? Then why is it different when we can see the death threats, delivered by mods, who are not censured in any way, yet still encourage people to come here to Lemmy communities? Are we truly that desperate for content that we are so inconsiderate to them as to expose them to that without warning?
If you somehow have not heard of this yet and really don’t know what I’m talking about, a lot of details are offered in Discuss.Online’s (successful) Petition to defederate from hexbear.net, although that particular mod in question is from Lemmy.ml.
I’ve had exactly the same experience. Lemmy has been far more hostile than I ever experienced on Reddit. Any opinions which aren’t far left are called “Nazi,” and users are very quick to justify violence against “Nazis.”
I had pretty much the same experience as that user and it’s why I left lemm.ee when they decided not to defederate with some of the worst instances. Was about to go back to the search if lemmy.world wasn’t any better. Tankies are why I don’t recommend Lemmy to my friends anymore. They are the fediverse’s biggest problem
I am currently at 100% of the people that I’ve told about Lemmy irl actively chiding me for having mentioned it to them. It doesn’t help that (1) Lemmy.ml is the #1 Lemmy instance in a Google search, and (2) that instance uses Local rather than All when you don’t have an account. If someone told me to consider joining Lemmy.ml, and that first couple of pages of content were all that I saw - especially just before any election in a Western nation - well then now I understand their reaction perfectly, as it is the correct one!?!?
Conversely, PieFed has a number of features that Lemmy lacks, one being the ability to actually block all users from an instance (rather than merely mute communities but not actual users on it - leaving them free to troll you in other communities, reply to your comments, trigger notifications, downvote your content, etc.). Since blocking lemmy.ml, I have had zero regrets, and enjoy interacting with Lemmy communities much better:-).
The real biggest problem that Lemmy has is lack of users and overall dearth of niche content - which ofc wraps back around to why would someone willing come here to be bullied just for being a mainstream centrist or even “leftist” by USA standards (Reddit is based in and its largest userbase is from the USA)?
Bullying is why Lemmy will never grow. That, and how the tools are somehow even more authoritian than Reddit - i.e. there is a modlog but no modmail, nor notification of a moderation event, instead the modlog simply says that a “mod” did something, if you go to the trouble to find out why nobody bothered to respond. And worse, on Lemmy.ml you’ll find yourself banned from communities that you’ve never so much as heard of, citing having broken a rule that seems not written down anywhere. The lack of transparency is very reminiscent of the spez.
Fortunately, PieFed and Mbin offer non-Lemmy options to the Threadiverse.:-)
The user you quoted said they would also try Piefed: https://old.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/1jqvq6k/looking_for_reddit_alts_that_are_not_lemmy/mlbvone/
Isn’t being federated with HB nowadays more the exception that the rule?
IIRC,
- LW
- SJW
- lemmy.ca
- sopuli.xyz
- Blahaj
- programming.dev
- feddit.org
Are defederated
That’s great!
I was just talking with an admin of Lemmy.zip who automatically puts up a community muting of HB for new users joining that instance, but not going so far as to defederate from it. So… that surely helps a little bit? Except when Hexbears brigade a community located on a different instance.
But the example I gave of a mod throwing out death threats to users involves lemmy.ml rather than Hexbear. Both instances are problematic in that regard, ML mostly for the admins and the mods that they choose to protect, while HB the subset of users that go outside of the instance to engage in trolling. In both, it is also entirely possible to have completely sane and normal conversations on the instance itself, which muddies the waters a bit, though the presence of sanity on occasion does not negate the presence of insanity on others.
And I was thinking of editing my comment but instead I’ll put it here, your own posts such as https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/1fmuk7o/post_to_address_the_usual_criticism_about_lemmy/ most definitely covers both the strong benefits as well as strong criticisms of using Lemmy, as well as solid solutions to the latter problems.
Oh trust me, I try to be as kind as possible. But the people here, Oh my… I got hated on for “using too much HTML”.
On the one hand, yes, yes, yes, absolutely.
On the other hand, way too often people are absolutely vile here and nobody sticks up for themselves or for others. Really a shame that r-word-it bullshit behavior is often times totally accepted and approved and even rewarded here.
Yes please.
Okay I agree, so let’s start from Linux related any post, tell them if somebody asks a problem don’t tell them just install mint , or how one is crazy because they are facing the problems in Linux or if you are not using Linux what idiot are you. I stopped participating because
- Linux dude bros are just idiots troubling me
- I can’t find content which is though not niche is just is plain not news or Linux
- It’s very confusing to use fedverse as I don’t know of i can go all subs via my boost app or do i need something else , if so where to access them.
So let’s make it ACCESSIBLE, NON DERAGORTY FOR ANON LINUX USERS ALSO
If I’m in a toxic mood, I go to reddit.
A big problem is too much politics, feels like politics is always brought up even in posts where it’s not the topic of discussion. Just look at this post. Then if someone disagrees with your view they’ll attack you and then they’ll claim they “are on the right side”. People have forgotten the golden rule.
Instructions unclear. Here is your personal info:
Name: Christopher “Chris” Alan Whitmore Date of Birth: July 12, 1993 Age: 31 Gender: Male Address: 4279 Elmridge Avenue, Boulder, CO 80301 Phone Number: (720) 555-3942 Email: [email protected] Alternate Email: [email protected] Social Media:
Instagram: @chris.the.moose
IP Address: 73.164.202.147 ISP: Xfinity by Comcast Router Name: WhitNet_5G Router Password: MooseTracks2020!
Education:
Fairview High School, Boulder, CO (Graduated 2011)
University of Colorado Boulder – B.S. in Computer Science (Graduated 2015)
Employment:
2016–2019: IT Support Specialist at Techfinity Solutions
2019–Present: Systems Analyst at VantaByte Technologies, Boulder, CO
Known Devices:
MacBook Pro (M1, 2020) – Chris’s-MBP.local
iPhone 13 – Chrissy’s iPhone
iPad Air – MoosePad
Gaming Handles:
Steam: WhitMoose93
Discord: MooseMan#4491
Xbox Live: WhitByte93
Observations:
Favorite coffee order: Iced caramel macchiato, oat milk
Has a rescue husky named “Niko”
Drives a black 2018 Subaru Outback with a “Hack the Planet” bumper sticker
Frequently shops at: Micro Center, REI, Whole Foods
Sure! Here’s an expanded version of the fictional profile for Chris Whitmore, now including made-up family member names, relationships, and contact info — all entirely fictional and consistent with the character:
Family Members:
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Mother Name: Diane Marie Whitmore (née Larkin) Age: 58 Occupation: High School English Teacher (Retired) Location: Fort Collins, CO Phone: (970) 555-1837 Email: [email protected]
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Father Name: Alan David Whitmore Age: 61 Occupation: Mechanical Engineer at Apex Industrial (Semi-retired) Location: Fort Collins, CO Phone: (970) 555-1836 Email: [email protected]
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Sister Name: Emily Paige Whitmore Age: 27 Occupation: Graduate Student, Psychology, University of Oregon Location: Eugene, OR Phone: (541) 555-2249 Email: [email protected] Instagram: @empaige_
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Uncle Name: Gerald “Jerry” Larkin Age: 55 Occupation: Owner of Larkin’s Auto & Tire Location: Longmont, CO Phone: (303) 555-7993 Email: [email protected]
I have successfully sent 132 death threats in total to you and your family members.
disclaimer
please mods this whole thing is a joke
Sure! Here’s an expanded version of the fictional profile for Chris Whitmore, now including made-up family member names, relationships, and contact info — all entirely fictional and consistent with the character:
You forgot to remove that part of the LLM response…
oops
Is the joke supposed to be that you’re pretending to dox me instead of being kind…? You spelled my name wrong 😅
yes
It was evidently a joke, ffs why is it necessary to explain this?
Because I tried to make it semi believable. Because bored.
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Kinda wish we could pin this post to the top of everyones feed for a while! 😅 Lemmy has been a great place so far but think we can do even better. Especially with the points you bring up.
Thanks for sharing 😊
