I dunno. I just feel less like I’m experiencing a fun new tool for communication the last few weeks. The communities here on Beehaw are still great and fantastic and aren’t what I’m bothered by. It’s just when I venture out in the world (which I often do) that I notice conversations are much more argumentative than I remember them being.
How’s everyone else doing? Is this a minor vibez check?
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There are outright attacks of putting illegal images that have caused major problems the past few days on the biggest Lemmy instances…
Hating Reddit was not necessarily a great motivation for people to create original content here. Hating Elon Musk and Twitter to x, the introduction of Threads generated more hate. It’s been kind of hate burnout lately.
I think you’re onto something. We ran out of hate for Spez, Elon, and Zuck and moved onto hating eachother (as a collective, not saying anyone here, specifically)
As a result of the attacks, lemmyworld temporarily turned off open sign up and switched to an application process. I saw a comment asking if this made it more likely for beehaw to refederate. 😂 They only turned off open sign up because of the mass posting of CSAM on their instance, idk about y’all but that’s not exactly making me jump to refederate…
If anything it proves our admins had a point when they said there was too much content coming in too fast from completely unvetted sources from Lemmy.world to keep up with
It was mainly a moderation tools issue that led BH defederate from LW and SIJW, so I don’t think this changes anything.
Yea … even more broadly, there’s definitely some weird psychology in the whole phenomenon of leaving a platform for another, none of which is talked about much, and which probably feels weird to talk about because for many we’re generally not yet comfortable admitting how important these platforms have become for us.
It’s probably a little bit like work where if you count the amount of time you spend there it’d force you to recognise how important it is to actually be as happy there as you can.
And so, as you say, in doing something drastic like hate-quitting a platform which was actually much more important and sentimental to us than we’re willing to admit, all to go to a smaller and different place over which we might have some decent “buyers remorse”, we end up with feelings we don’t know what to do with, and as lame as it might sound.
The scorching of previous content I also found rather destructive… people were deleting 10 years worth of posts and content.
My personal approach has been that the history of the internet is fragile enough as it is. I’ve left reddit for good. I don’t need to burn Reddit down in protest. I’m fine with it having a passive rather than active death
I understand this take. For me, though, I wasn’t willing to let reddit to continue to make ad revenue from my posts/comments (e.g. from their turning up in google search results) or sell them for LLM-shenanigans (of course, my comments can be scraped off lemmy just the same, but at least a megacorp isn’t claiming ownership over them).
I don’t regret it at all, either. It feels rather refreshing to not have that trail floating around on the internet anymore (well, mostly. I’m sure I didn’t catch everything.)
I definitely hear this, understand it, and respect it. I’m never going to confront someone asking them why they did that, or telling them they were wrong to do. But sometimes I see someone getting on someone’s case about “why are you even here if you don’t hate reddit and YouTube and twitter with all your heart” and it just bums me out
Mine was until I decided to exercise my block button a lot more. Certain instances have a higher proportion of trolls and jerks, so that’s been frustrating. Though, it’s still worthwhile to see all the stuff and then let me curate it.
The block button’s availability without needing to file a specific report is the very best feature here
In a few topics / threads I have noticed more nastiness (some of it thinly veiled as condescension). Even a little bit of it on beehaw. But, it’s still not as bad as I remember on reddit. I have blocked some people and communities on lemmy, and that has helped clean up my feed.
Has anyone noticed that downvotes have become more common too? Back when I first joined, I hardly saw any downvotes and now you see them in almost every single comment.
For example I don’t even how to downvote your post. (nor do I want to) Do you need to use a special Lemmy client to gain access to this functionality? Or is this because I’m from Beehaw? Either case, I don’t care ^
Beehaw elected to disable the downvote. The theory behind disabling downvotes is that its easier to have a meaningful discussion if you can say “this is why I think your comment might have some problems” instead of everyone clicking the dislike button. It also encourages users to mentally question if something is bad enough to report
Some servers disable it, so you may need to switch to a different instance.
It’s Beehaw. We don’t do downvotes.
For example I don’t even how to downvote your post. (nor do I want to) Do you need to use a special Lemmy client to gain access to this functionality? XD
Wait until you trigger one of the special groups of instances… Make one off hand comment and the whole instance will brigade you. I can’t wait unit blocking a whole instance is available…
Yup.
That’s the magic of federation. You can curate to create any vibe you want. Since I am on a solarpunk instance, the only ‘hate’ I see is for climate change denial.
It is still exhausting to see people complaining about that kind of stuff constantly, even if you agree with them. Like my entire existence is political and when I come online I just want to get away from that.
Slrpnk is where my alt is! Its a great instance and I found it because i liked the people I was running into from there. I think its notable that your instance is literally tied to your identity
Yes, I was happy to find it. I immediately found several kindred spirits and the moderators are conscientious without being overly controlling.
The message of realism combined with hope just hits right.
Yeah it frankly introduced me to Solarpunk and immediately it was an ethos I was super into
Solarpunk best instance!
And possum patio
I haven’t noticed it. People are much nicer than on reddit. However I don’t look at politics communitys (because they think the world is the USA) so that could be it.
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Not particularly, and intentionally rude comments tend to get downvoted. You can’t prevent random people from being a dipshit, but the community seems to tolerate it a lot less than other places.
Well… yes.
I have to humbly admit that I just got myself banned on LW, for going berserk in a discussion I shouldn’t even have started. 😓
I’ve recently commented to someone who was making fun of Beehaw’s rules, that they’re not only to have everyone else “be nice” to me, but also to remind myself to “be nice” to others. On some instances, with other rules, it’s just too easy to forget myself and try to “one up” others until shit happens.
I’m afraid as more people join Lemmy, and they get more confident at using the platform, more of the old Reddit bad habits will seep in… except hopefully on Beehaw.
It seems to be both common wisdom and substantiated by some studies I’ve heard of … bad apples really do ruin the bunch … toxic behaviours infect and corrupt.
I think if we care, admitting that we can go too far ourselves (as you did, and as I’ll admit myself too) and then trying to be vigilant in maintaining a culture are the best we can do.
Calling out rude behavior might be a way for us to help govern the kind of behavior we want.
Sometimes I wonder whether an online community made of anonymous individuals who don’t and won’t ever know each other, nor even recognize each other, isn’t a fool’s errand. People are all-too willing to shout carelessly into the mist, as if their words can’t affect real people. At least with irl communities, there is a pressure not to insult each other to one another’s faces.
This isn’t to say social media is all bad, not at all. But I wonder if “community” is really possible in any kind of meaningful way, or in the long term.
All my favorite internet forums held on by being small and having solid rules and moderation, and then as they grow, and more and more strangers join the mix, it slowly falls apart.
At least with irl communities, there is a pressure not to insult each other to one another’s faces.
Ugh, not where I live, but yeah.
All my favorite internet forums held on by being small and having solid rules and moderation,
Me too. I don’t understand why some people (mostly lemmy.world) are so eager to recruit as much of reddit as possible to join. Smaller is better.
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If you’ve seen other posts that I have made you might’ve noticed that I’m interested in this exact problem and I have been super focused on research that shows having efficient information networks (i.e. centralized networks, a network where only one or a few voices matter, or fully connected networks, a network where everyone can see everyone else opinions) can lead to much lower collective intelligence for the group and having inefficient information networks (networks that have fewer connections, maybe 4-6, and everyone has an equal amount of connections) can lead to a group being able to solve more complex problems.
So in relation to what you pointed out big online communities actually might be making our collective intelligence weaker even though it makes us more connected.
Interesting paper. Haven’t read it all yet (saving it for later), but… are lowly connected networks “less efficient” though, or do highly connected networks end up drowning in noise?
As I understand it, each person has a certain limit on input and output transmission speeds (reading is faster than writing, but speaking sits between them both), and communication quality declines with density. So the most efficient network, would be that which has as many connections as possible, up to a threshold of desired communication quality. Different people can have different speeds, and form part of several networks, each with a different threshold for quality.
That suggests an ideally efficient network structure, would be formed by a stack of overlapping networks with different topologies and unequally connected nodes depending on each one’s in/out capacity and quality requirements of the networks they form part of. If we add different data processing quality and capacity at the nodes, each node would have a particular combination of networks with which it would perform ideally, for maximum total performance.
A further problem to solve, would be the evolution of parameters over time, which could require nodes switching to different combinations of networks and a different number of connections on each. Different types of periodic cycling over different configurations could be ideal for distributing information to maximize problem solving… and different types of problems could benefit from different setups of the whole system.
I wonder if instead of trying to run a simplified network version of a static problem on MTurk, it wouldn’t benefit more from a series of initial simulations, and only then run a static or evolving problem with MTurk, adapting the setup based on signals from nodes, networks, and a fit function for the whole system.
Interesting.
So the most efficient network, would be that which has as many connections as possible, up to a threshold of desired communication quality
I think that the individual’s ability to process information does play a role in how many connections that individual should have but the more important role in having fewer connections is to provide protection from social influence which can hinder the creativity process and help stabilize adoption.
So for example, if I had 50 connections and 4 people adopted a new behavior / shared new information I would still be influenced to not take up the behavior because so many of my other connections aren’t taking part and it could lead to negative feedback from my other connections, but if I had 6 connections instead that behavior/information would be much more appealing allowing for newer ideas/behaviors to spread in a much more stable way.
Similarly with creativity. If you have a lot of connections that are giving you answers to everything you could think of (and they are decent answers) then there is less of a need to find creative solutions to those problems meaning that new ideas are less likely to be thought of or proposed. Alternatively being surrounded by that much external information siloes you to think about finding a new solution within the things that have already worked.
A further problem to solve, would be the evolution of parameters over time, which could require nodes switching to different combinations of networks and a different number of connections on each.
This is something that they have sort of studied but not in the way you have suggested. They have allowed individuals to change their social connections over time and have noticed that the connections become more centralized and/or the connections are to people who are like them in relevant ways (This point isn’t in this paper but it is in some related research). It would be interesting to see what would happen if they actually optimized the network over time to make everyone smarter.
Interesting.
Yes, I find it very interesting too.
Don’t feel ashamed of getting banned from that shithole. It’s always been a pisshole and people need to stop gravitating toward one single instance anyway.
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they could just move along.
And that’s how you know those people are purposely being malicious. They want to ruin it for others because they think its funny to ruin things for other people and there’s no real consequences for their behavior.
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Yeah, I use to be one of those people and am not anymore. It was a very miserable existence.
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Nope, I was just in a very bad environment and very immature. I enjoyed being a stupid edgelord cause it gains you reactions.
It’s like kids who enjoy getting negative attention. Like the saying, all press is good press. I just wanted any kind of attention and didn’t care how I got it.
Thank god I’m over that lol
As far as I can tell, it stems from it being easier to escalate an argument by not being nice, which means, trying to win at all cost, leads to not being nice, or a bar fight. Some people get so used to it, that they see any attempt to stop it as a personal attack on themselves… which, technically speaking, it is: a safe space is telling them “we want nice people, not chronic bullies like you”… so they react in the way they’re used to: by trying to start a bar fight.
I don’t think society has particularly “fallen”, looking back at history, there are a lot of examples, some much more gruesome than an argument on the internet, of people not being nice to each other. If anything, we’re going through a process of transferring IRL behaviors to more virtual mediums, both good and bad, but the bad ones seem to have come easier.
I think it’s been last millenium that I already wrote, the Internet would end up becoming a reflection of reality, at which point we’d be able to see the real problems and try to fix them. Well, we’re almost there, still like one third of the world population missing from being online… (expect things to get worse before they get better)… but we’re already seeing a lot of what otherwise used to be hidden behind closed doors, or restricted to a small geographic area. Which itself has brought new challenges, but at least it’s making it easier to run sociological analyses, and trying to find some solutions.
Reddit too, since I use both parallel until the API subscription is enforced. I think it’s because US elections, people get very sensitive in that time period.
I think it also doesn’t help that we lived thru a pandemic and most people don’t have the ability to actually confront the trauma that has brought
there really is a need for a world-wide wake/funeral, people weren’t supposed to have contact with infected dead bodies… the whole world was connected by the event, have a positive wake party, thank all the nurses and doctors, praise that it wasn’t a more deadly disease.
Especially that which was done to them collectively by the society. The lockdowns destroyed whatever reason we had to believe human rights are actually a thing. We failed ourselves, and future generations, and its toll is such a deep, bleeding wound people are choosing to ignore because they can’t admit the lockdowns were immoral regardless of how serious the coronavirus actually was. Turns out, forcibly locking people inside their houses for years, often with abusive family members, was not wise. Who knew?
Yes I am still grieving my dead, and grief can make it harder to connect with others I think.
Also explicit astroturfing. Reddit is huge and has been targeted with extra helpings of extra angry politics since 2015 at the very, very latest. There’s a lot of political posting here too, but it’s possible (if annoyingly hard) to prune most of it.
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the comments look more like the comments from reddit
bound to happen when a community is expanded out of hate and negativity. the second people couldn’t redirect all of their anger towards reddit they turned towards others.
It depends on the topic. Some threads you can read the tilte and you already know the comments are going to be arguing. My favorite part of the threadiverse is seeing people argue their point. I think its great that we can have back and forth arguments with long form comments. I’d get bored if every thread was uniform positivity and agreements.
I think there has to be some social awareness otherwise you end up arguing with people who don’t want to argue and this can cause the person to feel like they are being attacked.
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I, too, have noticed that actually putting forth logic and reasoning in your arguments is a lot more effective than it was on Reddit. It gives me back some faith in humanity.
I’ve definitely read a lot of really interesting and perspective changing posts here but I’ve also experienced that a lot on reddit (pre 2016) after 2016 not so much.
You’re not the first to ask as far as I’ve seen, and it also seems you’re not alone. Dunno how real the effect is, but I’ve seen it it or felt it too.
