…sometimes it does feel like this.

    • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgOPEnglish
      107·
      21 days ago

      As a Reddit refugee myself,I can’t disagree with that. But I will clarify that there’s generally two kinds of Reddit Refugees, though:

      • The kind that got fed up with Reddit and wants to be part of something better
      • The people who were banned from Reddit and think this is some kind of safe haven to continue acting on their worst impulses that got them banned elsewhere.

      The meme is largely referencing the latter.

        • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
          7·
          20 days ago

          As do I, mind you my worse impulses are just me being bloodthirsty. But John Brown was also somewhat bloodthirsty and I dont see anyone of deserving of life criticizijg him.

          • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            6·
            20 days ago

            Idk who downvoted that initially for it’s just a little random moment to share that. Probably, it was them being impulsive too.

            It’s not a big part of me, but I struggle to contain critique of something and it leads to both actual fixes\solutions for some things and bad things happening to me for speaking out in harsh and uncultured manner.

      • Vespair@lemm.ee
        5·
        20 days ago

        Meh. Maybe I’m just not in the wrong corners of the Lemmy fediverse, but honestly I’m not really seeing very many of the banned finding their way here. That was a huge problem in the cesspools like Voat, but for whatever reason it seems like Lemmy has mostly been spared, in my limited experience at least.

        That said, yeah there’s a fair amount of blunt talking and general mild misanthropy, but frankly I almost welcome that as a change from the overmoderated sterility of corporate spaces like Reddit which have to think in terms of advertiser-friendliness.

        • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
          3·
          20 days ago

          Have you ever blocked anyone at all? Or a community, or perhaps your feed is always set to Subscribed? Most of us readily forget what Lemmy looks like to a day-1 account. It takes a bit of effort to clean it up, and if they don’t see the value in remaining then they won’t put in that effort to learn, rather than simply leave.

          • Vespair@lemm.ee
            5·
            20 days ago

            I have 9 users blocked, 10 communities blocked (mostly based on taste, not due to toxicity though), and 0 blocked instances.

              • Vespair@lemm.ee
                1·
                20 days ago

                You know, I’m well aware of their reputations and I’ve had a small number of encounters with users from those instances that I’ll charitably leave at “bad faith,” but by and large I don’t really bump into communities hosted on their instances or see overtly bad behavior from their users often.

                I’m not trying to defend them or say it doesn’t happen (largely because frankly, I just don’t care one way or the other), but I can only be honest and speak to my individual experience.

                • fuckingkangaroos@lemm.ee
                  2·
                  18 days ago

                  That’s great! I really hope the fediverse can replace corporate slop social media, and I think people coming here and not getting turned off by those bad instances is key.

    • renzev@lemmy.worldEnglish
      16·
      20 days ago

      Yes exactly. When reddit pulled that api pricing shit, I just got up and left. I came here expecting shitposts, braindead “hot” takes, piss-poor reading comprehension, and americans acting like they’re the only country in the world. I got exactly what I expected and I couldn’t be more satisfied, 10/10 would nuke my reddit account again.

    • PineRune@lemmy.world
      12·
      21 days ago

      True, but Reddit had the right conditions for toxicity to grow and begin to run rampant. Lemmy, with its decentralized nature, should limit the spread of any toxic communities.

      • dohpaz42@lemmy.worldEnglish
        16·
        21 days ago

        You should check out Facebook, Twitter, IRC, NextDoor, 4chan, 9gag, or any other Internet forum (including comment sections of news articles). Reddit does not hold exclusive rights to any “right conditions for toxicity to grow”.

        • PineRune@lemmy.world
          6·
          21 days ago

          Yeah, there’s lots of places with rampant toxicity. I was just comparing reddit and lemmy, and I consider the Federated nature of lemmy to help prevent (not necessarily stop) toxicity from growing.

          I’m not an expert on this whole Federated thing, but to me, it sounds like if one community is having problems with another, they can just disassociate and not have to deal with it anymore.

      • Vespair@lemm.ee
        5·
        20 days ago

        I think the difficulty will be the slippery and nebulous definition of “toxic”

    • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
      4·
      21 days ago

      It’s more easily expressed when people don’t have to directly face the sensitivity of the other humans. For example, from inside a car, in an online competitive game or an online forum.

  • TheFonz@lemmy.world
    60·
    21 days ago

    Yea no. Try having a nuanced discussion on any (insert heated topic here) on Lemmy and watch the labels fly out faster than the ejaculate of a post pubescent 15 year old.

    • explodicle@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      6·
      20 days ago

      Honestly I’d rather be called a lib tankie 100x than get banned because I said the wrong thing to an actual fascist. Leftists infight, none of us are above that, so one always has to remember that the vegan prick you’re arguing with will still eat the rich with you.

      • TheFonz@lemmy.world
        1·
        20 days ago

        Like we’ll be eating some rich people and suddenly the rich guy I’m eating is not lefty halal because they aren’t organic or grass fed or some shit.

    • tee9000@lemmy.world
      5·
      20 days ago

      It seriously cannot get any worse. Bring on users from any platform. Lemmy sucks and i thank the mods of smaller subs that post diligently about enthusiast topics to add content that isnt dystopian sad sack circlejerk

  • IMNOTCRAZYINSTITUTION@lemmy.world
    52·
    20 days ago

    most of the toxicity I’ve experienced on lemmy has been from established users so idk… but I should add that it’s way less toxic than reddit so far

  • Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    48·
    20 days ago

    It’s worth noting that some users might be attracted to Lemmy due to its smaller, more niche communities and the sense of belonging that comes with being part of a smaller, specialized group. Others might be drawn to Lemmy’s technical aspects, such as its use of ActivityPub and its potential for customization and modification.

    Some users might also be deterred from Lemmy, but please do not let this distract you from the fact that in 1998, The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell, and plummeted 16 ft through an announcer’s table.

    • Hobo@lemmy.world
      16·
      20 days ago

      I haven’t seen this shit in years. I used to browse reddit and that shit would always crack me up. This one time I was browsing at like 3AM and everyone was asleep. I laughed so hard I woke my little brother up. My dad came out of his room super pissed off. He just glared at me and walked straight out to the garage. When he came back he beat living shit out of me with a set jumper cables. Anyway, I stopped browsing reddit late at night after that.

  • magnetosphere@fedia.io
    45·
    21 days ago

    It took me a couple months to fully leave years of bad reddit habits behind. I didn’t realize how deeply ingrained they’d become. The toxicity had gradually snuck up on me.

    • sinokon@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      9·
      21 days ago

      To preface this I’m a lurker myself. I wonder what bad habits it left behind in you? After the whole API and 3rd Party Apps fiasco I just left it behind. But I wouldn’t say that I took the toxicity over from it to Lemmy. Especially wondering what exactly is ingrained in your soul that’s left behind from it. As far I know I’m still the same but as I’ve told just mostly lurking so don’t think it had much as an influence on me except the doom scrolling.

      • magnetosphere@fedia.io
        4·
        20 days ago

        Defensiveness. Overexplaining myself because I didn’t expect people to give me the benefit of the doubt, and I knew that if I left any room for interpretation, people would assume the worst version possible. (I didn’t know what “sealioning” was.)

        It’s important to remember that this had happened slowly, over a period of years. If it had been as bad as it is now back when I first signed up, I wouldn’t have put up with it. Initially, reddit just seemed like a bunch of normal (but sometimes weird) people. It wasn’t until I discovered Lemmy that I realized I wasn’t being myself, and that every time I posted, in the back of my mind, I was expecting the worst.

        Good riddance.

        • Ashelyn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          2·
          20 days ago

          Y’know, now that you mention it, the sealioning behaviour I’d been conditioned to expect is a big reason for why I spend so much time writing my comments and adding qualifying statements.

          • magnetosphere@fedia.io
            2·
            20 days ago

            Well, it hasn’t been entirely bad. Constantly reminding myself to add qualifying statements is something I don’t miss, but rewriting my comments for improved clarity is good. It’s easy to forget that English isn’t the first language of many Lemmy users, so I’m in favor of being more specific about the subject, instead of using words like “they” or “it” too much.

            Also, there’s a good chance that people are reading my comments while they’re on the toilet or watching TV. Maybe they’re not paying 100% attention lol. A little extra specificity doesn’t hurt!

        • magnetosphere@fedia.io
          5·
          20 days ago

          If that’s all it takes to drive them away, then we’re probably better off without them. We don’t need people who post with the sole purpose of “earning” karma.

      • Num10ck@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        20 days ago

        imagine an ai that takes you through your own post history like a therapist. like some moderator can sentence you to ai therapy before you are unbanned.

  • Allero@lemmy.today
    38·
    20 days ago

    We often talk about toxic newbies, but sometimes we don’t pay enough attention to how we ourselves changed as a result. Make them feel welcome, and see how much Lemmy changes back.

    If you (yes, you, reader) are new to Lemmy, have my wholehearted “Welcome”! Hugs on demand, cookies right there, make yourself comfy :)

    Avoid politics-oriented communities unless toxicity is your thing. Start with any instance (most likely you chose lemmy.world as your starting point?), but explore others and what they have to offer. You can even be on several of them if that’s your thing! Enjoy!

    • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      12·
      20 days ago

      I was here 2y before the exodus, it’s absolutely not just the newbies. Maybe some other -ies…

      I for one welcome the shit out of the newbies, I’m thankful to have them and want more, and for them to bring their niche interests with them. They help filter some of the toxicity out.

    • Fl4k@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      6·
      20 days ago

      yay cookie, thanks, i moved away because anytime i asked a question on any reddit subreddit by posting the question (as i should) it got spam downvoted to the point i became unable to make posts anywhere due to “low karma” : , ) (it was just a basic question and every comment under it and the post got spam downvoted for nor reason)

      • Allero@lemmy.today
        2·
        20 days ago

        Luckily, here, while admins can see how many up- and downvotes you have, it doesn’t influence anything, and that’s by design; besides, it’s unlikely that any proper implementation of karma system is possible in a federated network for individual users.

  • N0body@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    36·
    21 days ago

    I think any real user from Reddit that isn’t a bot is an asset these days. I hate Reddit as much as the next person, but giving people shit for coming from there to here feels hypocritical.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
      14·
      21 days ago

      I think both can be true tbh. I welcome everyone from reddit and encourage us to grow. I also will say leave toxicity at the door, or sub to other instances/communities that enjoy it.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      20 days ago

      You seem to forget that reddit mods are nobodies, and have been compromised by for-profit and psychological warfare interests for over a decade.

      I was on Reddit for 5 years before I ever got banned. I spread usage among 20 accounts since ~2010, mainly to group topics. Got banned from subs at least 10-20 times since 2015. Only a few were fair, where I was asking for it, just drunk or trying to be a dick. The rest were from conservative subs, and half of those were pre-emptive bans before I’d ever posted, commented, or referenced them — the snowflakes pre-banned me for wrong think, for calling out conservatism from afar.

      So to me, it’s far more concerning if you’ve been on Reddit in the last decade and haven’t been “rejected” by fascist mods at least a few times. It’s been a battlefield of bad-faithers for most of its existence.

      NOTE: most lemmy mods are no different, and are far more compromised than early Reddit. Many are tankie keyword-squatters building their own propaganda networks from Reddits exodus.

    • explodicle@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      4·
      20 days ago

      This will probably become an ever-worsening problem because there’s no way to ban anyone from the fediverse entirely. We might someday need something like adblock or spam filters to reduce noise.

  • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
    20·
    21 days ago

    Are we growing though?

    https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/stats shows MAU (monthly active users) decreasing - we are now at 43k, last month was 45k, the month before 47k, etc. Total servers also decreasing - now 540, was 552, 579, etc. Overall posts and comments are slightly up though - so we’re seeing increased activity from fewer users, rather than an increase in actual users. One could argue whether we’re truly “decreasing” vs. merely flat, but either way I don’t see us increasing.

    And 3 of those users are myself, all active and only 2 of which I had a week ago, speaking to how alts are most definitely a thing. Also, federation issues especially staying in sync with Lemmy.World may be causing people to shift instances (or to leave entirely?). If so that would be a good thing bc 0.19.6 promises to help address that. (Although in my case, I wanted an instance that allows custom blocks of any instance I choose without needing to rely on an admin team, and that isn’t dependent upon the Lemmy codebase.)

    For one thing, people might be turning away due to the upcoming USA election, in which case depending on who survives that, they could return? But every person I’ve ever recommended to check out Lemmy has looked at me in disgust and actively chided me for having recommended it when they see some of the political extremism here. e.g.:

    img

    Whenever I go looking for examples of such I usually find it in 0-60 seconds, by going to Lemmy.ml and browsing by Local.

    Your instance is doing wonderful work keeping such out - I wonder if that image will even render for you:-). But overall, across the wide Fediverse, people are not willing to put up with such, and seem to be leaving us overall rather than find some other way to deal with whatever it is that was bugging them.

    And with such trends, and the way we treat normies, I don’t see us ever going mainstream. Maybe PieFed and Sublinks, along with Mbin and ofc Tesseract on e.g. dubvee.org will help turn that around? That would be so nice?:-)

    Btw what will we call ourselves then, if it does - will we still be “Lemmy”/Lemmings, or just general Fedizens? Either way there’s great hope for the future, but also a lot of work to do to reach that point.

    • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgOPEnglish
      11·
      21 days ago

      I wasn’t really looking at the MAU stats when I made this; it just felt like it’s been more actively lately (both good and bad). Unfortunate the numbers are actually trending downward.

      For one thing, people might be turning away due to the upcoming USA election

      Possibly. I’ve gone into self-imposed social media blackouts during election season many a time. Sometimes you just need a break.

      Whenever I go looking for examples of such I usually find it in 0-60 seconds, by going to Lemmy.ml and browsing by Local … people are not willing to put up with such, and seem to be leaving us

      Yeah. I have felt for a while that ml being the official or at least de facto flagship instance is doing more harm than good. I’m not going to tell them how to run their instance, but I am sad and frustrated that it seems to turn so many people away under the impression the whole fediverse is like that.

      I’m cool with Fedizens 😀.

      • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
        4·
        21 days ago

        Yeah like to label it as “A community of privacy and FOSS enthusiasts, run by Lemmy’s developers” seems not entirely… complete in its description.

        Blaze is doing amazing work advocating for Lemmy on r/RedditAlternatives etc., and these days recommends Lemm.ee, one of the largest instances that also defederates from virtually nothing so that very little to no content is missed by the user. On the other hand, some content users very much would rather have been presented to them as opt-in rather than have to opt-out of it. i.e. if one of the major things that instance does is to make fun of the capitalist democratic Western society, then it is perhaps understandable if - regardless of truth or falsehood - people, especially normies, living inside of that same capitalist democratic Western society do not appreciate the jokes? Especially those calling for literal murder, or when an admin there tells someone to kill themselves. Duh, of course people are going to be turned away by such.

        At this point it’s like a rite of passage, to learn how to become a responsible Fedizen: learn who and how to block (not necessarily in that order:-).

      • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
        1·
        21 days ago

        How do you see the past numbers there though, without conflating the Mastodon users that says that we have ~1 million MAUs?

        This one likewise says 43k MAUs right now, though I don’t recall how many we had in February. The other site only shows as far back as June, 48k MAUs. So that’s a drop of 5k MAUs since June.

        Assuming the numbers are comparable across the two sites like that - and they seem to agree as far as we can tell - it looks like the numbers went up sometime between February and June, but since then we’ve lost almost all that we gained.

        i.e., the Reddit drama may have caused people to come check us out, but then the largest majority of people left, likely going right back to Reddit. Possibly bc of the deep (niche) content stores that they still have - e.g. if everyone else uses Windows, it’s just easier for you to use it too, and it takes a special mindset to buck that trend.:-)

        • PugJesus@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          21 days ago

          The link should take you to the Lemmy page.

          Some ~30% net MAU growth since December of last year is nothing to sniff at.

          i.e., the Reddit drama may have caused people to come check us out, but then the largest majority of people left, likely going right back to Reddit. Possibly bc of the deep (niche) content stores that they still have - e.g. if everyone else uses Windows, it’s just easier for you to use it too, and it takes a special mindset to buck that trend.:-)

          Most people who left from Reddit after The Great Exodus did so in the first 3-4 months, though.

          • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
            4·
            20 days ago

            Thanks, that longer view does change the narrative a bit. Yeah the Rexodus was the big influx, maybe if they finally kill off old-reddit there could be another but who knows. Then again in the OP it describes “growing”, whereas the reality seems more like at one point almost a year ago we grew, especially that sharp spike between February and March, but ever since and currently we are actively shrinking. I guess both are true, depending on whether you take the yearly or half-yearly POV.

            • PugJesus@lemmy.worldEnglish
              4·
              20 days ago

              Yeah, there’s definitely no explosive growth currently. Might be that some communities here are getting more ‘solid’, though, and feel more active.

              • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
                2·
                20 days ago

                “More activity” rather than “more users” - yeah, not explosive but definitely growth I like how you phrased that. I think it means that niche interests are not more likely to happen - that needs more users in particular - but browsing here may be more enjoyable with the higher level of engagement.

    • renzev@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      20 days ago

      So denouncing genocide is now “political extremism”? If posts like that are scaring people away, that’s good, we don’t need them here.

      • Num10ck@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        20 days ago

        don’t offend the majority if you want guests to stick around. you can denounce genocide without convicting all of western civilization.

        • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
          5·
          20 days ago

          Exactly. The whole “everything the other side does is evil while my side can do no wrong btw” isn’t helpful or going to lead to any change at all. Worse, these attempts to “control the conversation” would (if paid attention to) actually lead to increasing those evil deeds, bc leopards always eat people’s faces off aka reveale their true spots… eventually. e.g. blaming liberals for genocide will only lead to Republicans winning who have actively and outright stated that they will do even more genocide, plus far more than that besides.

          And I don’t blame normies - who wants to join a place that features such “alternative facts” and “alternative logic” on a daily basis? Yes you can go to some trouble to opt-out, but not easily, and they don’t know how, or even that it’s possible to do so.

        • renzev@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          20 days ago

          I’m curious, where exactly do you draw the line with your reasoning? You can denounce dumping oil into the ocean without convicting all of Shell? You can denounce the invasion of Crimea without convicting all of the Russian military? You can denounce murder without convicting all murders? Why not skip this alltogether and denounce all bad things without convicting all good things, that makes the game of ethics a whole lot easier.

          “western civilization” is not a majority. It’s a minority who has been dominating the discussion for way too long, and people are tired of listening to the hypocrisy.

          • Num10ck@lemmy.worldEnglish
            7·
            20 days ago

            Tact for Propagandaist Dummies is not a book I’m inspired to devote investing time into.

        • hark@lemmy.world
          2·
          20 days ago

          None of the west’s enemies are afforded the same generosity. Maybe we don’t want the majority of guests to be a bunch of mindless parrots who only care about human rights when mainstream media from “their side” tell them to care (as an excuse to project power globally). It ends up permeating all discussions, even ones that aren’t directly about politics and you end up building an echo chamber. It shapes how you see the world, for example, you took a post talking specifically about western leadership to be about “convicting all of western civilization” as if the victim of the genocide is actually the west.

  • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.eeEnglish
    18·
    20 days ago

    I ended up getting permabanned from reddit for saying that Lebanese people don’t blame all their problems on Israel, just the the problems they do deserve blame for.

    • Ham Strokers Ejacula@reddthat.comEnglish
      11·
      20 days ago

      Maybe, but you have better tools to deal with it. Filter out words most politics and your experience will improve a lot. For me, it isn’t a 100% filter because I still want to be exposed to that, but I want less of it. Tag anyone that looks like they’re operating in bad faith. If you see the tag again and they’re still shitty, just block them. Block whole communities if you want or even entire instances. You’re in control of what you see here.

      My Lemmy experience has been perfectly cromulent since I started blocking and filtering.

      • EnderMB@lemmy.world
        3·
        20 days ago

        You can do that on Reddit too. Obviously not at a federation level, but you can block subreddits and users. It doesn’t stop the fact that even across many instances Lemmy is far more toxic - whether you’re discussing Tech, Gaming, Politics, Sports, etc.