OK, letās try this again. My post got auto-filtered. Maybe the image triggered something? Anyways, apologies if this isnāt the right sub for this. I wanted to get an outsiderās perspective on my experience on Lemmy.
Every. Single. Thread. has the word ācapitalismā or āTrumpā in it somewhere. Iām sick to death of it. Even though I agree with a lot of the sentiment, the erosion of the middle class, the concentration of wealth, the consolidation of media, the āyou will own nothing and be happyā mentality permeating the consumer space. In many ways thatās why I joined Lemmy, but dang it that doesnāt mean I want to talk about absolutely nothing else. Someone once defined a fanatic as āSomeone who wonāt change their mind and wonāt change the subjectā and that fits the average Lemming to a T.
And the only communities devoid of politics are also devoid of content. I do a lot of worldbuilding stuff, and Iāve tried to make the worldbuilding community there more active, but sometimes I feel like Iām the only poster. Then I look at r/worldbuilding, and thereās a glut of really interesting posts showcasing peopleās imagination and creativity, and nary a mention of Musk or Epstein in sight.
I understand that peopleās political opinions are bound to show up obliquely in even unrelated communities, but I canāt overstate how monomaniacal Lemmings are about it. The pic I originally tried to post was a screenshot of a completely non sequitur post in an unrelated community (sorry for the vagueness I think the specifics may have also tripped the auto filter). And Lemmings are always āonā. If you go to mildlyinteresting on lemmy.world right now, youāll see maybe one or two posts about things like yellow stop signs or three-chambered peanuts, you know, stuff thatās actually mildly interesting, and every other post is stuff like āFrench president explains the political consequences of AIā. Is that important and worth discussing? Absolutely. What it isnāt is mildly interesting.
When I bring this up on Lemmy, the response is always āPolitics is everything and we should never shut up ever!ā But even Anne Frank wrote about other stuff in her diary sometimes.
And then thereās the tech side of things. Hope you like Linux, cuz thatās all youāre going to see. And if you dare suggest that Linux may not be the right choice for your blind grandmother, you get eviscerated in the comments.
Granted, Reddit itself used to have a similar problem. It attracted a very specific type of user (neckbeards) and the experience wasnāt great if you werenāt one, but ironically the same popularization of Reddit that lead to its platform decay also solved this homogeneity problem. Similarly, Tankies and their ilk seem to flock to Lemmy, explaining the tone of the discourse.
Others have pointed out that Reddit alternatives tend to attract people who were banned from Reddit (remember Voat?) and I think that explains a lot.
In summary, Lemmy seems great if youāre a Marxist who uses Linux, but pretty much nobody else. Am I crazy? Should I try to stick with it in the hope it gets better?
so how do we get this guy on Linux? lol
In my response to this post earlier, I mentioned that one of the problems (which unfortunately reddit shares too) is hostility to other viewpoints, and this is a good example of how that is perpetuated. When a culture on a platform is too homogeneous, disagreement becomes so shocking that itās seen as ātrollingā, ābad faithā, āoffensiveā, etc. I think itās partially a symptom of the reddit-like structure of voting + active moderation, but itās also very much the culture.
You presented your points well and fairly, and even if you hadnāt, I think we all need to get comfortable with the fact that normal humans sometimes interact in a manner that doesnāt sound like an HR mediation session, and thatās ok too.
Voting is a cancer upon social media. It was extra bad on Reddit because you had a cumulative karma score that was just begging to be farmed, and itās only slightly less bad on Lemmy because thereās no global karma here. Voting encourages echo chambers because the top stuff is stuff that the majority likes and contrary opinions get buried. It also creates a Mathew effect by ensuring posts that are already popular get even more visibility.
Itās also terrible because IMO it promotes social media addiction. Itās way too easy to tie your self esteem to a number. Modern reddit is banking on this hard. Between the time I left in 2023 and returned a few weeks ago, they started sending you notifications every time your post or comment hits certain upvote milestones.
Thereās exactly one legitimate use for voting systems IMO and thatās in practical or technical Q&A spaces (think Stack Exchange) where there are definitive right or best answers. Voting in this case allows people unfamiliar with the topic to zero in on whatās good advice vs whatās nonsense.
Yeah, and it encourages self-censoring too, on top of the punishing effect of downvotes.
Itās frustrating because I really like the readable structure of Reddit-style platforms and find stuff that follows the Twitter model chaotic and disorganized. The classic forum style is fair, but itās also hard to keep up with high activity threads unless you spend time to read the whole thing in chronological order. I donāt know what the ideal setup would look like.
nodeBB is a classic forum platform that has threaded comments. It also uses ActivityPub. Of all the federated platforms I think Iād prefer nodeBB if not for how comparatively small it is. It predates the popularization of AP and only added it a few years ago so whether itās part of the fediverse or not I suppose is up for debate.
Iāve heard the name before, but unfortunately I never really used those forums back in the day. If itās still going, I might have to check it out.
I really want to see federated, non-corporate social media succeed.
So do I. I wouldnāt be complaining about its problems if I didnāt want it to get better. I think it needs three things to succeed. First I think is better messaging. We need to be crystal clear that you have to be your own algorithm, which is what most of the responses here and on the original reddit thread were saying. This starts by picking an instance that you vibe with, then aggressively filtering out the rage. Second (and possibly most controversial) is better moderation, especially on communities that cast a wide net. I know I pick on mildlyinteresting, but it really is a microcosm of whatās wrong with Lemmy. I think a lot of mods are either reluctant to come off as too strict, or just happy their comm has content at all, so noting gets regulated. Good moderation will help communities develop a distinct culture and identity instead of being slightly differently flavored rage factories. The third thing is a larger more diverse user base, which can only exist if the first two things are taken care of. If only Tankies hang out on Lemmy, than the Pokemon or metalworking communities are just slightly differently themed Tankie communities.