I’ve mostly left reddit and switched to beehaw, but I posted on somewhat of a niche tech-related subreddit today since there really isn’t a community for that here yet. And wow, I got instantly downvoted twice and the first comment response was rude and hostile. All I posted was a feature suggestion for software that I thought would be useful and that a good amount of people would like based on other feedback I’ve heard. This is not the sort of topic that should be controversial or aggravating, and it wasn’t like I made an ignorant post suggesting a feature that already existed or otherwise wasn’t well researched.
This type of instantly hostile response has happened numerous times on reddit for various different topics, but I just haven’t posted for a while, so I forgot just how shitty it can feel. It makes me really appreciate how friendly and respectful the community is here on Beehaw and on Mastodon. People seem to have good faith in one another similar to how the internet used to be in the old days.
Have you had similar experiences with Reddit and similarly opposite experiences here on Beehaw/Lemmy?
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I live in a poorish country and I’m not flush with cash either currently not being employed except some volunteering. I wanted to build a network server for a charity who were struggling with their internal services.
Over a period of six months I cobble together enough to buy a second hand mini PC. I couldn’t get a network card similarly because of shortages, so someone buys one from ebay US and brings it after a few months.
For some mystery reason, the card refuses to work with the PC. It’s detected but as soon as I push some traffic it results in a kernel panic. I spend a month looking at similar problems online and trying out different solutions. With no dice, I post on Reddit.
On the my first two tires, I get no replies and no one notices it because it doesn’t get any upvotes. Then I try another two subreddits and people just say that CPU/NIC sucks, just get another one.
This whole thing pretty much put me off from posting on Reddit after that.
Yeah the answer on Reddit is always “why not just buy the more expensive option,” which is always the most upvoted and least helpful suggestion.
Yeah the answer on Reddit is always “why not just buy the more expensive option,"…
In one thread I pointed out that some car fees being proposed in California were highly regressive and would make life much more difficult for those who could least afford it. One guy said that wasn’t a big problem because they could just buy a new car. 😱
i have quit reddit multiple times over such behavior. everyone is looking to become the most upvoted dunk on there
I agree with you, I gradually became more lurky because the interaction with others was terrible. I hated talking to people.
So far on beehaw it’s been overwhelmingly positive, and my dumb questions didn’t receive snarky remarks or vitriol. Sometimes, people just want to ask a question and create a discussion. That’s mostly me, I’m sure I can find a lot of answers myself, and usually do, but every so often I just want to talk about something with someone, so I’ll repeat a question which was asked 2 years ago.
Besides, asking the same question again could lead to a different discussion anyway. It’s terrible to tell people to “just Google it”. Yeah, they could do that, but its such a negative response. Could easily just say “Hey I found this link on Google, here you go. Try looking into x, y or z and include that in your future searches, let me know if you have any other questions”
I find it interesting that while I don’t yet have many posts/comments on beehaw yet, I find myself significantly more motivated to interact with the community than I ever did on reddit. I think it’s that the community tends to legitimately want to have a conversation rather than seeking validation or wanted to feel superior to others.
It’s terrible to tell people to “just Google it”. Yeah, they could do that, but its such a negative response. Could easily just say “Hey I found this link on Google, here you go. Try looking into x, y or z and include that in your future searches, let me know if you have any other questions”
I felt that to the core. I’m a mid-level software engineer (and by no means do I claim to be an expert on anything) and I sometimes find myself getting frustrated with some of the newer developers when they seem to continue asking the same question to me. That being said, I don’t think I’ve ever been deliberately mean to any of them, maybe just short with them if I’m under a lot of stress (which is something I’ve been working a lot the past year or two).
Telling someone to “just Google it” is very deliberately being mean or rude just to be mean or rude. I’d rather have an empty thread that no one replies to over being talked to like that. No matter how green or nieve someone may be, they still deserve some level of respect.
Not to mention, the “just google it” comment is also terrible even if it was made in good faith considering how bad Google seems to have gotten at providing actual useful search results. Hence, why so many people add “Reddit” to the end of their search query, just making everything full circle. You’re providing the content people are googling by making your post.
I ask forums AFTER I’ve Googled, I don’t want the first answer on your search results either, didn’t you read my post? I already tried that:-(
It depends on the instance in my experience. Beehaw is a good one though, I feel.
Yes, totally. There is a real sense of hostility on most subs. (Larger ones anyway) It’s so hostile I’d always think twice about speaking my mind about anything. Like going back to high school or something.
Too many morons use the downvote button as a “Dislike/Disagree” button. It’s why I like that downvotes are disabled here. If you disagree with someone, you’re encouraged to actually have a discussion instead of lazily pressing the downvote arrow and leaving.
Yeah, I’m really loving the downvote feature being gone. I’ve been on another forum that had a noticeable decrease in toxicity when they removed their dislike reaction too.
Voting is also public, so when people do use them they need to be prepared to stand by it a opposed to using it with anonymity.
Yup.
I’ve seen it used quite effectively as a way to supress discussion, actually.
In the France subreddi, which I was quite active in, as I’m French, if you sorted by controversial, you would often find Queer related topics. Especially Trans issues related threads. Just downvoted to oblivion. But, It’s not like people were disagreeing or anything, all of the few comments on there were positive. It was just a really effective way to suppress discussions about those topics.
As most people sorted by Best, all it would take was a couple of initial downvotes on your thread to bury it for the vast majority of people.
And it worked. Every so often, I would check what was in controversial that day, or that week. Without fail, I would see some of those topics on there, topics which were rarely discussed in this sub, because it was actively being suppressed by the downvotes.
Once I noticed this pattern, I began to check some subreddits, and I noticed the same thing happening on a bunch of them. Often, targeting the same subjects.
Come to think of it, I too, notice the difference. How nicer people are on here.
Here’s another thing that I don’t miss about Reddit. I am glad there is no downvotes on Beehaw, there is not this constant passive aggressive downvoting which was really frustrating.
But yeah, I guess that what I don’t miss the most is it’s comment section. I don’t miss the constant hostility for no reason. I don’t miss the whole comments section being filled with masturbating monkeys every time there is a women in a picture. And I know, it sounds like I’m a fucking white knight or whatever, but that used to bother the hell out of me!
Every time, EVERY TIME you would see a photo with a woman as the subject of the photo, the common section would be unbearable to read…
Same thing, I also don’t miss seeing a video or a picture with a black person on it and seeing that the comments section has been locked. And I don’t even have to wonder why, I know why.
I don’t miss the frets that are political in nature, talking about things like racism or queerphobia, going on there, and just seeing a locked comment section, with giant, sprawling discussions, of just deleted comments after deleted comments, with entire threads being nuked.
…I guess I just don’t miss the bigotry and people being all around assholes.
You know, I’m writing this, and I’m just realizing how horrendous that place was, actually.
I guess, overtime, you end up getting used to it, or maybe, just getting numb to it. And you should never get number to seeing stuff like that, that’s not normal. Bigotry, people acting like assholes, it should be outrageous, it shouldn’t be just something that you’re so used to seeing that it makes your roll your eyes. But I know that here, when I see a bad take, when I see someone behaving like an ass, it sticks out, it jumps out of me. I see it immediately, and I get frustrated with it. Because I am not numbed to it, because it isn’t common here.
Maybe I am now in a bubble, in a safe space. Maybe. Screw everything else, I’m not leaving. I like it here. Real life is already stressful enough for me to be annoyed by people on Reddit.
I thought I would miss it. I don’t. I haven’t returned ever since I made an account here. The only times when I check read it, is if I’m looking for something, like, I have an issue with a game, something like that, I look it up on my search engine, and often, I would get linked to a Reddit thread about it. But that’s it. Other than this, I don’t go on it, I don’t interact with it, I don’t log into it. And I don’t miss it.
This was like leaving social media for me, when I left Twitter and all of that, good fucking riddance.
For reasons I already pointed out several times (and which I don’t mind pointing out again), I had severe anxiety and rejection sensitiveness when I wrote comments on Reddit, fearing their responses. Sometimes those fears were correct, and sometimes don’t, but the fact that I suffered those things was enough to feel myself in danger. Twitter, Reddit, all was the same shit regarding interaction with other people.
Since I joined the fediverse and became more active, those fears were lowering. That, and the fact that I’m taking medication for my ADHD. But a good environment and friendly human interaction help too.
Are you me? I felt the exact same way. Then if it hurts, you have to hide those feelings too because people will make fun of you for being “too sensitive.” “It’s just the internet, get over it.” Rejection sensitivity is real and it sucks. I quit commenting on Reddit because of that. I never understood why people think the internet isn’t a real place, so it’s okay to be cruel. We may be somewhat anonymous here, but we’re still people with feelings. If you’re mentally in a bad place, little things can really feel big. They add up.
I recently got on meds for my ADHD, too. It’s helping me a lot, I hope you’re having good luck with yours too. :)
YES… the way people talk to each other on Reddit is disheartening. I found that if I didn’t phrase things EXACTLY in the same tone/manner that was the general “reddit tone/manner” it was an argument and downvotes. If I had any opinion that was ever so slightly different from the popular opinion it wasn an argument and downvotes. It became impossible to have authentic conversations in many of the subs
Everyone tries to be overly snarky there out of trying to be “funny” and get upvotes. That’s one of the things I dislike the most about that community; it feels as if people try to hurt others to benefit themselves, all for the sake of internet points.
Same experience on Reddit. Any comment saying “I’m having this problem” would usually get hostile responses. A post about a laptop hinge on my machine that failed in an absurdly short amount of time had people saying, “You don’t know how to open your laptop.” The worst IME were the cell carrier and manufacturer subs. People on those were consistently just vicious.
Honestly, that’s what generally happens the more public an online space becomes. The loudest most obnoxious people ruin it. Once Reddit wasn’t a bastion of niche hobbyists and power users, and open to everyone, the chances of Dunning Krueger showing up grows exponentially. Also just assholes in general.
It’s also sort of built into the system anyway. The mods are cronies to the despot. Many are good, but its not the good ones that do the damage and piss people off. They run their subs like petty little tyrants, and it rubs off on people.
I’ve been struck by the same thoughts lately as well, coming from Reddit where I expect hostile attitudes and at times even contributed to it, Lemmy (and to a greater extent, beehaw) is still pretty quiet as far as trolls/haters go, there’s active moderation keeping them at bay when they do show up, and the bulk majority of contributors are friendly and enthusiastic about their topics (rather than the toxic circlejerks of Reddit past.)
I still use Reddit occasionally. A little bit to scratch my news/social topic itch and for the few communities that haven’t migrated here yet.
This is something I’ve noticed about the decentralized platforms in general. Mastodon is way less toxic and hyperbolic than Twitter. There’s no main character. If someone has a terrible opinion, they’re mostly ignored instead of dogpiled upon.
Lemmy and Kbin are the same way. If people disagree, they’re respectful in their disagreements and are by and large open minded and willing to learn something new. It’s honestly refreshing and positive.
I’m not sure if it’s the decentralized platforms giving each community a niche or that the ‘herd’ hasn’t made its way to the fediverse due to complexity but both lemmy and mastodon conversations are a breath of fresh air - it’s almost like the internet used to be on usenet and IRC.
I can’t wait for polite flame wars to start 😀
🧐 I beg to differ. What a preposterous suggestion!
Here’s a question though, do we still need an /s ?
I’ve always gone back and forth on the /s honestly. Sometimes, depending on the writer’s style it’s really easy to pick up in text but some text really needs the extra cues you’d get from facial expression and speaking tone to get it. It also depends on the receiver and the context of the conversation. My feeling is it’s here to stay.
I can relate to that a lot. I usually also comment on niche subs with a help question. Not sure what it is about reddit that makes the common redditor act like a hostile person with a superiority complex. It’s very irritating, like they do the opposite of touching grass 24/7 and hate you for posting.
Beehaw and Lemmy are much smaller so that’s also why the quality of the people here is just overall better. the moderation style in beehaw also helps. It also helps me feel like I can freely comment the way I want to.
