Leaving reddit was a good idea, joining Lemmy, I’m not so sure anymore.
The userbase here is not really diverse in itself, so the whole platform gets this large echo chamber vibe. And with “not diverse” I don’t mean hostile or anything, just very homogeneous. Overwhelmingly left and far left on the political spectrum, embracing all things LGBT+, high nerd & tech factor; and if you don’t belong to or identify with either of those factions, you get downvoted to oblivion, and worse yet, mod removed and banned for no factual reason.
What made reddit strong as a platform was that you had the right kind of diversity and a big enough userbase to not spiral out of control, unless the top management fucked up.
On Lemmy, instance admins are (or become) often the worst offenders, making any interactions with users on their instance tiresome, unless you regurgitate the same stuff that has been said there over and over and over again.
Well, in defense of Lemmy, it’s nice to feel like I’ve got a lower chance of encountering Nazi rhetoric when in one of the anime/manga related instances
Overwhelmingly left and far left on the political spectrum, embracing all things LGBT+
And that’s what makes it great. I don’t get this idea that it’d be better if that wasn’t part of the demographic. Like, what value does being anti-LGBT or neutral-but-whiny bring to the table, for example?
Bringing opposing points of view like that for the sake of it didn’t help Reddit, but only strained moderation and made the user experience worse when we had to deal with so many hateful bigots for no good reason. I saw one sub get overrun by these people and practically squeeze everyone out in a coordinated effort. One of those subs became unequivocally anti-trans in a matter of weeks. It was awful.
Not really. It’s very tiresome when pretty much every thread turns into “capitalism bad” even from the most benign topics. Not that I disagree with it but it’s just everywhere, to the point it’s becoming a meme. That’s what viking is talking about, there needs to be more diversity in the discussion otherwise it’s just everyone circlejerking saying the same things over and over. It’s not attractive to anyone that doesn’t share those same views.
You can open a thread and almost play a lemmy bingo with the comments:
No matter the topic, capitalism will be blamed
Why are you driving 10 miles to that place? You should walk instead!
We should ban cars and replace them with trains. Put trains everywhere!
Linux good, Firefox best
A story on a cop dying will have lots of comments celebrating their murder and calling for more policemen to die
As far as being anti-LGBT, there is no room for outright bigotry on any online space. Not being a FOSS zealot, not being anti-capitalist, and owning a car is not bigotry though
Like, what value does being anti-LGBT or neutral-but-whiny bring to the table, for example?
Anti-LGBT, none. But discussions here are increasingly centered on LGBT topics, which just doesn’t concern me one way or another. And yes, I simply avoid them, it’s just popping up in every thread, related or not. I’m not close minded or anything, I just don’t want to have every discussion drift into issues that don’t concern me.
On the political side, why is it either left, right, or neutral but whiny? There’s quite a large number of neutral and not whiny people out there. My issue is that when I try to point out that some idealistic leftist topics will never work in a material society, I’m being attacked for no reason, so I withdraw from discussions (or don’t even engage anymore at all); thus contributing my share to the growth of the echo chamber and the decline of post volumes.
I’m relatively moderate politically but certainly not anti-diversity, but as a hypothetical example, lets say you’re a new urbanist with a full on ban cars mentality, if I suggested say, daylighting intersections and offering cheap/free parking lots instead of street parking, that opinion might be downvoted to oblivion / mods may ban me because I don’t follow that orthodoxy. If you’re someone who enjoys the conversation and rebuttal portion ( I do, its something I enjoy about reddit), getting 100 people into a post who all think the same is boring as sin. Honestly, if for example on reddit, r/conservative wasn’t such an echo chamber, i’d contribute on that subreddit too just to hear difference of opinion and try to understand the logic behind certain viewpoints.
Honestly what kind of conversation are you looking to have? I don’t need to waste my time listening to libertarian babies who haven’t fully developed their sense of empathy nor even a genuine awareness that they will be sick and frail one day like the people they constantly shit on for needing handouts.
I’d rather an echo chamber with people having genuinely progressive, illuminating conversations than a bunch of babies all screaming words they don’t even really understand the meaning of…. which is all to say I am perfectly fine with how left this space is.
As a left-leaning (okay, outright communist), LGBT-supporting, Palestine-supporting (even pre-war), techy and nerdy person (i.e. Lemmy looks like it was made for me, lol), I still heavily agree we need some diversity here. Without it, Lemmy will never really be what Reddit has become. And we have all tools at our disposal - we are federated! So it becomes a little weird and phenomenal that we get such bubbles in here. But, I guess, this stems again from the small size of Lemmyverse - kind of a vicious circle.
Mastodon has more diversity, so maybe we just have to grow out of the current state? I don’t have the answers.
Doesn’t really help with how other instances are moderated/administered. Sure, I’m in control of what I see or not, but user interactions are by and large the same regardless of where my account is created.
Yeah, I mean… I can’t control what type of food you’re going to eat, but I’m ok with that. We’re still having a converation, and that’s the important part.
I think you’re confusing your current instance for the Fediverse. You can join Beehaw or another federation with different viewpoints. Granted the “main” instances are largely like the internet of old.
My current instance is very hands off and doesn’t defederate with anyone, that’s why I chose it. And Beehaw is one of the left/alternative ones that I mentioned. I don’t mind either one, but an overwhelming part of their users are delusive and tiresome to debate with.
I think you are right about the lack of diversity.
My own take on it is that lemmy is currently populated by early adopters.
There might be a relation between beign open to try new things and being left-leaning, I don’t know.
But I do think that over time, if Lemmy survives it’s early day phase, more people joining should bring more doverse point of views.
This is my biggest issue with lemmy. The userbase is not particularly one I want to interact with or even read their comments most of the time. And it seems there is very little room for nuance or any real differing opinions. And worse, it seems most here are convinced they are correct (though that could be everywhere). There are a few niche communities devoid of that, but they are so small that there is either very little content or the same handful of people are doing all the posting.
Love the idea of lemmy as an alternative to reddit. In practice, it’s absolutely not a place I want to fully spend my time.
So, the internet? Every website has it’s own niche and people stick to it. This isn’t a surprise.
It’s a “surprise” in the sense that Lemmy wanted to do it different and better. It did in some ways, but failed in many others.
How is it being part of a faction to not discriminate against people, exactly? How is it being part of a faction to accept people for who they are, exactly? How is it being part of a faction to be kind to people instead of judging, exactly? Are you sure that you’re not getting downvoted because you’re a bigot?
No, you got that wrong. I never advocated against LGBT+, I’m a “live and let live” kinda guy. I am a straight white male though, so not part of any demographic in need of safe spaces, so it is not exactly easy to put myself into the shoes of people who need protection. Not saying I don’t emphasize, merely that I’m not part of it. I’m also politically liberal and think most left values are noble thoughts, but lack practical availability.
First off, you were never banned so you can quit whining about something that literally never happened.
This is not my main account.
Not factual and indeed bullshit but it was one comment and from one community that is known to be a problem.
Well, the problem here is that worldnews is one of my key area of interests, and that community is about 8x as big as the next larger one on lemmy.world, which is not nearly as active. Which highlights my issue above with the lacking diversity.
[…] that behavior isn’t remotely appropriate on lemmy.blahaj.zone which is known for being very protective of trans folks. […]
Fair, I get the point. Didn’t mean to insult, just had observed quite a bit of trolling. Also had no idea what blahaj is really about, not an instance I interact with frequently.
Did you not see the endless trolling and hate that Reddit throws against anyone for any reason?
Sure happened in the mainstream subs, I just stayed the heck away from there. Here I have to engage with mainstream communities since all the small niche ones except for anything linux and star trek are very much dead; so as a result I see more trolling and shit-talking here than I was used to on my curated reddit frontpage.
Spez banned people for saying fuck Spez. He edited peoples comments when they were critical of him. They shadowbanned people so they didn’t even know they couldn’t interact with the site. They outright banned entire communities. They let moderators sit on communities and do nothing other than force it to go in one specific way. /r/WorldNews actively removed comments critical of things that they’re against and it applies to /r/The_Donald and /r/Politics and /r/Canada and everywhere else.
Fully agree, Spez was a dick. However on Lemmy you are dealing not with one isolated dick in the kingdom, but rather with a bunch of dicks over a multitude of serfdoms across the realm. Neither one feels great.
Reddit has been getting really far left too, lately. I find myself hitting the chans sometimes just to level it out. I swear I’m a moderate but all the damn propaganda I see is either ultra left or ultra right, loudest voices in a crowded room get heard or whatever.
I haven’t been back to reddit since I deleted my accounts, but yeah there’s a lot of extremes going around the internet to either side of the political spectrum. I disengage as much as possible, but sometimes it’s hard not to get triggered.
I hope one day you change your opinion. I’m not taking sides but sometimes you have to find peaceful ground to talk on with your enemies for innocent life to be respected.
Leaving reddit was a good idea, joining Lemmy, I’m not so sure anymore.
The userbase here is not really diverse in itself, so the whole platform gets this large echo chamber vibe. And with “not diverse” I don’t mean hostile or anything, just very homogeneous. Overwhelmingly left and far left on the political spectrum, embracing all things LGBT+, high nerd & tech factor; and if you don’t belong to or identify with either of those factions, you get downvoted to oblivion, and worse yet, mod removed and banned for no factual reason.
What made reddit strong as a platform was that you had the right kind of diversity and a big enough userbase to not spiral out of control, unless the top management fucked up.
On Lemmy, instance admins are (or become) often the worst offenders, making any interactions with users on their instance tiresome, unless you regurgitate the same stuff that has been said there over and over and over again.
Well, in defense of Lemmy, it’s nice to feel like I’ve got a lower chance of encountering Nazi rhetoric when in one of the anime/manga related instances
Oh I didn’t mean to say that Lemmy is bad or wrong, far from it.
And that’s what makes it great. I don’t get this idea that it’d be better if that wasn’t part of the demographic. Like, what value does being anti-LGBT or neutral-but-whiny bring to the table, for example?
Bringing opposing points of view like that for the sake of it didn’t help Reddit, but only strained moderation and made the user experience worse when we had to deal with so many hateful bigots for no good reason. I saw one sub get overrun by these people and practically squeeze everyone out in a coordinated effort. One of those subs became unequivocally anti-trans in a matter of weeks. It was awful.
Not really. It’s very tiresome when pretty much every thread turns into “capitalism bad” even from the most benign topics. Not that I disagree with it but it’s just everywhere, to the point it’s becoming a meme. That’s what viking is talking about, there needs to be more diversity in the discussion otherwise it’s just everyone circlejerking saying the same things over and over. It’s not attractive to anyone that doesn’t share those same views.
You can open a thread and almost play a lemmy bingo with the comments:
As far as being anti-LGBT, there is no room for outright bigotry on any online space. Not being a FOSS zealot, not being anti-capitalist, and owning a car is not bigotry though
Anti-LGBT, none. But discussions here are increasingly centered on LGBT topics, which just doesn’t concern me one way or another. And yes, I simply avoid them, it’s just popping up in every thread, related or not. I’m not close minded or anything, I just don’t want to have every discussion drift into issues that don’t concern me.
On the political side, why is it either left, right, or neutral but whiny? There’s quite a large number of neutral and not whiny people out there. My issue is that when I try to point out that some idealistic leftist topics will never work in a material society, I’m being attacked for no reason, so I withdraw from discussions (or don’t even engage anymore at all); thus contributing my share to the growth of the echo chamber and the decline of post volumes.
I’m relatively moderate politically but certainly not anti-diversity, but as a hypothetical example, lets say you’re a new urbanist with a full on ban cars mentality, if I suggested say, daylighting intersections and offering cheap/free parking lots instead of street parking, that opinion might be downvoted to oblivion / mods may ban me because I don’t follow that orthodoxy. If you’re someone who enjoys the conversation and rebuttal portion ( I do, its something I enjoy about reddit), getting 100 people into a post who all think the same is boring as sin. Honestly, if for example on reddit, r/conservative wasn’t such an echo chamber, i’d contribute on that subreddit too just to hear difference of opinion and try to understand the logic behind certain viewpoints.
Honestly what kind of conversation are you looking to have? I don’t need to waste my time listening to libertarian babies who haven’t fully developed their sense of empathy nor even a genuine awareness that they will be sick and frail one day like the people they constantly shit on for needing handouts.
I’d rather an echo chamber with people having genuinely progressive, illuminating conversations than a bunch of babies all screaming words they don’t even really understand the meaning of…. which is all to say I am perfectly fine with how left this space is.
As a left-leaning (okay, outright communist), LGBT-supporting, Palestine-supporting (even pre-war), techy and nerdy person (i.e. Lemmy looks like it was made for me, lol), I still heavily agree we need some diversity here. Without it, Lemmy will never really be what Reddit has become. And we have all tools at our disposal - we are federated! So it becomes a little weird and phenomenal that we get such bubbles in here. But, I guess, this stems again from the small size of Lemmyverse - kind of a vicious circle.
Mastodon has more diversity, so maybe we just have to grow out of the current state? I don’t have the answers.
The good thing about Lemmy is you can create your own instance.
Doesn’t really help with how other instances are moderated/administered. Sure, I’m in control of what I see or not, but user interactions are by and large the same regardless of where my account is created.
Yeah, I mean… I can’t control what type of food you’re going to eat, but I’m ok with that. We’re still having a converation, and that’s the important part.
I think you’re confusing your current instance for the Fediverse. You can join Beehaw or another federation with different viewpoints. Granted the “main” instances are largely like the internet of old.
My current instance is very hands off and doesn’t defederate with anyone, that’s why I chose it. And Beehaw is one of the left/alternative ones that I mentioned. I don’t mind either one, but an overwhelming part of their users are delusive and tiresome to debate with.
Where can I find these instances with good descriptions from the admins and users? Lemmy.world is not the place.
My main account is with lemm.ee, they are very open and transparent in their communication.
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I think you are right about the lack of diversity.
My own take on it is that lemmy is currently populated by early adopters. There might be a relation between beign open to try new things and being left-leaning, I don’t know.
But I do think that over time, if Lemmy survives it’s early day phase, more people joining should bring more doverse point of views.
This is my biggest issue with lemmy. The userbase is not particularly one I want to interact with or even read their comments most of the time. And it seems there is very little room for nuance or any real differing opinions. And worse, it seems most here are convinced they are correct (though that could be everywhere). There are a few niche communities devoid of that, but they are so small that there is either very little content or the same handful of people are doing all the posting.
Love the idea of lemmy as an alternative to reddit. In practice, it’s absolutely not a place I want to fully spend my time.
Yep, my thoughts exactly. Let’s see where it goes…
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It’s a “surprise” in the sense that Lemmy wanted to do it different and better. It did in some ways, but failed in many others.
No, you got that wrong. I never advocated against LGBT+, I’m a “live and let live” kinda guy. I am a straight white male though, so not part of any demographic in need of safe spaces, so it is not exactly easy to put myself into the shoes of people who need protection. Not saying I don’t emphasize, merely that I’m not part of it. I’m also politically liberal and think most left values are noble thoughts, but lack practical availability.
This is not my main account.
Well, the problem here is that worldnews is one of my key area of interests, and that community is about 8x as big as the next larger one on lemmy.world, which is not nearly as active. Which highlights my issue above with the lacking diversity.
Fair, I get the point. Didn’t mean to insult, just had observed quite a bit of trolling. Also had no idea what blahaj is really about, not an instance I interact with frequently.
Sure happened in the mainstream subs, I just stayed the heck away from there. Here I have to engage with mainstream communities since all the small niche ones except for anything linux and star trek are very much dead; so as a result I see more trolling and shit-talking here than I was used to on my curated reddit frontpage.
Fully agree, Spez was a dick. However on Lemmy you are dealing not with one isolated dick in the kingdom, but rather with a bunch of dicks over a multitude of serfdoms across the realm. Neither one feels great.
Guy. You really need to compare yourself in the mirror with what that other guy already said. It’s like you can’t see yourself at all.
Is…is that you Spez?
Reddit has been getting really far left too, lately. I find myself hitting the chans sometimes just to level it out. I swear I’m a moderate but all the damn propaganda I see is either ultra left or ultra right, loudest voices in a crowded room get heard or whatever.
I haven’t been back to reddit since I deleted my accounts, but yeah there’s a lot of extremes going around the internet to either side of the political spectrum. I disengage as much as possible, but sometimes it’s hard not to get triggered.
The philosopher in me wants to hear all sides of every argument. I try not to get triggered by anything.
Yeah I gave up trying to understand fascists and terrorists… There’s really no merit to it.
I hope one day you change your opinion. I’m not taking sides but sometimes you have to find peaceful ground to talk on with your enemies for innocent life to be respected.
Reddit is co-opted to make the left look bad
I don’t think it was intentional, but they kinda did… Lol. The more they get baited the worse it gets. Ever heard of a self fulfilling prophecy…
I’ve always considered being mass downvoted on any platform a good thing.
I’m downvoting you, but only because I’m upvoting you.
You’re the MVP
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