Lemmy's community or communities rather, don't yet feel like anything is as bad as what you'd expect from Reddit. You may know what I'm talking about but as a reminder, I'm talking about posts that don't quite seem as open minded. I call them small-talk, no-where kind of posts. The kind of posts that equals to a 4 line conversation with anyone in person, on the phone or even online. Never makes it past 'how are you' stages.

The nature of the beast though has yet to take effect because it's not strictly a Reddit thing, it's more of an internet thing, overall. I presume once Lemmy does reach triple digits in the thousands, we could expect to see some behavior that we don't like seeing. However...

Lemmy has a registration that can't be as abused as Reddit's is. I call Reddit's registration system, a machine gun for alts. Because of how stupid easy it is, to make an account. If you wanted to, you can stockpile a 100 Reddit accounts on just one e-mail while ignoring verification. And there isn't anything on Reddit that stops you from this either, just fill a few throwaway forms and boom, you're back on. Go to AskReddit, make a few empty comments, gain some karma or just bide your time a little until you resume your trolling antics again.

Easy to navigate, a nice little list of communities to hop to.

An engaging community, nothing feels too bait-y, things feel fairly contained. I don't feel as much as I did with reddit where anything I said that wasn't looking to instigate an argument, will be antagonized in any way. Reddit has a very spiteful hivemind as I'm sure we've all felt it by the DdoS attacks which is something Reddit users have been known to do in the past.

We need more places like Lemmy.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes and I was trying to think more about what I said, in-between then and now, to perhaps understand it better. I think part of what I was circling around is the difference between ONE person arguing against whatever I may be saying at any given time, even in a bad-faith manner, vs. the background purpose of an entire community. If >90% of all comments are like "^THIS" and other echo-chamber related noise, does that not foundationally change the experience? So, as you alluded to, at the end of the day it simply is what it is, but I do seek to question what that is. I think we will find out as time goes on.

And where I was coming from is that the difference between a "discussion forum" vs. a "social media platform" is... YUGE (it seems to me).

[–] Candelestine 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

... yeah, I think you've nailed it. Discussion forum vs social media platform. They serve very different purposes for different people.

One big problem is shitposts. Or simply, low-effort content. This response right here is taking me about 5-10 minutes to compose. I read what you wrote, I contemplated it, and now I am somewhat carefully composing a response to give back. I'm discussing with you, not because I think you or I are important, but because the conversation itself interests me. This is an effortful comment I am writing.

A shitpost is the opposite. Low-effort content, less about the discussion, more about the individual. More social media-ey. More trashy.

Then trolls do need to be remembered. It's important to remember trolling is an activity, not a type of person. In the same way someone becomes a driver the moment they sit behind the wheel of a car, someone becomes a troll the moment they start laying bait for others. So they can be found anywhere, at any time. It's valuable to be able to discern them, as they specifically want to just waste your time and aggravate you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wrote out a long (>800 word) response, but I think I should dramatically shorten it so apologies if it now seems terse, having gone too far in the other direction:-).

We like shitposting, if we are honest. At least, it has its place.

Some of us may even like trolling, or would if we were on the offering end - like playing peek-a-boo with a baby, it is a game that people play, which ostensively even serves a societal function to act as an incentive for people to toughen up their emotions and not allow themselves to be so easily triggered.

Then they can often be combined, so the line can get quite blurry - like if a cult religion puts forth millions of dollars to make a professionally-produced film, and let us say for the sake of argument that only the top few people in the cult are aware that it is all based on a lie, while the vast majority of people working on it are not, is that "trolling"? That further delves into the actual truth of a matter vs. the perception of a matter, and from what POV, and then still further there is the reception end of things... but that is getting off on too much of a tangent:-).

My problem is that when shitposting + trolling becomes 99.99% of what content exists, then (1) how can people so much as even find anything else, which further leads to (2) a mismatch between what is expected to have been delivered vs. what is actually delivered. Thoughtful responses do not "match" a meme, so someone acting to explain the joke works to ruin the entire experience of it, often even if not always (exceptions exist ofc, like "in my language those words mean something a little bit different"). So in some ways, it is up to us all to "read the room".

But are thoughtful responses welcomed on the Fediverse? I would say mostly yes... - maybe not in a political magazine, unless it happens to match the preconceived notions of each individual recipient who could be anybody and it is not likely that they will know or if so respect the explicitly asked-for instructions on how to converse in that space - but for how much longer will that remain true? After all, that was once the main selling point of Reddit too, once upon a time. This place still has karma, even if it does not work the same. This place still allows alt accounts, and from what I hear the moderation tools on kbin are virtually nonexistent. Now that the fediverse is becoming more popular, and all the more so as Meta is edging closer, I am starting to think that it will go the way of Reddit too, unless actions are taken to work against that. I do not know what those actions might be.

[–] Candelestine 2 points 1 year ago

The key difference the Fediverse has, is the easy ability to associate only with those you wish to. I expect big parts of Lemmy will turn into exactly what you describe, but this is natural and desirable if it is what people actually want. And many people do, I loved it as a teen. I am sure I was not that unique.

However, it can much more easily have smaller, healthier communities as well, that themselves will benefit from their own interconnectedness.

The Fediverse never will be, nor should it be, just one thing. It should be all the things. This could eventually remove those people from the harmful effects the tech giants currently have.