Asklemmy

I think because everyone has their own corners, the common spaces don't need to be as toxic. Also, Lemmy's population is self selected because of the still high bar to entry. Lemmy basically feels like early Reddit. The hostile influence of moderators and the backlash anger everyone feels from being mistreated by them into silence is not yet here.

Definitely people here are much more polite, the contrast is just striking.

The negativity is definitely less. Sure, out of say fifty comments to a post there's maybe two disgruntled souls. Overall it's conducive to discussion.

Over on reddit I kept to just hobby subreddits for the most part to make comments. Only way to not come across the trolls.

Yes, the clean UI is wonderful. It's good to have something simple. It's also fun to watch something grow.

The fediverse is a great system for moderation. I've been on Mastodon for years now and it's stayed pretty pleasant.

While sometimes mildly amusing, I don't miss the strings of puns that dominated ~50% of the "discussions" I clicked.

I think the lack of a karma equivalent, and thus karma farming, results in much more thought out and unique posts/comments.

There are less reposts bc its newer and bc there is a lot less bots

I think there's many contributing factors. I actually was thinking about the same thing before I found your post, and the answer that came to mind outside of some of the ones people posted here was:

It feels like a breath of fresh air because we're outside the Walled Garden. We're not trapped on a platform who's soul has been crushed and wrung for every penny's worth like Reddit or Twitter. And we can see that there is a world on the Internet besides the Walled Garden and that fact is very liberating. It makes you feel like you don't have to go back.

On reddit, half of the users are bots controlled by various corporations and state departments.

Because it's run by the people for the people! :)

Fediverse denizens are really active.

Of course it feels new, because it is new to many people. :-)

I felt like people were seeing my Reddit posts and comments, and I feel like people are here, as well. As with any commenting website or service, as the numbers of commenters grow large you need to be relatively quick to reply if you want many people to see what you write. On Reddit, obviously that means it depended what subreddit you were commenting on. And surely it will be the same or already is the same here.

The UI all depends on what client you're using. In my mind it doesn't feel like the early Internet, but that probably depends on our relative ages.

Because the people are all lovely

I think it all boils down to an older and more geeky user base.

Early adopters are mostly tech minded people, and the whole scene is rather respectful. I'm pretty sure the dicks will come in due time. Plenty of dormant accounts (future spammers) are registered already, solid indication that we are heading that way...

I'm a recent reddit semi-convert (haven't left Reddit entirely just yet) and I'm loving it so far

I think it's partially attributable to Lemmy phone apps haven't taken off yet. Phone posting is a different medium than desktop posting with regards to McLuhans "the medium is the message" principle. Phone usage appeals to the lowest common denominator. People use it as a time waste to mindlessly scroll. The cognitive load is much lower. Thus shitty content bubbles to the top because that's all the brain power people are giving it. Phone usage is not conducive to consuming depth of content nor contributing it.

Additionally I think the lower cognitive engagement tends to lead people into greater fuckwad behavior. You aren't on a board with human beings on the other side of a keyboard. It's just a stupid app on your phone.

I think if I'm right then in time Lemmy with death spiral not unlike reddit if phone apps mature and Lemmy apps become a mainstream daily use type of affair. I doubt that will happen without the capitalist engine driving it though.