Lemmy

I recall these kinds of threads on Reddit when Digg was imploding, the OG Reddit hipsters were annoyed at the influx of users and the change it brought to discourse on the platform.

But the fact is, if we want Lemmy to grow, it's going to change.

I think a really important thing to consider here is how much of Reddit's culture was a result of bots and dark patterns. I think people will actually adjust fairly quickly and once sign ups start to settle a sort of diffuse equilibrium of cultures and attitudes will form that will generally look very different from Reddit. All that said, I think the foundational culture that we establish now will prove to be incredibly important. I think this is a great argument for why existing communities may choose to stay in the medium-weight class. Thereby avoiding the growth boost that comes from being the largest community.

EDIT: Also important to note, I feel like this is gonna be a slow, slow process. We really have no idea when sign-ups will settle and could be looking at months or days of Reddit hemorrhaging users. I think we'll have a better idea after things kick off on the 30th.

This site is full of neolibs posting propaganda on the World News sub. It's annoying.

As one of the folks who came from Reddit when everyone else did, sorry. :(

It makes sense that any mass exedous from some other community will greatly change the destination community, and much of value will be lost in the process.

So, is there anything I can do to help preserve and embody what I've helped destroy? I'll definitely keep in mind what you've said here about "toxicity, entitlement, and stupid challenges," and I'll learn more about federation and keep an open mind. Any other advice how we former Redditors can help keep what made Lemmy great before hordes of Redditors flooded it?

Any advice how we can help even enrich the Lemmy community and make it better than we first found it?

I don't want to go back to Reddit. And I don't want to be a pariah or paracite here. And I accept that those who were on Lemmy have wisdom to share that newcomers can benefit from.

If you don't want to be on a large Lemmy, then I recommend you move to a smaller Lemmy. If you always want to be in a smaller Lemmy, then I recommend you make sure it is one where the admins want to remain small. There are many of these. It will take work to find and join one, however.

But I think it would be more effective than complaining about a service growing big after trying to grow big.

Seriously? Can't people just use social platform the way they want to? Like, just chose what you want to follow and ignore the rest. Or create you own server where you can cherry pick users. But if you "original people" insist on circlejerking one another, I really dont mind packing my shits and leaving Lemmy. I dit it for facebook, reddit and multiple others already.

To compare that to being a refugee speaks volumes about your entitlement and privilege.

Obviously the term is being used in a wholly different context. Comments like these make me think you are just trying to pick a fight instead of listening to the grievances.

Some of us are here because we believe in community-driven projects, and reddit is shutting those down, so yeah, we are being kicked out against our will. So no, this isn't just about favourite meme factory.

Political refugees are a serious issue. Feel free to disagree with me, but I don't think gatekeeping the word "Refugee" as used in a totally different context is particularly productive. It is no more of armchair effort than what you decry.

--

As for the complaints about defederation... This is just noise. If you don't like it or want to stay small, why not just... defederate? Isn't that the point?

People have to come from somewhere. Since Lemmy is "Reddit like" and Reddit is the biggest of its type, well that's what's where people are going to come from. I mean if you don't new get users you're not going to have a community.

I first took a look at Lemmy some time ago and honestly is was like, "hey man, this party is dead." It wasn't until the recent influx of users that Lemmy got active enough to keep my attention.

There's always going to be clueless people that don't understand how things work. Rather than complain about them I'd rather try to be positive and help them. Though some people just can't be helped and you have to let them slide.

Another issue is the more people you get into a community the wider the range of attitudes. You will get people that don't have nice things to say and there's no avoiding that. It's something that has to tolerated. Of course moderation can help a lot, but it's not going to preclude anybody from ever getting offended.

To be clear, is what you're saying here that the service that you're using — which you did not build — is too welcoming to newcomers?

If you want a walled garden, this may not be a very easy place to establish one. I don't think anyone will stop you from trying; but it's not clear to me that the people who are actually building the service are in agreement with your values.

Lots of people are enthusiastic for something different from walled gardens. But it sounds like you really want one, or rather you joined an open service and are now complaining that it's too open for you.

But if you don't like the policies of your current instance and its peers, because they are too welcoming to people who are newcomers, and to people who are different from you ... please don't pretend you're being progressive, okay?

Yeah we already went through this exact thing with Masto and Twitter. The complaining about defed is particularly annoying to me, like... defederation is a feature of the fediverse, not a bug, lol... Hopefully the "this doesn't work exactly like MyFavoriteSite" folks will clear out eventually like the last wave.

As a new user, I completely understand your disatisfcation. There are plenty of perfectly well-behaved users coming over but there's also a fair share of others who are tracking in mud, putting their feet on the furniture and overall acting like entitled fools or just aren't the people you would ever invite to your party. I'd be resentful as well.

Last thing and a pet peeve of mine: stop calling yourself a refugee.

No fun allowed, got it.

You're taking yourself way too seriously. Let people have their fun name, its not hurting anybody.

Of course the average user doesn't know what federation is, thats a complex topic. Be realistic, live and let live.

Hmm. So as a different perspective, I joined because people were talking about it as a Reddit alternative. Reddit never clicked with me as it just felt like a whirlpool feeding into a meat-grinder. I figured I'd give this other thing a try, and it's has felt more like a ye-olde forum where I can actually say things and get responses back. Though discussions still don't seem to have a lot of longevity. Still, it's kinda nice, and I'll stick around for a bit. :)

I'm not here for the memes or news though... So I don't really have any experience with the issues the OP says, and I'm probably some weird minority?

Yeah, this happened to Mastodon (aka the microblogging part of Fedi) also. I was on Mastodon on-and-off for years before the Twitter exodus, and it was a very different place back then. I can see why people miss the overall community on a platform before it became popular, but then I feel like ActivityPub gives us the tools to shape the communities we want, so we have to engage with it and be more selective than we were before.

A lot of the people that have come over aren't people who want decentralisation. They are people who don't give a shit but are unhappy with reddit.

They haven't learned WHY reddit is making this decision. They have no understanding of why IPOs and privately owned companies will always lead to this. They do not understand.

They are just people that want their content slop, but are also mad. They don't actually care how the slop is delivered to them they just know they want it and know they're mad at reddit.

The result is that they want to come somewhere else and behave exactly like it is reddit, when it is not.

I don't agree this is gentrification, but aside from your questionable vocabulary I don't disagree. I came from reddit, understand that it is different, and celebrate the differences.

Hamigrated here about 2 weeks ago. Have to agree about the point of people not learning the ins and outs of what makes the fediverse.

Me being a nerd, loved the introduction and for couple nights, just soaked in all the information regarding the fediverse and have actually joined other instances within. Tops off to RadioFree. Been using it daily now.

Felt like others were joining the fediverse because of motivation. Motivation to learn and adopt the technology. For most, they don't care at all about it

People also seem to be refusing to learn what federation is and how that works

Yeah, I've seen plenty of new communities that have already shuttered to "move to X instance where the users are" that would make me laugh if it weren't so annoying that they've just decided to squat a community that could flourish locally if someone else took it over.

i hope sign up questions stay forever. those should be mandatory. like an airport: u have to go through customs and answer questions, else u are a hazard to the airline industry. a blacklist among instances should be universal to filter human waste.

I'm one of the newer transplants from Reddit, but for the last several years I've only been a lurker there, because I haven't felt like I really fit in with those communities and that culture well enough to fully engage.

Lemmy feels different, in similar fashion to how Mastodon felt so different from Twitter when I switched over there a year so back. I haven't looked back on Twitter, and I doubt I'll look back on Reddit. The water's way nicer over here, for me.

I do think it'll take a while for most of the disruptive newcomers to fully bounce off the Lemmy/Fediverse culture, but I also do think they will eventually bounce off it, as long as we all stick to our guns in terms of the culture we want to build, the rules with which we want to govern our communities and servers, and the social norms we want to tolerate.

There are just going to be 1973629092 tedious arguments about defederation between here and there. 🙄

I'm just happy that there's more content now.

More users definitely brings new challenges, but honestly. I'm beyond surprised and happy at how Lemmy is surviving the huge influx this month.

I'd have guessed that servers would have crumbled under 10x the load, super happy that they didn't.

I agree completely. These folks that don’t understand federation and how to create a positive community culture are mostly internet trolls. They don’t care about the negative environment they are creating and how it affects everyone else not like them. Reddit was good for some things, but extremely bad in others. We should not recreate it.

Really begging folks not to take this kind of approach to having this conversation on Lemmy. We had literally this exact kind of discourse on Mastodon and it has severely impacted the public perception of Mastodon, to the point where there are tons of people that think it's full of 'NIMBYs' who are super strict and expect you to behave a certain way.

People have a very very hard time understanding that software like Lemmy or Mastodon isn't a community or a platform, but a network of individual communities that everyone has a different view into. A lot of my friends were burned joining Mastodon because they interacted with a bunch of boring white people who weren't funny, and it's hard for me to explain to them that you need to join a different instance and follow different people lol. Also people don't understand instances or the fact that instances are run by volunteers.

When I started my Mastodon server (right before the big Twitter 'migration' lol) I loved what I found on Mastodon. The community was amazing. But this exact specific reaction (down to the stuff about refugees) ended up poisoning that community and the folks who potentially wanted to join it.

I'm still new to Lemmy, but I think it's important to approach this with an open mind. Communities grow and change over time, and I think we should be more open to that and lead with empathy. And I understand the frustration with this is VERY real (trust me as an admin I MORE than get it). But I think a lot of what we're getting from Reddit is very positive, not the negatives, due to the fact that we have more moderation control here and because it's mostly the cooler users lol.> Yeah we already went through this exact thing with Masto and Twitter. The complaining about defed is particularly annoying to me, like… defederation is a feature of the fediverse, not a bug, lol… Hopefully the “this doesn’t work exactly like MyFavoriteSite” folks will clear out eventually like the last wave.

Also to be fair I don't think that that means this becomes a neoliberal shithole, but I think the majority of folks joining mean well and like the vibe. They're joining because of the vibe.

My first comment in the federation was met with ‘I know what you mean’. My last comment was met with a ‘stfu snowflake’. It sure didn’t take long for this awesome alternative to go from community to battlefield. Next stop - karma farming. I hated joining the conversation reddit for these reasons. I guess I’ll be lurking again.