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Forget growth, lets enjoy what we have (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by andobando@lemmy.world to c/lemmyworld@lemmy.world

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There is a huge emphasis I see on just growing community size and creating an alternative to reddit.

Back in the day we used to hang out in irc chats with 5-10 active users or forums with few thousand users max. I made friends there I visted across countries. Years after Id log in and people would ask how you've been.

I had a reddit account for over 10 years and I dont think a single person would recognize my username. Its always felt like people aren't talking to you but trying to appeal to the whole audience for points. Reddit exploits our psychology for attention but nothing humane is gained there. The super massive "community" ends up as a void where 99% of posts go completely unseen and any discussions suffer heavily from mod mentalities.

If this a place where even just ten people call home but feel good doing so, that is more good than a million being miserable. Maybe the best alternative is not to be reddit altogether.

Besides, good things have a natural tendency to spread, we don't need to focus on it.

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[-] Pspspspspsps@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

I kinda love the anonymity of Reddit, I could talk about my personal life with strangers who won't remember me within 5 minutes so I felt safe being open about things I can't talk about IRL even if I didn't get any feedback. I'm hoping that regardless of size, the communities here allow me to do that and still feel safe. Obviously I'll be more cautious here with a smaller user base, but I was still cautious on Reddit too because bad actors who would do you harm exist everywhere and can't be totally avoided if you engage online at all. Sometimes a larger user base simply helps alleviate the stress because you are just another random user rather than a recognisable user for people like me, but it definitely cuts both ways and sometimes people forget you are a human too. The quality of the community is absolutely the most important thing tho, and good communities will grow naturally.

[-] UsualMap@fedia.io 7 points 1 year ago

To be fair I think the whole federation aspect has potential to work very well in this regard, i.e. the community will expand but you can decide which elements of the fediverse you want to engage with.

[-] Pspspspspsps@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Absolutely, I suspect we'll see lots of duplicate communities to begin with and some will grow large, some will remain small and tight-knit, and some will just fade away. I'm still getting to grips with the whole fediverse thing but what I've experienced so far has been great and I think it's starting to make sense the more I use it so I have a good feeling about it. Some teething problems but overall it seems like a great place to be even if it doesn't totally replace Reddit.

[-] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago

Agreed. I think something that will help is if people suggest xpost opportunities when they see them. Like yesterday I posted on !rpg@lemmy.ca and someone suggested xposting on pathfinder.social, which I didn't know existed! So I've grown my subscription list by one more community.

[-] andobando@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

True though you can always post from a new account. If I had a long post history on reddit Id avoid too personal stuff because there was too much identifiable information already

[-] Pspspspspsps@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

For sure! Don't get me wrong this wasn't intended to be a criticism of the fediverse at all, I think the more I learn it's becoming apparent it's actually probably a better way of remaining anonymous simply due to the nature of how it works. Just offering a perspective on why I'd feel more comfortable with a larger user base long term. It's a psychological aspect basically rather than a rational one lol. On Reddit I basically just got a new account every year and completely scrubbed before abandoning them, with a million throwaways for any specific issues that if posted on my main would be too identifiable. Here I'll just hold off on offering personal info for now and just try to get a feel for each community, but it'd just be nice if I find a few homes it feels safe in for that :3