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I like the relatively sane moderation compared to Reddit.
I dislike the heavy far-left/communist presence here. I’m a lefty myself, but a lot of people here are extremists in my opinion, little better than the far right.
Please tell me which subs you go to find extremist leftists
I mean iunno about subs but for instances hexbear is largely known as the tankie instance. For the other kind of extreme leftists, the anarchists seem much more spread out even than they were back on reddit
I dislike that Lemmy is such a left-wing echo chamber. Reddit had a much wider variety of opinions being voiced openly; on Lemmy, there’s almost none. It doesn’t take long to figure out what’s acceptable to say here and what isn’t. It’s a kind of self-gaslighting because it can make you feel like the opinions of the average Lemmy user represent the wider population when that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Also, there are almost no blue-collar workers here, and most discussions revolve around office jobs and big city life.
EDIT: and the extreme levels of cynicism.
The US has a left lean ("left" by US standards). What I mean by that is it's not an even split. The majority of Americans lean left. The only reasons the right has any power in this country is due to the first past the post voting system, gerrymandering, voter suppression, and the electoral college.
I meet Trump supporters everyday. I see signs on the lawn in every town. I hear them speak in media regularly.
Not really, liberals here tend to overpower and speak over leftist voices. Any time a Leftist disagrees with Kamala or points out a legitimate concern swarms of smug liberals say "erm akshurally what about trump you Russian bot".
(Liberal =/= left-wing)
Personally don't like the constant echoing of political positions or takes but that's in my experience equal on both platforms.
I cba. The thing I like more on Lemmy is slight more civilly discussions or what's being shared.
Just hate how its always have to be polarized to what side you lean on ot emphasis on.
Defaulting on the American aspect of things as well.
Defaulting on the American aspect of things as well.
As always ofc, but I feel like less so here. Though the Western aspects are still predominant for sure - UK & EU as well as USA.
I have loved my time with Lemmy so far. I feel like people are much kinder here compared to Reddit, it feels like a genuine community of people that are willing and able to help one another out and chat and talk, without the people of Reddit that just bully and make fun of for no good reason other than just because. I think that’s the biggest reason I prefer lemmy over Reddit, along with the benefits of being decentralized and federated.
But I miss the near infinitely larger user base on Reddit and the things that come with that. On Reddit I can find a community for pretty much anything I can imagine. I’ve always loved using Reddit as a tool to help me learn, because regardless of what it is I’m learning I can find somewhere that I can ask any question I could think of, and 9/10 times someone out there out of the millions of Reddit users can give me a decent competent answer. That’s my favorite part about Reddit. That is, if they don’t just call me stupid and tell me I’m an idiot or something like that.
But I feel hopeful that Lemmy can get to a similar point some day.
It takes some time to block out stuff to make Lemmy usable. So much anime, bots and dumb American politics.
It's nice there are a bunch of apps for Lemmy, but using it without an app is not very welcoming. It needs a lot of improvement (e.g. manually compose urls to subscribe to communities on other servers).
Honestly I've been raw doging Lemmy. I chose an instance that doesn't block anything and I haven't blocked a single thing. I just scroll past the politics and usually sort by new comments. I don't see many bots at all
Like
Editable titles
"All" here vs other social media is much better
It's more likely that arguments are civil. There are still quite a few venomous arguments but I've noticed that it it proportionally less.
On Reddit or Facebook, if you didn't like a group you left and made your own. If you didn't like the admins, tough shit. Here, if you don't like the admins, you can use a different instance.
Likes and dislikes are separate, and are in some cases viewable who submit them. I feel like this keeps people a little more honest.
I like the modlog and transparency. It's so much easier that when someone complains about unfair mod action, to see if they are in the right or exaggerating.
There is an "end" to Lemmy. There isn't just infinite content to scroll through.
Dislike
Smaller user base means that niches that Reddit filled just aren't here.
There is an "end" to Lemmy. There isn't just infinite content to scroll through.
Neutral
The types of common negative personalities here are different from that of Reddit. Reddit has more misogyny, classism, antinatalists, and obnoxious atheists. (As opposed to the chill atheists.) Lemmy has quite a few people that are pretty shitty to those that are disabled or cannot get out of some situations. If you cannot work towards the greater good without any rest, can't escape a bad situation, or can't just extend yourself further, you are trash. There are also more fringe beliefs here. I do like it because of the different perspectives, even if I very strongly disagree. (It makes me think!) Unfortunately we still have the dumbass arguments about generations but you can't have it all.
Like: Long-ass posts. Mastodon has a ridiculous character limit; lemmy doesn't seem to have any. Dislike: Long-ass posts. Jesus people, the rants and drawn-out arguments.
Likes: the small community, traditional forum vibe. No ads, no oppressive corporate hand to keep things advertiser-friendly. Interests and views tend to align, but I can have a healthy disagreement on many issues with most users here. Only a few famous borderline trollish users that aren't fun to chat with, most overt trolls are quickly dealt with.
Dislikes: heavy use of downvoting simply unpopular opinions (a mild annoyance). Difficult to pick between posting in a rarely active niche community and a very active but general community (sometimes I just crosspost). The threat of centralization, with Lemmy.world and Lemmy.ml having by far the largest communities (I would like to see more active communities spread across sites, though I make an effort sometimes to comment on different servers). Some big features I'd like to see that still seem far from implementation, such as multi-communities.
Btw, both Mbin and PieFed have "categories" of multiple communities, so that you don't have to sign up to or explore each community entirely on its own.
Also, you may find it interesting: lemmynsfw, lemm.ee, and sh.itjust.works each have significantly more active monthly users than lemmy.ml. Though lemmy.world does have something like 80% of them on just that one. https://lemmyverse.net/?order=active_month
Until 0.19.6 comes out of beta and Lemmy.world upgrades to it, it's actually hard for any other instance besides it to remain up to date with content.
needs more porn
Lemmynsfw does pretty well. It’s a shame that the main instances don’t federate with the porn instances, but it does nicely prevent either from overwhelming the other.
lemmy.world federated with lemmynsfw. I have blocked probably 50 communities from there already because I don't want that but if you want it, make a .world account
I don't understand this. Is .world a feed that goes out to all the other servers or something?
So … if I tag !boobs@lemmynsfw.com I should be able to see it?
Edit: nope. Unless I have the syntax wrong somehow.
Well, this changes things ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
oh you might need to go into your account settings and turn on nsfw content
I like the way Lemmy functions, with things like an open moderator log and the way that instances can be created to prevent too much control from one singular instance from pushing people completely off the platform if they have bad moderation, for example.
I don't like the users. For every one user that is nice and wants to have a legitimate conversation, there are like 300 that just want to fight/argue or spew politics into a non-political conversation. The number of users I have blocked on Lemmy is far longer than the amount of users I ever blocked on Reddit, and my Reddit account existed for about 10 years. This Lemmy account has only been around for about 1/10th of that.
One of the biggest strengths of Lemmy is also one of its biggest curses. Due to its federated nature, anyone can create a new instance. The problem with this is that particularly nasty users can keep creating accounts on instances they keep creating in order to harass people they don't like. So even if you block them, they just switch to a new account, etc. They can also do this for vote manipulation, not like that really matters on Lemmy but Lemmy users seem to have fallen victim to the same problem Redditors had: seeing a comment with 0 or -1 score and then completely disregarding whatever it said, not reading it and downvoting it automatically.
Here's a ~~hard~~ (edit: damnit! "hint"!) that when I noticed it, improved my experience on the Fediverse enormously. Enough to convince me not to leave it outright as I nearly did. Pay attention to what instance someone is from. It's no 100% guarantee... but it's not useless either. This is like 1000% more relevant for someone on an instance other than Lemmy.world, but it still helps for you too.
The aggressiveness also varies by community, so likewise, some of those are just straight up worth blocking (so that you don't keep forgetting and end up replying in it yet again and again) and finding alternatives for.
Like: decentralization and a renaissance of the old- school dream of what the Internet should be.
Dislike: media bias fact checker bot spamming every damn post. Power tripping mods.
Are you not able to block it? I've blocked the entire community so I don't see it much. You should be able to just like any other user... I would think?
You can but it bothers me that it exists, shitting on everything.
Oh okay, that makes sense! 🙃
The 14 year olds with "big brain" takes.
Like or dislike?
I don't mind the kids themselves, I might have been a teenage embodiment of edge too, but it sucks how many adults get pulled into childish fighting about nothing, instead of having a teaching moment.
It makes the platform seem immature and childish.
Like:
- It has that small-community feel still. I don't see (perhaps because I stay out of a lot of the more tech-ey communities?) the kind of farming, low-effort, generally mediocre content I saw on Reddit.
- Lack of the sense of a hyper-corporatized, "You're only allowed to do things that make us money" sense that's enshittified much of the internet lately. I'm not even sure if Lemmy can be monetized.
Dislike:
- Not yet large enough either. I don't want hundreds of millions of users, but I still miss a lot of the more niche hobby/discussion communities I used to be able to participate in. Even communities for fairly large hobbies or interests can be dead on Lemmy.
- The awful political takes. Everything from typical dumbness up to advocating violence (but it's okay because it's my point). And it's everywhere.
Decentrilization is both a blessing and a curse.
If there's an issue you can make your own community with blackjack, and hookers.
But at the same time these communities never seem to get super big (minus a few) and if you're subscribed to both there's not a good way to deduplicate the posts. So 5 communities post the same thing (or one person posts them in 5) sometimes you see all 5 side by side.
MBin reportedly combines them. Seeing as how the content is identical, Lemmy could too if someone would code it up to make it happen. (Though Rust is a difficult language, unlike Python.)
Dislike: Tankies.
Been wondering... what is a tankie?
Its just another meaningless pejorative term usually used at leftists.
Authoritarian communists, especially those not native to such a state.
Currently it’s mainly the folks who believe China in particular can do no wrong. Historically it refers to supporters of the USSR in Britain
Specifically, it was used to distinguish [CPGB] party members who spoke out in defense of the Soviet use of tanks to suppress the Hungarian Revolution of 1956and the 1968 Prague Spring, or who more broadly adhered to pro-Soviet positions.
More recently it’s applied online especially to people who are knee-jerk anti-capitalist or anti-US, “if the US/‘west’/capitalism is wrong then anyone who opposes them must be right”
More generally, a tankie is someone who tends to support "militant opposition to capitalism", and a more modern online variation, which means "something like 'a self-proclaimed communist who indulges in conspiracy theories and whose rhetoric is largely performative.'"
Dislike: the daily post from someone asking where they can find "non-political" or "centrist" communities, which is a dog whistle that they're tired of being yelled at for their shitty views
The userbase is overall more mature and can actually discuss complex topics. Different instances have completely different feels, vibes, cultures and userbases, and that's amazing. Some admin teams are spez wannabees but the federated structure limits the damage that they can cause.
Relative lack of niche communities. Witch hunting is becoming a worse problem here than in Reddit.
more mature and can actually discuss complex topics
I mean... well okay, more than Reddit yeah, for sure, in the sense that here at least it is possible at all.
Witch hunting is becoming a worse problem here than in Reddit.
How so? Genuinely I'm wondering lately if I'm causing issues. Generally that phrase presumes that the "witches" do not exist (I .. thought?), but e.g. tankies (literally: those who deny that the Tiananmen Square massacre ever took place, like with actual fatalities rather than being staged or some such) actually do exist. Anyway, I wonder if it's a natural reaction to the contentious atmosphere that has developed. Like all it takes is one person to walk into Chapotraphouse unawares, and bam, now you have radicalized someone against the bullies on the Fediverse.
Oh, or you might mean the overzealous modding of certain instances? Though I think that predates the Rexodus, so it's not "becoming a problem" so much as it was here long before most of us that are now here came over. e.g. here's a post from 3 years ago with a very familiar tone: https://lemmy.ml/post/206994. But I would argue that it is as true now as it was then: people don't enjoy being on the receiving end of intolerance, hence tend to be intolerant right back, and yet that is as it should be.
Anyway, the Fediverse has a lot more technical work to get done before it can be more palatable to most people, without HEAVY blocking - as that 3-year-old post shows, the issue isn't going away anytime soon, hence the friction between mutually opposing ideological constructs (e.g. "people in the USA should just die", vs... not that) is only going to spark more conflicts. We'd best settle in and get used to it.
I know, the maturity standard isn't too high, but I still think that Lemmy is going rather well given where the userbase is from.
By "witch hunting" I mean "to claim that someone, a group, or a piece of content belongs to a socially undesirable group, without rational grounds to do so."
Here's a made up example. Let's say that Bob uses a picture of Richard Stallman as his avatar. Alice sees it, and...
- [Alice] Bob! Why do you use that sick fuck as your avatar? You must be a paedophile!
- [Bob] Nah. I use this avatar because I agree with Stallman's views on software freedom, and nothing else. I don't agree with his opinions on sex and sexuality, specially not about children.
- [Alice] That's bullshit, I bet that you abuse little children! MOOOODS!
- [Bob] No, Alice, I don't. Stop lying.
- [Charlie] Alice, please, stop making shit up. Pleeeease.
- [Alice] CHARLIE YOU DISGUSTING PIECE OF SHIT WHY ARE YOU DEFENDING A PEDO???
Alice here is witch hunting. Alice has no grounds to claim that Bob is a paedophile, but she's still doing it.
The "witches" often do exist, mind you - they're racists, bigots, sexual offenders, paedophiles, incels, transphobes, fascists, so goes on. They are socially undesirable, and need to be kicked out. Even then, witch hunting should not be tolerated in online communities: what they do is intrinsically unjust, it makes their target feel like shit, it makes the whole community walk on eggs (because anything that they say or do might get distorted into "witch behaviour"), and it numbs people against the issue with the actual witches (just like the boy who cried wolves unwillingly protected the wolves, witch hunters unwillingly protect the actual "witches").
I saw this plenty, plenty times in Reddit. But here in Lemmy it's surprisingly more common, given the smaller userbase.
But I would argue that it is as true now as it was then: people don’t enjoy being on the receiving end of intolerance, hence tend to be intolerant right back, and yet that is as it should be.
Fighting back is good. Punching random people isn't. Witch hunters do the later, not the former.
Dislike: there is still no way to group communities into sub feeds, apart from subs, local, all. (and the work around some do of having multiple accounts seems silly to me)
Not on Lemmy proper but both Mbin and PieFed have that already. e.g. visit https://piefed.social/, click 3 horizontal bars -> Topics.
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