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I remember being really disappointed that the mods there refused to leave reddit during the protests last June. Today I happened to check reddit and I see the engagement appears to have plummeted.

So it seems the peeps decided to vote with their feet, which is great! However I know there hasn't been a lot of influx in alternative places like this community, !anarchism@slrpnk.net or even raddle.me.

So where have all the online anarchists gone? What do you think :D

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[-] poVoq@slrpnk.net 21 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

They probably went to some Discord channels 😒

[-] Danterious@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 8 months ago

Or any kind of group chat.

[-] DessertStorms@kbin.social 13 points 8 months ago

anarchism@lemmy.ml seems most active though if I post I tend to do it to m/anarchism on kbin (as you can see I am not sure how best to link these so others get to the right place lol), but yeah, the communities here are definitely less active.

From my perspective I think it comes from the rest of the platform generally being more left leaning than reddit was, so people not needing to keep within the leftist specific communities as much, but as more, less left leaning people, join, I can already feel like I want to interact less in the larger communities and I suspect it isn't just me, so it's probably just a matter of time before the leftist specific spaces become more active again..

[-] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

There's also !anarchism@lemmy.dbzer0.com

I wish I had more to contribute, but I always feel like I'm rambling and trying to sort things out for myself vs. ever having a distinct point. I'd like to see a more active anarchist community because most of the communities I use aren't exactly great places to discuss anarchism without getting dunked on.

Edit: Oh wait, we're in that community lol

[-] DessertStorms@kbin.social 4 points 8 months ago

Edit: Oh wait, we’re in that community lol

lol, yeah, I was going to say.. 😂

And I definitely relate, I don't feel like many of my personal thoughts are worth a standalone post, and even if they were (and also when I post things other people have written) I don't want to be arguing with bootlickers, but rather have constructive conversations with people already on the same page, which can't really happen without an established community, so it's a bit of a catch 22..

Maybe I'll start sharing posts about some of the essays and books I read, just to start more discussion. I'm sure my admin will let me know if it's too unhinged 😸

[-] DessertStorms@kbin.social 3 points 8 months ago

I say go for it, as someone who no longer has the brain power to read books I'd appreciate knowing what's out there without having to read it all myself lol
More importantly - hopefully it lures out the lurking anarchists, and that way a community can grow..

[-] PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S@lemmy.sdf.org 13 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I'm still here! I'm more interested in learning from your perspectives than dumping mine.

Edit: so I failed a Perception check and read this as being about this community. I am very much not on Reddit anymore.

If I had to guess, the Redditors "lost" probably diffused into several Lemmy communities, Raddle, several Mastodon instances, several Discord servers, and several places unknown to us. Some of us probably took the lack of activity in each individual forum as a lack of interest. We fragmented. I know you're in a bunch of anarchist communities, and I'm subscribed to a few, but there's probably some people we're missing.

[-] Five@slrpnk.net 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

It's been in decline since the coup, I think.

It used to be structured so that moderator nominations and community management discussions took place in /r/metanarchism - and any participant of /r/@ in good standing could be nominated to become a mod in weekly? monthly? mod nom threads, and if they weren't blocked, got a quorum of votes, and got enough "support" votes in reply to their nomination comment, they would become a mod. @db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com was one of the more cautious and responsible people who was made an /r/@ moderator through this process.

I think this situation lasted a couple of years, which was impressive. I forget the exact details, but since order of addition in the software gave ability to de-mod anyone added after you were added, one of the older mods removed all of the mods who had been selected by the community, set their own people as mods, and closed /r/met@ to public participation. ~~Of course~~ @db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com ~~was one of the purged mods~~ had de-modded himself for unrelated reasons before the event occurred.

r/@ still had a bunch of good anarchist content, but became a lot less interesting after that.

[-] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

No that's not what happened. I stepped down from the top mod position voluntarily (for the second time, lol) after they asked me to for not being as active as another mod. Eventually they removed me as a mod for being "inactive" :-/ . There was no purge.

[-] Five@slrpnk.net 4 points 8 months ago

My memory of it isn't great and it was a while ago. When did /r/metanarchism go private?

[-] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 8 months ago

a long tine. It was a good decision because reddit doesn't prevent people who are not approved from voting or commenting and it added a ton of drama

[-] Five@slrpnk.net 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I get why it happened, and why after the coup fizzled, /r/met@ remained closed. The exhaustion of the mods was palpable. I miss the transparency though. Being able to see other anarchists navigating the management of a space designed for hierarchy was kind of inspiring, the subversion of the comment system to vote over issues was clever, and participating in debate and politics as a non-mod was empowering.

Not that I'm advocating a return to that experience. Volunteer moderators don't deserve the kind of harassment they typically received modding on Reddit's anarchism subs. But it was one of those moments in history where idealism overwhelmed caution, and something beautiful but ephemeral was called into brief existence.

[-] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 8 months ago

Eh it's pretty trivial for any anarchist to join metanarchism. The problem isn't that we tried to exclude people, it's that nobody cared to help with governance unless there was drama to be had

[-] BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee 7 points 8 months ago

I'm here. I've made a few posts in various lemmy communities but most of them don't garner a lot of discussion. Would be happy to know where everyones going as well

[-] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 8 months ago

I always get a lot of discussion when making lemmy threads

[-] BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee 3 points 8 months ago

Oh yeah, in general I can get a good handful of comments but anarchism communities seem to be pretty inactive

[-] punkisundead@slrpnk.net 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I still miss those folks in r/Anarchism101, that sub seems to be pretty active to me

[-] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 8 months ago

Yea, certainly more than /r/anarchism

[-] TheFriar@lemm.ee 6 points 8 months ago

I would assume it’s because when wronged, anarchists can say, “I’m giving up this terrible company’s website” and then…actually do it. I think I just assumed that would’ve been the case for everyone else.

[-] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 4 points 7 months ago

Seem to be quite a few on Mastodon.eg heres a Mastodon instance. https://kolektiva.social/about

And various Lemmy instances?

I suspect US "anarchists" moveed to discord

[-] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 7 months ago

The only lemmy instances I know that are anarchist is mine and yours

[-] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 8 months ago

I went on my computer and checked out Reddit last week, after seven months. Subs I loved are ghost towns now. YouTubehaiku has like nothing. It’s very sad.

[-] UziBobuzi@kbin.social 3 points 8 months ago

I went to a Mastodon server where other anarchists are.

[-] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 8 months ago

Eh, people who liked reddit don't aways like mastodon/twitter. I am that way myself

[-] UziBobuzi@kbin.social 1 points 8 months ago

I left reddit when the mod kerfuffle started but I had a bad experience with r/Anarchism long before that and hadn't been a member for quite a while.

[-] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 8 months ago

They stopped being anarchists I guess or stopped being interested in the discourse around it. Everything is fucked and every other person is some bloodthirsty ghoul either pro Israel or pro Russia one way or another and nothing can be done really.

[-] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 8 months ago

They stopped being anarchists I guess or stopped being interested in the discourse around it

That's very unlikely

[-] pbpza@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 8 months ago

I would say it somewhat restarted to have some activity recently, it used to be very dead after they reopened it after protests.

this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
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