Positivity, or at least more constructive comments.
I know a lot of bad stuff is going on worldwide, and I’m not upset the bad news gets mentioned, but it seems we have more tendency as a whole to revert back to the old Reddit ways. More arguing, more downvoting, more piling on to people without any comments why people are disagreeing.
Yesterday there was a discussion about homelessness and I shared stats from Census.gov, as the article from the OP was paywalled. Someone asked a question as to why certain states (basically the red ones) had less reported homeless and why it seemed they had a better handle on the issue than states like CA or NY. While I was typing up a nice response demonstrating causation vs correlation and how looking at a chart showing # of people as counted only in shelters may initially make it seem they had many less homeless when in reality, they have homeless people, but they may either be provided no shelter or they may end up in jail as opposed to being left alone.
By the time my reply was done, I saw the person that asked the question was being downvoted. They hadn’t made a statement saying the red states were better with the homeless, they asked a valid question as to why it appeared that way as they had called them the “poor states” and seemed confused how they had funding to keep homelessness down better than the other states. I had also responded to this person before on other occasions when they had questions, so I knew they weren’t trolling or spreading misinformation, but no one else, save one other person (with an accurate but snarky reply) chimed in with any type of answer, they just downvoted a legitimate question while offering no help.
I don’t feel Lemmy a year ago would have acted this way, and I see it on many threads each day. I for better or worse, have interest in politics and associated things, so I end up reading many negative threads, but I try my hardest to avoid making straight negative comments, and instead try to provide stats or more background info so people are understanding what they’re seeing and trying to clear up any confusion so they can make informed choices based on facts. I’ll even get downvoted though (not badly) for just sharing info with trustworthy sources. Heck, yesterday I got downvoted for talking about my heat pump, and almost every animal pic I share gets at least 1 or 2 downvotes. Never any comments why, so I just am constantly confused by it.
Just wish we did a bit more to foster a better vibe here. I spend less and less time in other communities and stick to my own, but that doesn’t feel like a good way to grow Lemmy. And I’m someone who currently posts and replies daily. Most people still just lurk, no matter what we try to do, and nobody is going to post if they’re going to get negged for no reason.
Came here to say this, but shorter. Imagine my surprise to see “Positivity” first word in the top comment. I know we don’t all agree on everything, but the vibe on Lemmy (for me at least) seems to be share our views or shut up.
The other thing is how political everything seems to get. Even outside of political communities you see it seaping into the comments. I might be remembering wrong, but reddit didn’t seem to have that issue (as much). If you weren’t in a politically orriented community the mods kept that kinda talk out.
All that being said, I’m sticking with Lemmy. I don’t hace any desire to go back to reddit even as a lurker. I hope lemmy gets nicer as more people join. I’ve embraced being downvoted. I will try to love communism and linux to a greater degree than I already do.
I didn’t want to ramble on too long, but I’ve had discussions before where I talk about how I feel the Reddit attitude towards mods there has kept mods weak here, out of fear of being overbearing or whatever you want to call it.
Was talking to the person running MaleFashionAdvice and they had wondered why people weren’t hanging out there. That isn’t typically a group I’d follow, but I checked it out, and the latest post was full of “not interested in this,” “fashion is stupid,” and I feel there were a few anti-capitalism comments. Otherwise, recent threads included more “normal people” advice than I expected to see in a fashion sub, ie. not all about super expensive or limited things, things that came in less common sizes, etc. But I told them, hey, you might want to clean some of these posts out of here, because if new people start browsing and see way more negative comments than helpful ones, why would they sub? As you said, we can disagree, but bring something to the table instead of just basically going “you suck bro!” Something like a “can we get a thread on some more affordable clothes or about brands that the clothes last” is much more useful and not rude.
It may be the things I browse, but I feel Reddit had plenty of “why do we need to make eveything political” stuff. I read a lot about the environment, animals, and conservation, so of course politics do overlap with that as much as some “old school outdoorsman” may see that as a safe space. But again, there’s reasonable ways to discuss it, and we should be open to listening to others, especially if they bring supporting facts to back them up.
I will try to love communism and linux to a greater degree than I already do.
I see we have a similar analysis of the average Lemmy commenter! 😆
Yeah, I try to save my snarky or sarcastic comments to top level replies about the article itself, I could do better for certain.
Maintaining a good vibe is an important issue, I used to be more active on Beehaw which was all about that and I still am cognizant of it when I comment there.
[email protected] is one of the cooler communities with your frequent photo posts, we could use a lot more of communities like those.
Ultimately the points don’t matter, yet it genuinely feels bad when you or someone that you’re certain is posting in good faith gets downvoted, which we need to deal with if we want to encourage posting. Stuff like hiding scores for 20 minutes or vote fuzzing can deal with this issue, but at the same time, I do appreciate having the transparency that Reddit had taken away for years.
A lot of negative news coming in (which has been over the past month) does get reflected in the snarkiness of my comments, but I know that maintaining a positive tone adds a feedback loop for the non-trolls to contribute positively or at least interact genuinely. In threads like this, I try to reward people that have contributed with a similar effort reply.
I’m glad you enjoy my content. I always try to maintain it as an oasis for positive, peaceful, and factual content.
I miss Beehaw. I didn’t get it at first since most of Lemmy felt the same, but as time went on, Beehaw kept the same vibe while other instances started to feel more like Reddit. Sadly, Beehaw walled off their garden a bit too much for me, which I respect their choice, but I was already doing the bulk of my posting on World and wanted to keep growing the audience.
Downvotes for trolling or misinformation are important, but when they’re used just to be bitchy, I don’t get the point. It’s rude and discourages the small number of commenters we have.
Snarking at depressing news can be healthy to help process it, but I wish it would focus on the problems and the people causing it, but not be outright crappy to people. Scrolling the threads about Senator Inhofe yesterday, the guy sucked and did a lot of bad things, but the gloating over a guy’s death isn’t a great look for us. I won’t be shedding any tears, but publicly cheering a guy’s death isn’t something I like keeping company with.
A bit of a rant here.
Recently joined the wider Lemmy community (coming from kbin.social, o7). I like it, but the constant negativity and fear mongering/bait in large communities keeps me from engaging more. I just kind of wish there were more relaxed communities like how niche subreddits can be. I’ve seen a lot more arguments here than the kbin-specific communities or even Reddit honestly.
I’m going to continue using Lemmy at least for now, but I just hope this place can move past the negativity that plagues major social media platforms already. I get everybody has their views, but is it a requirement to share them every comment/post? It’s all jokes and no seriousness on Reddit to all seriousness here. Not very enjoyable. Feels like a lot of the users who created cool niche communities after the Reddit exodus got driven away by the negativity and frivolous downvoting.
Thank you. I feel many are falling in the same trap as the actual media: they want engagement in their community, and the stuff that riles people up does that and gets them coming back. My question is if that is what we want growing here?
I’d rather this just be a place to chill and have fun, but stay up to date on news too. I don’t know why people want to argue with the same dozen people here when they could antagonize many more people at Reddit if that’s their thing.
I try to post nothing but positive stuff, but if I look around one day and don’t enjoy anything else around me here, why would I stay?
Agreed. It’s sad that so much of modern media is wired for negative engagement, and it’s probably hard to avoid “the anger” spreading to the nice corners of the internet as well.
However it sounds like you’re doing your part to bring positivity and rational discussion to Lemmy, so thank you for that :)
I pitch in where I can and try to steer things back. I look for accurate but shitty responses and try to rephrase them in a more helpful and respectful manner, for example.
It is hard to share articles when they come already set with ragebait titles and writing styles, but we can still hold our own selves accountable how we respond and interact with that content.
I’d like to see more people jumping into specific communities for whatever game they’re playing at the moment.
I know we have the right demographic here for that.
I get a sense that people (including me) hesitate to be the very first to post in a community after a few weeks or more without activity.
I think there’s no real need for that, even if that post doesn’t get traction, chances are there will be a post inspired by that post which starts a cycle.
I suggest people who are worried about visibility try posting in a small community, and then crosspost it to a popular community (e.g. posting an Age of Empires discussion in both [email protected] and [email protected]), until things get off the ground.
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Something I would wish for more in real life too.
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I’m not sure it has a name, but proper scaling of communities. There are lots of niche communities that get no traction because they are so small. The subscribers should be using a more general community to gain interest and branch off only once that topic reaches critical mass.
I wholeheartedly agree. There are so many communities that seem to be created just for one specific post and then remain empty (most commonly for games or shows from what I’ve seen). Instead of building up a more general-purpose community of interactions, the result is a lot of fragmented ghost towns that are far less than the sum of their parts.
I’d love to see more funny video communities. (Bad drivers, epic fails, etc) I know it’s basic, apologies. Sometimes I just need to laugh.
I understand the appeal, and I like these types of video posts too sometimes. It’s hard for me to say what is the correct amount because I wouldn’t like Lemmy to turn into the Tiktok form that Youtube, Instagram, Reddit have adopted from the mass of brainless short-form video content.
Attaching video media to posts is harder in Lemmy than it is in Mastodon, that is something that could be improved.
I wish we had better video upload choices. I tried Streamable but they delete your videos after a few months and most of the other alternatives (Vimeo etc) are paid. I tried Peertube and my video sat in mod limbo. So I guess it’s YouTube or nothing for me?
I would like to see more creators and more people from the sports world. But, the subcultures of Lemmy and Mastodon won’t allow for that
Can’t say I’m a sports guy. I do see some sports articles specific to Canada on [email protected], related to hockey, soccer/football like the Copa America, baseball and basketball. You’re right, I also haven’t seen much sports discussion outside of that in dedicated hubs.
I was going to mention more pictures, which is similar to what you were saying about creators.
Less news and politics and more activity on communities covering niche topics as well as more of just general discussion about everyday stuff.
Better search results on major search engines. Not gonna sit here and act like I know what I’m talking about but the major benefit of Reddit was being able to search a question and add “reddit” to the search and getting relevant results from years of posts.
I’d love to see lemmy reach that point as thats honestly been my only reason to open reddit recently
Searching from within Reddit has always been terrible, Lemmy’s internal search is very slightly better imo to that low bar. Search engine results are an interesting challenge just because of the way federation works, it’s information accessible from all sorts of pages.
I’d imagine to get something like that to work, we’d need a proper “Fedisearch” tool that can crawl and aggregate content across the entire ActivityPub Fediverse to reduce duplication, then search engines would hook into those results, rather than trying to make the Fediverse compatible with SEO algorithms.
So much this!
It’s really hard to find someone here who can engage in a healthy discussion, it’s ad hominem over and over and over again (not even talking about downvotes, as I don’t really care about those funny nunbers)…
And I really don’t get it, is it Lemmy specific thing for some reason? Why? It’s so absurd, that I think even /pol/ despite everything that is going on there has better discussion to noise ratio… :/Oh shit, this was supposed to go under a different comment, I don’t know how did that happen 🤦
Basically there: https://lemmy.libertarianfellowship.org/post/1184/5077
More articles…
There’s really not that many news articles that get posted. But for some reason even people that comment a lot, don’t seem to have any interest in posting articles.
There’s like maybe 10 people who post the majority. I’ve blocked a lot of the meme subs, but I think it’s the same there. Just a very tiny slice of an already small user base is actually posting stuff.
I feel like there’s been a buig decline just in the last few months
Good insight. Shoutout to @[email protected], @[email protected], and people like you that post article links and join the discussion, even if there are things I don’t agree with you on.
Bruh…
I mean this 100% sincerely, but good luck finding political articles different from what I’ve been posting.
There’s hardly any articles out there praising Biden and saying we need to stick with him.
If I post articles, it’s because there was nothing on Lemmy to read and I’m pulling articles off a handful of webpages I went to instead. Like, pretty sure 99% of my articles are from the AP…
There’s just not really anything pro Biden out there anymore, which might be why less political articles are getting posted.
So seriously, you don’t even have to post anything, but go look at some news sites and see how hard it is to find anything about Biden except pleas for him to stand down, or him saying he won’t listen to anyone.
I getcha and you’ve made your stance on this issue very clear: Biden isn’t the ideal Democrat candidate, and you’ve provided ample sources to back it. Just saying that Biden isn’t the only thing there is to talk about in the world or in US politics!
More communities dedicated to individual games. That’s what I mostly used Reddit for.
There have been a few comments on helping niche communities thrive.
While tagging and inbuilt community grouping on the software side would be helpful, I suggest posting to small community, then crosspost to the overarching category that is more active with a mention of the original thread.
I know this will improve if Lemmy grows, but at least personally, this is the main reason I don’t spend much time on Lemmy relative to Reddit. I’ve tried posting some, but I’d need to write a bot to even maintain the base level of activity for the communities I follow on Reddit (IE major game updates, new TV show episodes). Don’t get me wrong, I’m working on a web scraper for exactly that, but even then, the discussion is what makes these communities, so Im not expecting much.
More positivity. Or more positivity upvoated maybe. Basically it seems like complaining and negative posts get way more attention than positive ones.
For example I keep seeing a lot of posts from the Linux community that aren’t about cool Linux things but about how bad Microsoft/Windows is. Note that I don’t follow said community so I only see the stuff that reaches the frontpage.
More posts and communities about just genuinely cool stuff would make lemmy a lot more fun to browse.
I’d like more smaller scale projects and events to foster a sense of community, canvas is coming up and it will be a good test to see the dedication and activity of communities in the fediverse
I look forward to it! Some of the best moments in post-exodus history are the chains of memes spontaneously created from funny posts/comments (poop, beans, jeans, etc.)
Definitely some ideas for more network wide events like canvas, Lemmyvision would be fun!
Some sort of built-in system for checking for reposts. As is, Lemmy’s search is a lot more limitted for that sort of thing, so I always feel anxious making a post, worried that I’m just going to repost something recent, and unintentionally spam the community.
It happens. Just check the front page and make the post. If it’s a repost then people will say but not everyone is on all the time. Unless it’s a real recent repost just let it fly. Otherwise delete.
more communities. longer comment chains. people engaging in live-threads for example like on /r/soccer.
There are a lot of communities, certainly a wide swath could use more signs of life than they have at present.
So far the only things coming close to Reddit live threads are political events and silly Fediverse drama.
We have some areas that see good discussion, you’re right that we are missing long, meaningful discussion chains, as long Lemmy chains are usually either two users arguing getting nowhere, or a classic Reddit-style meme chain (the “and my axe!” type of reply), otherwise you’re on [email protected]. Those don’t need to be any longer than they already are.
You aren’t the first to bring up sports, we have hockey and baseball “live threads”, but sports fans haven’t shown up in these parts en masse just yet.
Videos
I’d like posts and replies with videos or galleries attached in Mastodon to be visible on Lemmy.
Same with peertube. Great technology that’s seldom used.
