How do pre-reddit influx lemmy members feel?
I was wondering how the pre-reddit lemmy members feel about the influx of ex-reddit. Have things got worst or better? Is there any lemmy etiquette that we are missing?
Generally positive, with caveats. Lemmy's early adopters were driven by an understanding that Reddit was not a viable platform for self organization, free discussion and association. We knew this day would eventually come.
The current wave of bans and hostile takeovers occurring on Reddit is nothing new for the radicals. We watched them suppress the Blue Leaks, we watched them shut down r/CTH in the middle of the George Floyd uprising, we watched them coup r/PresidentialRaceMemes, we watched them purge r/GenZhou, a community focused specifically on revolutionary theory.
Reddit has demonstrated time and time again that it is happy to serve as an instrument of counterinsurgency. This comes as no surprise, with an Atlantic Council alum heading their content moderation policy.
As one of the most astroturfed social media platforms on the Internet, Redditors bring a lot of those problems here. They tend to behave like they are the smartest people in the room, just because there are a lot of them. They like calling other websites echo chambers, when they hail from the biggest echo chamber on the English speaking net. The conspiracies I've seen them spread about the Lemmy devs and contributors have been absolutely wild.
I think time will heal most of them.
Conspiracy? One of the devs has a website where he literally openly denies the Uyghur genocide, Tiananmen square massacre, "Mao did nothing wrong", "Ukrainians are Nazis", denies every single critique of USSR and China, and a whole lot of other vile shit. Read for yourself: https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/socialism_faq.md#did-mao-kill-millions-of-people
This is the real test of the fediverse. Can software written by a piece of shit like that exist without being influenced by their garbage political views?
I think it's possible and I like Lemmy to thrive but it's important to keep an eye out for tankies and to not close your eyes to the reality of who started this.
Can software written by a piece of shit like that
someone isn't a piece of shit because they hold different opinions than your own. it's OK to post articles even if you don't believe everything in them. I glanced through one of the articles about the death tolls under Mao - https://mronline.org/2006/09/21/did-mao-really-kill-millions-in-the-great-leap-forward/
The guy goes through analysis, cites sources, and makes an argument that the death toll is inflated due to Western propaganda.
Is that really such a piece of shit opinion? Wrong or right, I don't think the author did anything wrong nor the dev by putting it in some sort of compilation. People are allowed to disagree on controversial topics.
Remember Noam Chomsky? He got so much hate back in the day when he defended someone's right to be a holocaust denier. It's as if you are not allowed to critically think about certain topics.
For example the Ukraine nazis thing. Ukrainians are not Nazis - but the Ukrainian military did official incorporate a neo-nazi paramilitary group. Just saying that is grounds for someone to claim you're a Russian shill. I really wish people were more open minded and rational in discussion.
If you believe someone is wrong, explain why you think so instead of just attacking them like you are doing here.
I have seen the conspiracies posts as well but assumed they were just reddit shill accounts spreading disinformation, no one I know has taken them seriously. It is interesting to see this point of view, especially the "this day would come" bit, for me I sort of knew something was wrong , but it is like your local pub slowly being taken over, you do not want it to be true so you ignore stuff you should not.
Read for yourself what he writes on his website. It's pretty grim shit. https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/socialism_faq.md#did-mao-kill-millions-of-people
about the Lemmy devs
I mean, the devs haven't made it a secret about how they fully believe Chinese nationalist propaganda.
Not that it really matters though, since if any issues did come up, Lemmy itself would be forked with new devs "in charge" even if the original devs still continued most of the work. The lemmy.ml instance itself would be a different issue, though.
can't really be worse than before given that there was barely content being posted to begin with. have been pleasantly surprised to see very little "le narwhal bacons when?" shit so far, but that's me being a grouch and doesn't really constitute etiquette
have been pleasantly surprised to see very little “le narwhal bacons when?” shit so far
You've been away from there for a while huh? That's ancient Reddit stuff at this point.
yeah, i'll admit that's a weak example lol
i suppose i'm burned out from doomscrolling threads flooded with those kind of call/response in-jokes (another user down the thread linked some more relevant examples), very glad it's less egregious here atm
I, personally, would prefer slower linear and more organic growth. I want people to be here because the want to come, not because they want to run away from somewhere else.
But I do acknowledge that there was not much discussion going on and was not enough content for my procrastinating habits, nor I could keep myself informed in current events.
Thou I have had lemmy.ml account for three years now I never heard of beehaw before this reddit wave started, so that might be on me.
While I am positive overall, I do not like that some bad habits from reddit are resurfacing here, mostly not being able to have different opinion without someone insulting you.
I hope there will be enough instances where discussion and difference in opinion will be nurtured and welcome.
I have a pet peeve around people saying "this." When they agree with someone. Idk why... I was hoping I wouldn't see that here but unfortunately it's cropping up.
My concern is that and a bunch of other reddit-isms flood the site. I don't mind redditors coming here but I hope the site can still have its own identity.
There are a few others:
<inanimate object>
is ok" on videos where someone gets hurtI mean this reddit post complaining about annoying phrases came out 9 years ago. 9 YEARS. And since then I continue to see so many of those and others.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1i5cd2/_/
I don't want to gatekeep either. But certain phrases repeated over and over is just so irritating.
That kind of stuff irks me a bit as well, but I think it's human nature. It's a form of call-and-response where people can show that they're apart of the community. Friendships are built on shared experiences, and those kinds of memes are instant shared experiences that are being used to build camaraderie. I think the reason it is annoying to users like us is because it feels watered down, like a free ticket in, instead of becoming a part of the community organically. I get both sides, so I don't actively try to stop people from doing it, I just ignore it.
I've seen the low-effort meme comments as well; I hated them on Reddit, and I hate them here. This topic had come up on Reddit many times over the years, and there's not really a way to combat it, from what I could tell. People with nothing to say still want to participate (e.g. earn fake internet points), and that seems to be a favored way do it.
Entomology subs like /r/whatsthisbug had a hard rule against comments like "kill it with fire", "nope", and "nuke it from orbit". It was explained in the sidebar, mods would actively remove the comments, and people would downvote them, but it barely made a dent. Scroll to the bottom of a post and you'd see the same stupid "joke" repeated over and over, verbatim.
These people don't even look at the other comments, they just drop their canned catchphrase and leave. This is why I like that we have to scroll to the bottom to comment here; at least the numpties have to put in slightly more effort, and hopefully they notice the comment has already been made 30 times. Ah, who am I kidding? Seeing the same comment probably reinforces their desire to post it.
The entire issue is lame as frig, wish there was a way to stop it. I know I'd be a bad moderator, because I'd just ban them.
I guess that is well worth keeping in mind , coming from the cesspool that is reddit everything seems so polite here by comparison.
I have noticed this as well. I've made a few excursions back to reddit since it keeps loading old comments I haven't yet mass-deleted to my profile page, and on the two trips where I didn't immediately close the browser afterwards, both times I clicked on a thread and immediately saw some inflammatory bait, got a little annoyed, and then remembered "wait, I don't browse this shithole anymore" and came on back.
I'm not perfect, not even close, but I'm definitely trying to check how I say things while I'm here because I want it to stay this was for as long as possible.
While I am positive overall, I do not like that some bad habits from reddit are resurfacing here, mostly not being able to have different opinion without someone insulting you.
This is humans were talking about. Humans on the internet. This is inevitable and I wouldn't specifically attribute this to former reddit users. You have this on Twitter, you have this on Instagram. The "my opinion is the only correct opinion" sentiment is prevalent everywhere today. Sadly.
Also: this is community-specific.
Many subreddits were fantastic about not tolerating insults or disrespect.
I expect the same here - some Fediverse communities will be a free-for-all with insults, some will be a welcoming place for people to disagree without getting insulted.
It's not anyone's goal to impose one set of rules of decorum for the entire Fediverse.
I did run away from Reddit but I also want to be here because I have been a firm believer in the Fediverse. It is bringing net neutrality back. I'm here to stay!
Definitely better. I tried getting into Lemmy about a year ago and it was kind of a miserable place. Most communities were abandoned and the website was less usable than now, the only active group were tankies (specifically CCP lovers). There just wasn't any demand for a Reddit alternative. I abandoned Lemmy and went back to Reddit not long after.
Now the website feels sooooo much livelier and is a much nicer place. The community isn't huge but it feels like the content I need to find is here, and as people settle in specific communities activity is going up! Once Lemmy fixes their bugs and Kbin fixes their federation I'm confident I won't want to go back to other websites.
I had a very similar experience, my lemmy.ml account is about a year old and I bounced off it several times because of a lack of content and engagement. But now I think it'll stick, thanks spez.
Thanks for sharing your experience. It's good to hear there wasn't a lot going on because, honestly, coming here from Reddit feels a bit like participating in some sort of digital gentrification.
No Lemmy ettique missing as there wasn't enough of a community to form anything. I had no issue with the smaller size and all the usual posters I'd see and chat with have dispersed with the larger array of content.
But now you don't get people signing up, talking about the lack of content and disappearing. Or servers set up in hope and shut down - eope.xyz caw.ai Jeremmy.ml or ones that ragequit fapsi.be. And of course wolfballs.
Even if most go back to reddit it will still be an improved space with the servers and communities that remain I think.
The lack of "Lemmy etiquette" is basically the whole point of the project. There is no general rule. There are places for shitposting, there are places for serious discussion. The civility fetishists get their corner, the people who enjoy replying to bigots with pigpoopballs.jpg get their corner. There is a niche for everybody - and if there isn't - you can start one without being completely isolated from the rest of the network (at least, initially).
The situation on Reddit was absurd. The "Reddiquette" rules were generally okay, but very open to subjective enforcement. I spent many years on Reddit. I browsed a lot of different communities on there. But if one person on a community I browse makes a post saying "look what this asshole is saying" on another community I browse, and I go there an make an insightful comment, I am now "brigading." If somebody wants to politely debate whether trans people have a right to exist, or whether or not we should send the homeless to concentration camps, and I tell them to fuck themselves, I am being "uncivil."
Communities need mods and admins who have their back, not mods who become cops for the admins who become cops for the board of directors who only care about increasing KPIs and profit. The coolest thing that can happen on the Fediverse is landing in a place where the admins will eat a block or two to defend the integrity of their communities. This is something which is simply impossible on Reddit.
I should've known it was the beginning of the end of my time on reddit when I commented "well if people are gonna start flying Russian flags on their trucks here in the USA I'll be keeping a baseball bat in the trunk of my car" shortly after the invasion of Ukraine began - specifically non-violent, and if they'd have been able to read my mind, the intent was so I could smash the windows out of their truck not actually beat the shit out of them, and I received a 3-day ban from the whole site for "advocating violence" or whatever the fuck it was called. I took a looooong break from reddit after that as I was honestly pretty disgusted an admin essentially supported Russia by banning me for my benign comment, but found myself there again.
Without RIF I'm definitely never going back.
Edit: I find it concerning that I posted this within the Lemmy.ml community and I'm seeing downvotes and people promoting false equivalencies in reply; I was told lemmy.ml supported Russia but I didn't believe it as I was shown no proof, and I hand-waved away that warning - now I'm concerned.
But now you don’t get people signing up, talking about the lack of content and disappearing. Or servers set up in hope and shut down - eope.xyz caw.ai Jeremmy.ml or ones that ragequit fapsi.be. And of course wolfballs.
Someone give me a history lesson. A lot has happened already apparently.
i'm here for the lesson too.
Please tell me the legend of wolfballs
Wolfballs was what could be called a free speech instance run by Master of Balls.. There was friction, but personally I liked that the was a variety of instances if not the content.
Exploding-heads run by Kapow is the closest in vibe and a spot where some jumped to.
Master of balls left an exit note here which pretty much sums up the vibe, stored on the fedirama community https://lemmy.ca/post/390398
server ragequit, that's a tale that should be told
It sounds like there was, but the action seems to have happened on mastodon servers. The quit message can be found here.
it's fine. it's nice there's more content here. although i hadn't been here too long before the influx. i'm just getting a little tired of all the "should we make bots to copy reddit" "what communites should we make" "hey lets not do all the in joke stuff they do on reddit". i've seen about a dozen variations of each of those posts so it's a little old.
I see, interesting perspective. I think it is somewhat natural to try and bring everything reddit-style over to lemmy right now because we all want this place to grow from the exodus at reddit. Having familiar content and communities is how we can make new members feel right at home. Over time we will properly split off and become our own thing tho.
Fledditors are all over the map in terms of interests, temperaments, and manners. I think the majority of us are trying to fit it and contribute, but even that can be disruptive when there are this many newcomers. I deeply appreciate how patient and friendly the folks who were already here have been toward this sudden invasion.
I've been here since the beginning of 2020, a few weeks ago I was regretting that this project wasn't very popular so now I'm delighted to see this craze for Lemmy/Kbin and federated tools in general. I hope it will continue, welcome to all _/ Power to the people.
I'm happy there's enough content on here to make it worth checking lemmy now
Its crazy seeing how much engagement there is on posts, I really like lemmy, even before the reddit influx, so far so good.