1y ago

It's so much easier to comment on Lemmy because it isn't a toxic cesspool waiting to tear you apart

It feels like people are a lot nicer here than on Twitter and Reddit, and even when people disagree, it's generally civil and not an all-out flame war. Also, there's no algorithm promoting outrage all the time.

For me, the anticipation of toxicity was a huge deterrent for me ever participating in real discussions, but here I feel like I can be myself.

I think it's healthier this way.

266 comments

Add to it, some of us habitual lurkers (me for example) find it not as meaningless to comment. Didn't want to do it often because most comments get buried and it would feel empty and kinda pointless.
- I haven’t been able to quite put my finger on why I’m commenting more here and this nailed it.
  
  Yep, I can now see how much of a cesspool Reddit has become when going back and forth between the two platforms. Part of me wants to see the platform grow bigger and bigger, but I fear the same will eventually happen if it gets bigger.
- I was also a lurker in "the other place", but convinced myself to participate here since I wanted to help lemmy feel "alive". Now I really like it and comment regularly.
  
  I'm right there with you guys, would rarely comment on Reddit, but lemmy has been so great and I want to help it flourish as much as I can.
  
  I was also a habitual lurker. In all my time there I posted maybe 3 comments and that was only because I wanted to be helpful and I knew the answer to very specific questions.
  I'm not a very confident person in my interactions with other people, but got inspired by others like yourself that I should be the change I want to see (or something like that, I'm paraphrasing). So I took a deep breath and just started posting whenever I had an opinion, or thought of something that tickled my funny bone. And I have to say I'm enjoying it so far, people are positive and I love the sense of community I'm feeling.
  I'm glad I took that step.
- This, most of my reddit feed has posts with thousands of comments already. Here, I feel more a part of the conversation.
- I love how the number of upvotes on this comment speak to the point your making. And now so am I (former lurker)
- Same here m8.
- That's why you gotta hijack comments that are already upvoted.
- I have lurked for over a decade on Reddit and finally see value in commenting/posting on Lemmy because the engagement is great!
- Habitual reddit lurker checking in! Commenting on Lemmy bc I want to be a part of something. So far everyone here has been very nice.

A small handful of people are working to change that, you find them here and there. Easy to identify as they downvote based on "I don't like that.", they're not really capable of greater complexity usually. Or that's how it seems anyway.
We should expect it to get worse though, as our population grows. It's inevitable, the internet is the internet. Our initially strong culture is an excellent sign though, if our growth continues at a measured pace, we should be able to maintain it for some time.
- Especially the upvote/downvote system drives bandwagon behavior. If a post gets like 3 downvotes and the next gets 2, people just look at the votes and assume who's right and follow that. They will literally think votes decides what's right. Though when you're on the other side of that, it's also important to know that votes don't matter and it doesn't mean you're wrong. It's also important to know when to leave a conversation when it stops being a discussion and turns into an argument. Arguments are literally useless and just aggravating, which people won't admit that they love.
  The reddit behavior certainly still comes out. But an upside about decentralization is you can block the instance they're from since that annoying behavior tends to follow the same company and you probably block a lot more annoying people as a result.
  
  I've looked at comments I didn't feel like reading, looked at the score then voted based on that. This is a bias we're all subject to, knowingly or not.
  You see a comment had -20 downvotes your interpretation of the contents is immediately swayed to side with the majority. Removing downvotes ~~looking at you beehaw~~ also doesn't solve this problem. Less likes than the person who responded to you? You must be wrong.
  So I'm glad Lemmy, at least the browser version, shows both up and downvotes by default and the total score is hidden away in the top right. Helps remove a little bit of bias.
  
  Yes, it absolutely does. But I think it's still worth it to have a downvote system.
  I'm glad we can even see the exact ratio, too. The more transparency, the better.
  At the same time, it would be cool if users could just sort by means other than votes. If you'd like, it'd be nice if you could hide the votes altogether so you don't see them. I wouldn't do this, but I support having the option to for those who would.
- We have the momentum now, and that makes a world of difference. Lemmy isn't beholden to any "engagement" metrics, so all the dark patterns that infect other social media have no incentive here. The internet wasn't always toxic (as a general statement). People engage more in conflict than in an interaction with no winners and losers, we're just hardwired that way. The "Web 2.0" crowd hijacked that to keep us in front of more ads for longer, "Hur-dur, number go up." Without those institutional incentives I'm very hopeful that the strong foundation of the Lemmy community can "hug it out" with the few rage baiters that are bringing their bad habits here.
  
  Bad, nasty people are not few in number, you're describing a very significant percentage of the Earth's population. Billions of them, probably. My irl sample has a great many, at least.
  But we can certainly do our best. If we want to see a certain type of world, we are ultimately responsible for fighting for it, or we'll never even deserve it in the first place.
  edit billions, not trillions

What The fuck did you say to me?
- I said you're wonderful stranger. Keep being you (unless you are a dickhead. But I'm sure you're not)
- Big. Meaty. Claws.
- What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little removed? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I'm the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You're fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that's just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little "clever" comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You're fucking dead, kiddo.

That's the dumbest shit I've read today. Delete your account please /s

I feel like there isn't a "hive mind" on Lemmy like there was/is on Reddit. Even if just a few folks disagreed with your opinion on Reddit, everyone else felt like they HAD to downvote it too and then the next thing you know, you're being downvoted to oblivion. Here, it seems that folks actually respect your opinion whether or not they agree with it; and while you may get a few downvotes or more, people aren't afraid of upvoting your comment either.
Such a different vibe and I'm here for it!
- I think a hive mind will develop, just based on the nature of the format. In any community there will be prevailing opinions that are upvoted and dissenting opinions that are downvoted. People are still settling down and searching for their specific corners to camp in, which is why you're probably seeing more variety for the time being.
  Plus Beehaw exists, so there's your hive mind right there. Get it? Cause they're bee themed? Beehive?
  
  Is Beehaw like Lemmy? The world feels like it has exploded since Reddit died (imo), I have been never on the niche parts of the internet but this is so interesting and i like it. So is Beehaw worth checking out?
- Does anyone else feel like we're kinda waiting for the other shoe to drop though?
  We did see a bit of drama that resulted in various instances being defederated, and even if Lemmy is more resistant to corporate bullshit there are some people and groups out there whose sole purpose seems to be ensuring that nobody else can have nice things.
  I'm hoping that the people who contributed fine work towards tools for Reddit will be willing to help improve Lemmy as well, but as the same time users need to understand that while the experience is very "Reddit-like" there are some serious differences in technology and implementation that are going to lead to interesting and potentially unforeseen bumps in the road for the future
  
  Yea, I think as soon as there's enough people, like where you feel you can no longer write a multi paragraph comment, is when it will have dropped.
- Downvoting here seems to be used as it is meant to: to filter out noise.
  I love the vibe.
- Just you wait m8.

Let's enjoy it while it lasts
- Not enough people remember pre-Digg Reddit. It was a lot like Lemmy is now. It will all come crashing down eventually.
  
  They always do. Though in lemmys case I imagine it'll be bigger instances running off with delusional admins thinking they're some exception to the rule.
  
  Complete with lemonparty hackers lmao
  
  Fark?
  Also, pre-digg, most people used webforums like vbulletin or phpbb. Which, honestly, I prefered to this centralization of information you have today on reddit/discord/etc.

I like lurking, with a comment here or there. I have noticed the comment sections are giant circle jerks with everyone congratulating each other on how smart and civil they are. Better than aggression and trolling but still... ew.
- That was a very insightful point and I appreciate your delicacy in delivering it. Congratulations.
- i used to love r/yourjokebutworse when it was still new. then people started doing the exact same thing in the comments that they were making fun of. im jerking myself off writing this i know
- So many posts right now are "DAE think Lemmy > Reddit?" If anything, people are more anonymous here, so it is only a matter of time before the amount of users brings in more toxicity. But just like reddit, users can avoid toxicity outrage baiting, and other issues by joining better (smaller) communities instead of echo chambers.
- I've seen way more arguing than agreeing, but maybe it's the communities I frequent.

I already see it and it bums me out. People are already stepping in a discussion just to be aggressively mean for no reason. I hope we can reply to them with patience instead of feeding the monster (or, just, y'know, don't engage)
Grumblegrumble this is our chance to be different!
- People are already stepping in a discussion just to be aggressively mean for no reason
  YOUR MOTHER!
  
  This made me laugh way too loud at the break table, I love you
  
  And my axe!
- Yep, that and people bringing along all the mindless echo chambers and circlejerking I was hoping to leave behind on reddit.
  People hated reddit for these reasons, and many of us left reddit for these reasons, and now these toxic assholes are doing everything they can to make lemmy just like reddit.
  I wish those people would just stay on reddit. If they want to make lemmy like reddit why did they even leave??
  
  So... people should disagree with each other just to disagree?
  If you're talking about biased mods, then I completely agree. But as far as the community, of course people are going to agree with what's popular and disagree with what isn't.
  That's what makes things popular and unpopular.
- I've been trying my best to reply to such comments with kindness and what they could have done to make their comment more constructive. Lot's of people react on emotion and sometimes they just need a bit of guidance to engage constructively. Others that are both unhelpful and rude get a report also.
- You should just block those people when you come across them.
  Eventually you'll start seeing them less and less.
- I was aggressively downvoted for saying conservatives aren't all greedy selfish assholes, and providing links to liberal sources to back up my claims.
  The left hates it when people who aren't the left are allowed to speak.
  
  Do you think -and I really mean this in earnest- that saying people unfairly slander conservatives and then unfairly slandering the left is counterproductive?

Yet. I think there's a critical mass aspect to this. The Eternal September of Lemmy is yet to happen
- It also comes down to what instance you happen to visit. Lemmygrad for example is a legit tankie cesspit. There's currently a popular post about Greta Thunberg and it pretty quickly devolves into calling her a traitor, because she met with Zelensky: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/902175?scrollToComments=true . Among other things you will find plenty of justification for the Russian invasion and their war crimes. And the admins openly support trolling outsiders. I'm on the left and I don't have an issue with Marxism or the concept of communism, but fuck that instance.
  
  I had no idea what "tankie" even was until recently. The internet is so weird.
  I think the broad problem with reddit and the like, which will leach into Lemmy with time unless we change things, is the slicing and dicing of the topic that is to be talked about.
  When you do this ("oh sorry this is r/typewriters, you should post in r/typewriter_repair instead!"), you treat people as vehicles for content. We make echo chambers and don't communicate as whole individuals.
  So far Lemmy doesn't have this divide. So far...
  
  I can't stand lemmy grad and I hope every instance defederates soon. They're absolute scum of the earth edgelord contrarians and nothing more.
- I sincerely hope it doesn't. If Lemmy reaches the same levels of toxicity as reddit then I will be moving to a new platform with less people and hopefully less toxicity. Lemmy has opened my eyes to the fact that I don't have to constantly deal with assholes in order to engage with people online. There are tons of good quality, friendly communities online, you just have to find them.
  
  If Lemmy reaches the same levels of toxicity as reddit then I will be moving to a new platform with less people and hopefully less toxicity.
  That's called "defederating". The strength of a federated platform, is you don't need to switch platforms just to switch communities.
  
  Err... can't you just stick with smaller instances that don't federate with the ones you don't like?
  Isn't that the point of decentralization?

How dare you say something like this? Who do you think you are?!
j/k of course. This community has definitely been like a breath of fresh air after metaphorically living for years in a crowded bunker where everyone was constantly passing gas. I'm happy to be here.

Lemmy is new and it’s not very big yet. If it grows big enough it will be eventually
- This, we’re still on our honeymoon
  
  Maybe also because of the learning curve. Those who find to bothersome to set up accounts on their preferred instances will just give up and stick to whatever toxic platform they're currently using. In other words, I'd like to think of fediverse users as smarter than most.
- Sure, but it took years for reddit to devolve into what it is today. It started out as a really great place to read interesting articles on all kinds of topics and have intelligent discussions about them afterwards. Reddit hasn't been like that in a very, very, very long time but what we have going on here right now is very close to that.
  
  I'm afraid the bots and techniques to troll, manipulate, etc. that have been developed for Reddit, can directly translate to Lemmy. Instances that grow big fast, are likely to get targetted much faster than Ye Olde Reddit was.
- There is always a balance between quantity and quality.
  Defederation will likely be a useful tool if we start growing too big. But also reddit, Facebook, twitter will still exist and capture the worst users.
  I believe there is a critical mass of smart people that can repel idiots from a platform, which we have and need to protect. But that's just my intuition, I'm not really sure.
- this tbh no platform survives a flood of new users
  
  Is it the volume of users or volume of cretins and bigots? I feel that if you flood any site with 100k Shakespeare's and Dali Lama's the discourse would improve. Lowering the bar of entry into any technology dillutes the quality, e.g. driving. Perhaps the only solution is to make it easier to move on. The federated nature of this platform is a move in that direction and cause for optimism.

[cracks fingers]
You...
- Me about to tear this guy apart:
- No, you! Grabs pitchfork.

It's wild. Maybe it's a honeymoon period where we're all in this big spaceship together, or maybe that's just what it's gonna be like! There's a sort of liberating feeling of being on Lemmy that I think brings out the best in people
- I like the mental imagery of us all being in a Lemmy-shaped spaceship, traveling to an exoplanet to start a new society because the Earth was destroyed by corporate greed. We're all laughing and joking together, there's free pizza, lots of nerdy discussions, and the atmosphere is jubilant, having escaped our dystopian living conditions and feeling hope for the future.
  
  This is the best. I loved Reddit but I'm glad to have moved on. I still log in sometimes just to unsubscribe from old subreddits haha
- I think the transparency goes a long way to keeping the platform (instances) high quality.

I quite litterally never posted or commented anything on Reddit, just couldn't stand being absolutely shitted on if I said something wrong.
- I've commented plenty enough but did definitely decide often that it wasn't worth it. I do try to consider people's interpretations of things I say, but words still don't always come out as intended. Sometimes I'd hava a hit. Occasionally I'd be down voted somewhat heavily. Usually I'm stressing over what I say and it gets maybe 10 upvotes..
  At this point I'll probably still do that contemplating before posting thing, because frankly, despite it not really impacting my life, it can still hurt to be down voted on a comment you carefully wrote and curated.

My very first ever post on Reddit,12 years ago, the first commentor called me a fa**ot and the second commentor told me 'KYS'. I posted a picture of a dog sitting in the driver seat of a car with his elbow hanging out and he was wearing a sweater. It was discouraging to say the least and burned me pretty bad. I deleted the post, tried to wipe it from my memory, continued on reddit for the next decade treading lightly knowing how toxic and mean it could be.
- Here's the picture in case you want to see it and say nice things. I thought it was worthy.
  
  What a disguished looking dog. Is that a cardigan? Thank you for contributing fellow lemming.
  
  this is the kinda shit that'll do real numbers here on lemmy
  
  I love that he even has a nice collared shirt
  
  Cute and meme-worthy!
  
  havent used this word in years but all i can think is "this dog has swag"
- I’ve been at various points on reddit where I would open the replies in a background tab and just close it without reading them… or, and maybe this sounds weird, hold my hand up over replies so I could screen them without reading them so I could ignore insulting or provocative replies and not be tempted to engage.

What a silly thing to say, you poopy dumb-dumb
- I hope one day you can find your soulmate, Mr HighPressBidet
  
  Oo-wee!

Wait until the dummies figure it out. This is one reason I dread interacting with threads users.

I think one thing people need to keep in mind how small this community is right now.
Right now communities are big if they have a couple thousand subscribers, and the portion of people here generally have a commonality in choosing this place over places like reddit.
I time, those opposing opinions will come but I think it is good to try and temper them with the reminder that we do not want to live in an echo chamber. Best we can do is encourage people to engage in a way that makes everyone feel welcome.

Just don't ask questions on political subs
- There's also a good life social tip of that to make friends you probably shouldn't discuss politics, it just creates division. But if you do tend to slide in with "man this thing is happening and it's totally fucked because x, y, z" you get them to see it without a political lense and people agree significantly more. Just don't mention political parties.
- Gotta stir the pot sometimes. Those guys are easy to rile up.
- Or ask questions in general, the reddit community HATES questions for some reason.

Probably because all of us are real people struggling to find an alternative to Reddit where we used to spend our time in. No bots, no algorithms, just real people trying to make our new home a better place.

What the heck did you just flipping say about me, you big meanie? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Tiny Tots Program, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids on the girl's bathroom, and I have over 300 confirmed noogies. I am trained in Nerf warfare and I have the most gold stars in the entire kindergarten class. You are nothing to me but just another butthead. I will beat you the heck up with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my dang words. You think you can get away with saying that baloney to me on the glowy type-box? Think again, doodiehead. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of teachers across the USA and your parents are being called to pick you up right now so you better prepare for the spanking, junior. The spanking that wipes out the dumb little thing you call your playtime. You're in big darn trouble, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can wedgie you in over seven hundred ways, and that's just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed fartfights, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States PTA and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your dorky bottom off the face of the playground, you little poopypants. If only you could have known what serious punishments your little "smartypants" comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your goshdarned tongue. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price, you silly doofus. I will spray boogers all over you and you will cry about it. You're frickin grounded, buttmunch.

Eh. I've already spotted some ideological zealots and full threads pandering to them on here, sadly. I think if Lemmy does take off, we'll sadly see that culture of toxicity blossom here too.
- Yep I'm going to just take it in while it lasts. Its been great so far.
  
  Same. I stopped commenting/posting on Reddit years ago due to the toxicity issues being referenced, and it's nice to be able to participate again. Don't think it'll last that long though, but you're right: enjoy it while it lasts.

You absolute nincompoop. I can't believe you've said this. Trash tier.
- Yea OP is a nerd and I bet their pH level is 14. Basic.

Give it time. Should it become more popular the trolls will come. In fact I've seen a few already (some anti Ukraine posts makes me think those were professionals trying to shift opinion, but what do I know).

Surprisingly, all of my posts and comments on here have had positive engagements. I would have many toxic people replying to me had it been on reddit
- Absolutely. I can make nuanced statements and "technically this is right but" comments without massive hate. And from what I've seen, the "hey this title is misleading here's what's really going on" sits near the top. It's so refreshing.

Not yet

Just wait a bit longer...

I'm not counting on it staying that way, but that's ok. Upvote systems, dedicated channels, etc, will always promote a type of groupthink but you can always opt out of a community. Like if Lemmy gets it's own r/conservative, or something, I would likely not comment there.
That said, there are definitely malicious actors at play on most mainstream platforms, stoking anger and divisiveness. Even proof that fake news is spread for that exact reason. You won't see that here for a while but if it does come, I'm not sure if this system is setup to protect against it.
- One big reason I don't really want it to be too successful.
  In my view, big tech was actually pretty ok until politicians and companies realized they were large influence markets and started messing with them. It doesn't matter left or right, at that point the platform is broken because you've got all kinds of special interests spending money to push their thing.
  If it can be big enough to be fun but small enough to fly under the radar, mission accomplished.
- I think it should have one, though. That's where I'm pretty much permissive, people can have shit opinions if they want. At the moment I'm getting spoonfed all kinds of crap in my feed just because there's not enough activity to direct content I would actually be interested in. Maybe a touch of the echo chamber isn't a bad thing, up to a point. I'm not sure.
  
  The load of stuff you're not really interested in sort of feels like an important part of the formula to me.
  It's like a reminder that the world doesn't revolve around you like algorithms tend to make us feel. It also means you see people you don't like being boring or even saying stuff you agree with which isn't useful for the algorithm.

My main motivator to comment here is this being federated, a decentralized network that belongs to no one but the community.
I'm old enough, and I have been on the internet for quite long to know that we can't trust centralized platforms. If you add to that the misplaced incentives of profit and what you get is simply a community time-bomb.
But here? Here we have a completely different scenario. We may still post shit like beans for the lulz, but this happens organically. The end game is just this, and not some fucked corporate agenda.
tl;dr Beans here are an end in itself.

Completely agree, so far. Will be interesting to see where it's at in a year...
:)

Give it time.
- Yeah I’ve had the misfortune of expressing the wrong opinion on a politics community. It was about as toxic as any r/Politics submission, including someone telling me to kill myself.
  
  I've taken to just auto blocking anything to do with politics on Lemmy now. The beliefs on here are more radicalized than Reddit, and I thought they were bad.
  
  You downplayed the current laws against LGBT+ people and climate change, so I'm not sure why you are surprised you were downvoted. That's misinformation not "just your opinion man"

Just don't say anything bad about the Fediverse (or anything good about Meta/Threads). That's when the toxicity with appear. That's what I've noticed, at least.
- Or criticize certain political stances.

Agreed. It’s peaceful for now at least, if the Fediverse becomes a huge mainstream thing; we’ll likely be right back at square one as far as community goes unfortunately. Right now, I guess people are nicer on the Fediverse because a lot of less-tech savy people believe there’s some sort of barrier to entry even when there really isn’t, essentially making the majority of people that join more deliberate in their intent to interact with a community as opposed to people on Reddit who might sign up just to insult everyone because in their mind, it’s just that simple.
The big advantage that the Fediverse has is that due to its decentralization, instances can govern their own communities in all sorts of unique ways.
So if the Fediverse ever becomes as big as Reddit and we end up with a bunch of trolls and toxic people; there could be your general public instances, but I imagine there would be more exclusive servers where the only way you could get in is perhaps by some sort of vetting that ensures you’ll be a good internet citizen so to speak; that could be anything from proving you have a good track record on public instances to downright having instances that aren’t meant to be interacted with anonymously such as small town communities and professional networking where you just get vetted with your identity.
It opens up a whole new variety of possibilities that would’ve been so much more difficult with Reddit; especially with everything being at the discretion of a single entity; with the Fediverse. It’ll be ran by many different people hopefully and we won’t face those same problems :)

Agreed, on other platforms, as a generic trans girl, just existing there was call to action to yell at anything and everything I said or did or anything. I had boost when I was on Reddit and my filter of people and subreddits was extreme because of the hate they had.
I only had to block sp*ders because of a extreme fear. Feels nice here.

So far. One the nob ends find a way in it'll not be as friendly, that's why blocking them and their instances promptly is important. I saw something on blocklists the other day and will look into that. I may be totally wrong, but to me it sounds like the filters we'd use in uBlock Origin or similar. Sounds good to me.
- I did see a theory that part of the vibe is the result of federation itself. People drift to instances that align with them and their views, and instances have defederated each other based on hate or trolls. Basically the trolls start quarantining themselves.
  
  I think that a lot of toxicity on commercial socian networks comes from their need to increase engagement, so they tune algorithms for that. Which is usually agresive behavior.
  Just by not having that sort of algorithms we will be better.
  
  Sounds like creating echo chambers which will hurt healthy debate

Don't worry, give it time
- Just give your opinion on defederatation or Threads and there is plenty of arguments and downvotes lol

Also, there's no algorithm promoting outrage all the time.
Here's why, there's no algorithm to promote certain posts unlike twitter, facebook, youtube etc

Yeah I've definitely found my voice here on Lemmy... And it might be for this reason.
I hope it can stay like this......ofc it won't. But I hope.

I agree in general, however they are here as well. Already experienced it myself. Those types will never go away completely.

Reddit used to be like that too, but those people gravitate to the community eventually. I think best we can do is recognize the behaviour early and down vote it on sight.

I just hate how “toxic cesspool” is the default. I was just watching a short video on YouTube about the US city of Baltimore, a place I heard about from an old family friend who studied at Hopkins many years ago.
The video was about the city’s decline, with the primary cause (according to the video) being the hollowing out of the manufacturing and logistics industries. The channel, Forgotten Places, doesn’t strike me as one that toxic people would be flooding to (those channels exist).
Can you guess what every other comment is about? Hint: it’s not the abandonment of productive industry. A small number of comments name more historical industrial employers that have left the city, but by far the comments with the most upvotes are “we all know we can’t discuss what happened to Baltimore 😉😉😉😉😉”
- I think that is because all those sites (youtube, twitter, facebook, reddit,...) are promoting "user engagement" or whatever they call it, so they made algorithms that promote it. Of course, that means they promote toxicity and agruments, easiest way to motivate people to comment.
  So the whole network becomea unhealthy and toxic.
  That's also the reason I am against federating with them.

Ive encountered a few, and i think had a post deleted. Sure it was kinda low effort but i learned that old plates had lead on them so i shared. And some jesse dude got offended by it being low quality fear mongering even though its a fact the plate have lead paint. Kinda puts me off the TiL here.
- I've encountered more than a few. You expect that sort of stuff when forums hit critical mass, but smaller communities I sort of expect civility. Sadly not I guess. The conspiracy theorist in me is wondering if it is trolls and bots intentionally trying to sour this place with their toxic assholery, to keep people from migrating here and sticking with reddit or whatever.
  
  You might be onto something, someone making negativity bots. As for reddit i just liked Rif i think.

Not yet. I am working on, it give it time.

In my case it's like sitting to discuss on a table with 10 people versus 300 where noise is much bigger.

I've been telling all my friends this feels like the old internet, like early 2000s. It's been great.
I'm hoping at least some younger folks are around so they can experience something they might not have before.

Exactly the same here! I lurked on Reddit for yeeears (like, the pre Pao days). I made one post in a very specialized sub, and three general comments elsewhere. The post went well, I got a quick answer but it really could have been an e-mail or forum post. The general comments were absolute DUMPSTER FIRES, and so I never did engage or contribute.
Lemmy has been so different, the community is smaller, but every post interaction I've had it feels like the folks I am engaging with read what I wrote and are making a good faith effort.
After the last ten years of social media, it's a little... weird. But good weird. "Oh, this is what it's supposed to be like."

I'm surprised of how many replies I have had to my own replies with people actually adding to the conversation and being polite. On reddit I barely got any response and most of it was tangential to the subject at best.
- Or you just got downvoted into oblivion for no specific reason.

It's so much easier to comment on Lemmy because it isn't a toxic cesspool waiting to tear you apart
Yet...
But I hope it stays that way ... so behave! ರ⁠_⁠ರ

I first joined reddit back around 2009 and this is pretty much how it was back then. Small discussions, generally pretty friendly. Discussion was ok, debate would usually have sources to back up claims. I wonder if anybody else here is from that time. It was about when Snoo became the official mascot, there was that narwhal bacon slogan, the scandal with the biologist that we all loved until it was discovered he was pumping up his own posts and comments with alts. Good times. I wonder if Lemmy will follow the same path
- With regards to snoo, snoo actually predates reddit. Alexis drew it up in late 2004, and they wanted to call reddit "snews" with "snoo" as the logo

I typically lurk due to this. Maybe this community will allow me to come out a little more and be comfortable doing it

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