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Fediverse @lemmy.world
Cris @lemmy.world

The best thing you can do for the fediverse is just be kind

The fediverse is small, and thats both a blessing and a curse - one of its several blessings is that in a smaller space we all individually have a bigger impact on what the culture of this space is like.

On this comm (and on lemmy broadly) there's a lot of discussion about how to grow the fediverse, what to improve, but an easy thing you can do for the fediverse is right in front of us-

  • Be kind
  • Ask people what they think, and why
  • Approach folks you disagree with with curiosity rather than hostility (EDIT: no, this is not specifically referring to Nazis. I get it, they're the first thing that comes to mind. I'm not telling you to approve of Nazis I'm just saying be kind to your fellow lemmites)
  • Engage sincerely
  • Ask yourself if there's something nice you can say
  • Make this small space worth being in

A platform lives or dies by what's available on said platform and often we have this conversation in the context of "content" or posts - and we may never have as much content as reddit does. But content and posts aren't the only thing this kind of platform offers- it also offers people. It offers community, and human interaction.

Culture and community is lemmy and the fediverse's biggest differentiator, and we all have a role to play in shaping the culture of this space.

The biggest thing you can do to help the fediverse is make it a place worth being.

516 comments

  • Here are some more specific examples to think about!

    • Compliment people's art and ask about their process
    • Teach people about something you're knowledgeable on
    • Give constructive criticism on peoples projects when it's welcome
    • Thank people for posting things you're glad you got to see, tell them you enjoyed it
    • Tell people you're glad they're here
    • Tell people you hope they have a good day

    Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts :) if you have thoughts of your own, I'd love to hear them!

  • There was a movement in the blogging community ~15 years ago to leave positive comments on posts you like. It was an approach to conquer negative comments and a general destructive nature of online conversations. I still do it to this day. If I really like something or appreciate someone's work, I leave a nice comment.

    • Oh neat, being younger there's a lot of how folks approached the web in its earlier years that I don't have any experience with, and think there's a lot to learn from

      I love that!

    • A nice comment is worth more than 1000 upvotes, emotionally.

  • Most people know this in some capacity, but it's not talked about enough: the shape of the platform massively shapes its culture. Every mechanism, intentional feature or not, is a factor in resulting user behavior and should be accounted for.

    Reddit Karma was (shitty) reputation from the start, but Slashdot user IDs became one despite being mere sequential identifiers; negative user feedback such as downvotes can be harmful to communities (yet, users without an outlet may lash out in other ways e.g. reports); even how the platform communicates with users influences them; and so on.

    I'm not saying you shouldn't be nice and incentivize others to do the same, but unless the system naturally leads to the desired behavior, you'll have a bad time in the long term because building culture by interactions doesn't scale. By the time you realize there's a shift, it's too late; interactions will compound and affect how the average user acts faster than you can try to course-correct.

    I wish lemmy was more experimental, because by building a clone of reddit, we've copied too many of its faults. We've already got gatherings to complain about mods, and the one time devs considered changing a core component, discussion was killed by an onslaught of users. Problems with the current setup that were brought up then will likely never see that amount of people thinking about how to solve them.

    Contrast with Mastodon, which gets crap for not being a faithful copy of twitter, but their reasoning for not including quote-reblogs is understandable. They're now putting a lot of thought into how to add them safely. Not ignoring functionality users want, but also not ignoring how it will affect culture, that's compromise.

    I'd like it if we could talk more about how our platforms work and, particularly, how they affect us, because that's a big way we can build better platforms, right up there with being nice.

    • People were right to be angry about removing voting visibility.

      The surest sign a community is toxic is voting patterns and removing our access to that removes our ability to combat the continuing enshittification of lemmy.

      And there are many, many mods that need to be complained about.

      Though you are right that no-nuance upvote/downvote is a really shitty metric

    • What if we had a tribunal instead of moderators? Actually just in the time it took me to write that out I could see it going terribly wrong LMAO

    • I 1000% agree, the design of the space we inhabit shapes our behaviour.

      I don't think collectively we can stop at intentionally being kind, but forming a coherent design vision to effectively shape human behaviour and social outcomes as a community project is HARD and legitimately takes an actual vision and understanding of incredibly advanced design cobcepts very few have the experience to have any realy expertise in. Still important, but I think this is an easy way everyone can contribute. Similar to making donations.

      They're not the only things we need, but they're a small thing that becomes valuable when the culture decides we collectively prioritize them.

      You couldn't possibly be more right though. Erin kissane has talked a fair bit about that idea in her research. If there are specific design features of Lemmy you wish were different I'd be curious to see discussion posts on this comm about how we can design a space that facilitates more compassionate interactions and healthier community! (Or just to hear about them from you if they're not fully formed enough yet to post about :)

      • I don’t think collectively we can stop at intentionally being kind, but forming a coherent design vision to effectively shape human behaviour and social outcomes as a community project is HARD and legitimately takes an actual vision and understanding of incredibly advanced design cobcepts very few have the experience to have any realy expertise in.

        Yeah if you want to get a PHD in this stuff, but you could also just become friends with a bunch of artists and ask them how they like this place, and notice how they talk about it feeling free and vibrant or dead and dying.

        By the way, we are already doing this work and it barely feels like we are... because the work is a basic product of the world views, shared values and shared explicit ideological and practical goals of this community space.

        You don't need this crazy apparatus to make this place a vibrant garden, having expert gardeners is definitely helpful, but it is about getting out of the way of kindness and empowering kindness, not coming up with some grand unified strategy to manipulate people into being better humans.

        Basic things like the way a lot of Mastodon instances don't by default prioritize showing the precise number of likes a post has add up to a significant difference in how healthy a social network is for the people in it. You can encourage people to obsess over unhealthy aspects to communication by making the numbers front and center, encouraging people to associate popularity and self worth with those numbers, and creating situations where everybody has to become an expert in gaming getting the best numbers possible even in the realm of their personal life (or so we are made to feel).... or you can de-emphasize the numbers and make it a thing people can check if they want to, but the UI and general philosophy of the place doesn't really encourage or worship that kind of thinking in the first place so why bother?

        The reason it feels weird not to have numbers quantifying how successful a social media post/piece of content is that the people who designed these systems were programmers not artists, they didn't understand the incredible farce that attaching the atoms of communication in a community with direct quantification is... would immediately lead to unhealthy environments, they just saw it as the easiest way to make money and identify who the valuable influencers to pay to do ads are.

  • Kinda wish we could pin this post to the top of everyones feed for a while! 😅 Lemmy has been a great place so far but think we can do even better. Especially with the points you bring up.

    Thanks for sharing 😊

  • The thing that I appreciated most about Lemmy and my transition from Reddit is how cordial everyone has been. Even if a comment is taken out of context, people tend not to jump down each others throat and assume the worst, or make bad faith arguments full of fallacies. I've had legitimate back and forths with people, something that basically never happens on Reddit.

  • One thing that has been concerning me lately is that the Fediverse is being treated as a refuge for people who get banned on Reddit or other social media. Sure, sometimes those bans are based on arbitrary power tripping nonsense. But people actually do get banned for being assholes, and so I've got some worry that this is distilling the population of the Fediverse in an unfortunate direction.

    • Yeah, I think that was a big issue with the culture of platforms like Voat.

      The fediverse doesn't have it as bad but it's still definitely a risk. And being decentralized makes it easier to dodge bans and whatnot.

      You're right, and like I said elsewhere in this thread, big corporate platforms definitely have issues but that doesn't mean there aren't any unique challenges the fediverse will have to contend with.

    • Every troll server gets defederated from by everyone. And every troll gets banned on the normal servers. I think the federated nature is a blessing, those assholes have their own part of the internet which is usually far from my part of the internet.

      • "Asshole" is a broad term. It includes racists, abrasive personalities, anger-management problems, and so forth. Ie, people who have a tendency to get banned from other places. It's not just trolls.

        Being banned from Reddit is a unitary action. They can't get back into Reddit, they're just gone. Whereas in the Fediverse you can just go to a different instance and sign up afresh each time you get banned. This is part of the Fediverse's design. And so I am concerned that the Fediverse will accumulate the worst users.

  • If this is the best thing you can do, then the second best thing is be active. We're still content starved around here. If you think of something to post, post it. If you can't post, try to comment. Especially on any post that has no comments. Doesn't matter how banal your comment is. Nothing scares away potential new users more than seeing post after post with 0 comments in their feed, and nothing disheartens posters more than that "0 comments" under their post.

    People are generally scared or reluctant to do things when nobody else is doing them. They don't want to post in communities that don't already have recent posts. They don't want to comment on posts that have 0 comments. So whenever you can break that silence and be that first post or comment, try to do so.

    • I definitely agree about the importance of breaking the silence, and engaging with folks who go out of their way to post.

      As a culture we want that to be rewarding, it's something we all appreciate when folks do, so I think it's worth making sure posters can feel that it's appreciated. Make it known :)

  • One my favorite ways to summarize this kind of thinking is with the Bill & Ted quote "Be Excellent To Each Other, and Party On Dudes" (mostly the first half applies to this post though). The part that applies to this post, Keanu Reeves said he interprets as follows:

    I think that the sentiment of it is really just be the best person, the best human being you can be, and if you do that, then you can party on and live life to the fullest, but you’re gonna be safe... You’re going to be supported, you’re going to get the gift of giving, you’re going to get the gift of receiving, you’re going to get to the gift of sharing. We’re all just some humans on a rock in space, and so it’s kinda nice to kind of promote that idea of ‘give a little, get a lot’, kind of bring it in for a group hug."

  • Completely right OP, and this is worth repeating as MUCH as possible. More than almost any UX or intake changes, Fediverse will only grow if their experience of the community is good.

    Unfortunately, some people have never caught a vibe in their life and it shows lol. A single person with a bad attitude can completely tank your experience in a small community, versus a 20,000 person subreddit where usernames are basically indistinguishable.

  • Everyone's been really nice as long as I don't touch anything political - then it becomes a fart sniffing smug fest.

  • @Cris_Color@lemmy.world being nice helps establish the "tone", but I'm not sure that wouldn't change with another "API event" on Reddit that results in another, larger mass migration.

    Another suggestion I have for college graduates is to ask your alma mater if they are going to start using something other than commercial social to engage with alumni.

    Most universities don't want to make mistakes investing in the bleeding edge, but they are quick to follow. When a few schools do something, many more quickly copy that. They are also looking for low cost wins. Their engagement numbers are already telling them that Xwiiter no longer works to reach alumni or potential students.

    If even a handful of alumni suggest a change at the right time, that is often enough to get them to give federated social a try.

    That is when the less toxic "tone" really helps.

    • @Cris_Color@lemmy.world being nice helps establish the “tone”, but I’m not sure that wouldn’t change with another “API event” on Reddit that results in another, larger mass migration.

      The way I see it - the early adopters set the tone of a place and new arrivals are more likely to adopt that approach. So it is important to be kind now, so people will be kind later.

      • The way I see it - the early adopters set the tone of a place and new arrivals are more likely to adopt that approach. So it is important to be kind now, so people will be kind later.

        Even if a bunch of people flood in and "dilute" that culture, that will never erase the fact that if we make sure to be as nice as possible as early adopters of the fediverse, that any corruption of that initial culture will be remembered as such.

        The narrative of this place as being about being nicer, kinder (still very flawed) and more accepting will live on, no matter what, even if we fail to meet that ideal for periods of time.

        Personally though, I think it matters what version of people you invite in, so if as an early adopter I try to invite in the best versions of people (which includes actively trying to invite in the best version of me) because those best versions of people will turn around and invite in the best versions of other people.

        I don't know why this isn't considered an old adage at this point, but it is fun as fuck being part of a kindness snowball, it is empowering, heart warming and inspiring all at the same time. Plus the thing you help participate in creating just grows in power so much, you can't help you did something real even if you were just a tiny tiny tiny tiny part of it.

    • That's an interesting and specific actionable idea, I love to see those! Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

      Don't hesitate to talk about that idea (or others) more often with folks here on the Fediverse!

  • Upvote, comment, post! Compliment good OC content (especially if it is posted regularly).

    Bring more regular users if you can.

  • i hope the quality stays up and i guess that we're non-commercial might help with this; as we're not pushing people to use this platform; the people here are people who actually want to use this platform and i guess that in itself could do a good thing.

    • I wish too. Unfortunately, the redditors are coming here, and i've noticed a pretty big spike in racism/transphobia :D I've been trying to keep them on a leash, reporting them to other admins directly and banning them from dbzer0, but the attitude itself being there disappoints me heavily :/

  • Lemmy has a well-known reputation as being a "Nazi bar". e.g. as mentioned in this example post in r/RedditAlternatives complaining about toxicity on Lemmy, here is one of the comments therein (not from OP but as part of the overall conversation):

    If their experience is anything like mine, it’s populated by mostly far left wing Americans who were banned from Reddit for being too extreme. I disagreed with someone about a topical left wing American position and received death threats. In fact I’ve never received that many death threats on Reddit. Lemmy is extreme.

    Even if the threats came from Hexbear or one of the lemmy.ml mods who are allowed to make death threats against users without any repercussions, "we" still expose "our" users to such content when we federate with those communities. i.e., for exactly the same reason that we defederate from instances that share CSAM, if we really, truly, genuinely don't like it when mods make death threats against users, then we need to put a stop to it - by defederating those instances that are known to do exactly that.

    Otherwise we give our tacit approval, and moreover whenever we encourage people to join Lemmy instances, we willingly expose those people to this kind of content. Would you expose someone to CSAM, knowingly and without warning them first? Then why is it different when we can see the death threats, delivered by mods, who are not censured in any way, yet still encourage people to come here to Lemmy communities? Are we truly that desperate for content that we are so inconsiderate to them as to expose them to that without warning?

    If you somehow have not heard of this yet and really don't know what I'm talking about, a lot of details are offered in Discuss.Online's (successful) Petition to defederate from hexbear.net, although that particular mod in question is from Lemmy.ml.

    • The user you quoted said they would also try Piefed: https://old.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/1jqvq6k/looking_for_reddit_alts_that_are_not_lemmy/mlbvone/

      Isn't being federated with HB nowadays more the exception that the rule?

      IIRC,

      Are defederated

      • That's great!

        I was just talking with an admin of Lemmy.zip who automatically puts up a community muting of HB for new users joining that instance, but not going so far as to defederate from it. So... that surely helps a little bit? Except when Hexbears brigade a community located on a different instance.

        But the example I gave of a mod throwing out death threats to users involves lemmy.ml rather than Hexbear. Both instances are problematic in that regard, ML mostly for the admins and the mods that they choose to protect, while HB the subset of users that go outside of the instance to engage in trolling. In both, it is also entirely possible to have completely sane and normal conversations on the instance itself, which muddies the waters a bit, though the presence of sanity on occasion does not negate the presence of insanity on others.

        And I was thinking of editing my comment but instead I'll put it here, your own posts such as https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/1fmuk7o/post_to_address_the_usual_criticism_about_lemmy/ most definitely covers both the strong benefits as well as strong criticisms of using Lemmy, as well as solid solutions to the latter problems.

    • I had pretty much the same experience as that user and it's why I left lemm.ee when they decided not to defederate with some of the worst instances. Was about to go back to the search if lemmy.world wasn't any better. Tankies are why I don't recommend Lemmy to my friends anymore. They are the fediverse's biggest problem

      • I am currently at 100% of the people that I've told about Lemmy irl actively chiding me for having mentioned it to them. It doesn't help that (1) Lemmy.ml is the #1 Lemmy instance in a Google search, and (2) that instance uses Local rather than All when you don't have an account. If someone told me to consider joining Lemmy.ml, and that first couple of pages of content were all that I saw - especially just before any election in a Western nation - well then now I understand their reaction perfectly, as it is the correct one!?!?

        Conversely, PieFed has a number of features that Lemmy lacks, one being the ability to actually block all users from an instance (rather than merely mute communities but not actual users on it - leaving them free to troll you in other communities, reply to your comments, trigger notifications, downvote your content, etc.). Since blocking lemmy.ml, I have had zero regrets, and enjoy interacting with Lemmy communities much better:-).

        The real biggest problem that Lemmy has is lack of users and overall dearth of niche content - which ofc wraps back around to why would someone willing come here to be bullied just for being a mainstream centrist or even "leftist" by USA standards (Reddit is based in and its largest userbase is from the USA)?

        Bullying is why Lemmy will never grow. That, and how the tools are somehow even more authoritian than Reddit - i.e. there is a modlog but no modmail, nor notification of a moderation event, instead the modlog simply says that a "mod" did something, if you go to the trouble to find out why nobody bothered to respond. And worse, on Lemmy.ml you'll find yourself banned from communities that you've never so much as heard of, citing having broken a rule that seems not written down anywhere. The lack of transparency is very reminiscent of the spez.

        Fortunately, PieFed and Mbin offer non-Lemmy options to the Threadiverse.:-)

    • I've had exactly the same experience. Lemmy has been far more hostile than I ever experienced on Reddit. Any opinions which aren't far left are called "Nazi," and users are very quick to justify violence against "Nazis."

  • I started using Lemmy just recently. I haven't seen any sexism here so far. On reddit it's a matter of minutes until something sexist appears on my feed, or other hateful stuff. That's why I feel way more relaxed using Lemmy.

    • sexism does exist on lemmy but the algorithm is less aggressive about pushing rage-bait, so it rarely shows on the front-page. also, the people here are a bit more considerate, i'd say. but that is mostly because it's a lot of nerds here (heheh).

      • Yes, that algorithm is definitely way better! I'd argue though that people aren't more considered here because they are nerds. Communities, such as the gaming and anime communities, are often one of the most misogynistic ones online. I think people are more considered here, because they are politically on the left.

  • Love your take and call to action. Appreciate it :) and I'm not surprised it's coming from you either :)

    • D'aww, thanks. Always lovely to see your username and pfp around :) take care!

      I had something I was thinking about posting for the soulslke comm, I gotta remember what it was!

      • That's so nice of you - likewise :)

        Ooh, looking forward to it! 👀

516 comments