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-
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Be kind
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Ask people what they think, and why
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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)
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Engage sincerely
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Ask yourself if there’s something nice you can say
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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.
This place is becoming very Reddit, if you post anything that deviates from someone’s beliefs they call you names and insult your intelligence. So many people can’t have a debate or discussion without jumping to personal attacks and hate. It’s really disheartening. I love political debate but there’s no such thing anymore, only name calling
With the aggravated issue of moderators being far less ““professional”” here than in Reddit. At least in some big reddit communities there was a big admin team that tried to keep things more or less professional (not that they would always achieved that but they tried). Here mod teams are very small and mods mostly just got their position by just being here first, so I have found out a lot of very biased moderation and mods just using mod tools and position of authority to defend their own particular opinions.
If you are debating something with a moderator alt account, or with a moderator friend you are in for some unfairness going your way. At least that have been my experience trying to debate even very small deviations from a Community main political stance.
You sound exactly like the kind of person I want in my community: !actual_discussion@lemmy.ca
Check the sidebar to see if it suits you too!
Its definitely rough, I can understand why. I live in the US and as a queer person whose loved ones are almost all minorities the outlook is feeling pretty bleak, but its definitely frustrating that it feels like even slightly different left wing ideas, or thoughts on what we do about our problems can spawn flamewars.
Literally with people you’re in the exact same camp with :/ I’m also big on political debate, I think democracy can’t function unless people can discuss with eachother what problems we have and what we think we should do about them. (And yes, I know we increasingly may not have much of democracy here in the US. I still think my statement is true of how democracy functions in general)
I think it’s really valuable to learn how people arive at worldviews other than mine.
Yeah. So much of our social media is structured to reinforce being combative. Even the upvote/downvote feature of Reddit/Lemmy etc has this effect of rewarding performativity over substance. People start competing for points and start to interpret high point totals as the equivalent of winning an argument or saying something of substance.
Since it’s a lot easier to get upvotes if you’re pithy or snarky or unserious the whole mechanism that underpins this tech tilts people toward simplistic and aggressive rhetoric.
I don’t want to get too “the medium is the message” here and complexity in political discussions (or any discussions really) have been decreasing generation over generation - so it’s not just a social media problem. But social media seems to have broken so many of the traditional guardrails we’ve had against demagoguery. It’s going to take a lot to unwind it.
I agree. You can get a lot of positive reinforcement from sincere positive engagement (this post gave me lots, lol 😅) but it’s exhausting work compared to just making a snide jab. And that really does profoundly shape peoples behavior over time.
I’m a BIG believer in the idea that the medium makes the message, and how we design the mechanics of this space shapes how we behave. Erin kissane has talked about that some in her work studying the fediverse and it’s really stuck with me.
Report it - people jumping straight to insults are trying to shut discussion down which really isn’t acceptable.
Then the moderator would ban you because the mod agrees with the other person. I have seen it happen. (Not to me luckily, but I’ve got a post deleted and the post insulting me was upvoted by the same mod who deleted my post).
And not fron small communities, some of the bigger here on Lemmy.
Moderation is a bit lacking. Which is understandable as few people want to invest time in moderating.
Spez had his gestapo admins ban a bunch of people after Elon had a fit so you’re getting a lot of the terminally online types coming here. My suggestion is just don’t give them any attention and they’ll eventually give up. I was semi active in a few lefty subs and holy shit you could smell some of the people there just from their comments.
Let’s be honest Lemmy has been that way since it started
Doing a quick look through your comment history paints the picture that you’re likely the issue since your responses are often vaguely or overtly aggressive. Snide and snark.
Weird, I don’t see anything differing from the norm here
There it is. And that’s the weirdest, most volatile group, the ones that search through your comment history so they can find ammo for personal attacks. That’s so so weird, I have never ever looked through anyone’s comment history, if you’re an asshole i generally move on. Going into a strangers history to search for dirt is really cringe and kind of speaks to your priorities in life
But if someone didn’t search your comment history, they wouldn’t know from context, that you seem to enjoy telling others what they should and shouldn’t be posting and judging them for being obnoxious and insulting while doing exactly that elsewhere.
Funny you complain about me trying to police what people post, while you report me and my comment to silence me
I didn’t report you bud. Is it possible that maybe you’re just insufferable enough to annoy several people at once?
Following the premise of the thread: Not even once
I wasn’t looking for dirt, I was genuinely curious as to why you were having that experience. I’m not attacking you, just giving you my opinion which is ironic… Of course self reflection isn’t for everyone and it’s often easier to assume our problems are all external, but in reality it’s usually a bit of both. Anyway, I hope your experience here gets better.
At least we don’t have karma here, that would make it so much worse
Honestly I’d expect nothing less. Almost everyone here is a Reddit refuge. We’d need a solid balance of different internet groups to not feel like Reddit. Tumblr, 4chan, Instagram, Twitch chat… for better or worse all have a very different feel from one another.