Open for discussion

I think as it grows, we'll see more and more of the same crowd, but the structure of Lemmy will help the culture feel different.

Nobody can own Lemmy, by design. (Even the creators just have the .ml instance)

No ads, and no corporate pressures to be advertiser friendly.

No weird profit-driven decisions.

Well, an instance could decide they wanted to try to make money, but I think everyone would just bail on them. People are more than happy to help out servers with donations, no need to make it a business venture.
- I don't think so. There are very few communities that actually successfully fully left reddit. A good number of them splintered across circlejerkers on multiple lemmy instances with the users remaining on reddit asking "what's a lemmy" and staying put. The vast majority never left reddit at all, and don't give a fuck that reddit is trying to build a business.
  Where the lemmy hivemind fails is that a bunch of us are reddit refugees that lost our favorite mobile apps, so you get a bunch of delusional people here thinking that reddit is dead and lemmy is the best thing ever. It's not. Lemmy has a lot of the same problems reddit had, and we're just repeating history. Wait until you need to squash extremism, prevent illegal content, and people maintaining the main instance (don't kid yourself, it's lemmy.world) need to eat.
The scenario of companies opting to host instances may happen, just to try to jump into the bandwagon, which could imply they could/would at some point start to run ads but I'd risk the instance would quickly be defederated and/or turned into a hell pit.
But the notion of seeing an instance being run by GOG, Valve/Steam (not a client or fan but I aknowledge they have put a lot of work towards Linux and gained a lot of support because of it), AMD (fanboy here, give me a pass), RPi (I am aware of the shady turn they have undergone) and other companies that have some degree of respect in the Fediverse could be interesting.
- Say more about the shady turn for RPi?
  Haven't kept up with them for years but that seems like important info
Yes, but CAPITALISM!!!
Well except for apps like Boost which are proprietary and has ads.
- Yeah, but you can pay a pittance to remove the ads. It's a one time fee of 3.50. Granted it's still proprietary, but I chalk that up to the dev not knowing a lot about FOSS. Both the Sync and Boost devs came from developing Reddit apps and you need more cash flow to pay the proprietary API.
- They took way too long to come to town, and now they have and it has ads, I don't even want it, since Liftoff has pretty much the same UI and without ads.
- I don't mind the news bot ones as much as the ask Reddit type threads that get crossposted here. If the OP can't even see our responses (since the discussion is on Reddit), and a bot created the thread here on Lemmy, what the hell is the point.
- I filtered off 99,9% of the bot from the setting, the rest seems pretty normal content. The "lack" of user is just what it is for a newly adopted platform. Ofk the small new community needs time but the progress in few months was incredible. We are not talking of social like Xitter/Thread, where all you need is to move the user and recreate the page. Reddit work as a big discussions database with years of old content wich new user search all the time to find guides and info, you can't replace that overnight.
- I honestly just blocked like 2-3 newsbot users, and I barely see it anymore unless I scroll way too far.

- Ok but how do we set ourselves apart? Almost every new community is just reddit clone. There isn't innovation. We are better and smarter and more dedicated, but we are just putting up with being decentralized reddit.
Two of the biggest Reddit apps converted to Lemmy recently too
- Which?

Most of reddit's content is user generated to some extent. If there's bad content, it's because of people. Most of lemmy's content is user generated. Same cause same consequence.

If we want to delve into what could be different… moderation. Made by people (aside from very far-reaching illegal stuff, on both platforms).

Conclusion: the problem is people, not reddit nor lemmy.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Most of lemmy's content is user generated
It feels like half the global feed is bot posts.
- And half of that is a repost from Reddit, which was also a Reddit repost.
If people will be people, the interesting difference will be how the platform works. I guess this is the true test of the federated approach. What does it hinder or facilitate in practice and what are the actual effects?

I never really found it that different. Just less populated.

Same format. Similar groups. Similar users (though mostly the sane ones, but I attribute this more to the less populated part more than anything). Similar if not the exact same content.

less populated
This is the part I feel.
- I posted about as much there as I do on Lemmy. For 10 years. It changed over time from when I first joined until I left with the appocolypse, but I've seen many forums, chat rooms and social media things do the same. It's mostly the people that influence the content and culture, not the UI/UX the owner of the site made or changed. Generally, everything gets turned to shit once it hits enough users and the ratio of users who developed and experienced a certain culture are lower than the new users who have no frame of reference and end up shifting that culture.
  This even has a name. It's called "Eternal September." From when college Usenet services would be flooded with new students in September that didn't know proper etiquette and such. It was happening with Reddit before the whole API price stuff, for me, and the killing of the app I used was really just the kick in the pants needed to finally ditch it (that and there being an alternative that popped up).
Fuck. You're my favorite user 😰 we can't be letting you down!
- You're my favorite user
  Whoa. Fr?

I don't know if it's the way they're sorted or the voting, but the comments sections are well less mind numbingly stupid. People at least make logical arguments and have a point generally. Not a whole bunch of recycled bullshit. On Reddit I could guess with about a 75% certainty what the top comment was going to be before I even opened it.

On Reddit I could guess with about a 75% certainty what the top comment was going to be before I even opened it.
Usually 14 posts of puns or people quoting Simpsons episodes at each other
- It's punbeleavable you would accuse us of doing that. What a way to embiggen yourself.
Nah, it's the same level of stupidity but on smaller scale cause Lemmy is small.
Maybe I'm just clicking on the wrong posts then...

Lemmy has just as many terminally online weirdos as reddit, except I've noticed there's a higher concentration of extremists. In my short time here, I've been threatened by someone to dox me and accuse me as a pedophile, and another person wishing death upon me because I disagreed with them about policing. Definitely still some weirdos here

the Reddit nightmare when someone tells you to go KYS over something as innocuous as a differing opinion on games…and so you report a KYS comment and then the Reddit admin simply send you the suicide hotline and dust off their hands. NAILED IT.
- But then you say something like, "Fuck Nazi scum" and suddenly you're banned.
Was the pedophile accusation in the same thread in which you were claiming drag shows are too sexual for children? Was the disagreement about policing in the thread where you said rehabilitation doesn’t work and the only way to keep society safe is to lock up more people?
e1: the post wishing death on @cricket97@lemmy.world was in response to their multiple comments defending the dangerous actions of police that resulted in the death of a bystander made in a thread on !thepoliceproblem@lemmy.world, which has explicit rules against defending the police.
here's the post:

and here's the thread in question in case anyone else wants to read it
- Hahaha I knew they’d have shit takes, thanks for saving me time going to look.
- Still doesn't warrant doxxing or death threats
- Does that warrant doxxing and death threats?
- I'm not surprised it was the police problem, they think police should be unable to do anything, companies should accept theft as a cost of doing business, and they will scream like chimpanzees in the comments if you disagree with them.
  Utterly deranged group of people.
- So what? None of those opinions justify the threats I got. I do think drag shows are often too sexual for children. And I do believe rehabilitation should take a backseat to keeping people on the street safe. That was the basis for which I received those threats for, and predictably people like you come and imply I deserve it.
I made the mistake of checking the inbox on my old Reddit account, and there was a new reply from a post I made a year ago. It was one giant paragraph with few punctuation marks and almost all lowercase. It started out with "you sound dumb", went on to say I need to accept Christ into my heart, and that the devil was using me as a tool and would spit me out when he's done with me.
What was it in reply to? I said a guy cited in the article was a crank, and not a real scientist, because he believed the moon was made of plasma.
- went on to say I need to accept Christ into my heart
  I despise people who are so arrogant as to push their religion on strangers. Some of the only people I won't treat courteously irl.
- Yeah once someone on fuckcars found a post of my car in a car sub. The idea I have a car I like, yet dislike the fact I need a car, seemed to break their brain. In true reddit fashion they were instantly in cringe debate-bro mode.
  Childfree is another one full of weirdos who take it to a whole other level.
- Yeah, fuck your car. I'm riding a train rn.
Wait but I like terminally online weirdos, and radicals... Maybe thos with better social skills though rofl. Anyway consider yourself doxxed and swatted and swiftied and your house is being eaten by antifascist carpenter ants.
What did you say about policing?
- hey just a heads up, they linked their post that got death wished on them in the replies, it's in this thread about a bystander death due to police pursuit where they defend the cops actions, not their comments in some other thread arguing about rehabilitation.
- I said (in the context of violent criminals) that rehabilitation should not be the main goal but rather keeping dangerous people away from functioning members of society.
That's because all the asshats that have been banned for saying shit like that on Reddit are here now and haven't been banned yet.
It's just a matter of time before the nazi mods and wokies take over.
Yeah reddit is the mainstream and lemmy is bleeding edge.
But imgur... those weirdos are just flatlined on crazy lol
I mentioned a few ways the Democrats and Republicans are similar and the "open" minded Democrats just started trying to demean me. Not one Republican btw. Blows my mind the irony of these extremists.
- That’s because republicans like it when you say they are the same lol

At one hand, I like lemmy for being smaller and cozier, but on the other, the possibility of reddit becoming unprofitable due to lost users is so awesome to be missed.

COME ON REDDITORS, JOIN LEMMY AND LET REDDIT ROT!

For a lot of people, Reddit is simply the better platform and they have no reason to leave. A lot of users are just casuals who want join some hobby subs. Sports, games, activities, etc. A lot of these communities already exist on Reddit and they have a big active following. These communities don't exist here, and so a lot of people won't even consider Lemmy.
Besides, Lemmy isn't really an appealing platform even if it had these communities. It's littered with Marxists, the devs are tankies, it's more confusing to use, and there aren't a lot of good niche or interest oriented communities. Besides extremists, reddit haters, and some privacy enthusiasts this platform is not worth the time.
- You're right about that, but don't underestimate the impact on reddit. I, for one, was reluctant to leave, and I saw the quality of all my subscribed subs to deteriorate heavily, even after dust settling. They may have still most of their users, but lost a lot of key people who helped in keeping the communities healthy and active.

Can still browse Reddit on Geddit because it scrapes their website. I use it when I need tips on some old topic.

ITT: "My problem with this platform where nobody is in charge is that it has more extremists than the platform where a for-profit corporation is in charge."

Freedom of speech allows for freedom for everybody to speak for better or worse. This is an essential human right and should not be suppressed unless it harms one another.
- This not a free speech instance. We won't give extremists a platform. Please check our CoC on https://lemmy.world/legal

Oh god am i glad. The amount of tankies is insane. Can't wait for more middle and left leaning people to join.

Right like holy shit! I never even knew what the term tankie was till I came to Lemmy.
It's like some people here want Stalin back in power, but for the whole world.
- Yep. And everyone disagreeing obviously is just a nazi or doesn't know history
Some apps let you block instances. Lock out Lemmygrad and Hexbear and you don't see that many tankie takes unless you go looking.
I think there's a few of them but they are highly vocal and unhinged. I only had to block 2 of them, and things seem pretty okay right now.
- Yes, incredibly unhinged. Probably don't ever talk to normal people.
Seriously block that fucking instance. I havent seen any tankies since the drama blew up.
Landlords are more insane. They're scum.
- Yep. Landlord are worse than millions of deaths and famines...
- Not talking about you. I'm talking about the genocide deniers and "when you bring counter arguments that i have no answer to i will just argue with you on something else"people.
  Alcohol is fine if it's your cope or fun method.
  Tankies aren't drunk tho
- Mhhhh. Yes. Very normal behaviour. Telling others that they are subhuman. Totally making a good Argument to keep talking to you.

Don't worry, lemmy definitely beats Reddit in the socially maladjusted toxic asshole department.

The 1% of super awkward people. It's like 50% love and 50% borderline violent ideological debates.
- I truly enjoy a good debate "in good faith" where both parties lay out their positions and defend themselves and challenge my views. There's very little of that here. Just pure unbridled rage and astonishing ignorance.
Extremely toxic here. Based on what I've seen today it's not even worth coming back
- Some of the people here are downright scary in how toxic and antisocial they are. I just got called a social vampire in another thread for having the audacity to say I personally want to return to office because I miss learning from colleagues, which just doesn't really happen when everyone is wfh. I'm pretty introverted myself but holy shit, the vitriol was intense. Unbelievable.

Oh nice. We can finally got some non-tech, non-foss subs going.

I'm on arch btw
- Can't we let that joke die? It's so overused!
  I use EndeavourOS btw

We don't have the "True Story" creative writing communities.

So is that what goes on with a lot of the interesting testimonies on Reddit?
- In YouTube, you'll mostly just see Reddit stories being presented with some minecraft parkour in the background. Somewhat most of them are automatically generated by a software that picks a ongoing or hot post in the selected subreddit, gets some top comments and then a TTS program reads the comments out. It is possible to make this for Lemmy as well. Though it depends on how "true story" the Lemmy users can make. I can already see c/asklemmy being one great candidate.

Sorry OP but this post is contributing to it

- Maybe stop using Lemmy to constantly "get it off your chest"

The name
The domain(s)
The clients(kinda...)
The people(hmmm....)

- While they didn’t make an ideal environment, the people are not why i ultimately left Reddit

It's different in the ways that matter.

I haven't found furry smut here, yet.

You clearly haven't been looking very hard. I see it almost every day just sorting by new.
Odds of being struck by lightning are lower than this how

I’m staying out of this debate, but you get an upvote for the Pink Panther. That was a priceless Steinway!

upvote for the Pink Panther
Do you have for me the 'massage'?
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  the 'massage'?
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

I've loved the thoughtful discourse on Lemmy, I've grown weary of seeing news about reddit in the feed. Reddit died long before this last bit, becoming a haven for a particular, ill informed, consensus seeking group.

Then tonight, I had a reddit moment here on Lemmy where some non socialized, rude, consensus seeking user wanted to snipe and sounded like an over protected , suburban, adolescent boy.

I haven't seen one of those here yet and they are the absolute plague of open discourse .

Please Lemmy, don't let it go on.

I wish I had the resources to open and maintain instances. There's a few topics I followed on Reddit that I haven't really found an alternative for.

Can't you just start a community, rather than needing your own instance?
As I understand it, the cost isnt a big issue. But if you dont want your instance becoming a cesspit, its the time you have to spend moderating.
It's actually not that expensive but moderating that shit is horrible!

Im still mad confused. You cant just search a random sub"lemmy" and add it, you have to add a whole ass lemmy "channel"?

No, think of every instance as it's own independent "reddit" that links to each other, and you can subscribe to and comment on the "subreddits" (called "communities") of not just your home "reddit", but the "subreddits" of other linked "reddits" with just one account.
Everyone can have their own Reddit
A Reddit has subreddits as well (communities inside)
Your account is made on and tied to a specific Reddit of your choice.
Your Reddit and its “stuff” can be seen by other Reddits normally.
However, if one Reddit decided they don’t fuck with your Reddit, they can remove it from their list of reddits they fuck with. This means that Reddit and their users won’t see your Reddit’s stuff anymore
It’s kinda like instead of having 1 cafeteria with a Bunch of lunch tables, we have a bunch of cafeterias, and each table can decide if they want to block out another cafeteria so they don’t have to hear them anymore. This doesn’t affect other cafeterias or who they do want to hear.
Reddit = Lemmy instance Subreddit = lemmy community
Hope this helped! Please correct me if I’m wrong as well

The Eternal September is impossible to dodge, unless you impose a usage fee and iron fisted moderation. People are dumb, even moreso online.

lol the issue with lemmy isn't an influx of users. it's the outflux. all we're left with is Hexbear and r/atheism
Ugh. I remember the first one.
Me too!
Me too!
Me too!
Me too!
What is the Eternal September?

The service may change but the people don't. The average human just isnt terribly bright and there's always going to be dumbass kids and loser adults with too much free time posting low effort regurgitated content. We hit that point when the nostupidquestions/advice sub's did in fact start to be filled with stupid questions.

I think you may be misunderstanding the name of that community. The point is "[there are] no stupid questions," not "no stupid questions [allowed]".

pLaY StUpiD GaMeS…

Fuck around...
- Out find!

It's like Reddit but less active

as of today, lemmy users are as bad as redditors. if not worse. actually fuck that, the shit ive been seeing today HAS been worse. fuck all yall ignorant, biased, overconfident, worthless psychos

- what a pompous way to put it. what group of people ISNT heterogeneous? I'm talking about the posts I see, the sentiments that get supported, and the things that get shut down. empirical, openly visible stuff.
Okay but spell out the problem. How can we do better?
- this isnt a summer camp, I dont see how anonymous strangers telling anonymous strangers to act is going to solve anything. I think it comes down to who still uses this site. if this place is gonna get better, it needs to get bigger.
  so I guess we gotta develop more communities and content
Trying to disprove Gödel ^^

lemmy is exactly the same. each community has a set of mods who can basically do whatever they want that was always the problem with reddit. express an opinion a moderator doesn't like? you're banned say something unpopular? your comment drops to nothing and never gets read Lemmy doesn't solve that problem. it's only better than reddit right now, because its new as soon as more people discover it, the exact same story will play out again enjoy it while it lasts!

Here, we can test it. "I'm a christian. Anal sex is associated with increased transmission of infectious diseases."

Some identities are protected, some arent. Even factual statements can be misinterpreted as "phobias" or "discrimination" combine the two, and its easy to get banned.

all of these online communities are just a method for basement dwelling LARPers to get their kicks and pretend to be thought police. If any genuine interactions occur, it's by accident, not by design. I'm here for the beautiful accidents, but I fully realize it's just a countdown timer to me being banned and i don't care. i could get banned from every lemmy instance right this second and i wouldn't care. All this is to me, is an opportunity to knock on your door, offer a chance to you to wake the fuck up and realize you're being manipulated. I learned that I was a christian while I was tripping balls on psychedelics. We're all the same consciousness, down to every atom, every insect, and every human. Gender doesn't exist. We're on a planet that is doomed to end in fire either sooner, or later. And the universe will eventually go dark no matter what we do. And you're being manipulated into thinking there is no God because you're easier to control that way.

How come you became a Christian while tripping? Was it shrooms, acid or something else? Do you act on your beliefs in some way, like going to church or reading Kierkegaard?