Well said. I don’t disagree with a single point you made, and some of it echos concerns I’ve had since day 1. And extra points for calling out .ml as lemmygrad-lite. I think I’ve called it exactly that as well.
The only thing I really have to add is on the topic of toxicity. Like you, I’m an instance admin and have a bird’s eye view of a lot of behavior patterns. I’ve recently started wondering how many people are here because they’re too toxic for regular social media rather than because they want to be here. I won’t guess an actual number, but I would say it’s not insignificant.
I’m firmly the latter case: I want to be here, I want this to succeed, and I’m trying to put in the work toward that result. And I’ve interacted with lots and lots of people in the same boat. But, like you, I’m also growing disillusioned for many of the same reasons.
On the bright side, I’ve gotten much less rusty as a developer after having to write scrips and tools to fill in the massive gaps in moderation features.
I’ve recently started wondering how many people are here because they’re too toxic for regular social media rather than because they want to be here.
This has largely been my operating assumption as well since day one when I came over during the Reddit API lockdown. I was fairly active on a NSFW alt up until recently and I’ve actually seen dozens of comments from new users mentioning that the only reason they were here on Lemmy was because they were banned from Reddit and had no other viable options. They were always an asshole to the posters and the reality is that with a lower population of users is that there aren’t enough other voices to drown out these people yet and you end up with a feedback loop of toxicity.
I’ve recently started wondering how many people are here because they’re too toxic for regular social media rather than because they want to be here.
Dude yes, I’ve been thinking the same thing. I worry that users curious to leave reddit are going to go to a big instance, see concentrated worst-parts-of-reddit, and decide it’s not for them.
In theory, decentralization enables freedom from the average user being forced to put up with toxicity. But we don’t really have that (yet) until the ratio of jerk to non-jerk improves.
👏👏👏👏👏
Well said. I don’t disagree with a single point you made, and some of it echos concerns I’ve had since day 1. And extra points for calling out
.mlas lemmygrad-lite. I think I’ve called it exactly that as well.The only thing I really have to add is on the topic of toxicity. Like you, I’m an instance admin and have a bird’s eye view of a lot of behavior patterns. I’ve recently started wondering how many people are here because they’re too toxic for regular social media rather than because they want to be here. I won’t guess an actual number, but I would say it’s not insignificant.
I’m firmly the latter case: I want to be here, I want this to succeed, and I’m trying to put in the work toward that result. And I’ve interacted with lots and lots of people in the same boat. But, like you, I’m also growing disillusioned for many of the same reasons.
On the bright side, I’ve gotten much less rusty as a developer after having to write scrips and tools to fill in the massive gaps in moderation features.
This has largely been my operating assumption as well since day one when I came over during the Reddit API lockdown. I was fairly active on a NSFW alt up until recently and I’ve actually seen dozens of comments from new users mentioning that the only reason they were here on Lemmy was because they were banned from Reddit and had no other viable options. They were always an asshole to the posters and the reality is that with a lower population of users is that there aren’t enough other voices to drown out these people yet and you end up with a feedback loop of toxicity.
Dude yes, I’ve been thinking the same thing. I worry that users curious to leave reddit are going to go to a big instance, see concentrated worst-parts-of-reddit, and decide it’s not for them.
In theory, decentralization enables freedom from the average user being forced to put up with toxicity. But we don’t really have that (yet) until the ratio of jerk to non-jerk improves.