Lemmy Babies of the Rexodus - it's been 9 months, how has Lemmy changed you?

j4k3@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 278 points –
224

I comment now.

I comment more again. Used to a lot on reddit 5-7 years ago, less and less the recent years. Now back on Lemmy.

I was very active on reddit until around the 3rd meetup year or so. Thats when I noticed a major change in what had been an amalgamation of communities and while I still visited there was no urge to interact.

when you are in a smaller community, read: when you are around a manageable amount of people and even recognize some of them, you are more likely to interact. and your comment wont be buried, and its less likely some random asshole really hates what you said and makes sure you wont bother anymore. oh and less bots and chills whats not to love.

I’ve already moved on. Couldn’t care less about Reddit any more.

Before the APIcalypse, I was already playing with the thought of quitting Reddit. Spez just sped up that process.

I’ve already moved on. Couldn’t care less about Reddit any more.

This.

But not much has changed, functionally, for me: I still get downvoted when I point out where people can improve their English and surpass my nephew when he was in the third grade. And I still get to debate technical things based on what I know, so that's really no change. Different pile, is all.

Not here to fight you, but this line of thinking might be why people downvote you for being a language/grammar nazi.

Correcting someone's English also almost never adds anything to the conversation at hand, which is the literal purpose of the downvote.

i downvote because 99% af the time people already know how to write, they just don't want to bother fixing that single error or just wanted to make a quick comment, also it is boring

i downvote because 99% af the time people already know how to write, they just don't want to bother fixing that single error or just wanted to make a quick comment, also it is boring

I* of*

Can I has downvote please?

i didn't improve my english with your corrections, it was just annoying

Same lol. Was basically just waiting for something new to pop up, was already using lemmy for a bit before reddit cut third party apps and made the transition that much easier.

The admins made it really easy to quit when they suspended me after RvW for saying that riot police should quit their jobs en masse

But somehow straight up calling for the end of trans people is totally fine and dandy by them

  1. I haven't gone back to Reddit since the rapture. The only time I use it is for Google results.

  2. I use Lemmy A LOT less than Reddit. This is a good thing imo.

  3. Since it's a smaller community I find that my posts and comments get a lot more traction.

  4. I miss the smaller niche subs. Yes I know that I should contribute and make it a thing on Lemmy. No I won't because I'm mostly a lurker and would rather just close the app than do any work.

  5. I like how the platform is full of socialist/communist but it can become a bit of an echo chamber.

Overall I am happy with the change. Fuck Spez.

Are you me? Every point you made mirrors my own Lemmy experience.

The only thing i would add is that i really miss the quality of some of the content, which i would just attribute to the difference between userbase size and by sheer numbers meaning more high quality content to rise up to the top. I would say on reddit that i would almost never get through the days 'top content' for me before i started losing interest in posts, whereas here i can run out within 15-30 mins and then im among duplicate posts, yesterday's posts or just things that dont interest me much. But i also put this down to the wider range of subreddits providing more variation and extra content, so perhaps i just have to spend more time finding more lemmy communities to draw from on other instances.

I've noticed two things.

  1. I am a lot more active. On Reddit I was mostly just a lurker. On Lemmy I want to comment and post.
  2. Following on from 1. It feels more like a community here, on Reddit after a post had a certain number of comments/upvotes, I knew that mine would never be seen. I don't have that feeling on Lemmy.

I feel the same, but one big thing I miss from reddit are the more niche hobby communities. Back when I spent time on reddit I'd interact more with those kinds of communities because they were smaller and I actually had some good information to give to other people with the same interest. In lemmy getting those kinds of communities is practically impossible, there is not enough people here to make more niche stuff more than a few individuals, and thats not enough to keep a community alive.

Completely agree! For myself, I really miss the film/videography subreddits. There are two or three here but there’s only a handful of people and they seem dead.

I'm glad you are here and having a great time participating in the Fediverse!

@governorkeagan @j4k3 >on Reddit after a post had a certain number of comments/upvotes, I knew that mine would never be seen. I don’t have that feeling on Lemmy.

Posts federate to other instances - even off Lemmy - at different speeds. Those of us on Pleroma/Mastodon who browse TWKN will just see random posts from wherever, and how popular the post is ends up being irrelevant.

Enjoy your first tiny taste of what the internet is like out there lemmybro.

I want to like this place.

People seem too aggressive here though.

And apparently everyone's hobby is using Linux and neurodiverging.

it was nice while it lasted, which was until loud conservatives and ""libertarians"" started flooding in a few months later

i was even fine with the tankies, but the alt-right kit 'n caboodle is just too much

Sometimes it does seem like everyone’s on a soapbox or cynical crusade about some shit or another and you’re a bad person if you don’t know or care.

Lots of places on Reddit and Twitter also feel that way. I think it’s just an inherent part of mass online interaction.

HEY FELLOW HUMAN, MAYBE YOU NEED TO JUST EMBRACE THE ODDITIES OF THE INTERNET AND JOIN THE PACK. RARELY DO PACK MEMBERS TALK ABOUT COMPUTERS OR BRAINS!

SERIOUSLY, IT'S BEST PLACE ON THE INTERNET

(ANY SIBLINGS OUT THERE THAT CAN LINK THIS FEDIVERSE STYLE?)

https://lemmy.world/c/the_pack

I simply block communities I’ll never engage with. For instance, the “all” view on Lemmy is chock full of trans community content. Nothing against trans folks, I just don’t care about it, and would similarly block a boating community that was all over the default view.

Reddit has been crazy aggressive lately, especially on front page posts. I got tempted to look at it, and now I'm not even tempted anymore.

I dunno - at first it was promising, but today I was actually thinking of leaving Lemmy and trying to find a larger site.

I'm not sure if the entire Internet has somehow become addicted to groupthink or if this is just a symptom of Lemmy's smaller size and a selection bias, but it's been getting worse and worse over the past nine months and it's definitely turning me off to the community here.

What I loved about Reddit was that on any given story you saw a number of well informed opinions debating the nuances of those opinions. You'd learn so much more by engaging with the comments than just reading the article itself.

But here it seems more and more to be turning into a confirmation bias machine, where discourse and nuance takes a back seat to conformity to locally populist narratives. I can't tell you the number of times I've been downvoted for linking to multiple recent research papers (from places like Harvard and MIT) because the implication of those papers was contrary to popularly held beliefs here.

While I've had a few good interactions, it's become less and less of a signal to noise ratio on those interactions.

It's possible this is a larger trend, but I haven't noticed it to nearly the same degree on other less generalized forums I spend my time, so I suspect it's just a Lemmy thing.

A shame, as I think the tech is outstanding. But as is often the case, good tech is only part of a product, and in the case of social media it's the community too, and I've been growing increasingly disappointed in Lemmy's community who likes to pat themselves on the back for a welcoming spirit with the apparent unmentioned footnote in small print that it's a welcoming spirit that only extends to people regurgitating their own opinions back to them.

Redditors aren't used to communists not being actively suppressed while fascists get passively protected and it shows. All you're saying here is that you prefer the one narrative reddit forced onto everyone with their moderating and astrotruf, and being exposed to different ideas makes you feel uncomfortable. You're always welcome to go back to the race-baiting and fascist propaganda, sounds like you'd be happier there.

Lemmy is a collection of differing voices from all over the federation, so your "there's no diversity of thought" sounds like when conservatives mald that their terrible ideas aren't well received the moment they step out of their racist circlejerk. To the white, equality feels like oppression.

It's strange because that person's from lemmy.world? That seems like a pretty liberal/reddity instance from what I've seen. I was gonna tell them to go to another instance if they don't like .ml's politics but then I saw theyre not even from .ml lol

Yeah that's why I went as hard as I did. LW's somewhat of a nazi bar so that paints a picture of the kind of person we're dealing with here. I could just imagine their head popping like a gasket if they ever ran into a hexbear or lemmygrad user who could hard counter their shit.

EDIT: I looked into them and honestly not the worst i've seen. They're very reddit-poisoned but I bet a year or two off and they'll be fine.

the problem with lemmy is your either a communist or fascist, with no in-between. it's this rediculius polarisation that makes it not very fruitful to have actual conversations around here

It's the main reason I gravitate so much towards lemmygrad. Their zero-tolerance stance on fash shit (plus being defederated from literally every problem instance by dint of being openly communist) allows you to have actual conversations with people without having to explain basic morality every three seconds. They're pretty tolerant of differing ideas as long as you're not parroting fascist talking points and even then they'll usually put in a good faith attempt to explain why what you're saying is fucked up and give you a chance to self-correct.

Sadly a lot of the federation is a lot less good about this, where anything even remotely political turns into a debate/slapfight where nobody feels good at the end of it and nothing really gets done. Some people are just useless trolls who shouldn't be engaged; not to mention the groups actively trying to balkanize the federation.

Plus if you think this place is bad. Mastodon... I made a post about them earlier but if you respond to any post without heaping praise you just get instantly blocked. They're a great platform but good god is the culture there just obscenely toxic to conversation.

tell me about it.

my exchanges so far has led me to think the left leaning extremists are populating lemmy because they are still angry at spaz for his dumbfuckery.

else it's beginning feel like reddit all over again.

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Lost a lot of my hobby subs and spend more time posting political crap now.

Same. My reddit feed was well curated with small hobby and humor subs specific to my interests. Without the cesspool of "default" subs it was actually a nice place, and if the official mobile app wasnt a pile of shit I'd still be there despite all the other fuckery going on with it.

Without my highly curated subs list I made to avoid propaganda, outrage, and cringebait (subs devoted to make you cringe or laugh at people, idk what to call it) I'm kinda stuck with /196 and a bunch of stuff I don't care about. Anyway, I too have been sucked into political crap and I'm over it.

Tonight I put in a some keyword filters to cut out the Israel-Palestine War, and stuff. So there's that.

I miss all my cool art subs, mental health subs, and media subs so much.

I'm with you. I had reddit tuned to make me feel better. I saw cute animals and silly memes, cool niche hobbies, active small communities. Here it's almost entirely doom and gloom. Fighting and arguing. Unfunny, serious memes.

Makes me very glad I found a friendly discord community to be in.

Yeah that's what i discovered too (atleast on lemmy world). Its gotten to the point where i moved back to reddit because im too old to engross myself with politics and hate 24/7. After the constant DDOS attacks all my niche subs i followed died and the rest are just posts ripped from Reddit.

I want to actively build community and engage with people here; to make this place home. That's how it changed me. I'm not a lurker or passive. It has made positive improvements to my reading and cooking, along with bending my language more positively. I've also further grown in my appreciation of diversity.

I want to actively build community

That was the key for me. To take one of my favorite communities ("bande dessinée," i.e. Euro comics) and create a version on Lemmy eight months ago. It's taken a load of work (usually daily), and sometimes I get really discouraged, but overall it locked me in to the FV.

Also, you might have to burn me at the stake for saying this-- I still visit Reddit because of the far more prolific content, and do have worries & reservations about the tankie founders of Lemmy. But so far, so good. The more the FV grows, the more I'll have no problem leaving Reddit behind.

What do ya follow for improved cooking?

As far as fermentation, I don't even recall what prompted me now. I mostly watch the All feed so I catch what most of Lemmy is doing. It may have been... in fact... I think it was something I was discussing with my offline AI. That is not a valid primary reference source, but searching online helped. That lead to asking questions here, and resulted in more confidence.

On my Beehaw account and their food community I asked about how people cook rice back when I was developing my recipe and working on ways of altering cooked grain texture. Someone there mentioned making a sauce for topping fried rice using spicy mayo and teriyaki sauces. That one was a game changer for me and really pushed me into playing with sauces. That got me thinking about fermented sauces because adding Worcestershire sauce to that spicy mayo/teriyaki blend makes it even better. This is what I am exploring now. I want to play with unique flavors by wild exploration.

That is just how my intuitively driven mind works. I attribute inspiration to a root fork in my thinking, but I don't really "follow" anything. I haven't cooked something with a recipe and measuring in 10 years or more. It is the motivation to explore an new space, and just enough reinforcing motivation to help me take action that I value. I didn't expect a place this small to have many people experienced in fermentation, but I was pleasantly surprised. In other words, my investment into engaging paid off even in a relatively small niche subject.

I generally post in !cooking@lemmy.world or !foodporn@lemmy.world

I kinda feel like I have more of a persona here? Lemmy is a smaller community than Reddit and I recognize people more than I used to. Read: I ever look at usernames. I've bothered with an avatar, for instance.

Something I still miss is the "brain trust" that was Reddit. You could ask "experimental exo-ornithologists of Reddit" and get at least ten of them. Reddit had a culture of tracking down mysteries, I don't think we have anything like The Most Mysterious Song On The Internet or Celebrity Number Six. I miss stuff like that.

Things like that come with a larger community. However, there are certainly message boards where exo-ornithologists gather where you could likely get a better answer than reddit, and if it's not actually enough of an interest to look for, then does the answer to your question actually matter? Knowledge is great, knowledge is power, but fleeting questions on a subject you won't think about for another decade is just mental masturbation.

https://academy.allaboutbirds.org/discussion/

https://ornithologyexchange.org/forums/

https://www.birdforum.net/

https://afonet.org/resources/

i like having some of them here to bridge the gap and let me know they even exist.

Lemmy is a smaller community than Reddit and I recognize people more than I used to. Read: I ever look at usernames.

That's a little terrifying for me as someone who likes using reddit-likes for the anonymity lol. Although on reddit I used to recognise some usernames in smaller subreddits where there were a few active posters.

There are a lot of Linux talks, but I can't stand all the people who keep saying all this place talks about is Linux. They are the ones who are everywhere here.

By the way, I came back to reddit briefly for a very specific community and ever since the stock sale started getting this:

whoa there, pardner!

Your request has been blocked due to a network policy.

Try logging in or creating an account here to get back to browsing.

If you're running a script or application, please register or sign in with your developer credentials here. Additionally make sure your User-Agent is not empty and is something unique and descriptive and try again. if you're supplying an alternate User-Agent string, try changing back to default as that can sometimes result in a block.

You can read Reddit's Terms of Service here.

if you think that we've incorrectly blocked you or you would like to discuss easier ways to get the data you want, please file a ticket here.

when contacting us, please include your ip address which is: and reddit account

It could just be my VPN since I also see this on my tablet/phone but I gave reddit another chance and they didn't want it.>

It is also on my VPN service, but when I log in, it works even on the VPN.

yeah, they are blocking VPNs; cant get there using Mullvad currently. whatever, i'm using LibRedirect to use privacy friendly frontends for Youtube/Reddit/TikTok/Maps, so i can still read stuff there anyway

old.reddit.com still works ... for now. I deleted my account, but there's still a few writers on reddit I follow.

I'd scroll for hours on reddit. And while I'd love to see more content here, I'm glad that I don't spend so much time on mobile as I used to. And when there is more content, I hope I'm already trained to stop if I'd start to be exessive.

Also, got educated on FOSS and privacy, ditched most of google products. Wins all around

  • switched to a split ergonomic mechanical keyboard
  • working on a fork of Lemmy geared toward inventory called “Lemventory”
  • moderating multiple Lemmy communities that are basically ghost towns (and I don’t care)
  • got rid of my Instagram (and all centralized forms of social media except YouTube) and replaced it with Pixelfed and others
  • letting my NixOS flag fly much more regularly now
  • hexbear defederation only created a Streisand Effect and piqued my curiosity about Marxism. I’m now much better educated about it and have come to conclude that lemmy.world is basically filled with smug, tech-bro, hive-mind, blue maga, chuds that support censorship of simple ideas and subscribe to blind, disingenuous American exceptionalism that wouldn’t even stand up to the most generous critical analysis.

I’m both curious and clueless about what “geared towards inventory” could possibly mean

Here’s the gist of my idea so far:

stores (or alliances of stores in similar industries) :: instances

inventory items :: posts

counts :: votes

item categories (or entire stores depend on implementation) :: communities

moderators are only allowed to post items to their own community or instance.

comments can still exist (perhaps as item reviews with the same upvote/downvote mechanic).

No actual transactions would be processed over this protocol. It would be solely for inventory broadcast/aggregation (like Shopify in that it houses the inventory of many vendors except without the transaction ability built-in since pub-sub is horrible for that kind of thing).

Edit: if you have any opinions (even “what a stupid idea!”) I’d be open to them. I haven’t even written a single line of code yet and it’s a fresh idea in my head waiting to be shot down by someone less idealistic than myself.

I don't really get the idea you've explained, but i'm sure its good. I'm generally excited at the prospects of less centralised internet, and so can't wait to see projects like yours grow.

Flibboard is a social magazine thats jumping into federation. They're doing a really uplifting podcast. Their conversations might help you clarify your idea. Or even just pump you up when your feeling less motivated.

I like it, i always leave it feeling excited and hopeful about the fediverse. Anyway heres a link, https://dot-social.simplecast.com/episodes/mike-masnick-cuZMZfe9

Congrats, how good is the lua-language-server in neovim?

I'm not sure since I don't write any lua. But, I'd recommend tree-sitter if you haven't used it yet.

I'm less stimulated, but also less angry.

I don't miss reddit at all.

i feel a little more comfortable commenting here.

being a smaller community, i feel like i'm actually contributing when i post something, instead of just adding to a sea of noise

it also helps that i've come up with this new "persona". i'm able to be more of the real me than i can with my main account.

it's like half way between anonimity and publicity. this account has very little connection to my meatspace existance, so i feel safe to say anything. but at the same time i'm not gonna act like some 4chan user. halfway_neko's a good girl lol

I have mixed feelings. On one hand, Lemmy seems to be finding its groove, and I genuinely feel like I'm part of a growing community. But there's definitely something missing, and it's difficult to put into words.

On Reddit, I tended to frequent specific subs, and rarely doomscrolled the front page. But that's all I find myself doing on Lemmy. Most of my feed is either politics or memes, and nuanced discussion seems rare. New communities apparently have a hard time getting off the ground, and I think it's mostly because decentralization makes discovery a hastle.

Reddit's whole purpose is to aggregate content from other websites, whilst providing a central access point. This is antithetical to the very concept of the Fediverse, which is all about decentralization. I find myself wishing for an easy way to aggregate Fediverse content, so that I could access Lemmy, Beehaw, Kbin, etc. all in one place, regardless of whether they're federated. Really, all the drama surrounding instances federating/defederating is obnoxious as an end user.

The apps are certainly better, though, and in general I'm enjoying myself.

Lemmy lacks niche interest communities, beyond stuff like Linux.

Really, all the drama surrounding instances federating/defederating is obnoxious as an end user.

A-fuckin-men

I try to do an "end-run" around federation drama by using my own instance, especially since I prefer to be as openly federated as possible. This is not without drawbacks, but it's really not bad.

My fear is that one day the biggest instances will switch from using block lists to instead only federate with an allow-list. That would basically make this use non-viable.

Really, all the drama surrounding instances federating/defederating is obnoxious as an end user.

On the other hand, subreddit dramas where a good portion of the userbase got alienated usually ended up with the users getting beaten into submission, and either shutting up or getting banned. It's a bit annoying, but it's still better than the other alternative we know.

I've written this before but I am comfortable here, it reminds me of the text chat groups in Usenet, the first 'social medium' I was part of. Not mainstream but enough people.

I keep a Lemmy-World cocktails community and in this nine months have had to moderate exactly one post and read exactly one report. Users grow in number, slowly, every day. It is So Nice here. Could there be more engagement? Sure. But high quality overall, a lot of what is missing is the crap.

It’s nice to rarely deal with trolls. I say rarely, as I’ve seen a few users recently argue, just to be assholes.

Ironically, both appear to be very heavy Lemmy posters, and one seems to be downvoting me, still.

That said, I’ve actually met users I run into semi regularly in others posts, which is a nice change.

I stopped using reddit, I'm on my phone a lot less. It makes me less angry and more present, and I really like that. I also comment more, as many of you have said here.

I really miss Ask Historians. It'd send me down some lovely rabbit holes, get me reading books about niche topics I never knew I wanted to learn more about.

Yeah, Ask Historians was the only truly good subreddit, at least in terms of moderation and quality of content.

It's great!

The single biggest problem i see is the lack of network effect.

We need more people to use Lemmy and create and participate in communities. I know part of that is actually using and participating ourselves. so I will try to be better about seeking out active communities already here and patronizing them regularly :)

Come on,
I've seen and discovered (I'm French) the Baltimore accident on Lemmy.

Its efficient 😂😂

I CAN ACTUALLY POST ON c/asklemmy NOW!!

Back when I was like 13 and on reddit, I posted what I thought was a good open question to askreddit, and it immediately got deleted with no stated reason. Now, I can ask any interesting question I have, and receive tons of interesting responses from people!

A lot of the same Reddit mods have transferred to other major communities. Unfortunately you'll likely still hit the same issue over here, I've already been banned by one outrageous mod for disagreeing with him.

Best part about lemmy, ban that user/community/instance and move on.

I’ve already been banned by one outrageous mod for disagreeing with him.

I rarely find it is as simple as this. There’s a remarkable number who had their post removed or that been banned from communities that “literally did nothing wrong.”
I’d be very curious to see what exactly led your being banned.

Edit: Comments like this signal you’re a pot stirrer and I’m afraid to ask you to expand this comment further.

I have a new fan, which is nice I guess. Welcome

I banned blocked the community and admin which abused their powers, whether you believe me or not it makes no difference to what happened.

No rules were broken, and I am happy I am not part of that community

i am curious as to your experience.

not too long ago i am having exchanges with people who wouldn't hesitate to use derogatory term to label me because i held a differing view on certain issues.

i thought it was reminiscent of earlier reddit days where overly woke individuals would abuse you on reddit and then abuse the report system to perma ban your account.

don't get me started on the mods who were power tripping and dishing out bans because they got offended over simple facts.

Ah yes the classic online insult to someone who has a slight difference of opinion from you.

A hefty amount of people don't understand that it's ok to not all agree, unfortunately those people are also mods.

Man that is quite the series of dog whistles/red flags.

Edit: scanned your comments. Yikes. A lot of things make sense now.

I still use Reddit, maybe more in recent times actually. I don't like the platform and the app is a massive pile of wank, but there's more "normal" people there who don't spend every waking moment hating America or going on about Linux. I still use Lemmy nearly every day but it's more morbid curiosity now.

Lemmy is great, it's active enough for me to really enjoy it now.

I had been looking for an out from Reddit for years. I like commenting and responding to comments, or simply enjoying thoughtful comments. I'm there for the commenters rather than the posts, the social part of sharing news. especially the commenters providing context or a new way to think about things.

Trying to enjoy Reddit the way I like became a game whack-a-mole of removing communities that were too large and filled with copy paste jokes.

I dunno if I'm a weird kind of redditor but i know am a stubborn one, and as reddit changed i bounced harder and harder off of it.

Coincidentally i was a month into a sanity sabbatical from Reddit when my friends told me about the api fiasco. Somehow i stumbled in here, and while i thought it world be a tough transition and that i would struggle to ban reddit it wasnt.

Long story short, I wouldn't say i changed at all. Reddit changed, and i found a home better than it ever was.

I use it less, which is better for my mental health. I still find there are similarly depressing posts and attitudes here. People are nicer, but the breadth of topics is far more limited. I won't go back to reddit, but lemmy definitely doesn't hold a candle to the number of communities they have. I've been using Tumblr as well and quite enjoying that.

I deleted my Reddit account and have not gone back. That said, I’m not particularly fond of Lemmy either. I’ve found… maybe? two communities here of interest that may have migrated from Reddit and they aren’t even active; and even as a socialist, the politics are tiresome and pervasive.

Aside from fascists getting the smacking around that they deserve, the one thing that’s nice is that there are far fewer cringey “yay lemmy is the best isn’t it guys” circlejerk posts now than there were back then. I don’t spend nearly as much time on here as I did on Reddit, so that’s a plus.

I'm still a bit confused about the instances and the political alignment of people on certain instances. I'm on Lemmy.ml but apparently people can be quite toxic on that instance.

Having to subscribe to the same subject on different instances feels a bit weird. I always wonder what I'm missing out on.

It also seems like we're missing some critical mass but I'm over Reddit, that's the bottom line.

It's refreshing to not have so many Trumpers. They're still around but not as prevalent. Overall this is just so much friendlier.

That said I feel the % of people with *uninformed but fairly extreme in their views” being higher here, but it’s more varied.

Lot more tankies here, that’s for damn sure. This place feels a lot easier to run a social network campaign against fwiw.

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i'm better at rust now

I love watching rust videos, never played and don't think I have the right mentality to enjoy it, but it looks like such a cool game.

.. or are you talking about the language?

I love watching rust videos, never tried it but can't wait to use it in a project. It looks like such a cool language.

yep one of the languages lemmy is made with

Finally tried it yesterday! Just the "getting started" "guess the number" game and some multithreading stuff from the guide. Freaking love it already!

I have a lot less to say, and I'm more careful about what I do say.

I believe it's mostly because of the smaller community. It's easier to be an ass at a soccer game with 15,000 strangers than at your great-aunt's birthday. (Even if your third cousin is a neo-nazi.)

Well, with the smaller communities, I'm trying to comment more. However, I still mostly lurk because I usually don't have anything to add to a convo.

I want to post to some of the niche hobby communities but I'm not currently active in said hobby so I don't have anything to contribute

There should be communities for people who like a thing, but aren't experts, so I don't feel like I'm out of my element lol

9 month already ?

Well, I was already active on mastodon, and had a pixelfed account (but not active there) for years. So the reddit fiasco was the right time to move.

Moving to lemmy wasn't such of a big change as I was familiar with the federation, and the fediverse in general, was already considering it for a while.

Made me have a healthier relationship with social media, my smartphone usage, and overall thinking. I almost exclusively used RiF and curated it enough that I could readily get lost in it for hours in threads and/or following drama.

I knew what I liked about reddit was the mods, the 3rd party apps, and the communities, and the company behind the website was the least appealing ineffectual part of the experience. They were slow in every sense of the word and consistently made out-of-touch decisions.

Lemmy was a great transition point for me. At first I was trying to treat it as a clone. Instead, I found a place (and the fediverse in general) where there wasn't a mass amount of resources spent to keeping me engaged - it's just content of the day, no strings attached.

I found a space that was indifferent to the amount of time I spent on it, passionate communities that were more responsive and literate, and just felt more respected as a person.

Lemmy is hyper Reddit without all the bloat. And not the good aspects of Reddit either

And not the good aspects of Reddit either

Explain

For me the best thing about reddit was the niche subs. I was there only for niche content, on lemmy there's hardly anything happening yet, so i end up either looking at memes, which don't really interest me (i blocked most politics talk), or look at nothing at all.

I miss the niche subs, but I comment more here on threads I normally wouldn't bother with because I know I'd get buried. Interactions here are slower, better thought out and generally more positive. I have actually witnessed someone back down from a position when presented with evidence a couple times and that was a breath of fresh air.

I've moved on, I only use reddit when I want to find already existing stuff.

I wish there were more people here, but the slower pace of posts has helped me spend less time on my phone. It's not quite as good as reddit was for me when reddit was good. But Lemmy is easily good enough for my needs and is better than any alternative including the what is left of reddit.

It’s not quite as good as reddit was for me when reddit was good.

My hope/expectation is that for lemmy (and the wider "threadiverse," e.g. kbin) the best days are still to come.

I'm glad that Reddit gave me the push I needed to finally join the fediverse. I absolutely love the technology to the point I don't care so much about the content.

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Comment less, but I've enjoyed it much more. There's so much shit slinging in reddit. Every comment thread eventually devolves into one guy with an out of pocket comment or hot take, or miscommunication even, and then everyone dunking on the guy. So much negativity.

Folks are generally nice here.

The endless trains of people responding that clearly saw the other comments but are commenting as if they didn’t was - and I imagine continues to be - maddening over at Reddit.

Spez did manage to understand something real about Reddit: that many people (not all but enough for the sake of his profits, he hoped) want to speak, rather than listen. Never mind about feeling heard or it being worthwhile by adding anything to the conversation, just simply, plainly, shouting your opinions into the void. Like Discord chat except based on topics rather than channels.

Those of us who HATE that about Reddit, and want a greater balance, enjoy it here much more.:-)

It’s a very interesting way of putting it. I’m gonna be chewing on that for a little while. I think you’re definitely hitting at something very important. I’m also loath to admit that I know I have brought some of my nasty Reddit habits here. For instance, sometimes I can get pretty combative in the comments. Not all the time, but sometimes I look back on the way I talk to people and think “jfc I am not actually that nasty of a person,” but something about being online certainly draws it out of me unfortunately, so clearly I’m capable of it.

I get you.

Even toddlers learn to speak first by babbling, and only later to converse and communicate with someone rather than talk at them. Some technological platforms have even evolved to facilitate that - like instead of "^This" and "I also choose this guy's wife", what about emoji reactions that do not extend the length that you have to scroll through to find the next substantive comment? Except that - this is the enshittification part - when ads can be placed in-between comments, or even someone hopes that they could be in the future, or more likely they want to purposefully obscure the signal so that "x number of comments appear on this post", rather than "x number of comments + y number of emoji reactions", that works against their profit model. (and yeah, there was "awards", but who even used those, plus they just were not... good, especially for this purpose)

About both that and being combative: fwiw, we all are that way - the good thing is that some of us are honest about it, which gives hope for change.:-) But we all will have bad days when we are cranky and especially when we feel "attacked" we feel the need to strike back, and the feelings at least are not wrong, just how we handle them may not be so productive.

So I get you - I am the same way, though fortunately less and less over time. Leaving Reddit truly has helped me leave a lot of that behind. Over there that is just the "expectation" that people encourage you to do, but the culture is better here.:-)

Appreciate the thoughts, truly. I know this response isn’t as through and thoughtful as yours, but know that I do appreciate it.

I think I was "wordy" - I appreciate your thoughtfulness and conciseness both.:-)

Less niche content from the subs that I couldn’t find an equivalent for here. Also less random bullshit from all the reposted recycled memes that were often somehow just perpetually in my face. It would be nice if there were more people here on Lemmy commenting to link over to relevant related communities (sublemmys??) to a post that they think others would like. Sometimes that’s a good way to find more subs. Don’t really see that happening round these parts. TL;DR Wasting less time on interwebs

I learned what a tankie is, which is fun.

I've been commenting a bit, whereas on reddit I would only post a comment a few times a year when I could be bothered dealing with the likely burst of negativity that would come as a response to it.

Kind of feels a bit more like Web 1.9 or so from about 2003 which I think was about the sweet spot for minimal rage bait and crazy and still a decent bit of user interaction and scale.

It would be about perfect if you could chop out a few of the folks trying to shoehorn in politics to every little thing.

I wouldn't say it was Lemmy that has changed but it's been an integral part to a change in my lifestyle. I don't use Reddit anymore, I switched from Windows to Linux, Degoogled my phone, I take way more consideration into my privacy. All social media account but Lemmy are gone now. Cancelled my Amazon prime and all video services. I have blocked ads from everything in my life to the point that when I see one, it stands out like a sore thumb. I am far more aware of how companies manipulate customers in order to sell product.

For the better :)
I haven't been active in online communities for over ten years. It's been fun to contribute with comments and posts and I feel like I'm finding my voice again.

Some of the more niche communities I had on reddit don't exist on Lemmy yet, and likely won't for the foreseeable future. DPS chasing for a small MMO seems like a thing that could exist here, but for now the majority of the public would just use Reddit or whatever instead.

The custom mtg card community I joined is pretty much just dead. I did a card a day for a while in there, but then I ran out of cards is already made and now it's just sitting again.

Other than that, the general purpose of it is doing exactly what Reddit did for me, so...

I'm delighted by Lemmy. I post all the time and probably am a bit annoying but I'm really having fun.

I've been a lurker on Reddit for forever (about 15 years) and then the APIcalypse happened and my first and unique post on Reddit was asking for a Tildes invite. I didn't enjoy Tildes, so now I'm here. We're so much less that I feel I can't lurk here too, so now I regularly comment here.

It’s made me realise there are a lot of honest-to-Darwin communists and people who believe the West is pure evil and China & Russia is a better alternative. They didn’t frequent Reddit (they were either blocked or didn’t show up, I’m not actually sure).

For a while I tried to debate them. Then I realised it’s a waste of time - we are too far apart and both are each others trigger so I’ve blocked them. There’s probably some hexbear basement dweller responding to this comment and I’ll live in blissful ignorance.

Oh they were on Reddit. Before I left, you could find them on ChapoTrapHouse. After the Ukraine War kicked off, you could see them all over world news, Ukraine, noncredibledefense, credibledefence, and the various war update subs.

i mean the west combined has invaded and fucked over every other place out there.

there are bound to be people who dislike it.

I wish there was more porn

Points for honesty, but how does one find exploitation free porn? I know some smart women who would say there is no such thing.

So being a sexual creature like any other, I get it but also maybe it's OK if that just lives on pornhub or whatever :)

i dont know how you define exploitation here. reddit had girls and couples posting their own content while driving traffic to their onlyfans accounts. pretty valid if you ask me.

lemmynsfw is great but there's not a lot of users at the moment.

i don't think pornhub or whatever needs to be the only option for sex work on the internet.

I'm all for more options for sex work. And I certainly have no puritanical objections to consenting adults enjoying the idea of others enjoying their bodies!

It’s hard to find. I disagree with the anti porn feminist stance, but I respect it. In fact Dworkin is one of the feminists that I respect most despite disagreeing with her on this topic.

So how do you find it? Find exhibitionists or independent purveyors (or worker owned porn cooperatives). One of my exes used to sell nudes and she enjoyed it. But yeah it’s very difficult to be certain.

Personally though, I prefer to stick to the written stuff. Much likely to be exploitative and plot gets me wet.

The answer is these days I mostly don't. No judgement though :)

I would argue that AI is in the process of creating the most exploitation free version of porn. The things you see posted here from AI diffusion are mostly amateur. I can make far far more realistic images but it takes a thorough understanding of AI alignment and why very strong alignment was needed to conform to cultural expectations. I won't go into the ethics of base datasets except to say there are many things that can be generated that had no real world analogue.

What I initially wrote:I'm old and nervous, and while some small part of my brain reads this and says "Cool! Neat!" the larger part IMMEDIATELY leaps to other ... things.

I feel like I need to say the quiet bit out loud here, and will do so in the hope that it will be taken for what it is - collegial discourse around a topic of shared interest.

I'm super concerned about this idea. There are so many ramifications that verge into the negative here that it makes my head spin.

How can we be sure that the training corpi used to create said Porn AI will be free of images drawn from sex trafficking and/or abuse victims? What about images from folks who gave freely when they were 18 and in high school but now are 28 and applying for jobs as school teachers?

Also, how will the AI "understand" things like informed consent? Even more questionable are things like social norms

Anyway, it will certainly be interesting to watch this space evolve.

I think it will take shift to liberalism forcefully, but also real versus digital will shift. It means far less need for workers to have many questionable partners in the analogue world. There are presently biases that try to prevent several behaviors but there are ways around these. Ultimately, it means a shift to a culture where being naked is irrelevant and no petty nonsense stigma associated with an image. People are stupid about this stuff anyways. If you get your rocks off by seeing me naked or doing whatever, that is on you. If you start harassing me with that stuff, that is another issue entirely. If I find something disturbing, I have a right to ask for its removal, but ultimately this is the price of public imagery. If you do not want to have your likeness replicated, do not post publicly. This is the only effective way to regulate the behavior. The technology is already public and open source. That can never be eliminated; only driven underground which is exactly where the few people willing to exploit people are located. Regulation ultimately makes the problem worse. Normalization is democratization, and that is the best result for everyone long term. It sucks for people that have a large public image, but deep fake type images were around long before diffusion. This is simply easier access to the skills required to create such images. It will soon be video as well. Allowing anyone to control this tech is a massive mistake anyways. It is a global academic advancement in math and computer science. Any country stupid enough to attempt conservative regulation simply makes their nation technologically irrelevant because the research will continue external to the Luddite nonsense. The way AI develops in the next decade or two I'd the most important technology of the first half of this century, especially in the military implications. Restricting this space is about the dumbest thing anyone could do right now. You are likely to see the era of AI drones that kill and are effective autonomously at scale. That alone changes everything in the world as we know it. One in 3 FPV drones hits a target in Ukraine right now. They are ~$800 each. A single artillery round is ~$10k and they hit a target far far less often. When the FPV operator is no longer needed and an AI is just as effective...

All of this is relevant and interrelated where innovations in one area of AI get applied to others as they are all similar math problems. How people feel about the tech is irrelevant in the grand scheme. So a massive shift in culture is inevitable, or WW3, maybe both.

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To import new communities on an instance into the all feed, go to places like LemmyNSFW and look at what is active, any community that says "pending" when you try to subscribe is waiting for the instance synchronization bots to make the community available. Once this happens, everyone will see the community in the All feed for your instance. Indeed there are a lot more porn posts happening, you just have to be a little proactive about finding them.

... I know... Uhhh! Effort?!

but we all have to take some ownership to be here. This is like, the only service reddit ever provided and now, to make this place work, we have to do it. I'm the reason a couple NSFW communities are on .world, so this is not a hypothetical. There are many other instances for NSFW content too.

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I'm on my phone less, commenting more, avoiding more ads, and much happier with the content/comments on Lemmy. Reddit chains sometimes felt a little brain-rotty.

I bought a mobile game for the first time in my life 😐

I check FB more often cause I run out of posts on lemmy faster 😐

Started playing chess again cause I have little else to entertain myself with on my phone 🤓

Deleted my 10y+ account, but I mostly scroll/lurk some communities that aren't prevalent around here still.

It is very apparent how much worse its getting after the API scandal. So many bot posts and karma farming bots. It's depressing what it has become.

It's okay. I still peruse reddit sometimes because the subs here aren't sufficient enough. Also, reddit has more variety. Lemmy is a bit too political. Like /c/news seems to only post political stuff. And it's mostly liberal leaning (which I am), but too liberal occasionally. People hate nazis here but curiously, they also hate Israel. I'm looking for more communities that are less intense and charged. Stuff about crafting, plant rearing, literature, etc. The other big fediverse site, Mastodon, has a similar prevalence of charged stuff, but I've found a bit more silly things both on my own and with suggestions over there. I suppose I could start some new communities here but I'm doubtful I have the fortitude to make them get increased traction.

I feel ya. I tire of the politics here, and it can get extremely left leaning, like pro-communism/pro-socialism/pro-fascism and very anti-American to the point where it's a little sus. I get it, there's always been anti-America sentiment surrounding conversations and in media all my life, but it's a bit extreme here.

I go onto social media to turn my brain off, not do elaborate research on the past 500 years of colonialism so that I can make sure I'm accurately arguing my point cohesively on this one comment. At the very least, I'll engage with conversations about tech when I'm not turning my brain off, but I hate politics/debate. I want a DDR/Stepmania/Etterna community where we can discuss new themes released, new songs on various cabinets, etc.

Fascism is not even close to left lol. But I agree there's too much politics sometimes. I don't mind arguing about it but it could be good to talk about other stuff. I suggest subscribing to communities that advertise other communities so we can help them.

!trendingcommunities@feddit.nl !newcommunities@lemmy.world !communitypromo@lemmy.ca

Also browsing by scaled sort has helped me discover some new communities that my instance is connected.

And of course: https://lemmyverse.net/communities

I know just finding a new community doesn't guarantee it will have people in it, but we have to start posting in those empty communities and filling them with content. It's something I need to do a lot better with, too. I lurk too much.

Not seeing my reply show up, so doing it again in case the previous one got lost in the abyss: Subscribed to all 3 just now and I'm looking forward to enjoying some new communities! Thank you!

Glad to help! I wish us both luck finding and reviving our favorite niche communities! I don't want to have to go back to Reddit lol. I want this whole fediverse thing to work out.

Well said, I agree with you. The politics/debates can be so intense that it can prevent Lemmy from being a place where people go to just relax and switch off. Even the meme communities have so much political content.

And I suppose it’s only going to intensify during the U.S. election later this year.

I don't mean to start an argument about it, but hating Nazis and hating Israel are not mutually exclusive. Hating Israel is antizionism, not antisemitism.

Just start em, and post what you want to, steal posts from reddit if you like too (but not automated like the annoying ass bots), and if it grows it grows. I'm one of like 4 people posting in c/comicbooks, and if it grows great but if not that's ok too, all we can do is try.

I miss the niche discussion because reddit is so damn big, but the drop in quality of posts when I lurk there is very noticeable. Enshittification ruined it.

Haven't really. I'm just like I was before. Lemmy meets my daily social networking needs and I don't miss anything.

Well it's been 10 months since I left redis and spun up my own instance. It's been a fun little ride with a very fast surge at the start and a bit of a plato. Lemmy seems to be gaining traction again, which is good.

How has it changed me? - I guess I actuall spend more time here than I did on reddit - as I find the quality of comments far better and more enjoyable

As an admin / owner I have had to see and deal with some stuff that I wish I hadn't had to see - there are some sick fucks out there

My time perception is so screwed these days. I could have sworn I've been here a few years at this point.

I still have my Reddit account but haven't logged in since the Rexodus began and the only reason I haven't deleted it yet is laziness.

Lemmy provides me with links to news I'm interested in, Linux information and memes whilst satisfying my scrolling itch.

Most of the political stuff that pops up isn't really my bag and some communities are too US centric for me but the beauty is you can just block the communities you don't like. Also, there isn't as much new content posted daily but it's much smaller and niche than Reddit so I'm happy for that trade off.

I love it. Reddit time has been decreased by 95% and do not miss it at all.

It's like Reddit before the "protests". But smaller, with fewer niche communities and less porn, but also fewer OF promoters.

I still use old.reddit to read some of the niche communities, but I'm not even logged in.

When old.reddit dies, I'll probably try to revive some of those communities I'm reading over here in Lemmy. It probably won't work, lol

I still use Reddit for research purposes (programming and auto related things). But I also got rid of other means of social media like Twitter and Instagram. I still have a Facebook account, but it’s strictly for communications with family.

I only use Lemmy and Mastodon (for hockey news).

I don’t work for free and get called names by the business that profits off it, so that’s nice. Also don’t see nearly as many trolls.

I’m a lurker. This is my speed of social media and it’s cool to watch it grow.

No more reddit on my phone to doomscroll. I do still check it occasionally on desktop, for some niche subreddits, but not really beyond that.

Only negative is that I added Instagram reels to my doomscrolling routine. I feel like reels are more brainrot than reddit was... Should definitely work on getting insta out of my routine!

Other than that no major changes from Lemmy i think.

I still use reddit for Rimworld and Kenshi, but now that I've blocked most Tankie Instances and Users, Lemmy is where I spend most of my time wasting/reading. And I actually comment here far more than I ever did reddit

it's made me learn to figure out a lot of things on my own instead of making Reddit posts asking for help. I do wish some of the more niche communities I followed were more active on here though. but overall it's business as usual, same concept different app. except now my friends call the links I share "weird websites" because voyager can't copy URLs as your host instance.

You may not see the same communities, but I have been surprised to see a lot of similar expert types are present here if you can find the right place to ask.

Like I have asked about Linux kernel code regarding the CPU scheduler and gotten good results here too. I miss stuff like Amateur Telescope Making (ATMing), some Maker niches, and people sharing more electronics projects on the grass roots side. Like I etch circuit boards and like to reverse engineer hardware. I like those peripheral projects that popped up and pushed me to get back into a project or start something new. But, I haven't been doing those projects myself and wonder if most of the hobby community has kinda moved on as well.

The only reason I have thought about checking out reddit is for the AI community stuff. There are too many negative people here for the kinds of stuff I play with and no depth of engagement when I do post. There are a few great people, and several researchers but not the hobby like constructive dynamic I need. However I have not visited reddit a single time since June 9th.

What do you feel is missing?

well, for niche communities I moreso meant hobby stuff rather than questions haha. for example, russian is my second language but there isn't really a community here for that. I'm also into anime and like seeing anime collectables, of which the main anime communities are pretty dead (though I try to interact with them) and there really isn't a community for the latter.

I do wish some of the more niche communities I followed were more active on here though

This. I have a few communities on Reddit that I loved browsing that seem to be a lot more niche and quiet here than what I was used to. Would be nice to have them here as well.

I do miss reddit a reasonable amount, especially for niche subs. I do definitely appreciate Lemmy though, and often it feels like I'm actually having conversations instead of screaming into the void like on other platforms.

Probably because of the instance I happened to join (for entirely accidental reasons), I can feel myself being pulled in to an information bubble for sure and that is to a subtle extent influencing and perhaps hardening my pre-existing views about the world at large. I don't think that's a good thing exactly, though I'm not sure it's entirely bad as before I'd just kind of given up thinking about a lot of that stuff since my early 20s when I had to start focussing on other things and it's more like a return to form. I'm, perhaps misguidedly, okayish with this development because this bubble, this biased lens is so stark that I feel like it's hopefully less easy to end up being totally subsumed (maybe I'm just telling myself that). Of course, like everyone's favourite kind of bubbles, it's obviously one that's reinforcing of my own tendencies anyway, the folks here just take it a far greater extreme in rhetoric, to an extent seeing the kind of blind anger and mechanical doctrinaire response to even the most tangentially related of topics has kind helped me see where my stop is on that train of thought. Another way it's influenced me has been to strengthen my existing preference and respect for FOSS software and I think being here is gradually increasing this preference and will likely result in even greater adoption on my part.

I think it’s laudable to be aware of when we are only surrounding ourselves with like-minded people, but I also wouldn’t put too much stock in this Internet narrative that there is some morality to “avoiding echo chambers” or whatever.

You should always introduce yourself to a diverse range of (valid) opinions and ideas. But it is also OK to have spaces that are reserved for people that make you comfortable/are more like-minded. We do this in our daily lives too. The internet isn’t some sacrosanct space where we have to be engaged with people we disagree with constantly.

It’s the difference between a support community for LGBT people, and /r/conservative. The former is good and healthy, the latter is toxic and distorting.

I still use reddit from time to time, but I find the stuff i find here is of higher quality and more thoughtful. I would use Lemmy exclusively if it had all of the communities that i frequent on reddit, many of the things on here are tech-related and most things outside of the tech world don't pop up in my feed. I feel I engage more, use more and actually learn more from Lemmy so overall I am quite impressed!

Used to be a powermod on reddit. Got banned. Kinda miss fucking with shitters but beyond that I enjoy the extra time each day to do literally anything else.

It got me in my way to learning about decentralization and now I'm all over the small web stuff.

I just wish there was a way to delete my reddit profile comments easily. I log in every three months or so by accident usually.

Still just a lurker. I enjoy not seeing the same thing spread across a bunch of places.

It made me realize that other people use Linux and gave me hope for the future of technology, then made me disappointed in how narrow sighted they are when it comes to political views

My fear of going outside is stronger than ever before. That, and I started using tiling window manager.

i’m still a lurker, i post less, and im practically a ghost on here. i’m winning and loving it. reddit w/o the problems

Subscribed to all three of those and I'm looking forward to finding some new fun communities to be a part of, thank you!

I was ready for a fediverse reddit since i had been on mastodon since 2019. The threads here just work better for me than the microblogging style. I used mastodon sometimes and reddit every day. Now i use lemmy every day, mastodon sometimes, and reddit only when i absolutely must.

I contribute far more now. I already have more posts on Lemmy in nine months than I did in all of the 10-ish years I was on Reddit. My rate of commenting is about the same.

I've also changed the way I get my news; I went retro and use RSS feeds now. I do fear there's a risk of over-curation with a minimum of sources leading to narrow viewpoints. Even Reddit's news bubble was more expansive than what I've got coming in. But my feeds and Lemmy's bubble are what I've got for now.

Lemmy simply hasn't been enough content. I still use Lemmy (obviously, I'm here) but I also supplement with other places.

For example, I used to enjoy the sub for one of my favorite sports teams. A lot of posts tended to be articles from the same handful of news outlets. Now instead of reading through Reddit I just have that website up and routinely check for new articles.

I use the Google News app occasionally. It usually sucks.

I also use Instagram a lot more. I only reluctantly downloaded it and created an account because my wife and a few friends wanted to send me things. Then I used it more when my band released an EP as a way to promote that. For pure entertainment rather than informational purposes, I usually go to Lemmy first and exhaust what is good quickly, then go to Instagram after.

I know it sucks. I don't like having an app from Meta on my phone. I know it can become an unhealthy habit. But I also drink and eat junk food, so there you go.

I now use my porn account to engage with folks on my niche subs and race threads.

I still lurk hard on Reddit, but either use a LibReddit redirect extension on both my Desktop and Phone, or I just use Stealth to keep track of Communities on my phone. I just don't post anymore.

This is mainly for research into niche topics or to see if a technical question I have has been asked on Reddit before, which oftentimes it has. I just try to not give Spez a record of my traffic, hence the alternative front ends (as well as using a VPN and blocking JS).

I come to Lemmy to Read/Debate Politics, talk Linux, Privacy, or the Fediverse, as well as occasionally get advice on a topic or two. One TV show I like has a consistent poster in their community, which I'm extremely grateful for.

Another poster here pointed out that the decentralized nature of Lemmy works against it for discover ability, which I generally agree with. I can't type in "question Google should be able to answer but not anymore? lemmy" into duckduckgo lite and get any kind of result like I would if I replaced "lemmy" with "reddit". I'd love that, but it's just not possible right now. So I still lurk via libreddit and stealth.

I am happier, and better able to analyze situations with a clearer mind.

Given me a newfound distate for Linux users/evangelists. Like the vegans of the tech world