I’ve been seeing more often (and others have posted the same) that some of the elements of “Reddit etiquette” seem to be taking over here. Luckily I can still find discussion comments but it seems the jokes and general “downvote because I disagree” are slowly taking over.
So the question becomes is it the size or the functionality of the site? The people or popularity? What’s your thoughts?
edit: should I change it to Lemmy-hivemind? Exhibit A: the amount of downvotes without a single explanation (guessing it’s anything to do with Reddit being talked about).
Gamifying the voting incentivises people to make low quality posts and comments. That’s why Reddit is now basically just rage bait fake stories with comment chains that all look exactly the same. And now it’s all just ai generated anyway.
I sometimes visit and read the AITAH type stories and I’m dumbfounded that people can believe or enjoy reading them. All the subtleties and nuances of the early days are gone and it’s a race to who can karma farm the hardest.
The other thing that made Reddit great in early days were the small communities being visible on the front page. It made the content varied and there were different types of posting hitting front page. I think Lemmy is struggling with this because politics is just so loud that we don’t have enough volume of other content being made.
Using scaled sorting really helps with getting smaller communities on the front page. I still see the political and news communities but I also see communities for cities and niche hobbies.
I remember when Reddit’s best “reading” threads just suddenly shifted. AITA, JustNoMIL, TalesFromTechSupport, TalesFromRetail, all of a sudden they went from realistic stories of real people venting to… just obvious rage bait. It was so disappointing. It was one of the best things to read on the bus, here’s someone going through something, can offer support, laugh about it, whatever.
It went from stories like “I had someone demand a manager when I wouldn’t offer them 40% off” to “someone pulled a gun on me at work, and my manager told me I should have punched them”. Just such horrible bullshit. That’s when I knew the site was going downhill.
I think Lemmy is struggling with this because politics is just so loud that we don’t have enough volume of other content being made.
I regularly suggest people to block those communities, or consider an alt to follow those
I really agree with the excessive news e politics comunitties. I have a hard time setting a good feed 'cause of that
The universal problem is that there’s no shared definition of what a downvote represents. Is it “this is spam and should be removed”? “I don’t like this”? “This doesn’t belong here”? “I want to see less of this”? “I disagree”?
That’s not even a Reddit problem - it’s innate to any social media voting apparatus. Extend it to Facebook, even. Does the laugh reaction mean I’m laughing with you or at you?
Most comments and posts I’ve downvoted have been because I accidentally swiped too far right and my upvote changed to the downvote action and I didn’t even notice. So those downvotes don’t even mean anything!
I think the right answer is to stop worrying about votes. Even if they all mean the same thing they’re still meaningless. It’s better to change your post and comment sorting setting than to try to social engineer a way out of it.
Reddiquette says
Vote. If you think something contributes to conversation, upvote it. If you think it does not contribute to the subreddit it is posted in or is off-topic in a particular community, downvote it.
It makes me wonder—would the dynamic change if there was only an upvote? So you could choose not to upvote, but the default action would be a neutral one, and if you liked/wanted to support/etc you could signal that.
I see tons of posts on here now that are downvoted to oblivion, because they are a legitimate article that says something a group doesn’t like. There won’t even be comments on the post. So like a Reuter article that discusses Palestinian casualties and no comments and like -20. This doesn’t seem like a super useful mechanism. Or at least, it’s just functioning today as a content preference “I don’t want to see this typed content” as opposed to “this is bad info, out of line with the community, etc.”
And despite ranking my list by either hot, or top day/six hours, I still see the downvoted posts regularly so the mechanic doesn’t even really do anything in terms of visibility. Or possibly there’s just too little content on a given community for it to get filtered out.
Not sure if you realize, but a lemmy instance can turn off downvotes for the entire instance. So we’ll see if instances with downvotes disabled will do better.
No I didn’t know that, would be interesting to see more of them try it, just for curiositys sake.
Blajah doesn’t have downvotes, so I can’t downvote anyone and also can’t see if anyone downvotes me. It has helped me break free of the Reddit hivemind and truly be myself.
Someone replied to you with the expected use is the downvote button, but contrary to your comment, I believe there is a de facto use of the button and it more or less corresponds to your “I don’t like this” interpretation.
Now, they could have done something to address this issue, even completely eliminate the downvote button. I don’t think they will do it any time soon because it would affect their profit.
Most comments and posts I’ve downvoted have been because I accidentally swiped too far right and my upvote changed to the downvote action and I didn’t even notice.
I actually changed it so that if I swipe too far it saves the post/comment and to downvote I have to swipe too far the other side to downvote. I think that makes more sense
I think the difference is when you have a small group everyone sort of considers themselves co-custodians of a space—lifting each other up and helping people integrate. But get enough people and it starts getting exhausting constantly trying to enforce norms against an ever growing community of people who don’t understand or respect them. It’s like social enshittification.
I think we need to consider the norms Lemmites enforce. From what I’ve experienced: it’s often nitpicks (“I think one thing you said is wrong”), or mild insults when an opinion is outside our slightly-left-of-centre POV. Disagreement is rarely friendly, gentle, or constructive.
From what I’ve seen, we’re great at getting the big stuff right - people react quickly against child porn or overt racism/insults. But we reply with the same anger if someone has an opinion different from ours.
I have a better time in small Reddit communities because people have more shared interests. Here our prime commonality is that we like FOSS and dislike Reddit.
But we reply with the same anger if someone has an opinion different from ours.
Hey fuck you! That’s total bullshit and you know it!!
Not a single comma. Tch tch tch.
it’s often nitpicks (“I think one thing you said is wrong”)
I think this happens. I know I’ve done it but I’ve expressly stated my agreement with everything else but hey this one thing needs examination. I think sometimes people leave that part unsaid and maybe they forgot or maybe they just don’t have good arguments against.
Note I’m not mentioning anything else. It’s because I largely agree with what you’ve said or don’t think a counterpoint would be helpful.
At this point I start with a big “I agree” and state something about it, so we have some common ground. Then, if I have further questions/disagreement then I mention it.
Too much growth too fast for sure! Much harder for Lemmy to create its own culture and maintain it. Much harder to discourage toxicity. Notice how healthy communities are often smaller.
Sucks for niche communities but they’ll get slowly spun up over time, and in the meantime they can be found in other places including Reddit. I don’t personally need everything to be a one-stop shop.
It’s the eternal September.
I’m old enough to remember the start of eternal September. It hasn’t stopped yet.
I don’t recall when I first started using the internet. Late 80’s or very early 90’s. No WWW back then. It was all IRC and gopher and newsgroups and other things I don’t remember. I lived near MSU, so I could dial in for free because it was a local call.
And then once you got in, it was hard to find anything to actually do. It kinda felt like exploring Mars. But eventually I found things. Very exclusive club and very good times that I miss. No advertisements. No one trying to make a sale.
It kinda felt like exploring Mars. But eventually I found things
Even the world wide web felt like that until shockingly recently. I remember circa 2005 just typing in random words .com and seeing what you’d find, or discovering a cool new website by word of mouth at school.
I remember vising pig.com and discovering a delightful page consisting of nothing more than a giant picture of a pig and the text “this domain is for sale” that lasted years. These days it’s probably one of those shitty for sale landing pages.
We’ve absolutely got hive minds here - it requires extremely good and dedicated moderators to keep in check but one thing that might help is adopting my favorite hackernews rule… you are prohibited from downvoting any comments that are direct replies to your comment. That single block works pretty effectively to untrain the habit of “downvote what I disagree with”.
We also have a problem on lemmy that there is a subset of users who think that votes are how you curate your feed. They downvote anything that they don’t want to see instead of blocking communities that they aren’t interested in.
Consequence of lack of onboarding. Would be easily fixed by popping up instructions for voting and feed shaping the first time a new user votes.
Quora may be exacerbating the behaviour by automatically blocking topics when you downvote questions. They also downvote a question for you when you only want to report it for something. The downvote remains after the reported issue has been corrected.
probably an unpopular view but tbh i think voting has ruined modern forums
firstly its much much easier to game, and for big platforms to fake
but more to the point, voting makes excellent sense when the topic is something with a clearly provable right/wrong answer. eg. technical questions are ideal for voting, where the wrong information does belong at the bottom because its simply wrong and in most cases most people can easily verify if it works or doesn’t work.
instead we get voting for everything now, so it merely becomes a poll of opinions not facts, but unfortunately our monkey brains sees the numbers and somewhat equates emotions with facts.
oldschool forums ALREADY HAD a poll feature, so when we wanted a poll we could get one. now everything is a poll, and when everything is a poll nothing is especially meaningful.
I feel so stupid lol. I’m on a bunch of random forums still that I’ve been visiting since the early 2000’s and trying to figure out why things go so bad socially (grouping/instance hating/etc) on platforms like this so quick. There’s no voting on any of them, it’s such a baked-in thing here and on reddit and so foreign on forums that I just didn’t consider it for some reason. There’s definitely dissent or butting heads but it usually just fizzles out and doesn’t carry onto other posts (unless two users really hate each other, always happens unfortunately).
aye exactly. since voting is apparently a big thing now, if we have to work within it, some ideas might help such as mentioned above where hackernews prevents downvoting replies to you.
some other ideas
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permit upvoting but downvotes require a textbox reply (imo downvoting without a valid explanation is just noise, and we want signal over noise right?)
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self posts not being upvoted (all posts start at 0)
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i really like how lemmy shows both up & down rather than final value on alot of sites
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no voting until you ‘earn your stripes’. not perfect, but somewhat helps at keeping voting within domain expertise.
eg. i ‘fucking love science’, but just because an answer feels nice to me on nuclear rocket surgery doesn’t mean my vote should count. let alone be equal to someone with expertise
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Whenever I saw someone complaining about the “hivemind” over there, they were invariably whining about people not liking their unpopular opinion on something. When you say “hivemind” you are equating anyone with that opinion to insects/drones/NPC etc. Just because you’re different doesn’t mean you’re right.
fair point, using negative language while looking for engagement and conversation isn’t the best start. Do you have a better descriptive I can use and possibly edit the post with? (genuinely asking, I would enjoy everyone’s opinion)
I think your premise is flawed. There’s no such thing as a “hivemind” or what it implies. Opinions will exist on a spectrum of popular to unpopular depending on the community they’re posted in. I would say that those descriptors are perfectly adequate as they are.
I’m finding it difficult to respond because of the “popular to unpopular” description you’ve applied. I feel like by definition that in itself is a “hivemind”. So maybe like you said the entire premise is flawed. For someone wanting lemmy to succeed as a place where discussions and opinions can be shared and open, whats a positive aspect that you feel could encourage that type of engagement?
I don’t really understand what it is you’re after. Do you want a place where people only get positive reception no matter what they say? Maybe that exists in a group therapy session, but I don’t think that’s what you’re asking for. Is it?
Is it about getting down voted? Who cares? You can’t control how other people react to your opinions and you shouldn’t try. Lemmy is diverse and it is federated. Each instance and community has its own rules and culture. If you don’t find any of the communities to your particular liking, you can always start some of your own.
For the first part, no not a group therapy session lol. “thoughtful reception” is probably a better apt description. You can definitely have a level of control for how your opinion is received with your attitude and how you engage in a conversation. A space and how conversation is conducted usually sets a precedence, the tools available to you with how you interact with that content is another part of it.
I was just looking for conversations about this style of social platform and the known problems that seem to inflict it. I want Lemmy to stay diverse and federated, I’m seeing a concerning trend of tribalism revolving around instance membership or interaction. As you said I can start a community if I’m looking for something else, which I have done. Starting a new corner of lemmy to stretch out in has been a wonderful experience and has helped me focus on something I want to be creative and engage with instead of wandering around Lemmy “all”.
But, I can’t help but wonder if that’s the downfall. I’ve been instance hoping a lot lately, it’s amazing to see what’s been hidden that I’m not seeing and as spaces become more condensed or closed off through defederation the stark contrast between instances is only going to grow. Basically mini-reddits (the negative parts of it), instead of spaces being smaller to allow more chances to not drown out a differing opinion. So am I contributing to this or refuting it by making my own community? Do I have a chance to avoid the main opinions becoming the mindset that others want to follow when engaging or is it just an uphill battle because of the format of this social platform. A lot of really interesting and thoughtful responses in this post, exactly what I’m looking for in community discussions and there’s been barely any hate or downvotes. It’s been refreshing and given me plenty to think about.
Communities tend to attract like minded individuals. It’s not that everyone is exactly the same, but those that are very different or have very different opinions don’t generally stay for long. That said, even within those like minded individuals there’s a wide spectrum of opinions.
For me there are a handful of topics I know I’ll get down voted for sharing, because it goes against the majority. And that’s fine, it doesn’t stop me from sharing my opinion, and I don’t really mind the downvotes. I think in general though as long as you’re able to share your opinion with nuance and self awareness, and it’s not something mean or hateful people will hear you out.
I had some subs that I spent a lot of time in.
People would occasionally complain about the hivemind in one in particular whenever they’d get comments deleted or downvoted.
I’d tell them, “No, there’s a significant portion of the sub that agrees with you – we see these debates here often, and have plenty of people on both sides, including yours. Your comment just sucks”. Invariably, they’d have broken some rule or were just being an asshole, and mods or the downvoters didn’t like it.
Moderation is a big part. Heavily libbed up mods such as the Lemmy.World ones are only allowing one perspective to be posted. Which is why the place is slowly turning into Reddit
This is done in three ways:
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Restricting what content is allowed to be posted using made up metrics like MBFC or calling anything they don’t like an opinion piece.
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Allowing users to insult those with differing opinions EG call them Russian bots or Trump supporters and only banning users when they insult those trolls back.
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.World/WorldNews style just banning anyone who doesn’t have a Biden style Zionist worldview.
The centralization around .World is one of the biggest issues facing Lemmy right now.
i was wondering if i was the only one that felt this way; since i keep getting banned and named called on lemmy.world and shitjustworks every time i try to let newbie leftists posters know that lemmy.world doesn’t not represent the lemmyverse and that they’ll get a much better experience if they try almost any other instance.
You’re absolutely not the only one. My first Lemmy instance was .world, but I eventually left when I noticed that they were kinda manipulating their userbase to consent to an eventual defederation from .ml, on the grounds that it’s a “tankie” instance. The .world admins are really quick to ban any communist instance or community, and if all of them are banned, they just outright make shit up.
That was the red flag that made me jump ship, but honestly I don’t regret it at all. I didn’t truly realize the scope of .world manipulation until I started seeing Lemmy from a different instance.
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Yeah, good point. I think it’s best to have multiple instances with similar subs so you can always move over easily. People should also make their accounts on different instances and be a bit more active there.
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Moderation and mods being accountable.
Public modlogs help a lot
I was thinking the same thing. Reddit is a cesspool because communities shut out anyone who dissents with a group’s opinions, allowing the group to continue thinking “everyone” believes the same thing they do. Sure it’s a good thing for mods to be able to quickly block obvious troublemakers, but there needs to be an unbiased review process in place when someone is kicked out simply for disagreeing or asking legitimate questions. Echo chambers are bad.
Telling someone they’re disgusting for being POC or LGBT+ is a good example of an action that deserves an immediate ban. Asking someone what policies a political figure implemented that benefited you should NOT be a reason for a ban, especially if you’re only banning them because you can’t answer the question.
I’m not quite sure how the process works on Lemmy, but I feel like moderation should include incremental periods. Like the first time you get blocked for a day, then a week, then a month, and finally a permanent ban. And a person should be able to request a review of their ban, which would be judged by a panel of mods from random groups and instances to limit people of like minds all piling on for the same butt-hurt feelings. There should be ways to make things more fair than just reddit’s policy of an invisible admin making decisions based on their mood that day.
On Lemmy the safeguard to mod abuse is instance admins. On Reddit this can take place, but rarely does. The only time admins on Reddit really step in is when mods are allowing illegal behaviour on their sub, or when mods are protesting against their own shitty behaviour. But on Lemmy it’s much easier to reach out to an instance’s admins if something is going wrong. Mod actions are all public, so you can create a post explaining what happened and it’s not just a “he said/she said” situation.
If they aren’t being responsive to feedback, the appropriate response is to start up a new community, preferably on a different instance. Or, in the extreme case, to block that instance entirely. You can even build a consensus to doing this with a “panel” consisting of…every user on the platform. That’s essentially how !tenforward@lemmy.world became the de facto Star Trek meme community, rather than !risa@startrek.website, after the mods of the latter community were shown to be abusing their powers and the instance admins refused to take remedial action.
if we can avoid Lemmy’s most active city being Eglin Air Force Base, we just might be able to avoid the hive mind
Shills bots and feds haha
When you got no friends, you can count on them to provide healthy engagement every single time
Literally nothing can be done to avoid it. The “Reddit hivemind” is the human hivemind. When enough people start contributing to a certain community, certain ideas usually unanimously shared between individuals get boosted up to the top and become general consensus.
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I’ve already seen hivemind votes on some Lemmy comment threads. It’s just inevitable. Hopefully most Lemmy communities can be better about the banning thing though.
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I like hiding votes until you’ve voted. Allowing users, communities, or instances to change how posts/comments are sorted might help too.
They hive mind is just as strong on lemmy as it is on Reddit. which has led me to wind-down my engagement on lemmy and will very soon drop it all together. going back to RSS I guess or might try nostr next.
If users were able to migrate their accounts that could help against centralization
What is that you care to preserve? Can’t you just register a new account and kill the old one? (genuinely curious)
Many users have stated they would like to keep their comment history and subscriptions. Move their account to a different instance. Having to start from scratch is a big hassle.
The fediverse concept is great but users are locked into the instance they create their accounts on. With so many instances it is better to just start somewhere and figure out what’s what later.
So far I am happy with my instance. But if I ever change my mind it would help if migration was simple.
Great point, are the lemmy devs (idk if it works that way?) aware of this?
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Lol… Mods enforce the hivemind.
Any critical analysis or questioning of the mods narrative leads to comment removal and bans.
We talk about it as a hive mind, but I think it is actually a problem of large numbers of users and an algorithm that needs tweaking, plus some shady mods.
You post but you’re too late, or you have a legit opinion that needs a few sub comments, but it’s too late.
Or you get trolled, you respond in a similar vein, and the mod bans you but not them, because the mod likes their opinion more. And I don’t blame mods for being soft in general, because it is a shit job. But sometimes it’s frustrating.
Or you get trolled, you respond in a similar vein, and the mod bans you but not them, because the mod likes their opinion more.
Or you added a G-rated insult after a detailed explanation of how they’re objectively wrong. Because god forbid anyone be the tiniest bit uncivil with someone going ‘oh, so you think [infuriating horseshit]?’
Remember: trolling is explicitly forbidden, but any hint of suggesting someone might be trolling is worse somehow.
