I think it’s a boon that we’re a tiny fraction of Reddit’s size. Reddit is something like 30+ million MAUs and Lemmy dropped recently from 62k to ~50k. We’re a grain of sand compared to Reddit, and I think the community is better for it.
Lemmy isn’t really a Reddit alternative. We’re too small to have niche thriving communities, and depend 100% on sorting your feed by “all” or “local” to get new content. What’s nice is it feels like one close knit community vs closed off micro communities inside of subreddits.
I get exposed to more things this way oddly enough- viewing content I normally wouldn’t in favor of my smaller selection of subreddits. People are more polite, more informative, and far more original with their comments.
Keep on doing your thing, everyone! We’re building something different here.
I agree with you. It’s hard to foster a community free of the snark and the contrarianism that poisons other platforms. The moderators are doing their damn best here to do that, I’m still hopeful and I’m trying to become better as well.
It’s unfortunate that this kind of attitude just keeps seeping back from every other place though. I’ve been thinking about affordance lately. For example car drivers will go fast on a large road no matter the speed limit. To slow down trafic, narrowing the road will be more efficient than any warning sign.
Lemmy is built very much like Reddit and I wonder if some of the design decisions both platforms share lead to similar behaviour simply through affordance. A Lemmy/Reddit thread is a bit like a political debate. There’s this thing that happens where a user will reply to another not in the aim of discussing with the recipient but of scoring popularity points with the audience. The recipient of the reply receives little empathy, as the author is mainly looking “at the camera”, hoping to rake in the (up)votes.
I don’t think Lemmy or Beehaw for that matter is doomed in any way to devolve into a mini Reddit though. It’s just good to stay aware that tools are never really neutral.
The interesting thing is this is that sometimes replying with a mind towards the audience instead of the person you’re replying is a beneficial thing to do! Most of the time, internet debates won’t convince the person you’re arguing with but they do have the potential to convince onlookers and change their minds. I’ve definitely had my mind changed by reading some debates. So you’d maybe address your opponent’s arguments with a mind more towards convincing onlookers than towards convincing your opponent, or towards your frustration with your opponent.
Of course, the part where this happens with little empathy to the person they’re replying to is bad. And the part where it’s happening as a ~epic clapback~ smackdown for upvotes, not as an attempt to present onlookers with your point of view.