Before I really get into this, I'd like to acknowledge the genuinely cool people here. People with cool hobbies, who post photography and other cool art... People who are enthusiastic about something that even mildly interests me. You are the reason I scroll Lemmy for embarrassing amounts of time. I've learned a lot over the past three years from cool people like you. Folks like you are what makes anything about the Internet worth a damn period, and I wish we could clone you all! Another thank you to the people who have been cool to me even when I myself was being toxic. A few of you managed to be kind and offer helpful advice even when I probably didn't deserve it, without coming off as fake or condescending. It usually brought a tear to my eye and made me have a bit more hope for the future. This has happened more than a handful of times and I appreciated it each time.
Now for the shit I need to get off my chest...
Admiral Patrick is a fucking asshole for multiple, already-discussed reasons we can all agree on. He was wrong about quite a lot, but he was right about one thing: a lot of users make this platform often hard to handle (and no I'm not proposing a system to shadowban anyone). I could write up lots of detailed examples but we all know what I'm talking about. Many people are incredibly rude, condescending, hateful, and intolerant when it comes to certain topics, and they don't even feel the need to limit their hatred to people who "deserve it". Anyone who dares challenge them catches all those flavors of negativity. I've had to block so many users, communities, and instances I couldn't begin to name even 5% of them.
I would say this toxicity is not unique to the fediverse, but it goes largely unchecked here because certain users share their hatreds and bloodlusts and form cliques based on it, mods/admins included, and the thing that more often is kept in check by those individuals is pushback against the zealotry/toxicity. Nearly all of it is related to black and white thinking and snap judgements.
If you take issue with one minor point, you'll often get a hateful reply assigning you horrific viewpoints. The way I interact with the platform anyhow, it's a very unwelcoming place without lots of blocking in place, and the blocklist is always growing. I always want to see "All", so I'm not siloed into small communities with polite people who want to discuss a cool nerdy interest. If there were more users here I would probably try to make that my usage mode, but there aren't enough users to make that work for me.
What makes me consider leaving this place nearly every day is how absurdly common it is to have someone jump down your throat and cram words in your mouth. Over something they literally had no understanding of and don't want to understand. They want to take out their sadness and anger on you because you represent the "enemy", if you challenge them at all. I'm self aware enough to know that I do it too sometimes too btw.
Conservatism is the ultimate in toxicity, and frankly we don't have much of that brand here. To hear many lemmings tell it though, there's secret conservatism hidden everywhere and only they are above it. The purity testing, the hatred for people with slightly different positions (even if the goals are identical), it's painfully exhausting. The other day I saw someone baselessly called out as a Zionist (who wasn't even present in the thread at the time!) and when I stood up to the accuser on their behalf, they soon slid into the thread to insult me and say the accuser was right to be randomly accusing them, even though they are not a Zionist. That's yet another sign to me that the toxicity is deeply ingrained. "Hey I'm not [bad thing], but I will stand up for stranger's right to say it about me any time!"
This also reminds me of another weird quirk I see here. Because the user base is small enough to recognize top commenters/posters, it's common to see specific users get shit talked when they are not even present. That usually rubs me the wrong way. One user even made a very in depth audio recording talking several minutes of shit about a top poster here and you'll never guess what happened when I called that out as shitty! Banned in several communities and toxic comments galore. How dare I come on on my high horse to point out how childish and shitty that was.
All this gets very deflating. Coming from reddit, it was very refreshing to see leftists everywhere, and intolerance of views being mostly aimed at conservatism, but everyone adjusted and started infighting almost immediately. I fully expect to be called a liberal or a zionist for writing this post, because, see, some users already know everything about me that matters: I implicitly called out their zealotry and am thus the enemy. I fucking hate it. I know there are many reasonable people here but honestly? They're probably often afraid to say anything because they'd rather not get an inbox full of shitty messages. All of this goes back to black and white thinking. And the oligarchs have gotten exactly what they want. Instead of banding together we're slinging shit at each other constantly. Fuck that. People are capable of being better than this but every day I'm learning they just refuse to be.
Conservatives have the toxic views, but so many leftists would rather see you dead than disagree with them on anything. What the fuck is wrong with them? I get being frustrated, WE ALL ARE. But you are NOT HELPING with this shit. Cut it the fuck out.
I got a little sidetracked though because a lot of these issues come up when politics are discussed, but it's not only politics. The fediverse-specific type of toxicity is mostly political in nature but then you also get all the normal asshole behavior you see on reddit and elsewhere. People who care far more about stating something in the exact way they understand it and become offended if you even try to add clarity to what they said for other users. Pedantry, snide dismissiveness, bigotry, most anything you hate about reddit is here too. Some other things that are sort of unique here, IME anyhow: weird/awkward horny posts. I do not want to have to block the same users account 5 times and be told I'm a prudish asshole if I say so. I simply want to use my phone in public without weird shit I don't want to see, ever, popup in a feed. I have probably blocked 50 communities for NSFW stuff I'm rarely if ever interested in, dozens of furry and hentai communities, some portraying sexualized children, etc. Is my having to block these things the issue, partially yes, but I'm only bringing it up here because of the fediverse mantra of "dude just block it okay?! No one cares about your little hangups!" I get it, it doesn't bother you to need to block 37 communities of dragon cocks and twelve year olds bending over or whatever, but if anyone complains about those, can we not chill the fuck out and let them vent for a second? Many if not most people don't want to see that shit.
The last thing about this place that's been getting my goat lately is hatred against large groups of people. Ya know what, you will never convince me or any truly decent person that it's okay to blanket-hate Americans because of what their leadership is doing. I don't want this to become as big of part of this post than necessary, but I just had to say it. A lot of Americans are shitty people, yes. As an American I'm insanely aware of it. I'm embarrassed, I'm sad about it, and there's a feeling of hopelessness I wouldn't wish on anyone that comes from watching this country's citizens reveal publicly so many awful things about themselves. More than I understood to be possible. Guess what though, saying job losses in America is hilarious still makes you a shitty person. I'm not sure what the best way to describe it is but I call it bigotry myself. What you're doing is literally saying "those people are terrible because of where they were born; they're all the same there". You can pretend that all Americans are to blame for trump or whatever you wanna say but that's just not factual. Sure, American society is if you zoom all the way out. We Americans let it get that way here over the years, but it's idiotic to suggest people who became homeless in America "deserve it" because of something you oversimplified. Even if 90% of them did, you're still a hateful asshole. And yes you're the same level of shitty if you laugh about terrible things happening to random Russians (not soldiers, politicians, etc). Those people may not support one fucking thing being forced on them by that dictatorship, and further, even if they did, it should not be so hard to understand that such a high degree of propaganda can convince people of lies.
Anyhow, that's my rant. I keep saying I'm going to quit Lemmy but so far the cool people mentioned above and the dopamine hits keep me coming back. I probably won't last forever though. The toxicity level seems to keep rising even after I block more and more toxic users. It sucks. That's all
111 Comments
Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 44 pts · 2d
There's certainly some very specific forms of toxicity here, and the leftist purity tests and infighting is certainly a big part of it.
That being said, I think the Internet has a broad toxicity problem. When everyone is faceless and you only know them by a single comment, it's much easier to cast them as a specific stereotype or an enemy. It's just a feature of how humans socialize, and there really isn't a way to remove it from the experience of the Internet.
Don't take people's attitudes so personally. They likely don't actually mean what they say, and people are giant emotional idiots. You know who you are at your core, other people's opinions don't really matter
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 2d
I think all of this is true and yet hard to keep in mind at all times due to the big emotional idiot aspect. This place was supposed to be better though...
Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 13 pts · 2d
It is better though. There are assholes and bigots everywhere. They really do seem like a much smaller proportion of users here compared to reddit, they're just really loud lol. There are a ton of really great people on here, it just takes a little bit of blocklist work to filter out the goobers.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
Yes and I agree it is "better" -- heh, that's the thing about relative words especially when typed. I meant to say much better than it is. It certainly is better than probably most any online space that exists.
the_q@piefed.social · 19 pts · 2d
No one thinks they're the problem.
RickyRigatoni@piefed.zip · 7 pts · 2d
I've seen Trick Dacy here for a long while and they are far from a problem.
the_q@piefed.social · 8 pts · 2d
I didn't say they were.
Poxlox@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
Seems implied
Grainne@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 1d
They are a huge problem, but you yourself also have been frequently.
sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyz · 19 pts · 1d
After reading all this, I think you've got a well-adjusted view. If you haven't blocked me yet and you ever see me going on about some headassery and say so, I'll try to stop what I'm doing and reflect.
Sorry it's getting to you too. I also think we're putting all of our eggs on the "blocking is good" basket without considering the broken stairs it's leaving for other people to fall into. Reddit had a very psycho moderation problem by contrast though so I don't know what's the right answer
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
I agree, but also I don't feel I have a choice. I used to only block the most vile characters. Over time I've been broken. Burned too many times. Cannot tell you how many people I knew were not fun to interact with and then later end up finding out they're worse than I thought, so I've gotten more block-happy than I wanna be, but it's just gonna have to be that way if I stay here.
sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 1d
Yeah I can feel that process happening too. I hate that there's a fucker or two who I can tell without looking. That was not info I was ever supposed to have to hold mental space for.
The worst part is generally these types tend to see themselves as doing some kind of community service by just trashing up the overall culture in the community. They think they're showing other people to toughen up or think more critically when really the sane people will just eventually fuck off to other places when the vibes get adequately toxic for these people's liking.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
I know this certainly a thing. It's a very weird thing but that does seem to be the belief. Then there's others just spraying hate because you said a thing that means the two of you don't agree, and therefore you're fair game in their eyes.
Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 18 pts · 1d
People in glass houses and all that...
poke@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 8h
That's certainly some pretty aggressive language.
RickyRigatoni@piefed.zip · 17 pts · 2d
The fediverse would be a much better place if we found that Ricky Rigatoni guy and put him down like a rabid chihuahua.
lime@feddit.nu · 8 pts · 2d
boil him alive like the noodle he is
Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 2d
Agreed. We also need to assassinate assassassins ass.
PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S@anarchist.nexus · 6 pts · 2d
Wait
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 20h
You... You rabid chihuahua hater!
lime@feddit.nu · 14 pts · 2d
the old adage holds: "lurk moar". i love getting into fights with internet strangers as much as the next guy, but knowing when (or more accurately, where) to start shit is crucial. since you're on world i can sorta guess what places are issues (since there are so many blocked instances from there) and the assholes you can see tend to converge on certain topics. there is merit to observing from the shadows, like a perverted internet attenborough.
sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyz · 6 pts · 1d
Lurking prepped me for a lot but not for certain individuals who have more accounts than I have wits. At a certain point you almost have to become a paranoid hypervigilant crackpot yourself just to know when one of the various zany characters has engaged you with a sock.
Azzu@leminal.space · 13 pts · 1d
Sooo... is it weird that I participate actively here and never experienced this?
massive_bereavement@fedia.io · 5 pts · 1d
What I've experienced is that sometimes I get misunderstood by either the limitations of communicating by text, misunderstandings or because I do a hot take and someone's very opinionated on that topic. Or a healthy dose of autism.
I eventually realized that explaining myself, apologizing when needed and finally not engaging in pointless discussions where probably nothing is gained gave me a mental health boost.
Azzu@leminal.space · 4 pts · 1d
Exactly. I've had my fair share of misunderstandings, that could have been constructed as rudeness or "toxicity" by either party, but after we kept talking it never turned out to be actual hostility. Everything turned positive in some way after a better understanding was reached.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 1d
This is like the movies version of how these issues would go. It's happened to me before too but I wouldn't say it's common.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Yeah that's kinda hard to fathom given all I've seen. If you look at the rest of the thread, you'll see that I'm very far from being alone in noticing this. I mean, the whole Tesseract debacle happened because the creator of that app saw the problem and sought to solve it in the most heavy handed and dishonest way imaginable. It's definitely real. I have had death threats and been told to kill myself, and that I should be killed. Not to mention many rude comments that I would certainly call toxic. I have gone through periods of spending too much time on here but honestly it doesn't even take that. Like I said in the post, I'm pretty confident there are people in this thread being total assholes, but I won't see them because they're blocked.
Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz · 11 pts · 1d
I think it’s a human problem. Wherever there are humans, you’ll find the same problems.
The blocking thing always seemed weird to me. I just subscribe to all the good communities and ignore the rest. Blocking 80% of the fediverse sounds like too much work. I’ve ignored the all-feed and still managed to enjoy Lemmy. That feed is so wild and untameable that I can’t find any use for it. Maybe sort by top of the month? I guess that’s the only way to find something even remotely interesting there.
As a result, Lemmy is actually a bit boring now. The upside is, I won’t spend all day scrolling. 😄
Sounds like you like to gravitate towards all the topics I like to avoid. Political discussions tend to bring the worst out of humanity. If you hang out at a garbage dump, you shouldn’t complain about the smell, rats and flies.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
That's a pretty shitty way of looking at it if you ask me. Basically I'm experiencing toxicity due to my own fault because if I expect to be able to read and discuss news and politics, I'm an idiot for thinking that could happen.
People who actively avoid "politics" aren't my favorite people.
Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 1d
I would like to read more about politics, but the atmosphere makes me uncomfortable. When I’m scrolling Lemmy, that’s not the feeling I’m after. As far as I’m concerned, this isn’t the kind of place where I can engage with politics.
Recently, I’ve started following some people on Mastodon to see if that works any better. Hashtags invite everyone to participate, so black listing might be useful there. When following individuals, you’re essentially white listing them, and that’s the whole point of Mastodon. Maybe that could be a better tool for this purpose.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
I don't like the Twitter/mastodon format. I have had plenty of decent experiences reading and discussing politics here, there's just commonly a person here and there who cannot function in that atmosphere without being horrible. I'm not yet willing to scrap the idea entirely yet but I'm getting there, I think.
Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 1d
If you end up black listing countless people, I get the feeling that a topic centric platform isn’t ideal. A person centric one could work better for that purpose.
For many years I’ve struggled to find a good use for Mastodon since generally speaking I don’t care about the people. What matters to me is the topic, that’s why I’m here. However, politics clearly doesn’t work here, so that’s why I’m thinking that white listing specific users might be a better approach, i.e. Mastodon.
It’s too early to tell just yet. I need to keep this experiment going for a few weeks to form a proper opinion.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
I'm not sure I understand this way of viewing social media. It's always about people. I think good evidence of that is just the fact that you are here responding to me. If you were entirely tuned out of people's points of view, it doesn't seem like a post you'd ever read, let alone comment on.
Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 1d
I stumbled upon this post specifically because it’s in a community where interesting conversations take place. I’m sure similar discussions must occur in political communities as well, but they never appear in my feed because they are in the wrong community.
I care about this community and that’s why I’m here. The people here come and go, and I have no idea who they are or if we’ve even met before. I don’t feel like I need to know. The topics are interesting, and that’s good enough for me, no matter who the people are.
This community is a bit special, because the unifying feature is so broad and abstract. If you subscribe to a very specific community such as !knitting@lemmy.world, the main topic really stands out in every post. You go to a place like that because you care about the topic more than the people. Lemmy allows me to apply this approach to countless topics I find interesting.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 7h
My point though is that the community and post are both pretty specifically geared toward people and personalities. It's about "getting something off my chest" which implies it may be a thought you'd normally just keep to yourself. This makes it especially personal. To me, it takes mental gymnastics to ignore how personal these sorts of posts are and just consider them "topic-based".
Having said that, all social media is always about people. Unless it's a list of posts without any commentary whatsoever, and then it's not social media anymore. This reminds me of a conversation I had years ago with a girl I had starting seeing. She said she doesn't "get" reddit. I tried to explain that it's somewhat interesting because of the comments. She said she would check it out, but that she wouldn't be interested in comments. It was a confusing conclusion.
Stamets@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 1d
That's not what happened.
First, you neglected to point out that was in response to a different top poster, one far more recognizable than me, banning me from a community due to me saying something about him on matrix. A level of narcissism that I found amusing and decided to poke him at the same time as making the post. You commented about it at the time.
Original post with recording
This is your comment from that post.
After you repeatedly stirring things up for MONTHS and causing trouble, with a mile long modlog demonstrating your own insane level of toxicity, I spoke with other moderators either part of my communities or not. I then decided to ban you from my communities to prevent you from adding more to it all. You posted something to YePowerTrippingBastards about it where the general conclusion was that you fucked around and found out due to months and months of toxic behavior from you, again all listed and proven in your modlog.
So lets circle back to your original complaint.
Nah. You were banned from several communities by myself and others due to your own behavior and you provided your own toxic comments.
You complain about the toxicity of this place but do everything you can to add to it yourself.
Poxlox@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 1d
Oh cool so you preemptively banned him from a bunch of communities and you got a bunch of mod buddies to do the same, for "causing trouble" and a "mile-long mod log". This reads like a you problem, and makes you look just like a crappy Reddit mod. I guess that's why you made a several minutes long audio talking shit about one user. Yeah, methinks you're part of the toxicity OP is talking about.
Edit: love how you're editing your comment to make yourself seem more reasonable without any edit flag Edit2: your parent comment was edited so many times it's kind of ridiculous
Stamets@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 1d
Not what I said, although I could have been more clear. I apologize.
They were causing trouble constantly in multiple communities, including mine. I spoke with other moderators who had recently banned him and got their reasoning and evidence. I then made my decision to ban him as well.
Nope. I spoke with people who had already banned him as well as people in my own communities.
Unfortunately, it's a mod problem. This particular user has a very long modlog because they're extremely antagonistic. That's why I made this comment. They're making it out to be that everyone but them is toxic (and I not saying I'm not) but they're adding to the problem themselves.
Edit: I was editing the comment because I was typing on a phone.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 3h
Dude is a liar.
Within a couple of minutes of me pushing back on his asshole behavior he had banned me from several communities, most of which I either don't look at or didn't know existed. It was 100% a power tripping bullshit move. The guy clearly cares a lot about his image so he thinks he can say what he wants and then later launder his image by pointing at a modlog. I've never done the math but the percentage of my comments to get modded is pretty small. I've spent a lot of time commenting here. Covid and other factors led me to being too involved here at times. I acknowledged in the post and again will freely admit I've been toxic at times. But my post was trying to focus on the larger problem, which again, I am definitely a part of. This dude's responding here to try and lift himself up by shitting on other people's reputations. Which is fucking precisely what led me to have beef with him to begin with. I don't feel like going back through his 15000 posts or whatever but if you found it I feel like you'd see what I'm saying. It was such a weird bullying thing to do
agent_nycto@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
So as a mod, you should can people if they break the rules. I don't think people should get banned from communities they didn't break the rules in, especially just because a mod doesn't like their tone or their opinion. Obviously if someone is like spamming Nazi themed CP or something they should get banned prematurely but that clearly isn't happening here.
Saying "this guy is a troublemaker so I'm gonna ban em from all my communities" isn't protecting people, it's power tripping.
Stamets@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 1d
Which is what their post to YPTB was about. Mixed reactions.
If it was just a small user that hadn't been causing a lot of trouble, then yeah. I'd agree on the power tripping. But they have 13 pages on their modlog. 12 of those pages were before I banned them. You can go ahead and check it yourself. This isn't just some random person but a 3 year old account who has an extremely long list of acerbic and antagonistic behavior. At that point, in my opinion, it is protecting people.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 3h
I got curious what blocked users would be saying here, unfortunately. But I do want to respond to a couple things.
If I believed your way of thinking is correct, I'd believe it was justified that I've been banned for calling people pieces of shit for anti-immigrant or homophobic views. Which happened on non-fediverse sites more than a couple times. But I don't believe that.
I'd much rather be toxic by just saying mean words as a reaction to bad behavior than be a completely self unaware cyber bullying bigot.
I'm not in your clique. That's a good thing for me. Enjoy condemning your political and other "enemies" all you want, I won't be seeing it. You're not reasonable nor reachable, so I won't be trying to change your mind. For everyone else reading my post with an objective eye, they probably identified with it in some way.
Pretend that my lashing out is comparable or worse than the bile, hatred, etc I was writing about here but that's just you needing to justify your poor behavior. I don't care if you think I'm a toxic troll or think you can spin a modlog into a story like that. Now, I'll revert to a better version of this place, if you can guess what that means.
Edit: also, classy of you to pretend I didn't acknowledge that I am also part of the problem in the original post.
Crackhappy@lemmy.world · -4 pts · 1d
Oh Stamets. I wish you were the same guy who loved posting terrible Star Trek memes I fondly remember. You remember that guy?
pinto@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1h
He is.
tlekiteki@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 2d
We need to be able to follow certain users and highlight their posts only.
Canonical_Warlock@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 1d
That's mastodon.
Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 1d
Exactly. Mastodon is all about the people, while Lemmy is all about the topics.
ToiletFlushShowerScream@piefed.world · 9 pts · 1d
From your list of examples, it sounds like a big part of your problem with fedi experience has been with political discourse, mostly American focused. And just like that discourse in other media and communities is currently supercharged with frustration, you’re going to find it here too, and often those frustrations manifest like the toxicity you describe. I think the current fedi base is a bunch of independent thinking justice focused empathetic counter culture technologically unafraid wackos, and so are their ideas and passions. Honestly it’s beautiful sometimes. Im the most sensitive person out there, and rarely does a mean reply make me cry myself to sleep anymore.
But if that politics discourse still bothers you that’s okay (Honestly). There is plenty of content and users who feel the same as you, and have lots and lots of feel good communities for them. Even if you don’t like chocolate, Neapolitan ice cream is still twice as amazing as single flavor.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
anymore lol.. rarely....
Yeah I mean I want the political discourse, just not the vocal minority of people who are super shitty about it. And yes there is a beauty to a lot of what you see here. But the people I'm talking about ruining the space at times are a huge drag. I wish it was just smartypants condescension but it's literal death threats and pure hatred from some of these users. I'd not be surprised in any way if I would be seeing some horrible responses ITT if I hadn't blocked anyone.
ToiletFlushShowerScream@piefed.world · 1 pts · 1d
Oh wow.
Okay you win. I’ve yet to receive a death threat for any of the stupid things I’ve said.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 1d
I wouldn't say it's common but it's happened.
TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 1d
I'm going to repost this here, because the OP it was associated with got deleted, but I actually think these problems are tractable. Or at least, if we "collectively" as the fediverse tried to address these issues, I think we could make progress.
This is something I posted about how actually, both Lemmy and Mastadon are struggling as platforms, and what could be done about it.
Hegar@fedia.io · 3 pts · 1d
Correct me if i'm wrong, but piefed decided they wanted to limit the ability of powerusers to drive their platform. They put in a vote limit that almost no-one could hit except powerusers. Pug was upset at this because it meant they wouldn't be able to upvote all the comments on their posts. But that was kinda the whole point of the change - to prevent people like pug having outsized influence.
Pug could've just kept posting and trusted in the appeal of their content. They didn't need the ability to upvote more than 240 times a day to keep posting.
I think pug's departure was mostly a rage-quit, rather than actual mistreatment. But as a history fan i found almost all their posts annoying so i admit that might skew my view.
TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 1d
Well you are wrong, in the sense that you dont actually understand the critique. So I'll correct you.
The point is that Lemmy doesn't exist without power users, and the exact kind of rules you are describing are disabling to Lemmy, the fediverse: any social network. Hamper a few committed users (eg, users who should be committed), and you basically destroy the project: which is exactly the accusation that I'm making.
All social networks are fundamentally driven by power users^1^. And not just social media networks, but for practical purposes, basically all networked systems operate under the same basic dynamic. Activity and connectivity are not evenly distributed. A relatively small number of users, nodes, whatever, account for a wildly disproportionate amount of what actually happens in the network. This is true of practically all complex systems^2^,
That doesn't mean those users are always good, or always right, or are doing what they do to service you. It means that if you specifically design rules to constrain the people doing a disproportionate amount of the work that sustains the network to filter that project down to meet your sensibilities, you are the wrecker who causes the project to fail.
And saying that Pug could have "just kept posting" misses the point completely. Of course they could have kept posting. And they had. Four fucking times. They did power through the kind of actually toxic shit that ruins projects.
And that weird, excessive, obsessive shit is what keeps tiny social networks alive. But like after a certain point of having the most middling, most worthless people decide that the thing you are trying to make happen not be a thing, they gave up.
So yes, the rule was specifically intended to constrain people like Pug. That is the criticism. You are describing the mechanism and acting like that disproves the consequence.
Exactly.
And I think that is probably doing a lot more work here than anything else. You want the world you see to conform to meet your sensibilities. But you don't offer anything.
^1^ Baeza-Yates & Saez-Trumper (2015), Wisdom of the Crowd or Wisdom of a Few? An Analysis of Users' Content Generation.
^2^ Barabási, A.-L. & Albert, R. (1999), “Emergence of Scaling in Random Networks,” Science 286(5439): 509–512. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.286.5439.509
Hegar@fedia.io · 0 pts · 1d
This is meant as hyperbole right? It's not like piefed capped how much he could post, or how many users could upvote pug's posts. Only being able to upvote most comments on your own posts instead of all of them seems too weak a limitation to basically destroy the fediverse.
I think it's pretty clear to anyone who's used social media that few users generate most content, but experimenting with ways to make social networks more distributed and less concentrated seems like a reasonable goal for something like the fediverse.
TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
No. Its basic, graduate level network/ graph theory. A very small percentage of users contribute almost all of the content. And you have middling, non-contributing members, who also have no understanding of how these systems, trying to control something they don't understand because it doesn't meet their sensibilities.
PugJesus@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Still not sure what exactly your problem was with my history posts, but I'd agree that me winding down activity had more in common with a rage-quit - it was fundamentally frustration in my personal experience using Piefed which led me to fuck off.
I didn't feel particularly 'targeted' or like Rimu was being unfair on some personal level. It wasn't 'mistreatment', I agree with you. It was just my experience becoming more frustrating than entertaining. So off I went.
The appeal of my content wasn't in question, though. Like I said, it was a difference in my user experience becoming shittier, not in 'losing' fans or engagement, though I suspected the policy change would also cause long-term difficulties in retention of users.
Hegar@fedia.io · 3 pts · 1d
That makes so much more sense than what others have said, thank you for clearing that up.
Grainne@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 8 pts · 1d
TrickDacy you are one of the biggest toxic trolls on this site, what the fuck are you on about?
molten@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 1d
I'm part of the problem. Sometimes I have to remind myself that there's a real human on the other side of the screen who is only a dick because they're feeling things that they aren't necessarily at fault for.
deadcream@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 1d
That wasn't necessarily true even before ai. Bot farms existed long ago.
Crackhappy@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
This post of yours is very narcissistic and toxic. Look at yourself first my friend.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
Person: [spends several minutes discussing people being rude and judgemental]
You: [I figured I prove you right and I dismiss your valid concerns!]
You can probably guess what I'll be doing right after pressing send.
Edit: I glanced at your profile first and literally the last 10 replies were all shitting on other people's ideas. Your response here may indicate that you know you're part of the problem.
crazycraw@crazypeople.online · 6 pts · 2d
it can take a while to form a sort of 'fedi culture' where we can derive standards and acknowledge public good and bad.
Some internet places have failed to form and die out or form and rot both being over taken by the lowest common denominator, trolls.
without moderation and volunteers, the system falls.
BussyGyatt@feddit.org · 2 pts · 1d
how will we derive standards when federation basically guarantees competing standards? good and bad are relative, especially when what qualifies as 'public' might not include other instances.
i think fedi's greatest strength is its resistance to rot. i have seen time and again a post get nuked into the shitheap for botspam or slop or advertisement. federation and defederation, for all its many, many problems, does in fact seem to do a good job of keeping the worst trolls out, in concert with aggressive moderation and administration. the community does seem to have some standards in that way. what could we do to better define a universal good and bad- or fediversal, i suppose?
Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 1d
I started reading your post, but didn’t finish… here’s the thing: we’re all just random internet users from across the globe. I mean this with the utmost sincerity: “stop caring what unknown random people say”
It’s impossible to discuss multi-layered and highly nuanced topics via text - plus there’s nobody doing quality control on a person’s qualification to comment. Why get involved? Also, if someone replies to you, you don’t have to reply back. I know that is not brilliant for engagement, but…
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 1d
You're not wrong and I try to ignore some of the hate. But it does pile up over time. Not to mention this all definitely feels related to the societal collapse we see irl all the time. I wish it was easier for me to tune out the bad.
Again, you're right but for me it's more complicated than just to ignore it.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
I block people. I’ve blocked some instances and some communities.
Sorry, I know that some view it negatively, it’s not a popular position. IMO people are free to say what they want, but they aren’t free to force someone to listen.
Some people are not here to have a good faith discussion no matter what you do. Some are here to push a rigid and negative point of view no matter what. Some want their own private fiefdom that exists for sycophants and supports the admin’s mercurial whims.
That’s what we get when there’s no overarching rulebook we need to abide by.
InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 9h
Thanks for curating your own feed.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 9h
Not sure what you’re trying to imply. I had my own feed initially, but the fediverse isn’t populated enough to have a selective list yet that has high enough engagement. So /all is the best, plus it introduces me to new /c/ and pointsof view regularly which is good.
I only filter problematic ones, or ones that I have absolutely zero interest in like yiff porn.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 1d
Yeah. I've wanted to generally not block people but it's been obvious to me for a few months that this way of thinking wasn't working for me. I cannot deal with so many rage monsters lurking in half of threads.
Poxlox@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
All of your points hit hard and I feel them almost 1 to 1. Lemmy is an interesting experiment and I enjoy how it has come far as a Reddit alternative. That said, personally I've experienced more toxicity here than on Reddit. All your points hit on that, from weird purity benchmarks to extremely rude and hostile people without any prompting. And the strange borderline pedophilic porn. I commented once that a child in Japan who's 15 doesn't magically become 18 to the rest of the world and it was my most downvoted comment for the longest time. I tried to ask about what people thought about 9/11 and I got called a sealioning troll and downvoted to oblivion. Even someone takes issue with my mycology photos lol. Can't even have that. Not to mention the times I was banned for completely bullshit or unexplained reasons, thanks Lemmy.ML/socialism! Love how they praise Kim Jong Un and you cant say anything bad about N Korea nor China. To them N Korea is a beauty country that treats its citizens better than the USA. Give me a break. And they arent even the only ones with power tripping mods, which is one of the biggest complaints I had with using Reddit.I'm going to try to stay active since there are still cool people here, but i wish I could block tons and tons of people from both me seeing their shit and them mine, since this one-way block doesn't solve much for me.
PP_BOY_@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 2d
Desu there are a few fediverse "trueisms" that disagree with but like most forums, it's kind of a public bathroom wall. I don't really take it personally when someone(s) disagree with me, it could be a literal child for all I know.
I think that the idea of this place (Lemmy) being some meet-up for the insurgent left is a pipe dream anyway, when a forum =/= social media; we have bluesky for that. I just like the fact that I can post most anything and be confident that there isnt going to be a hardcore American Christian Conservative in the comments shitting things up, but I'll take whatever gradient of leftist comes along.
Anyway, I'm ranting a bit too. I think that Lemmy has an engaging community that's like 80% cool and 100% more intelligent than what you'll find Reddit. I never mind to throw out a comment here because I know at least a few people will see it and maybe engage, rather than the crapshot into the 1,000+ comment chain void anywhere else. I do wish that less communities had me banned lol. I mostly just lurk aside from the occasional shitpost
nylo@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 10h
first off I wanna say I have you tagged as "my man" I think you're pretty cool and would be bummed if u left the verse.
personally I really love the fact that liberalism gets checked just as hard as conservatism here (outside of .world) and I wonder if the reason I don't see much of what you're talking about is because I try to use alternatives to .world whenever possible and only browse "local"
not sure, maybe I do see it as much as you and it just doesn't get to me the same way. I wish I had more help to offer.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 7h
I guess we don't have everything in common but I have you tagged as "seems cool" also. Thanks for this reply, it was very pleasantly said.
Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
Congratulations or I'm sorry that happened
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 2d
Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world · -4 pts · 2d
Sorry. I have a life
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 2d
You were always free to not read it but here you are acting like this. ✌️
Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
Hail yourself. Sorry for joking around.
SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world · 2 pts · 2d
Not going to lie you sound like a zionist liberal american.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
Shit, I was hoping to not get SatansMaggotyCumFarted here because you know the truth about me.
SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.social · 0 pts · 1d
I see through you like single ply toilet paper.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
It doesn't help that I sent you all that documentation about being in all the local Zionist clubs. Kicking myself about that now.
HubertManne@piefed.social · 2 pts · 2d
blocking has been working well enough for me. I prefer control over some uber control of the environment. granted im a bit of a hypocrite because I don't change to a more open instance but fact is that rimu default stuff is not stuff im jumping at seeing. im tempted to switch over either to nsfw or the anime one as for some reason posts to those don't seem to show here and im not sure why. I mean I know the anime one has like internal only communities so that could be why.
h4x0r@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 1d
Most people take themselves and life way too seriously, taking an online forum this serious is kinda bonkers. Ignore comments you don't like, and who gives a shit if you get downvoted or whatever fucking lemmy calls it, they're just fucking bits on a disk somewhere.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 1d
Okay. You seem quite dismissive of a lot of hatred spreading...because it's online?
Nomad@infosec.pub · 1 pts · 1d
Blocking helps, but it does not help against all the hate against level headed posts. Since the whole ban list controversy, I've become more keenly aware that taking a more public stance against violence in general lures out quite a lot of mental illness in people. thank root for the fediverse not counting karma as reddit does. Some people just want to see people bleed from their comfy dark living room. Just like any good Zionist would.
save_the_humans@leminal.space · 1 pts · 19h
I've met some Leftists in real life that are like this too, and got to know them. They may have some legitimate trauma and are veery tired of dealing with the same crap from people all the time. They defend themselves, their existence, and their views so often, they're just frustrated they have to keep doing it.
Ignore it if it bothers you, or try to understand. But either way, we should, at a minumum, agree to get of capitalism, so get on board with that at least.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 19h
Yes and I am, not that the people I'm disheartened by would ever know or care if I am or not
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 1 pts · 1d
yeah you're right, there is definitely a lot of stress going on. i think that lots of people are just generally tired from all the stuff that's happening in the world and in their personal circumstances these days. you can't really expect people to stay perfectly calm and cool while it feels like rafting on a boat down a waterfall.
also there's too much frickin politics everywhere, especially mud-throwing. if "being emotional" and "being engaging" means mud-throwing, then i'd rather not have it. that's not the positive stuff that makes things grow. also
i know exactly what you mean, unfortunately 😂 (it wouldn't bother me so much if the image quality was at least good 🙄)
pet1t@piefed.social · 1 pts · 1d
I don't mean this in a hard way, but just very curious. But ... what the fuck did you do in the fuck_AI community?
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 1d
..? You know I'm a mod there right? So lost otherwise
pet1t@piefed.social · 3 pts · 1d
oh shit completely misinterpreted it. that's on me waking up in the middle of the night. this should be the sign to try and get some more sleep now
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Oh you saw some of my mod actions and thought I was the target? Lol
pet1t@piefed.social · 3 pts · 1d
yup... stupid is with me
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 20h
https://sh.itjust.works/post/64714047
I have to say, you were certainly asking for a lot of it in this post.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 19h
That thread was fucked. And no me being defiant isn't the reason.
The mistake you seem to make is thinking that I'm mostly just personally offended by things said to me, whereas the truth is that I'm disgusted at the bile people have for one another, even innocent people.
Kewlio250@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 10h
You definitely incited a lot of that hate. If you don't like it, don't engage.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 8h
Again you are mistaking what I'm bothered by. I fully expected blowback. What actually bothers me is the fact that potentially hundreds or more of those dickheads were giddy at the fact that a bunch of people lost their jobs, literally due to where they were born. You can pretend that I "incited" that hate but it was extremely clearly already there. The comments that pissed me off had many upvotes and then the dog piling that happened further illustrated the popularity of those toxic viewpoints.
The long term difference for me in whether or not I engaged there is mainly that if I ignored the hatred spewing in that thread and if I called it out, is mainly that because I called it out I ended up blocking a LOT of users that I never want to interact with. So while I increased the negativity I saw there short term, it was negativity that very much was already there, and now I never have to talk to those psychopaths again. In fact it wouldn't surprise me at all if some of them are in this very thread expressing the same kinds of hatred.
When exchanges like the one you've started here happen, it's always pretty obvious why. You agree with them and disagree with me. You're not unbiased though you'd love me to believe that, and whatever point I was making is one you either don't care about or you disagree with. So I have to assume you also thought it was hilarious or a good thing that a bunch of Americans lost their job, because they "deserve it". So move along now or cop to that shitty belief. I'm not going to benefit from someone trying to tell me that if I lash out against toxicity that I've actually created the toxicity that I'm lashing out against.
karn@slrpnk.net · 0 pts · 54m
Person who is an smug asshole to everyone they meet: Why is everyone here mean to me?
That modlog, Jesus.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 34m
peopleproblems@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 1d
I dont have time to keep reading right now, but im going to come back to it because this is the LONGEST post Ive ever seen.
iocase@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 1d
It doesn't help that the fediverse is the social media of last resort for people so toxic they got banned from everywhere else. There's a sort of selection bias for antisocial cunts. They're dramatically overrepresented here. Also they're outspoken and part of the 9 or 1 in 90:9:1 since they didn't lurk, were inflamatory, and got banned from somewhere else...
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 5 pts · 1d
FYI i never got banned on reddit. i'm here because i believe in an open internet, not because reddit wouldn't take me.
iocase@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 1d
Same here but I'm not talking about me or you. Im sure you've noticed them as well...
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
This is almost exactly what admiral Patrick said. I'm not a fan of his. While it's accurate to say some people are here because they get banned elsewhere, putting it the way you did seems to assume a lot more than that too.
iocase@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 1d
Well it is selection bias and you anecdotally see it a lot.... "I got banned from X" or "I got banned from Y". Plus as I mentioned the 90% of users who are lurkers dont get banned. Its the people who comment or post, which means you disproportionately see them. Its selection bias on top of selection bias.
Im not saying everyone here is like that... but there's a strong minority of users who are here for those reasons and they usually are making a disproportionate amount of comments and posts because they had to for them to end up in that situation.
Hegar@fedia.io · 0 pts · 1d
It sounds like you're upset at people calling out others and your response is to call out others.
If you insert yourself into an argument and both sides start insulting you, i don't think that's an indictment of the entire platform and it's toxic culture, probably it just means you shouldn't have jumped in to that argument.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
I think you are projecting because nothing was said to give you basis for this.
rimu@piefed.social · -1 pts · 1d
Blocking individual users is hopeless. You need to block entire communities and instances.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
I've done that also
rimu@piefed.social · -2 pts · 1d
Ah, I forgot that Lemmy doesn't block instances in comments. I just tested it and verified that is still the case.