Sure, and I can identify an asshole, but still. I keep running into this problem where there's someone doing a knee-jerk vehement reaction to the very mention of Lemmy or other alt-social media. This disrupts a friendly response to someone who says they don't like reddit. I like to defend when I hear misinformation being spread but the problem is the second you defend, you place yourself on the defensive, and suddenly put the burden of proof on yourself in the discussion.
It's honestly a balancing act and I would love to read someone's study on this stuff if it wasn't so frustrating in the moment
For one, we're way past the necessary level of complexity for bots to do that, many months now. If any even slightly large corporation wants to, they can easily and cheaply spin up chatbots to do that.
On the other hand, I wouldn't instantly chalk it up to bots, simply because there's many many people, who comment backwards reactionary shit they don't understand, just to feel better themselves. And few things are more satisfying to such people, than dunking on the new-and-alternative thing.
It's a very pleasant thing, to feel content that you've made the right choices, and don't need to change anything.
LLMs have fully mastered the art of the Turing Test in spades. The layman's experience with them is just whatever they see on the news or ChatGPT, with easy advice like "jUsT lOok At ThE EmOjiS aNd eMDasHeS". But, rule files are incredibly easy to make (they are literally just Markdown files), and can tweak the default behavior of a model, including getting rid of behaviors that make it look like a bot.
Or just give an LLM a large sample size of data, and say "create a rules file to emulate the chat behaviors contained in this file". We're talking a 5 minute operation, once you have enough data. And the amount of data can be as little as 25 posts.
I tend to have better exchanges with people when I ask if they have heard of it first. Then I try to phrase my point of view as my experience and/or my opinion. This has helped me. Might not work for you though. Every personality is unique.
Yes, reddit is a cult, the hivemind aint called the hivemind for nothing.
Thought terminating cliches?
In group out group dynamics?
Its a cult, spend your time on other things.
Non zero chance theres a bot network set up to do precisely the behavior you are encountering, triggers upon mention of lemmy.
Reddit is well known to have been host to many, many other botnets doing the same kinds of shit and worse... there are entire guidebooks on how to drown discussions in bullshit and drama, how to divide communities into factions based around a popularity contest between the most well known members, who will then experience a manufactured kerfuffle, etc, how to manufacture a two sided conflict and 'conclude' it back along the lines of a 'sensible' compromise/middle ground, etc.
You might try asking jordanlund about it, seeing as he has a decade of experience being a corpo social media manager for Adobe, on reddit.
(That last part is a joke, i doubt he would respond well to that line of questioning lol)
Tbh I think you might be over-defending/hyping things. Usually a single short comment about why you like something is going to win more people over than trying to suggest why others would like it.
Emotional personal experiences can't be argued with, whereas statements about the worth of something in general can be.
That person is also probably not going to change their mind though, so don't over think it 😄
'ATechnicalSquid' is right tho regarding Mods. Many people here don't wanna accept it, but Lemmy can be as much of an echo chamber with the same powertripping mods as on Reddit.
had that problem over in the comics community where a mod arbitrarily decided to make the community "child friendly". no comics or comments about things that kids can't see/hear.
eventually the mod got tired of all the shit they were getting and left.
my point is, if this were Reddit, the mod would remain in charge and all the people of the community speaking out would have been permabanned globally.
IMO the strongest argument here is simply that Lemmy has mod logs while Reddit moderation is opaque and more automated, because those are verifiable facts. Any comparison of the quality of moderation itself is necessarily going to be subjective and anecdotal, in part because Reddit and its mods actively prevent objective evaluation to sweep their crap under the rug.
Thanks for fighting the good fight! A couple of thoughts from a former greasy salesman:
A) Are you meeting what OP needs or wants? OP says they're trying to quit reddit because they're wasting their life there. If they're trying to quit social media, not sure recommending a different style of social media is going to help.
B) Probably best to come in ready for typical responses e.g., "there's no content!" "Too many crazies" (say what you will, until you learn to avoid .ml etc, the fediverse can really suck for the vast majority of "normal" folks.)
C) Maybe have good examples of communities, instances or whatever that you want to recommend. Being able to point to concrete examples etc always helps!
A) Are you meeting what OP needs or wants? OP says they’re trying to quit reddit because they’re wasting their life there. If they’re trying to quit social media, not sure recommending a different style of social media is going to help.
Excellent point. One selling point tho, is that because Lemmy/Piefed is smaller, you often "reach the end" of your subscribed communities after a short period of time, which makes social media manageable.
But yeah, it'd be healthier to say "maybe you need to take some time off, and if you want to come back, try Piefed/Lemmy".
I came here from Reddit. Helped to mod a community on there, one of a team of about a dozen and it took about an hour a day, just a constant onslaught of offenders. Also was invited to help with another but I was not hardcore enough in a politically correct way, not heavy handed enough for them, they wanted a very safe space. Reddit is huge so there is some of everything but overall moderation is more heavy handed & micromanagey.
I mod a slow but active community here. 3 years I think, and less than one report per year. People are mostly so nice or at least funny enough when they aren't, almost no reports, almost no moderation needed. Not one off topic post, even. It's a dream.
Yeah I mod !dull_mens_club@lemmy.world and it's pretty chill. Once in awhile I'll get two people bickering in the comments or something doesn't really fit the community, but months go by without any issues.
Additionally, the person you're talking to is almost never the majority audience. Even if they disagree, some other reading that might give it a chance
There are shitty mods on lemmy too, but there are also, I suspect, some people (though some might not even be people) who are just extremely hostile to anything Fediverse.
Some of them might just be too dumb or lazy to learn how to set the scope of their filters when looking for communities, so they only see their own instance and think it's kind of a dead place, but I suspect a lot of them also argue in bad faith and generally just go out of their way to trash anything they see as a potential reddit competitor whether it's legitimate criticism or not.
This is why I view the learning curve that come with using federated platforms as a nice built in filter that stops a decent number of idiots from staying here.
"What you're saying doesn't match the community over there at all. I don't you've ever even used it and are just trying to sound important. There's a lot less of people like you over there too."
"Lemmy" can be terrible because everyone who was IP banned from Reddit made a Lemmy account and a raw unmoderated Lemmy feed is truly insufferable on a level Reddit never came close to.
There are good instances out there with good mods so I recommend suggesting one of those. I'm not going to suggest any here because you're already on Lemmy and the whole point is to find one that suits your style, not mine.
If someone reacts to what you say, don't react with more reaction. It just gives an excuse not to change, which is ultimately the goal of most people deep down. You acted as a poor reflection of Lemmy to a non-Lemmy user. Forget right and wrong, say less, people are people, what would you want to hear in the other persons situation?
Think its unfair to say they acted as a poor reflection. They acted like a normal human being imo. Any other way would just come across "holier than thou".
The bottom line is ultimately just that some people want to complain about sitting in shit, whilst doing absolutely nothing to get out of the shit
He could've said it better, he was engaging with someone who was upset. No way that person doesn't get defensive when a two sentence reply gets two paragraph-looking replies. It was like walking up to a crying child and correcting their issues instead of just giving them some candy. Anyone on Lemmy wants to be here, we shouldn't assume that's true of everyone looking to leave Reddit too. We're supposed to be independent, Lemmy should just be one offering of many to those looking to leave.
Well, a lot of people already know Lemmy is full of mostly assholes. So, getting people to come over to a failing fractured network with only the worst kind of mods is… not appealing to most.
82 Comments
discocactus@lemmy.world · 75 pts · 2d
That's completely fine, we don't want that person. You're being reasonable.
StarvingMartist@sh.itjust.works · 15 pts · 2d
Sure, and I can identify an asshole, but still. I keep running into this problem where there's someone doing a knee-jerk vehement reaction to the very mention of Lemmy or other alt-social media. This disrupts a friendly response to someone who says they don't like reddit. I like to defend when I hear misinformation being spread but the problem is the second you defend, you place yourself on the defensive, and suddenly put the burden of proof on yourself in the discussion.
It's honestly a balancing act and I would love to read someone's study on this stuff if it wasn't so frustrating in the moment
Bluegrass_Addict@lemmy.ca · 17 pts · 2d
almost like bots being triggered by key words like Lemmy?
StarvingMartist@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 2d
Never considered it. I suppose bots really could be at that level of complexity, huh?
Daxter101@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 9 pts · 2d
For one, we're way past the necessary level of complexity for bots to do that, many months now. If any even slightly large corporation wants to, they can easily and cheaply spin up chatbots to do that.
On the other hand, I wouldn't instantly chalk it up to bots, simply because there's many many people, who comment backwards reactionary shit they don't understand, just to feel better themselves. And few things are more satisfying to such people, than dunking on the new-and-alternative thing.
It's a very pleasant thing, to feel content that you've made the right choices, and don't need to change anything.
p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 19h
LLMs have fully mastered the art of the Turing Test in spades. The layman's experience with them is just whatever they see on the news or ChatGPT, with easy advice like "jUsT lOok At ThE EmOjiS aNd eMDasHeS". But, rule files are incredibly easy to make (they are literally just Markdown files), and can tweak the default behavior of a model, including getting rid of behaviors that make it look like a bot.
Or just give an LLM a large sample size of data, and say "create a rules file to emulate the chat behaviors contained in this file". We're talking a 5 minute operation, once you have enough data. And the amount of data can be as little as 25 posts.
ItsComplicated@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 2d
I tend to have better exchanges with people when I ask if they have heard of it first. Then I try to phrase my point of view as my experience and/or my opinion. This has helped me. Might not work for you though. Every personality is unique.
baines@lemmy.cafe · 4 pts · 2d
we want the people looking for it
easy growth kills culture
i generally don’t like gatekeeping but lowest effort really is a different game
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 2d
Yes, reddit is a cult, the hivemind aint called the hivemind for nothing.
Thought terminating cliches?
In group out group dynamics?
Its a cult, spend your time on other things.
Non zero chance theres a bot network set up to do precisely the behavior you are encountering, triggers upon mention of lemmy.
Reddit is well known to have been host to many, many other botnets doing the same kinds of shit and worse... there are entire guidebooks on how to drown discussions in bullshit and drama, how to divide communities into factions based around a popularity contest between the most well known members, who will then experience a manufactured kerfuffle, etc, how to manufacture a two sided conflict and 'conclude' it back along the lines of a 'sensible' compromise/middle ground, etc.
You might try asking jordanlund about it, seeing as he has a decade of experience being a corpo social media manager for Adobe, on reddit.
(That last part is a joke, i doubt he would respond well to that line of questioning lol)
atopi@piefed.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 2d
Like lemmy?
magnue@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
Kind of solidifying the point that the Reddit user was making, no?
Paradachshund@lemmy.today · 35 pts · 2d
Tbh I think you might be over-defending/hyping things. Usually a single short comment about why you like something is going to win more people over than trying to suggest why others would like it.
Emotional personal experiences can't be argued with, whereas statements about the worth of something in general can be.
That person is also probably not going to change their mind though, so don't over think it 😄
ratjefe@lemmy.today · 12 pts · 2d
also, possibly a username problem ...
Paradachshund@lemmy.today · 7 pts · 2d
Lmao, I didn't even take that in until you said something. I guess username checked out at least 😂
StarvingMartist@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 2d
Lmfao
StarvingMartist@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 2d
Fair, fair
blackberry28@sh.itjust.works · 26 pts · 2d
'ATechnicalSquid' is right tho regarding Mods. Many people here don't wanna accept it, but Lemmy can be as much of an echo chamber with the same powertripping mods as on Reddit.
Sackett@thelemmy.club · 5 pts · 2d
That's true, but at least I feel like I'm talking to actual human beings.
renamon_silver@lemmy.wtf · 2 pts · 2d
Agree.
zecg@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 5h
Sure, but the "federated fiefdoms" design allow one to move servers and find one with less powertripping mods.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
had that problem over in the comics community where a mod arbitrarily decided to make the community "child friendly". no comics or comments about things that kids can't see/hear.
eventually the mod got tired of all the shit they were getting and left.
my point is, if this were Reddit, the mod would remain in charge and all the people of the community speaking out would have been permabanned globally.
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 23 pts · 2d
IMO the strongest argument here is simply that Lemmy has mod logs while Reddit moderation is opaque and more automated, because those are verifiable facts. Any comparison of the quality of moderation itself is necessarily going to be subjective and anecdotal, in part because Reddit and its mods actively prevent objective evaluation to sweep their crap under the rug.
blackberry28@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 2d
How do u access the mod logs? Is that possible in the app Voyager?
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 2d
I don't know about that app but here's the modlog page on your instance: https://sh.itjust.works/modlog
MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca · 23 pts · 2d
Thanks for fighting the good fight! A couple of thoughts from a former greasy salesman:
A) Are you meeting what OP needs or wants? OP says they're trying to quit reddit because they're wasting their life there. If they're trying to quit social media, not sure recommending a different style of social media is going to help.
B) Probably best to come in ready for typical responses e.g., "there's no content!" "Too many crazies" (say what you will, until you learn to avoid .ml etc, the fediverse can really suck for the vast majority of "normal" folks.)
C) Maybe have good examples of communities, instances or whatever that you want to recommend. Being able to point to concrete examples etc always helps!
Good luck!
Sergio@piefed.social · 8 pts · 2d
Excellent point. One selling point tho, is that because Lemmy/Piefed is smaller, you often "reach the end" of your subscribed communities after a short period of time, which makes social media manageable.
But yeah, it'd be healthier to say "maybe you need to take some time off, and if you want to come back, try Piefed/Lemmy".
Krudler@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 2d
I have been here 3 years and I'm actually quite happy with the fact that it's not a content fire hose.
It's much healthier for me. 10 minutes a day, quick check, and I'm out.
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 2d
I love promoting the cool rocks comm. It's just so wholesome and welcoming.
!coolrocks@lemmy.today
MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca · 1 pts · 1d
Ha, that does seem wildly wholesome! I'll keep my eyes open for cool rocks to share!
EmilieEasie@fedinsfw.app · 19 pts · 2d
The way you said it was perfect imo
Godric@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 2d
Not wrong, I've noticed several very sweaty, vindictive Lemmy mods.
StarvingMartist@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 2d
I mean sure, but you also have u/pugjesus
MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca · 6 pts · 2d
Well, we did. But he gone now :(
StarvingMartist@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 2d
Oh no what happened??
Sergio@piefed.social · 6 pts · 2d
goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org · -3 pts · 1d
Nah he's still lurking
goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org · -1 pts · 2d
Who was one of those vindictive mods
Diva@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 2d
pretty much the foremost example of that, really
goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org · 0 pts · 1d
Weird how they're all happy to ignore that
goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org · -1 pts · 1d
Oh and the vindictive one in question is still around back on their world account. Along with my ever present downvoting bot accounts
Kirk@startrek.website · 4 pts · 2d
True but the whole point of Lemmy is that you choose your moderation experience.
goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org · -1 pts · 2d
I think a certain front end showed that isn't always the case
Kalothar@lemmy.ca · 12 pts · 2d
Just say you like Lemmy because it’s like earlier Reddit, smaller communities, more organic, and doesn’t have any corporate control / censorship
StarvingMartist@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 2d
Very smart way to phrase that, short and sweet
daychilde@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 2d
I've seen some crap over here on Lemmy.
I think it's better than reddit.
:shrug:
RBWells@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 2d
I came here from Reddit. Helped to mod a community on there, one of a team of about a dozen and it took about an hour a day, just a constant onslaught of offenders. Also was invited to help with another but I was not hardcore enough in a politically correct way, not heavy handed enough for them, they wanted a very safe space. Reddit is huge so there is some of everything but overall moderation is more heavy handed & micromanagey.
I mod a slow but active community here. 3 years I think, and less than one report per year. People are mostly so nice or at least funny enough when they aren't, almost no reports, almost no moderation needed. Not one off topic post, even. It's a dream.
PriorityMotif@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 2d
Yeah I mod !dull_mens_club@lemmy.world and it's pretty chill. Once in awhile I'll get two people bickering in the comments or something doesn't really fit the community, but months go by without any issues.
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today · 7 pts · 2d
We of the squid community disavow this one.
StarvingMartist@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 2d
I don't understand but thank you for your service
Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
::: spoiler Spoiler
In the screenshot, you're talking with someone whose username is /u/ATechnicalSquid. :::
StarvingMartist@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 2d
Oh forgive me, I am fairly drunk this evening
Lumidaub@feddit.org · 5 pts · 2d
Note that the person you were talking to isn't the person arguing. For all you know, Life_Ad3567 may already be here.
But also, you should see the absolute communist terrorist Nazi mods over on ich_iel when you spell it Ich_iel in your post title.
::: spoiler 🍜 j/k i wuv u 😘 :::
REDACTED@infosec.pub · 3 pts · 2d
Additionally, the person you're talking to is almost never the majority audience. Even if they disagree, some other reading that might give it a chance
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 2d
I just stopped going on reddit at all, much happier now
DonkeyStar@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 2d
Less bots, less reposts. Sure, some people suck, but at least they’re people. Or much better bots. I guess there’s no way to know for sure.
Maeve@kbin.earth · 4 pts · 2d
Parable of the sower, maybe. Different preferences.
StarvingMartist@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 2d
I had to look this up but I see what your saying. Maybe not the right soil to "plant my seed in" too many rocks in this plot
Maeve@kbin.earth · 1 pts · 2d
You just plant. All sowers have lessons. Teaching is learning, learning is teaching.
Linktank@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 2d
Just takes one power trippin' bastard to ruin somebodies experience.
Lemminary@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
We need to mod the mods! The community should be able to give feedback.
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 2d
Sounds like that user may have been a dick and ran afoul of a mod…?
Also, for them to portray the moderating experience of lemmy as worse than Reddit is… uh… fascinating.
_haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 2d
There are shitty mods on lemmy too, but there are also, I suspect, some people (though some might not even be people) who are just extremely hostile to anything Fediverse.
Some of them might just be too dumb or lazy to learn how to set the scope of their filters when looking for communities, so they only see their own instance and think it's kind of a dead place, but I suspect a lot of them also argue in bad faith and generally just go out of their way to trash anything they see as a potential reddit competitor whether it's legitimate criticism or not.
This is why I view the learning curve that come with using federated platforms as a nice built in filter that stops a decent number of idiots from staying here.
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org · 2 pts · 2d
You can lead a horse to water…
TheWhimby@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 2d
"What you're saying doesn't match the community over there at all. I don't you've ever even used it and are just trying to sound important. There's a lot less of people like you over there too."
brax@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 2d
followed by "how much is Reddit paying you to bash better communities to stop people from leaving to go to them?"
Kirk@startrek.website · 2 pts · 2d
"Lemmy" can be terrible because everyone who was IP banned from Reddit made a Lemmy account and a raw unmoderated Lemmy feed is truly insufferable on a level Reddit never came close to.
There are good instances out there with good mods so I recommend suggesting one of those. I'm not going to suggest any here because you're already on Lemmy and the whole point is to find one that suits your style, not mine.
ThirdConsul@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 2d
They wrote, not recommending even one instance with good mods.
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 2d
marduk@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 2d
Creepy
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
I got a couple of the medallions
Kirk@startrek.website · 1 pts · 2d
🍯
Kirk@startrek.website · -5 pts · 2d
Wow thanks for making my point
EmilieEasie@fedinsfw.app · 2 pts · 2d
Oh? I don't really understand much about default lemmy feeds
magnue@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Good point. Everyone's an edgelord in their own eyes basically.
BananaIsABerry@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 2d
They're right though, the active communities here are modded mostly by extremists and people who love echo chambers.
NathanRanch@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 2d
If someone reacts to what you say, don't react with more reaction. It just gives an excuse not to change, which is ultimately the goal of most people deep down. You acted as a poor reflection of Lemmy to a non-Lemmy user. Forget right and wrong, say less, people are people, what would you want to hear in the other persons situation?
harrybo93@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 2d
Think its unfair to say they acted as a poor reflection. They acted like a normal human being imo. Any other way would just come across "holier than thou".
The bottom line is ultimately just that some people want to complain about sitting in shit, whilst doing absolutely nothing to get out of the shit
NathanRanch@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 2d
He could've said it better, he was engaging with someone who was upset. No way that person doesn't get defensive when a two sentence reply gets two paragraph-looking replies. It was like walking up to a crying child and correcting their issues instead of just giving them some candy. Anyone on Lemmy wants to be here, we shouldn't assume that's true of everyone looking to leave Reddit too. We're supposed to be independent, Lemmy should just be one offering of many to those looking to leave.
harrybo93@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
Hm, ok mate- I think we just disagree here but that's fine.
kibblebits@quokk.au · -1 pts · 2d
Well, a lot of people already know Lemmy is full of mostly assholes. So, getting people to come over to a failing fractured network with only the worst kind of mods is… not appealing to most.
nomen_dubium@startrek.website · 2 pts · 2d
was going to ask op why he was insisting but now i'm more curious: why are you still here? xD
kibblebits@quokk.au · -1 pts · 2d
Because I’m the same kind of scum as you.
dotCody@lemmy.world · -8 pts · 2d
dgdft@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 2d
dotCody@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 2d
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 2d
And typically, the only people who say this are the ones who cause the most problems.