I feel like things on Lemmy were pretty chill several months ago, and that’s started to change.
People used to talk each other like they would talk to a neighbor. Now I get the sense that people have become quick to be negative, attack, and not be constructive.
Am I crazy in feeling like the vibe has changed?
Worth noting, the number of people who come here “to escape authoritarian moderators”. Nearly all of them were moderated for good reason.
I also don’t think the presence of places like hexbear are doing us any favors.
You can see them jumping from Lemmy server to Lemmy server as they get banned from each.
Eventually, they’ll just set up their own instances so they can bother people with impunity.
And then we block that instance! Or it gets defederated.
It would be super nice if users could block instances.
Like, I have no desire to see anything from the furry instance.
It became a thing in Lemmy 0.19 - as long as you’re on an instance that has updated to that, it should be available to you. At the bottom of the settings page in the web ui, but if you use an app they might not expose that to you yet.
I think that came with version 0.19.1 specifically.
I hadn’t realized it had been implemented yet since I don’t use the browser. Thanks for the update!
You can on instances running .19 or newer. Settings -> Blocks -> then at the bottom is an option for blocking instances.
Connect has been able to do that from the get go. As well as individual communities within instances.
You can do this with certain apps, like Boost!
Or Connect (Android)
Huh, I guess I haven’t tried it recently, because that’s what I’m using.
I think that’s coming (or is it implemented already!?)?
I totally thought that was in 0.19 but I haven’t actually seen that yet.
It’s under Settings -> Blocks -> then down at the bottom is the block instances option.
If the apps don’t have instance blocking yet, the webui does (in 0.19)… I haven’t tested it, but it’s there, at the bottom of my settings page 🙂
the 0.19 implementation is so half-assed I genuinely think the Lemmy devs just don’t want that functionality but expected quite a lot of backlash if they outright said as much, so they decided to implement something that ticks the box in the “wanted features” list without having any effect
afaik it only blocks communities and explicitly lets users from blocked instances through
Feel free to make open an issue to improve instance blocking. Or better yet a pull request. We are only a few devs with limited time, and hundreds of issues to work on.
0.19.1
This is possible on kbin.
…and then they spin up a new instance with a new domain…
Domains are unfortunately fairly cheap and it’s not impossible to get a different IP assigned to a server box.
I don’t mind costing them the effort or $10 for a new domain
Incidentally I have several domains with DNS provided by freedns.afraid.net, which allows sharing domains. Everyone who asks for a domain under any of mine just seems so very sketchy. Now I have to worry if they’re a nazi looking for a new domain to get banned
no work in microblog tab
So there’s going to be a fediverse and a mirror fediverse?
That was always a risk of decentralized services, unfortunately.
And the other one is the one with opposite facial hair
Isn’t that basically what basedcount is?
I’m unfamiliar with it. Would you be so kind as to explain what you mean?
This guy
From the siderbar:Avoid Censorship. Stay Based.
You’re describing Hexbear.
The thing that actually worried me a little bit more was people upvoting the aggressive comments to be top comments.
I was reading some thread over at !politics@lemmy.world today, and a lot of stuff advocating for political violence were the top comments. Mods yanked it, but nevertheless, people were vibing with some comments about dragging people through the street. I felt like I was on X/Twitter.
Yeah, I think it’s a legitimate and growing problem. I think a lot of folks don’t realize, but since growth has slowed from Reddit more broadly, the people who feel they have been “unfairly silenced” are the fastest growing subpopulation around here. If I’m honest, I think the only real antidote is to reestablish growth from communities with kinder dispositions.
We don’t need to take from nicer communities, we need to build nicer communities. Right now there aren’t any left wing instances, which is a big problem. It was nicer back when lib.lgbt existed.
Lemmygrad or ml aren’t left wing? The entire platform feels left wing as all anyone can ever say is how bad capitalism is.
Right now there aren’t any left wing instances
Bro what
Also it doesn’t have anything to do with political distribution. It’s an issue of habit and disposition.
Left wing people are disposed to helping others. Right wing people aren’t. Nobody’s cultivating left wing spaces where kindness is a habit.
I was reading some thread over at !politics
There you go, that’s your problem. Political topics always gets heated and brings out the worst in people, no matter the platform. The first thing I did is block all politics (and general news + sports) communities, and it’s been a fairly pleasant experience so far for me, except for the odd troll or fanboy that shows up every now and then.
Lemmy.nz also defederated Hexbear, which helped a lot.
Technically they pulled a “you can’t fire me, I quit” and defederated first, but whatever.
Yea, they tend to do that, think they did the same with blaahaj. Pretty funny tbh.
You didn’t block all politics. Everything is political.
No it’s not. You can have casual communities or gaming or sports communities that aren’t political.
Casual conversation, gaming, and sports are political.
People like to fetishize revolution.
Even offline I have friends that talk that kind of way and just reveal themselves as being poor students of history.
You read my mind. It’s the same feeling I got when a reddit sub would degrade into a toxic circle jerk, and I’d have to unsub. Except it feels like it’s a lot of lemmy communities lately. I feel like I can’t respectfully disagree with anyone without being met with ad hominem attacks. I don’t think something like changemyview could survive.
Also reminds me of those anti-moderate subs, which is a sentiment literally synonymous with radicalization. I’m all for free speech, I would just rather they state whatever take they have with a calm, measured demeanor.
You have a problem with people being against the status quo?
Well remember that any instance you federate with also gets to vote. If you feel like votes aren’t matching your values, perhaps you should try an instance with more of the “aggressive” stuff defederated.
Possibly, although those instances also have less content. I remember starting out with a BeeHaw account like many of us here. Trade off was often less content, no ability to create your own communities, but less people lashing out at each other.
Beehaw is very selective though (and that’s fine). There is a middle ground between lemmy.world and Beehaw though.
But you said elsewhere that you go on American political communities. I’m not American but from what I’ve seen, it is hardly surprising that those places would be toxic. I think at this point, arguing US politics online seems like a lost cause. You’re probably better off discussing politics IRL.
You think Beehaw isn’t aggressive?
The irony.
Indeed. And looking at the deleted post… definitely a power trip.
Hexbear, Lemmygrad, and Lemmy.ml bring nothing of value to the community, in my view.
hexbear is insanity larping
Hexbear called me a troll for being further left than them. They thought I was an extreme caricature of a leftist for saying things like “xenogenders are real” and “slurs against disabilities are bad”. My presence was actually critically destructive because I had effective points against all their reactionary opinions that made it impossible for themselves to honestly call themselves leftists. Now it’s against the rules to like me on there. That’s how bad I was for them.
YES, IT’S JUST FUCKING YOU, JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WITH THIS GUY…
Careful with the punctuation it makes you seem rather aggressive
Suck rocks you worthless git!
How dare you make the obvious joke before I got a chance to make it! You supreme overlord of feigned fury! Fake raaaage!
I was busy and couldn’t make it to the comment section in time, you two comment sniping chodes deserve to be interrupted by someone knocking on the door then lingering until you finish when you’re taking a poop
Friend, this is 'MURICA. You just don’t stand on someone’s doorstep unless you want to get shot.
Jesus Christ, the stereotype of American gun owners waiting for any excuse they can get to lynch someone really is accurate.
…sadly, yes.
Weep for rational US citizens.
Strap in. It’s an election year
Every year is an election year somewhere.
Yeah but this is an AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION YEAR!!!
that’s like the super bowl of elections
Sent from my freedom phone motherfucker
What the fuck is a superbowl
A really nice owl
Can I pet it?
Only if you twist your hand all the way around like an owls head before you pet it, otherwise the owl won’t recognize it as a friendly entity and will bite.
You mean a brave patriotic eagle! America’s awesome upgrade to the bog standard owl.
Yep it’s time for the entire online world to suffer for 3 months
3 months? Ha! Try a whole year. American election season, baby!!!
Internet’s gonna internet.
Blocking still works though.
It’s almost always a small amount of people causing problems.
I still get some ghost replies occasionally, but it’s never going to be anything worth reading. Most of the toxicity comes from reply chains they start as well, so you’re not missing out on any constructive conversation.
People have been asking this for as long as I’ve been on lemmy.
It depends a LOT on which instances you interact with. It’s a challenge of the fediverse in that every person has their own unique experience, some bad others good.
The vibe has gotten much more negative, to the point that I don’t really want to post anymore. I came here in early June with the Reddit API stuff, and was shocked at how communal it was. It actually got me to start posting again (I hadn’t posted on Reddit since the early to mid 20-teens because it had gotten so toxic).
My last three posts (nothing inflammatory) have gotten flamed. Someone actually hunted me down based on my post history and I had to take the time deleting most of my old posts.
So from my perspective it’s not just you. I’m back to being a lurker.
Maybe, but you’re still awesome.
Awe shucks. Thanks. Right back at ya.
No you. /j
What I found is that hot topics come with the season, in June/July about Ukraine, in July/August about Meta, in October/November about Gaza, in December about Biden. There’s been plenty of charged discussion on these topics, and internal Lemmy dramas.
However, one thing I see more often here on Lemmy than other places is people updating their comments, being willing to admit they’re wrong or that their comment came off as hostile, and open negotiation in general. Consider the near defederation of programming.dev and lemm.ee, it was resolved amicably to everyone’s benefit.
I also see people thanking others for softening their tone and being kind, to them I say, keep doing that and encouraging good behaviour and ettiquite online!
Law of probability. The more people join, the more of a chance someone will say some stupid shit.
Also: SUCK MY BALLS
Thank you for translating that into Manbird
THE MOON HIDES FROM ME
Lost among the “internet sucks now, it used to be better” discourse is that the old internet was heavily moderated. The laissez faire parts of the old internet were known as the seedy corners of the web. Social media and its modern derivatives like lemmy take on that latter philosophy.
It’s no wonder it’s chaos every where. The libertarian tech bros have really impressed their world view on everyone. So the prevailing philosophy is these “digital town squares” should be absolute free speech zones. Except town squares in real life do not work like this anywhere. At least not in most liberal democracies. In real life there is bureaucracy. There are police, fire, ambulances. There is the simple matter of neighborly social contract. You cannot go into a real life town square and do whatever you want. You cannot just up and fight strangers, engage in lewd acts, set up encampments or what have you without permits. In the same way internet requires structure. Counter intuitively it used to have a lot more of it on account of sites being run by a real human being. Not the mega conglomerate investor groups feeding off ad/engagement profits.
Those users unfamiliar with the old internet yet pine for the good old days would have hated it. Power hungry mods is a meme as old as the internet itself. It’s a necessity of the internet. Hardly anybody gets banned for being an asshole anymore. Sometimes (often more like) people need to be forced offline so they can go outside.
Why don’t you shut hell up nerd
My suspicion is that a lot of redditors migrated over here about 7 months ago when certain apps shut down, including myself. At first, they were polite in an unfamiliar environment, but they’ve grown comfortable and act out, or speak less thoughtfully, like they originally did on Reddit.
It’s an election year and Trump is in the election.
We can absolutely do better than reddit on this one. If someone is breaking rule 2 (be respectful), report that comment and we’ll get to it as soon as we can.
You’re awesome btw.
o7
Are reports anonymous? I don’t want to report a user that breaks rules only for the offending user to be friends with an admin and get me kicked from a community as payback
Reports are not anonymous, but they also aren’t public. Only visible to admins and mods of that community.
It’s a tradeoff, anonymous report abuse was a big problem on reddit that I didn’t want to replicate here. If the admins or mods aren’t trustworthy on your server, you should pry move to another one.
No, the mods of the community can see who sent the report.
That can be a good thing, too, to find out if someone is abusing the report feature, as was common on Reddit when people didn’t like someone’s comment.
The problem is, most of the pro-socialist posts don’t get removed when I report them for rule 2. I’m certain there’s a bias here.
Maybe you should take care to follow said rule yourself? Looking through your recent comments in this thread it seems more to me that you are going in hard with bad takes and get hurt from getting dunked at. The question is really: Do you consider yourself respectful when you use ignorance to spite leftists?
Being pro something you are against does not break the “be respectful” rule.
You really shouldn’t go around trying to silence people with different opinions than you.
For the first time in a liberal’s life, your viewpoints are being the least bit challenged. Must be awful, we socialists can’t imagine what you’re going through.
