sanity_is_maddening

Sorry. Frustration has its way with me. I apologise if I also tired you in the process, beyond myself, obviously.

Apologies.

I want to start by saying… Thank you. And also that this is precisely why I’m still on this platform. You engaged thoroughly and thoughtfully with everything I wrote. And I mean it… thank you.

All that you pointed out is valid criticism.

But to be fair I didn’t say that killing those filters would solve every problem, just that it would eliminate that implicit incentive to seek the reward to be highlighted at the top. Through “easy to be enraged by posts”, “karma-farming like reddit posts” or just hoards of low effort memes just to mention a few.

It’s low effort but it works. On me to.

And to be completely honest about how the only “New” filter being hijacked the way you mentioned by barrage posting… I have no solution to that end. It already happens. There’s like five names (I’m not counting an exact number so it’s figurative) on lemmy that seem to post more than the rest of the lemmyverse in its entirety combined. They completely hijack the feed in any filter one chooses. I also want to say that I find that these are passionate individuals that want the lemmyverse and the fediverse to grow and I still find that they are doing a great job to that end. But one doesn’t need much insight to know that these will turn into a problem as well. Unless they are all gracious and know the perfect timing to slow down as more traffic takes off. I have seen some of them being criticised for it. And I think at this point it is unfair, but soon it might not be.

Mentioning the upvote/downvote system, I always said that we could do without it and it would be for the better. I said it on reddit for many years. I say it here as well. It’s actually the most easy to hijack feature of them all: bots, brigade hits, you name it. I never thought of this being the defining feature of reddit, but its biggest flaw. The community building, the interchangeable branches of discussions, that was what reddit got right and was stolen to the end of the earth for it. Virtually every platform stole this after 2005/2006.

Upvotes/downvotes are not only low effort, they actually reduce valuable engagement and lack any clarity. People will downvote this comment or even upvote it and I will have no idea of what was they agreed or disagreed with. It means nothing. What you and I are having here is valuable to me. You are not just disagreeing with me, but adding elements to my perspective that I might miss on my own. This is what these platforms were genuinely made for. From all the way back from the mirc chats in the 90’s.

One of the things I can point out is people mentioning to me, “you can just hide the upvote/downvote system” or “don’t use the Hot or Popular if you don’t like it” or “just block communities you are not interested in”, but these are features or elements that are driving the engagement of the people around me in here. It would be pretty silly of me to think that hiding upvotes/downvotes would change anything but to cover my eyes to what is around me. For as long as they exist, I’ll displayed them and separately. They’re here and they’re driving engagement regardless of what I think of them. No point in hiding from it. The same for everything else.

Like I said, I have the list of communities as my homepage and then I go through them chronologically in whatever I’m interested to check out that day. I don’t know what you mean by never seeing any posts past an hour. I don’t follow any communities here that if I don’t come here for three or four days (which happens frequently) that I couldn’t go through them quickly. Even back then on reddit, I didn’t have this issue with the communities that I followed. But I never followed high traffic nonsense.

You have to admit that these filters are hijacked the way that I said, just that I have to admit the new filter is hijacked by persistent posting as you said.

This right here, what you and I are doing is what some call “yellow team”… we’re tracking the issues and how unintended or deliberately so consequences can emerge.

My question is what do we do about it?

We should have like a “town hall” like instance for all federated administrators and mods to talk and vote on directions to take and have users vote. This is only valuable if we implement the same rails and safeguards as in the structuring of a great democracy. And Lemmy can function like a beacon to why federated municipality should be the future of democracy. Even deciding a cap on the number of maximum registrations per instance is not a bad idea to start throwing as numbers increase. I was on Lemm.ee. It was nothing terrible that happened there, it was just too much.

It’s better to have large numbers spread around many instances, than to have them in just a few. This is the right way to scale up. The more centralised and large the more easy it is to corrupt it. And the harder it is to manage it. Smaller instances will know better how to maintain its base and to manage it. Rimu (the piefed creator) already said he is thinking about closing the registrations on the instance he manages. Which is the one I’m on.

After a certain number, people should know to close the registrations and just maintain and manage the instance well. I would say some people don’t listen to their instincts and keep pushing beyond what they can take on and ruin their experience and the instance with it. That is the cautionary tale of lemm.ee that others should learn from. It was no bad apples and awful people, it was just too much for too few to handle.

By all means help people set up other instances, but have them be small. Lemmy.world is constantly being hit with new registered trolls and instigators and it is very clear why they pick it, because it is the larger instance and hijacks the lemmyverse attention in the process through this same filters we are speaking of, which is whay I’m on this detour. I also want to say that the administrators and mods have done a great job, but I’m seeing the same cracks that I saw on lemm.ee start to show in that is becoming too much for them to handle so much. It’s not that they are making bad decisions or becoming terrible at all, is that it is starting to become impossible for them to keep the standards they have maintained so far. It’s too much to handle. That’s all.

Like I said before… “Scale is the death of virtue”. Still can’t remember where this is from though. Aging is fucked.

Just one last quick mention, I absolutely agree with you regarding the transparency of having our comment history visible. Nobody needs to volunteer their identity, but it’s the least we can do as to gain trust to let the things we say here be visible to all. And absolutely that was one of the (many) problems of what it went so wrong with reddit. But I gotta say, reddit was amazing for a while. Then it wasn’t anymore. That is why I’m worrying in advance about this place.

Anyway, thank you for this exchange. I really appreciate thoughtful discussions and you gave a few things to ponder. I’m gonna sit with them and see what comes out.

Much appreciated.

That was unnecessarily condescending…

I know “algorithm” is not a dirty word. Algorithms are used almost everywhere for almost anything. But when we mention " the Algorithm" colloquially these days we know that we’re talking about algorithmic influence in engagement in digital platforms. And how it can have unintended consequences or dark incentives structured within them.

Which was precisely why I was talking about these filters. Not from a place of like/dislike but because of its inherent reward system and how it rewards rage and disgust, exactly as media experts warned everyone it would with the algorithms at the core of the other platforms.

And if you are denying and saying that the same is not already occurring here, you’re being disingenuous in this exchange. As one only needs to go through their feed with these filters enabled on navigating across all the federated instances to see the rageposting and disgust at the top. The few exceptions will only prove the rest is the rule.

It’s frustrating, because people are not engaging with what I wrote, and are only replying deflections instead of addressing the direct criticism at the core of my argument.

I’m not insulting anyone, I’m not throwing shade at people for enjoying memes, as I do to. I’m merely pointing out the perverse incentive lying at the core of this feature.

And it doesn’t matter if I don’t like it, I can just not use it, because it’s the enabled option in everyone that uses that will be driving their behaviour and fulfilling the loop with its dark incentives.

Why are people not engaging with what I’m saying? I even said “I’m no better” because I will fall prey to it if I leave it on, or even if I feel tempted to go back to it from time to time. That is why I don’t.

But I still see the posts that get the most interactions and comments.

This is not an armless feature. This is what broke the civic nature of discussion in society through social media. This loop of incentive will always lead to rage and disgust to raise above all else. And reward derangement in people that seek attention for attention sake.

I don’t know what else to say…

I’m sorry if I insulted anyone by pointing this out. But I don’t see how my comment can be misconstrued as a personal attack on anyone. As it is just an avaluation of a proposition through its inherent consequences. This is basic level of scientific method right here.

This is not about liking/disliking. I really dislike coffee, and I have offered a coffee machine as a birthday gift to a friend. More than once, actually. I can have people enjoy things I dislike with no hint of an issue. It’s even baffling to me when others don’t know how to.

This is about adressing an issue at its core. And out it influences behaviour and the user base at large.

I know. But is scale all that matters? I know what you mean and I swipe through a lot of them.

But that also happens with the Hot and Popular filters. Because if I just swipe through the All option across all the federated instances using the Hot or Popular filters it’s mostly memes, circlejerking and rageposting. Is this what is wanted? Because nobody needs Lemmy for that. Reddit and all of the other platforms are already serving that low level of engagement with slop to spare.

This actively rewards it. Exactly the same way.

I don’t remember who said it …“Scale is the death of virtue”… but it is definitely applicable here.

I don’t know what you want out of lemmy, but if that outcome is what you intend to have, the end product will have virtually no distinction of its’ counterparts and people will see no reason to change. As there will be none outside of it’s not “corporate owned”. But if it’s still slop, people who want a change, will just skip the whole thing. As I did for a while. And if it wasn’t for Piefed, I don’t think I would be still hanging around here anymore either.

Beware that a lot of the people who seek these alternatives do not want anything similar to what is huge out there. And you’ll essentially be killing the appeal to the larger target audience that will bother to “learn” federation and how instances operate in its context.

This is a hard bargain. And I do understand what you mean, and I have to suffer through it. But if you don’t recognise what I’m speaking of, then I don’t think we’re having a honest conversation.

I have not used those filters in a long time. But I’m betting that the enraged posting about what’s happening in the U.S. (and justifiably so), shitposting, circlejerking, memes and Tankies causing controversy again are taking the entire feed until one gets bored. If I’m wrong I bet is not by much. But hell, I could’ve stayed on reddit for that back when I was there which was a while ago.

Meanwhile the communities with intellectually engaging posting, real propositions of solutions and thoughtful discussions get slided to nowhere like on every other platform. They’re here and they are incredible. But guess what, they’re also on reddit, youtube, instagram and so on. And they get even more traction than in here. And also no traction in comparison to everywhere else. Just like here. But they do still get more people than here in the end. So what is the appeal of changing?

I know a lot of people who want to make ideas like Syntropy, Permacomputing, the circular economy and many other wonderful things known, and these communities do exist around here and are wonderful, but they’re even smaller than everywhere else. The proportions in ratio in everything remain the same here as in every other platform. “Hey, we don’t have far-right wing nuts and that many transphobes here!” - true. But it doesn’t seem like we actually use the space to do anything but complain about them and make the real solutions and discussions as invisible as everywhere else. It’s absolutely soulcrushing.

The reward of rage and disgust still leaves on. And we get to nothing different with it. The loop that made our world even more deranged is not broken.

Hey, if this is what everyone wants, I’ll just leave if I’m the only one bothered, no need to change anything on my account. But judging by the interactions I had over the two years since I’ve been around (first on lemm.ee and now on piefed), I can tell you a lot of people come here for the opposite of everywhere else. There’s a lot of older, reflective, literate individuals with a lot to share with others and eager to learn that come looking around these parts, and I stop seeing their names around because I think they eventually give up on what is essentially the same invisibility to high value conversations and the reward of rage and disgust as the media experts kept warning us about and nobody listened.

If you read this far, I thank you for your attention.

I hope you don’t think I don’t want the fediverse to succeed, I absolutely do. But not at any cost. And especially not at the cost of what can make it truly valuable as a difference and an actual change in direction.

Please. No algorithm, please.

And I don’t use the Hot or Popular filters because I think they do possess some of the same undertones of that perverse incentive that algorithmic social media has. It would be advisable to kill this before the lemmyverse grows too wide.

Just chronological in all options: Home. Local, and All. But allowing to filter any of them through themes or subject. Piefed is already toying really well with some of these concepts.

This alone allows a lot more of the other small instances and communities to be seen. And removes those perverse incentives to “climb” that corrupting ladder that makes some people post controversial and deranged posts that seek the reward of getting more attention. Algorithms rewarded this. The Hot and Popular filter options of sifting through them rewards this too. And we all know it. And we are seeing its’ effect already. In an ideal world this wouldn’t be a problem. But we know these will keep being hijacked to that end.

And these don’t help the small and the thoughtful communities to arise as we want them to.

I personally set my home page to be the list of the communities I follow and decide what I’m in the mood for. The voyager app is also great for this. And all are set to chronological.

So summing up, my suggestions are:

-kill the Hot and Popular filters. Chronological feed only.

-Add subject filters instead.

-List of Communities followed as homepage. It let’s you know what you’re in the mood for.

These will help everything including the smaller instances and communities to be seen. This isn’t about my preferences. I do this to remove my own tendencies to fall prey to the rage bait catching my attention as a starting point. Because I’m no better. That’s the point. Media Experts as soon as 2008 said this ingrained reward loop is a problem because disgust and rage are the reactions that track the most immediately and lock on in the history of all media. If we want Lemmy to be better, we have to make it so. This already doesn’t have ads and algorithmic suggestions to nurture engagement, which is great. So this is the only thorn that remains from the dark legacy of social media. Nobody would be shutting up anybody. It’s just not rewarding shitposting. If I can disable it myself, the space at large is still falling prey to it as I would if I was using it.

PS: Also, Crossposting obviously helps smaller instances and communities to get noticed too.