It became the only reliable source of information I had. People posted links with a minimal amount of commentary, picking and choosing the best content from other social media networks. They’re not doing it to “build a brand” because that’s not a thing in the Fediverse. It’s too disjointed to be a place to build a newsletter subscription base.
People complain about Lemmy having limited content and engagement. Not in this article so much. I’m sure there were fewer posts in the past too. But what I found is that there are real people on here and you don’t have to wade through bots and shills which makes this community feel much more whole to me.
While that’s true, I don’t believe it to be a fundamental property of the medium or federation in general. I think what we are experiencing is the result of lack of mainstream attention and traffic.
The people here are much less demographically diverse than the public at large, and have intentionally sought out this space and others like it, so they have more of a sense of ownership and community about it. The more attention it gets, the more the demographics will change to reflect the broader public, and the more it will become like a public space, complete with all the ills that come with that, like advertisers vying for attention, shills posing as enthusiasts, and influencers saying what will get them the most followers, rather than what they think.
I believe it would take extensive moderation and amazing tools to keep places like this the same as they gain users. I haven’t ever seen a community survive that kind of growth and retain its original spirit, but I also haven’t seen one with no profit motive. If we can get the moderation tools where they need to be, there could be hope!
I really do not understand all the .ml hate. If you have it so much why are you using their technology (Lemmy)? So much bullshit being reposted as fact. Basically echo chamber brigading. I left Reddit to escape this shit…
Edit: although judging by your post history you lack conviction and joke about everything, so maybe I missed the mark
That’s why I’m advocating for people to switch to piefed and stop donating to the lemmy project which funds .ml.
I really do not understand all the .ml hate. If you have it so much why are you using their technology (Lemmy)?
Piefed is a derivative of Lemmy. So you’re not getting away from it.
And Lemmy is a derivative of Reddit so by your logic you haven’t escaped from it.
Unfortunately the “attitude” system makes Piefed unusable.
Even better.
Most instances have human moderation, gating for bots, and yes, and you actually have to take 5-10 minutes to figure out how it all works, so the stupid people are automatically excluded by sheer complexity.
I fucking love Mastodon.
I know you probably didn’t mean this, but I don’t think accessibility barriers are good. Diversity of thought is strength and bad comments naturally sink to the bottom.
After seeing how many terrorist ideologies have been allowed to thrive by claiming First Amendment protection since 2016.
No.
“Diversity of thought” my ass. I’m sure your wonderfully-diverse thoughts are just what all of us need to hear, but if they can’t pass muster under human moderation, they’re not worth platforming.
Pretending these comments only come from “stupid” people is abelist and provably false.
I am defending those with barriers, not fascists.
Plenty of stupid people in the fediverse so I dont think we will win any prices for that, guys. And plenty of people who think they are smarter than average, and zero people who think they are dumber than average. The usual stuff.
