It is objectively a lot more male than Reddit or other social media. Reddit has many issues, but lack of women is not one of them.
4 times the same post in 4 different identically named communities…
I want a global feed, communities can federate with in a sort of sub-lemmy.I am forced to see posts in communities I am banned from for having an anti-ai stance AKA a working brain. I didn’t block all of them soon enough.
What I am saying is that you should still be able to block communities you are banned from. Seeing them in my feed and being unable to get rid of them is like seeing cockroaches in a kitchen.
You should be able to add them on the Blocks tab of this page. There’s a text box you can fill in with the community name. It’s more annoying than pressing a button but maybe less than continuing to see the content.
You are a genius.
Honestly, they should just automatically be blocked if you are banned from them.
Which is also not good because people are usually banned from channels they like and want to see the posts.
Sounds like it would be a good bug report.
If you get banned from your own instance, all your posts and communities you created are deleted. Lots of posts get deleted because of this.
How would someone get banned from their own instance? Do you really own it if you can get banned from it?
Other meaning: “If you get banned from [the instance where you created your user account]” might clear it up. It’s not their own instance in the sense that they are in control of the system but it is the one they might consider “home”.
Compare this against a case where a lemmy.world user gets an instance-wide ban from the admins on lemmy.ml, for example: user can’t participate in .ml communities but it doesn’t nuke their account.
No way! Why should I get banned? It’s the ai slop communities full of no-talent ass clowns who should be banned.
Yeah that’s crazy
having an anti-ai stance AKA a working brain
Judging from this comment that doesn’t seem to be the issue with you
Did chatgpt write that comment for you?
This is the issue with Lemmy ^
Are you out of tokens for the day already?
There is a lot of computing and a lot of politics, but not very much else.
There’s also a vocal minority of just really pessimistic people on here. Politics I don’t mind as long as it’s a discourse about not only what is bad but what can be reasonably done about it.
I’ve been in several discussions where I add “look at community, we are strong together” and it’s immediately beaten down with “the world won’t change things are shit and always will be, be mad and angry about it, I’m mad and angry at you”.
It’s the internet, I’m not surprised. But I’ve definitely had to disconnect myself for a bit some days after severe reactions from people just to remember it’s just strangers on the internet.
It’s not all the time, but for some discussions that promote inclusion and understanding to be met with the hard “I don’t agree so you are human garbage” can be an awful whiplash sometimes.
reading the top comments on this post, strikes me they reflect the founders of lemmy
maybe we’ll get more joy from the piefeds
I was gonna say something similar, like the amount of times I’ve wanted to look into some political topics and seeing comments encouraging violence make it hard for me to feel motivated just to stay informed. I get being angry, but damn, cue Mr. Rogers “what do we do with the mad that we feel?”
in 2026 we consume it like a drug and end up craving more of it and become rage-addicts.
we don’t do anything positive with it.
I don’t know, pessimism seems to be the norm. IRL I live in one of the richest zip codes in America… and pretty much every convo I have or overhear is people whining about how life sucks and how hard it is and how mean everyone else is to them.
We live in a ‘victim hood’ culture these days. People aren’t proud of things anymore or optimistic, it’s an arms race to see who can the most pessimistic and whiny.
The only time I hear or interact with people being positive it’s mostly them talking abotu self-help crap or whatever ‘therapy’ they are using to ‘help them cope’.
- Lemmy is by and large populated with ex-Redditors, who bring with them some of the same hivemind on certain topics. Eg: Lemmy is very anti-AI or nuanced discussions thereon. Nuclear is bad, etc. Makes bad faith discussions on certain topics almost certain.
- As everywhere else - there’s too much “you’re either on my team or you’re against me” - though notably less than in other spaces
- Upvote / downvote counts: these should be yeeted into the garbage pile of history.
Things Lemmy does well
- Less performative engagement.
- Less American (but arguably that’s still too much for some).
- Despite it all, a measure of civility still exists. Rare.
- You can create your own instance and be ungovernable :)
- No algorithmic engagement bullshit (so far)
- I don’t feel like I have to walk on eggshells every time I post something.
I personally find Lemmy a great deal more pleasant to interact on, with strong pre 2010 forum vibes and I feel that’s a good thing. YMMV
TL;DR: There’s a lot less “look at me, look at me!” on Lemmy and it’s all the better for it.
I have seen no people rail against nuclear on here or reddit.
They rail against my right to own personal nuclear weapons
Bastards!
Not very Auth of you! You sound like a hedonistic libertarian to me.
Upvote / downvote counts: these should be yeeted into the garbage pile of history.
Still not exactly sure what “yeeted” means, but I like how upvotes & downvotes tend to bring quality content to the fore, and I even like them as a permanent record. They’re not very useful of course, but having the motivation to permanently increasing my totals is useful for sharing good content and communicating in good faith. At least for me.
Right - that’s me trying to hip and cool (“how do, fellow kids”).
Yeet - https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Yeet
I completely disagree about the upvotes / down votes thing btw. I think, platonically, that’s what they were supposed to do.
Pragmatically, they’ve end up being more a social proof / opinion suppression / brigading tool.
That - and infinite scroll - are among the worst sins introduced by social media. ICBW and YMMV.
Nah I think you’re on the money. As someone with ADHD, those worthless little updoots and infinity-scrolling are almost as bad as any algorithm!
ICBW and YMMV
YTMND. 👍
YTMND
I understood that reference.
Okay, thanks. I can never seem to remember it, maybe because it feels so unnatural. Maybe it would help if I knew where it came from, though. *shrug*
Pragmatically, they’ve end up being more a social proof / opinion suppression / brigading tool.
That seems exceptionally pessimistic to me, but maybe you have more insight in to all that than I do. Personally I think multiple things can be true about upvotes / downvotes, some useful, some harmful perhaps.
In any case, there is no debate that upvotes are useful and valuable to me when it comes to posting and commenting.
Well, I remember ye olden days of Usenet - we mostly got along without them, and without some of the issues they seem to cause.
If they’re helpful to you, thumbs up (ha). I do wish they were an optional extra instead of proxy dopamine button (based on the way some seem to use them). There’s actually a good read on why they (and reddit in general) skew toxic -
https://jacobdesforges.com/you-should-quit-reddit-distribution-wide/
Well, I remember ye olden days of Usenet - we mostly got along without them, and without some of the issues they seem to cause.
Things change, though. Upvote/downvote was one of the many things Reddit and other places trialed over the years, and based on the success, stuck with it. Me, I barely spent any time on Usenet, but it occurs to me that the userbase was probably smaller. A much, much larger userbase probably fits better with upvote/downvote, so the comparison there is likely skewed, methinks.
‘Dopamine rush’ is exactly right, and I think it’s useful and informational, similar to the way that people react to your statements and ideas in real life. I do think they can have an ‘echo chamber’ effect and help promote the problem that a popular thing or opinion can be completely wrong, but to me that just means that upvotes/downvotes aren’t perfect, not that they should be completely discarded.
https://jacobdesforges.com/you-should-quit-reddit-distribution-wide/
Not sure what you want me to do with a link to a book, but I don’t even agree with the premise of the title sentence. Reddit is still very useful to me, and I know of no other place that replicates the variety of content, there.
Ok, but I think you’re conflating two separate things; the usefulness of Reddit as a content index (which I agree is still unmatched) with whether the upvote/downvote mechanic is net positive. One doesn’t need to quit Reddit to acknowledge that the voting system consistently produces pathological outcomes at scale. “Brigading” is a literal Reddit phenomena
The Usenet comparison wasn’t really about scale. It was about the incentive structure. Upvotes/downvotes don’t just surface good content, they gamify participation in a way that systematically advantages emotionally resonant, tribally safe content over nuanced or contrarian takes. That’s not a flaw in implementation , it’s a feature of the design.
And “people react to your statements in real life” isn’t really analogous. In real life, social feedback is contextual, bidirectional, and has friction. A downvote is anonymous, effortless, and carries zero accountability. The asymmetry matters.
The link is to a book (available via Libby if you don’t want to pay for it) in case you wanted a primary source. In summary: Desforges’ core argument is that Reddit exploits operant conditioning to keep users chasing high-value posts through a flood of mediocre ones and that even people who claim not to care about karma are still shaped by it. It’s worth a read.
Justin Rosenstein - one of the engineers who actually built Facebook’s Like button - has publicly said it produces what he called “bright dings of pseudo-pleasure,” and has since restricted his own use of it. Leah Pearlman, who co-created it with him, has said the same. These aren’t outside critics; these are the people who built the thing.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/years-on-creators-of-facebook-like-button-give-idea-thumbs-down/
End of the day: if you find it personally useful, I believe you. I think the problem is in aggregate behaviour. Apes together…dumb.
Ok, but I think you’re conflating two separate things
I feel like they’re distinctly separate things, and I thought I’d communicated as much. Oh, well.
…the voting system consistently produces pathological outcomes at scale.
That seems like… a little much. I do agree that upvotes/downvotes indeed gamify the system, but on the whole would say that the end-effect on Reddit results in a big bunch of hoomons acting in typical hoomon ways, which is with deep undercurrents of fickle, ignorant, selfish, feel-good behavior.
The Usenet comparison wasn’t really about scale. It was about the incentive structure.
Yeah, I get that, but I do observe that there are advantages to upvote/downvote that indeed work better on a larger scale. I’m not sure they’re really needed on a smaller scale.
I’d say I agree with most of the things you wrote, but remain unconvinced that upvote/downvote is so absolutely toxic as to merit tossing. And of course, I don’t think it’s going to happen, anyway.
Aggregate behaviour amongst naked apes? Yeah, I would tend to agree. Now what?
Depending on the topic, I know that if I sort by top, I’ll find my people at the top, or the bottom. So, it’s useful for that reason. This was more true on Reddit, but it happens here, too.
Paying too much attention to the numbers I think will push people toward the normal take, whether we like to admit it or not. So, it’s best not to track your own stats too seriously. Just say your piece and let the chips fall where they may.
On a side-note, I think the past tense of yeet is yote. Good analysis nevertheless.
eggshells
Many, especially political and news communities ban opinions that are mainstream in the Democratic Party because they aren’t left enough. If they are powermods, they will happily ban you from dozens of communities and instances.
North Korea shill. Seriously. How absolutely dumbfuck do you have to be to actually believe there is even the slightest good in that regime? It hurts me personally that I’m Korean and that I’ve seen countless people, some I’ve met in person, who lost their families in that hellhole. And yet people who can’t even spell Kim Jong Un or Juche are celebrating that prison of a kingdom.
Nothing about them are “left” or “progressive”. To me, they’re worse than MAGA shitheads.
Absolutely disgusting. Hope they all rot in North Korea.
The fucking politics oh my god, in every fucking community good lord. No way to filter it out either.
It takes patience but you can block all the political communities. Once you do that you just have to block a dozen or so super users who spam the other communities with political content.
That’s the thing that drives me crazy- communities that really should be non-political like “Pictures” or idk “Cars” are full of posts like “Heres what Trumps reversal of EPA regulations means for the future of EVs.” Like I get it Trumps bad but can’t you contain that discussion to the 5000 communities devoted to politics?
No, they can’t. They are ‘raising awareness’ and they think anyone who doesn’t want to politize everything and be angry about Trump 24/7 is ‘apolitical’ and/or a Trump supporter.
There is no middle ground with folks like that, let alone separation of powers. I had someone argue with me that taking a dump is a political act because you use a toilet and toilet paper when you do it and those are ‘political goods’. And you better buy TP from a pro LGBT+ TP company otherwise you are ‘part of the problem’.
I got banned from reddit for the first time over posting a picture of my cat sitting on my porch. Why? Because outdoor cats are violent psychopaths murdering cute innocent birds and I was a clearly pro-bird murder.
This is a mostly Western place and two big Western players might have just started WW3 (okay, hopefully and probably not but still), I feel like it’s warranted.
There could be more activity in the arts and crafts communities. I want all of you to pick up a nice creative hobby like knitting or stitching right fucking now! And then post all of it!
My roller skates came with a defect, after all, and I lost the momentum. Now I’m drawing. Well, no, actually, I haven’t done that in a while… I think now I’m entering poetry territory. Is there a “hobbies, in general, just tell us about yours” community? We are enough for something like that.
There’s !imadethis@lemmy.zip for any hobby that produces something, but that leaves out the activity-based hobbies
In addition to the “I made this” community, you can also post your writing here !poetry@sh.itjust.works
There are a lot of communities out there with a few regular users who are looking forward to your contributions :)
In case you return to drawing, there’s also an art share community.
Stitching is a hobby?
I really hope the people posting to !lemmy_stitch@sh.itjust.works enjoy what they’re doing o:
there are tons of different stitching arts. they use different mediums, threads, and techniques.
my sister has done cross stitch her entire life. it’s basically pixel art irl.
Having to block 30 different communities because they’re all literally the same community.
It’s even worse for NSFW communities. We don’t need eleventy billion communities for the same super niche porn content.
That and people posting the same things on multiple communities because it technically fits even though there’s already a niche community specifically for that topic.
This is the biggest thing, in my opinion. Decentralization is a double-edged sword.
If I cared about my Lemmy usage more, I might be inclined to build myself a service that aggregates similar topics into larger groups.
Piefed has that feature already.
The nice thing about having an instance dedicated to porn is that you can just block one instance, and that gets you 90% of the way there.
Crossposting the same post is kind of pointless still. You can browse all and won’t miss anything.
The NSFW stuff is mostly automated reposting from somewhere else. It’s low quality and kind of worthless.
People calling each and every one an extremist, fascist or nazi for no other reason than they are being blinded by their own inability to understand their counterparts viewpoint. As irony would have it causing themselves to become extremists, often proclaiming they wish voilence or sometimes even death upon other people.
Seriously, I’m so tired of people here baselessly slinging those insults every time someone has the wrong opinion. I’m tempted to start naming and shaming.
The total lack of concern for easy on boarding of newbies. There’s a lot of big talk about taking on social media monopolies but absolutely no interest in coordinating to actually accomplish that goal.
Tankies
The fact that it’s mainly just a FOSS and Politics forum.
I love what the technology is trying to do but the thing is, the platform’s main selling point being the liberatory potential of it’s technology, is that it’s mainly used by people who are interested in politics and technology.
Ooo… This. I was trying to think of a coherent way to articulate my thoughts on this and you took the words right out of my mouth.
All things considered, Lemmy is a pretty reasonable viable alternative to sites like reddit, and most problems on the site can just be chocked up to normal problems on the internet: your Whataboutism contrarians always inciting arguments, some instances’ servers are more reliable than others, negative posts get more attention than positive ones, niche subs don’t get enough activity to be communities, etc, etc.
But my god. Every single active post these days is about goddamn Linux and issues with the DNC lol
Or about how much people hate AI and cars
I wish there was an easy solution. Maybe I ought to start sharing some random funny images I’ve got on my devices but I don’t think that’s it. I don’t use it anymore but taking a quick scroll through Reddit the sheer variety in contend from multiple communities (Sooo many posts from r/Ultrakill and r/GeometryDash on my feed) make the timeline so so lively; but here…
Good point. The diversity is really non existent.
There is some diversity… it’s just you get harassed for being different and it takes a really tough mentality to ignore it or a really huge block list.
One thing I’ve found is that people tend to have no chill. I’ve shared some posts with friends that don’t use it and multiple times they’ve responded with “why are they so serious”
The are some severe folks here, yeah
Lack of whimsy for sure
I find it frustrating that so many communities are just for news articles. Look, I’m terminally politics-brained, but you’ll never get anywhere if you’re always just reacting to the current thing. There’s not really a place for higher level discussion or for people to share thoughtful, original ideas. The result is thousands of the same arguments on the same three topics screaming the same talking points at each other over and over. And it seems like that’s all people want.
Really more of a frustration with people in general. Wish people were more curious about the world.
place for higher level discussion
Create it. If you don’t mind my simple arguments I will participate.
To start, you can invite the 25 people who have upvoted you.
