On reddit I was a lurker that posted like once or twice a year, but ever since joining lemmy I’ve started posting multiple times a day.
Yeah, but I’m still doing it on purpose to help the community grow. Somebody’s gotta fill this place with content, and at the end of the day that’s our job.
Normally I’m more of a commenter exclusively unless I need the services of a specific community. (video game question usually) But the Lemmy project has sent me digging for all the best youtube stuff I’ve seen in basically the past decade and then finding the community to shove it in.
Same here. I have a 9 year account on Reddit with only a few hundred posts and karma; by the time I found something worth posting about anything I posted would either drown out in the noise or essentially already be posted.
the worst part is you’d almost always end commenting in a thread that gets deleted due to rules etc if you tried to get ahead of the curve and comment in a brand new post. I’m way more active here because I’m trying to help build the community.
Real non-sequitur, but I love the Marathon reference.
Coming from someone with 2 million + link karma on Reddit, thanks. I burned myself out a while back. Just too busy now too. You’re good people.
when it became about points instead of sharing people started gaming the system. we are posting to share, most others making it to any level of visibility are actively gaming the system.
i did some tests around it a few years back, getting notice with derivative gaming is easy but it just drowns out any real content. Only certain power users are usually allowed to the tops of pages, youll see a lot of the same names on the front page over and over.
clear sign there is no hope and discourse isint real anymore
I think the poll numbers will act the same way to moderate what people say. I don’t think total karma was important, it’s seeing a community you’re in agree/disagree with you, and all the dopamine/negativity that comes from that.
the challenge is keeping that around the goal of posting engaging content rather than a race to the bottom for popularity points.
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I’m in the same boat, I feel like I’ve posted here more lately than most of my reddit life.
There’s also the fact that on Reddit any interesting article was probably already posted:)
Yea, like 500 times too. I really like the feature on here that checks around for other places the same video might’ve been posted.
Like, I shared a vid to Video Essays on LotR theme composition, y’know, niche but not too-niche, and saw it had already been posted in basically every LotR sub. But cool, I posted it anyway cuz it wasn’t in that sub yet and it was good content. But it got like two upvotes (probably me and the mod) and I didn’t have to really wonder why–oversaturation. Nice feature, big fan of it.
I’m in the same boat, I feel like I’ve posted here more lately than most of my reddit life.
Always felt unwelcome posting anything on reddit. Lemmy is new enough and filled with people who are nice enough to make feel like I wont get yelled at for commenting or posting.
I can yell at you if you miss the reddit experience. $10 tip required or exposure on a 10mil blog
Pretty much how I feel. It’s like the worst of Reddit stayed behind and were the settlers setting off to build a new world.
I feel the same way
Me and my people are powered by spite. I am going to try and be more active to help everything along so that reddit may die.
I, too, am fueled by anger and spite
So there are three of us.
Make it four. I just want there to be enough content soon enough to be a real pull away from Reddit.
It’s my favorite style of architecture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spite_fence
I think that as a result of the size of reddit, it was unlikely to have engagement when you commented, and it was common to get unkind engagement if it did happen. It’s nice to have a fresh start, but since there’s less of us, it is also a much more intimate experience.
You’re absolutely right. Often times it also didn’t feel like a conversation; rather, it was just a bunch of one liners. I’m also suspicious that there are a lot of bots commenting as well. It just didn’t feel organic. In any case, I have wondered about your point regarding the current size of the community and how it lends itself to a more intimate experience. I’m hoping that with growth we can keep that going. Do you think it’s possible?
I used BBS systems before Usenet. They were a labor of love. It is absolutely possible to maintain civility and constructive collaboration online, in fact it’s the natural order. I wish there were a better word than ‘enshittification’ to describe the corrosiveness and malice that corporate-controlled social media wrought, but seeing it go from what it once was to Twitter and Facebook was dismaying - shitty, even.
Lemmy is a really big deal. Not only is the threading format and aggregating similar to reddit, BBS and Usenet days, but it also captures the spirit of self-moderation, innovation and user-autonomy that allowed reddit to flourish. Reddit was built and held together by a great deal more than software and hardware. Lemmy has that and it’s non-commercial and scalable. It’s the best thing to happen to social media in a long time.
It’s the best thing to happen to social media in a long time.
No doubt, it really is. It feels so much better than what I have encountered elsewhere in terms of social media.
It’s really cool to hear your perspective on this topic as you have a lot more experience historically coming from the proto versions of online communities. I really believe what you say is true in respects to civility and constructive collaboration being the natural order. Something I keep pondering is how communities like this will respond to the software and hardware of antagonizing forces. For context, my 9-5 is bot analysis and mitigation. As I watch all manner of bot technology mature, I can’t help but wonder if our communities, and humans as a whole, are prepared to solve these problems.
Feel free to tell me to take my tinfoil hat off. ;)
Yes, I completely agree that we are vulnerable to bots. The APIs are wide open by design. It will be interesting to see how it evolves but ActivityPub is supposedly designed with this stuff in mind. Yes it’s easy to act maliciously and create accounts. There are a million ways to attack. It’s a fact of life, sadly. Also probably the natural order - we’ve been chucking rocks at one another for millennia.
It happened on Usenet. It wasn’t a paradise, it was full of spam and trolls and bots. However the fragmentation and self policing of the Usenet groups somehow kept the experience tolerable. Maybe we just expected less. Lemmy reminds me a lot of early BBS days. Not even any spam so far. It’s remarkable - but probably temporary. I’m liking it though.
Mastodon is built on ActivityPub and seems to be thriving. I don’t see spam or problems there so far. It seems quite civil. It’s more like Twitter in format than Lemmy is, but the big instances have dealt with DOS and malicious actors and seem to be coping ok.
Your work sounds very cool. The development over the past few years in data analytics and machine learning is indeed startling when the ability for deception and manipulation is so easily scalable, but I think we will find ways to isolate or mitigate these issues gradually. It might take years and a lot of suffering, but innovation to solve problems is also our natural inclination.
Thanks so much for the insightful responses. You’re right regarding the millions of ways to attack and that it’s a fact of life. As long as there are other tribes there will be rocks to throw.
I didn’t realize how much of Usenet was full of bots. I can imagine spam and trolls but it’s interesting to think about the early days of bots. I take it for granted that the problem has been around for longer than companies centered around mitigation. It’s heartening to know that you all handled it so well then and that the bigger instances built on ActivityPub are managing too.
On your point of mitigating these issues as they scale and grow, I completely agree. Previously in my career I worked on analyzing and mitigating malware. Bots are similar. It’s a cat and mouse game. Regardless of how well we manage to detect and stop the tools bad actors use they will always find new ways to circumvent those methods. It’s good job security.
Hi there - just a follow up and I appreciate the discussion because I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit. Bots weren’t really a thing on usenet, That was the wrong term - what I should have said was spam - it was just flooded with spam and got worse and worse over time. The closest thing to an interactive bot that I can remember back then was ELIZA (wikipedia), which I daresay you’ve heard about but that was a local program that ran on your PC for amusement - I suppose it might have been possible to integrate ELIZA-like stuff on a BBS somehow and somebody probably did it but it wouldn’t have been anything like the kind of bot you’re talking about on social media that’s deployed to comment - more just for the novelty value. Sending nonsense to usenet was not well tolerated, ISPs were not the best moderators but they did act on repeated abuse complaints, usually, and the knowledge needed to spoof and circumvent basic controls wasn’t widespread then. I think people at the time were just into the fact that you could actually communicate with strangers via computer about all kinds of subjects. There was no point in making an ass of yourself there.
That’s the other thing I wanted to emphasize about the difference between Lemmy and Usenet (there are many similarities) – I am fairly certain there was no community moderation on Usenet whatsoever - it was a free-for-all. Spam, porn, everything. I think the only control was the ISPs who carried UseNet and they did presumably ban users and remove groups / behaviors that were really offensive, although there were plenty of really awful groups. You can imagine how that worked out - people went to facebook because it was “safer” and the structure was focused around individual connection versus community, which was also a big change. I think this difference is important because UseNet really was very cool and very fucked up at the same time. However I think the bad part could have been fixed if there was some degree of community moderation and control.
I think we’ve got enough time with the community like this that we can enjoy it while it lasts, and the newfound wisdom to appreciate it before it’s gone. :)
Well said!
Just dropping in here to tell you that we all love you. That is all 💕
🥹love you back!
community also feels more welcome
What I like about Lemmy is, that you don’t need to be one of the first comments to interact with people. On Reddit you would easily be buried somewhere at the bottom but most Lemmy posts I see have a really nice comment section. People are more likely to see your comment because the posts don’t have hundreds of comments but there are still enough comments to start a conversation. I also love that I can have conversations stretched over days. I don’t browse Lemmy often. I don’t need to feel bad when I answer something a day later.
For me the main factor was replies slanted extremely mean on Reddit, whereas here it’s only been polite conversation so far.
I’m perfectly willing to talk on a platform where I’m not getting death threats because I didn’t like a videogame or whatever.
HEY FUCK YOU, MAN
(Just kidding, I’m glad you’re here and that I am also!)
Have you thought about wiping your comments? I had 1300 (more than I thought I would) and have no regrets.
I considered it but I enjoy looking at my old posts since it’s sorta nostalgic, plus I had like, 20 total over the 8 years I used reddit.
Yep! Since it is a smaller community, it feels less like screaming into the void. There’s a good chance people will see a comment, even if it isn’t made in the first hour or so.
For sure. Also more happy to upvote.
Welcome to Lemmy, where points don’t matter and there is no karma.
I hope there is never karma. It’s what led to all the bots and paid for accounts that absolutely flooded reddit.
Karma was a mistake.
Welcome to Lemmy, where points don’t matter and there is no karma.
I’d comment lots on reddit, but rarely post. On Lemmy, I post! Even started a community!
thank you for doing your part, brave solder!
I am but I’m very quickly finding out I have nothing to contribute.
I’m the most boring human alive.
I’m trying. so. hard. to. Help!
You should share the thing that you’re most terrified to share with others and i bet its not boring… for e.g… maybe you like to eat boogers… i am sure lots of people will be like… holy hell man… and they will be repulsed … but it won’t be boring. Then you could start a niche community of booger eaters and this community could share stories and recipes… and that sir or miss… is how you contribute instead of lurking.
Anyone want to creat a community about shameless farting in public or at the workplace? Or is this just me?
Lmao i could see that becomming a popular community. I would love reading peoples funny farting in public stories
now thats what im talking about
ahh, an avid member of /c/cropdusters i see
Look… We’re just here to boost numbers until the interesting people show up.
I disagree you have plenty to contribute even if it’s just your opinion on posts. And I appreciate your efforts to engage with the community.
So do I! (☞ﾟ∀ﾟ)☞
*Neither
I’m contributing!
But then I can’t reference this video.
You beautiful son of a bitch. I would be mad if it did not make me feel so at home.
You beautiful son of a bitch. I would be mad if it did not make me feel so at home.
You beautiful son of a bitch. I would be mad if it did not make me feel so at home.
I’ve always been a lurker, but I am trying to change. However, I don’t want to comment for the sake of just commenting as well.
It’s like jump starting the engine. We need a spark
Definitely true for me. I was a pure lurker on Reddit. Now with Lemmy I try to engage a lot more. This place needs to come to life (and I feel like we’re doing well, so far).
The same happened here. More than 16 years on Reddit, and most of them as a not-very-active lurker. But here? I’m commenting every day.
As a FOSS guy, here I feel at home. From the community to the community.
