The fediverse is a great system for moderation. I've been on Mastodon for years now and it's stayed pretty pleasant.
Asklemmy
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I think because everyone has their own corners, the common spaces don't need to be as toxic. Also, Lemmy's population is self selected because of the still high bar to entry. Lemmy basically feels like early Reddit. The hostile influence of moderators and the backlash anger everyone feels from being mistreated by them into silence is not yet here.
I think it's partially attributable to Lemmy phone apps haven't taken off yet. Phone posting is a different medium than desktop posting with regards to McLuhans "the medium is the message" principle. Phone usage appeals to the lowest common denominator. People use it as a time waste to mindlessly scroll. The cognitive load is much lower. Thus shitty content bubbles to the top because that's all the brain power people are giving it. Phone usage is not conducive to consuming depth of content nor contributing it.
Additionally I think the lower cognitive engagement tends to lead people into greater fuckwad behavior. You aren't on a board with human beings on the other side of a keyboard. It's just a stupid app on your phone.
I think if I'm right then in time Lemmy with death spiral not unlike reddit if phone apps mature and Lemmy apps become a mainstream daily use type of affair. I doubt that will happen without the capitalist engine driving it though.
Am on phone. Should I skip for low cognitive effort?
I don't actually think it's got much to do with having a phone app or not. I see what you are saying with the medium being the message, but I don't think the "medium" is phones or computers.
You're right about the medium being the message though, it's just that the medium is a nerdy federated social media. Right now we are in the first or second big wave of new users. Not quite the nerdiest of the nerds who would have been using Lemmy since the beginning, but we are getting the "early adopters" and the people willing to go out on a limb to try something new. These are the kinds of people who are likely to interact with a community in a positive way, because they are already investing themselves into something before it is established.
I am using a phone app to write this message right now, it was really easy and accessible for me to login and get to grips with the UI. There are loads of people just like me, in fact I would be willing to bet Lenny is being used by 80% mobile users. It's just how we communicate with the world these days. Very few people browse social medias on a computer.
Passion. The people here care enough to have not only left Reddit, but to have made a new community here.
I have been a user on Mastodon for quite some time but wasn't that active and felt it lacked some content for me. Now that I joined lemmy I learned that mastodon is federated and I learned about kbin! That's what makes it refreshing for me. A lot of new stuff and small communities emerging :)
Fediverse denizens are really active.
On reddit, half of the users are bots controlled by various corporations and state departments.
I think the lack of a karma equivalent, and thus karma farming, results in much more thought out and unique posts/comments.
Lemmy "feels refreshing" because it is new to you. This deliveres a dopamine hit to your brain because we inherently find new things exciting.
As a concept it is the same public forum we have had for a long time. But it is decentralised which does help with restricting the ability of single groups of people from taking control of the native, so that is a good side-effrct.
I noticed the same, probably because reddit has become really bad in the last years but I didn't realize it until I joined here a couple of weeks ago.
It's indeed refreshing being able to have honest discussions on a platform that's not infested by bots, propaganda, disguised ads, mass shitposting, hidden agendas, etc.
If lemmy becomes wildly popular to the masses, it's possible things will change for the worse, who knows, but I'll enjoy it a lot in the meantime.
The people aren't assholes. The place is not that big to be totally ruined.
I think there's many contributing factors. I actually was thinking about the same thing before I found your post, and the answer that came to mind outside of some of the ones people posted here was:
It feels like a breath of fresh air because we're outside the Walled Garden. We're not trapped on a platform who's soul has been crushed and wrung for every penny's worth like Reddit or Twitter. And we can see that there is a world on the Internet besides the Walled Garden and that fact is very liberating. It makes you feel like you don't have to go back.
Definitely people here are much more polite, the contrast is just striking.
I haven't seen a single comment that began with "Imagine.." yet. The lack of immature and pointless sarcasm is a breath of fresh air
I've had more traction on my posts and comments in the month or so I've been on lemmy than the entire 14 years I was on reddit. I'm glad I've moved, couldn't give two shits how it does from here out, I'm away.
There are less reposts bc its newer and bc there is a lot less bots