OK so if you feel Lemmy has been trending towards hostility in the past weeks ppease here me out, interact in the comments but keep it civil.
Lemmy vs Reddit
We all had our reasons to move to Lemmy. What I remember clearly from the beginning of the summer was that we were all praising the tone. Over the years, Reddit has become increasingly toxic - most of all in the comment section. To me, that was what made Lemmy special. Even with less content, the general vobe was what made me come back every time.
clash of the clans
Due to the nature of the fediverse, we get to interact with people with different backgrounds and dofferent ideas. Potentially an incredibly enriching experience for everyone. Anti-defed lemmings defend staying federated with everyone for that precise reason, which I really get. But lately the vibe has turned sour. Every post that has the slightest political undertone becomes this big us-vs-them show. Please stop
discussion vs. shitshow
I am not arguing for stopping discussing our opinions. I also get the whole they don’t have downvotes thing. But can we please treat eachother with dignity, and when writing comments say ‘I believe’ or ‘in my opinion’ instead of ‘you all this or that’?
I think this is the only way forward if we want to prevent everyone from personally blocking a lot of instances in the furure.
I'm new to Lemmy but it just feels more like Reddit in the sense that if you're not part of the "hive mind", then you're just told to "go away" instead of participating in actual discussion.
It's caused me to post less than when I initially joined. There's not as much activity on Lemmy than on the Reddit equivalent in the main "channel" I read. So I've found myself wandering back to Reddit but I don't post or comment much there either.
Yeah a couple of months ago a lot of lemmings were talking about how they were commenting a lot here while they never did on Reddit. I really think there has been a big shift going on and that has been an immense loss for the platform.
Before I used to make a few comments a day, which is a lot for me, but now I find myself commenting less and less. The whole vibe is really different from a month ago. When I joined the fediverse I hoped we could make something better than reddit, and I still do, but there has been a rise in toxicity recently. Arguments are a good thing but most of the time they just result in insults being thrown.
I think part of this problem is that the USA has split more or less into two different cultures that have developed different languages to the point that they don't even understand each other and what seems a rational argument in one language is perceived as hate speech in the other.
Europe is going into the same direction but it's not as extreme yet.
If people post memes or whatever with politics you are going to get political responses.
Politics is real shit, and with the state of things in the world right now, it's going to get heated.
Civility can be a little hard to maintain when you genuinely believe the other side will wipe you out given half the chance.
My mantra with those things is:
- Attack the message, not the messenger. If the messenger insists on repeating a sufficiently absurd message, I'll not stop them from repeating their mistake.
- Informing lurkers takes priority over changing my conversation partner's stances.
To me the second point is the reason to engage woth trolls/ridiculous comments sometimes.
I feel much the same, but I also feel that there has been a rise in trolls and those who seek to create strife.
Arguing is all good and dandy, but arguing with trolls tends to result in wasted time and bad after tastes. If we are not supposed to block or ignore the trolls from the troll instances (those whose admins ignore or promote trolling and crusading), we'll need more powerful moderator tools, potentially spanning multiple instances, which Harbour their own problems.
Civility is a two-way street. It is not "I get to insult whoever I want and they have to meekly argue on my terms."
Fully agree. I’m agruing for all parties to remain civil. And to me this is independent from instances. We can agree to disagree on stuff, we’re adults in a complicated world.
I like good faith, nuanced discussions but it seems like a lot of times when I try to be nice people see it as a sign of weakness and go on the offense. There's a lot of interesting political and historical discussions we could have, like, "Were Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms necessary for the conditions of the time to eradicate extreme poverty in China, or were they a deviation from socialist ideals that have caused China to be irrevocably compromised by corporate interests (in which case, what should've been done differently)?" On Hexbear, that's something that we have disagreements and nuanced good faith discussions about, but it's impossible to do that in an environment where everyone accuses me of being a bot or shill or a tankie or whatever whenever I acknowledge that any policy China has ever implemented was at all successful.
I guess it's easier to get into higher-level discussion when you have a set of agreed upon values and basic assumptions. I just wish I didn't have to deal with all the accusations and name-calling, but I'm not one to roll over either. There's a reason we have Pig Poop Balls.
This i completely agree with.
Just recently had an argument where i voiced my opinion (albeit not in a really intelligent way at first i admit) and i immediately got a fat load of sarcasm from a person who disagreed with me. Said person thought i was a troll. I tried to convince them multiple times that i am serious and in fact not trolling but i think they still don't believe me. It got to a point where it was so cumbersome to continue the argument that i just stopped replying.
I'd really prefer if everyone could be a bit more civil/professional in a disagreement.
Yesterday evening I was feeling the same way, so I started blocking users that are clearly posting inflammatory or aggressively brigadey content (note: not to be confused with things I don't agree with. It's about tone and tact, not content), or things that I find annoying to see over and over like the same trollish meme and emoji images. After only an evening of doing that, my Lemmy experience has been worlds better. I did notice a particular instance being the trend which makes me look forward to instance blocking, though at the moment I'd prefer to still do so on an individual user basis.
