Leaving reddit was a good idea, joining Lemmy, I’m not so sure anymore.
The userbase here is not really diverse in itself, so the whole platform gets this large echo chamber vibe. And with “not diverse” I don’t mean hostile or anything, just very homogeneous. Overwhelmingly left and far left on the political spectrum, embracing all things LGBT+, high nerd & tech factor; and if you don’t belong to or identify with either of those factions, you get downvoted to oblivion, and worse yet, mod removed and banned for no factual reason.
What made reddit strong as a platform was that you had the right kind of diversity and a big enough userbase to not spiral out of control, unless the top management fucked up.
On Lemmy, instance admins are (or become) often the worst offenders, making any interactions with users on their instance tiresome, unless you regurgitate the same stuff that has been said there over and over and over again.
I think you’re confusing your current instance for the Fediverse. You can join Beehaw or another federation with different viewpoints. Granted the “main” instances are largely like the internet of old.
Overwhelmingly left and far left on the political spectrum, embracing all things LGBT+
And that’s what makes it great. I don’t get this idea that it’d be better if that wasn’t part of the demographic. Like, what value does being anti-LGBT or neutral-but-whiny bring to the table, for example?
Bringing opposing points of view like that for the sake of it didn’t help Reddit, but only strained moderation and made the user experience worse when we had to deal with so many hateful bigots for no good reason. I saw one sub get overrun by these people and practically squeeze everyone out in a coordinated effort. One of those subs became unequivocally anti-trans in a matter of weeks. It was awful.
Like, what value does being anti-LGBT or neutral-but-whiny bring to the table, for example?
Anti-LGBT, none. But discussions here are increasingly centered on LGBT topics, which just doesn’t concern me one way or another. And yes, I simply avoid them, it’s just popping up in every thread, related or not. I’m not close minded or anything, I just don’t want to have every discussion drift into issues that don’t concern me.
On the political side, why is it either left, right, or neutral but whiny? There’s quite a large number of neutral and not whiny people out there. My issue is that when I try to point out that some idealistic leftist topics will never work in a material society, I’m being attacked for no reason, so I withdraw from discussions (or don’t even engage anymore at all); thus contributing my share to the growth of the echo chamber and the decline of post volumes.
I think you are right about the lack of diversity.
My own take on it is that lemmy is currently populated by early adopters.
There might be a relation between beign open to try new things and being left-leaning, I don’t know.
But I do think that over time, if Lemmy survives it’s early day phase, more people joining should bring more doverse point of views.
Well, in defense of Lemmy, it’s nice to feel like I’ve got a lower chance of encountering Nazi rhetoric when in one of the anime/manga related instances
Leaving reddit was a good idea, joining Lemmy, I’m not so sure anymore.
The userbase here is not really diverse in itself, so the whole platform gets this large echo chamber vibe. And with “not diverse” I don’t mean hostile or anything, just very homogeneous. Overwhelmingly left and far left on the political spectrum, embracing all things LGBT+, high nerd & tech factor; and if you don’t belong to or identify with either of those factions, you get downvoted to oblivion, and worse yet, mod removed and banned for no factual reason.
What made reddit strong as a platform was that you had the right kind of diversity and a big enough userbase to not spiral out of control, unless the top management fucked up.
On Lemmy, instance admins are (or become) often the worst offenders, making any interactions with users on their instance tiresome, unless you regurgitate the same stuff that has been said there over and over and over again.
I think you’re confusing your current instance for the Fediverse. You can join Beehaw or another federation with different viewpoints. Granted the “main” instances are largely like the internet of old.
And that’s what makes it great. I don’t get this idea that it’d be better if that wasn’t part of the demographic. Like, what value does being anti-LGBT or neutral-but-whiny bring to the table, for example?
Bringing opposing points of view like that for the sake of it didn’t help Reddit, but only strained moderation and made the user experience worse when we had to deal with so many hateful bigots for no good reason. I saw one sub get overrun by these people and practically squeeze everyone out in a coordinated effort. One of those subs became unequivocally anti-trans in a matter of weeks. It was awful.
Anti-LGBT, none. But discussions here are increasingly centered on LGBT topics, which just doesn’t concern me one way or another. And yes, I simply avoid them, it’s just popping up in every thread, related or not. I’m not close minded or anything, I just don’t want to have every discussion drift into issues that don’t concern me.
On the political side, why is it either left, right, or neutral but whiny? There’s quite a large number of neutral and not whiny people out there. My issue is that when I try to point out that some idealistic leftist topics will never work in a material society, I’m being attacked for no reason, so I withdraw from discussions (or don’t even engage anymore at all); thus contributing my share to the growth of the echo chamber and the decline of post volumes.
I think you are right about the lack of diversity.
My own take on it is that lemmy is currently populated by early adopters. There might be a relation between beign open to try new things and being left-leaning, I don’t know.
But I do think that over time, if Lemmy survives it’s early day phase, more people joining should bring more doverse point of views.
Well, in defense of Lemmy, it’s nice to feel like I’ve got a lower chance of encountering Nazi rhetoric when in one of the anime/manga related instances
Oh I didn’t mean to say that Lemmy is bad or wrong, far from it.