This place seems dead. I was skimming some stuff to make a few posts, after posting a basic casual conversation, the negativity shut me down like usual. I am sitting here with 5 tabs and some interesting stuff, but I’m totally disinterested in trying or even spending any more time here this evening. What value does that add for anyone when this place is dying a slow death of disinterest and low engagement? I never add negativity. I only ignore and block. I never discourage because I know I would be shooting myself in the foot. Why is this not fundamentally standard logic for everyone. If you disagree about opinions, appreciate diversity and ignore or better yet discuss. Anonymous negativity to strangers is psychotic behavior that should never have existed in the first place. It is not normal. It is no different that walking up to a stranger in a supermarket and yelling at them for what they wear or how they talk. That is crazy stupid.
I understand. I don’t instantly block someone, but if the choice is between arguing pointlessly and blocking them or the community, I’ll block and move on. This does impact how useful the site can be for me, but I don’t think using it less is a bad thing.
I’ve come to the conclusion that social media is simply bad for a person, because I think it amplifies negativity. I’m not sure if it’s because we can’t see each other, or if it’s the asynchrony preserving what might have been a fleeting nasty thought and echoing it undiminished into the future, or that and more. I can’t think of a way to fix it - at least, not a way other than being the change I want to see, but it’s hard (as you’ve found) and takes a heavy toll on my emotionally-dysregulated ass. And sometimes I’m not the change I want to see - said emotional dysregulation is a bitch to manage.
Maybe that’s what community is, a constant struggle to communicate effectively with other people. Or maybe platforms like lemmy and reddit only claim to offer community, but don’t really. Maybe they can’t, with all the pseudonymity. Maybe nowhere can, nowadays, with so many bad-faith actors seemingly infiltrating every online space that exists.
I’m sorry you feel beaten down by it, bud. I don’t have answers, but you’re not alone. As a maker, remember: everything you build will outlast the negativity. The blizzard of shit takes will wash away with time, posts being deleted to save space and so on. Your creations will be shared and preserved by the people that like them and find them useful. I take solace in that, personally; maybe you can find some too.
_Edit: top lel. I haven’t read this yet but the headline jumped out at me after having just posted the above: https://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2025-01-07/the-internet-hasnt-made-us-bad-we-were-already-like-that-the-mistake-of-yearning-for-the-friendly-online-world-of-20-years-ago.html_
This place seems dead
I only ignore and block
Lol. Lmao even
can’t handle negativity in others
posts a long negative rant
It is all people exactly like this that I block after low effort comments.
You’ve only ever made 1 post on this account you commented with. I’m at nearly 400 posts and 4000 comments just on this account and I have several others for propagating communities and trying other instances or to get around blocks like db0, and beehaw. I’ve tried to encourage positive engagement from the moment I joined Lemmy and actively help build this place while being a liberal voice. You have every right to be a fool. But I should have every right to see you doing it and avoid you in the future as a result.
Lol, you’re a riot.
You can’t even see your own hypocrisy.
The loudest voices are usually the most ignorant.
Put lemmy down for a while, its a must in my opinion. It’s the only way I can use this place. (By taking frequent breaks away from it)
I’ve seen you around, you do engage and are positive ✨️ which i find to be enjoyable. So It is appreciated.
Trust me, I get it. If you ask me, one reason lemmy is so toxic, is bc all of the extremist users who were on reddit either left reddit to come here or were banned from reddit, bc reddit is a corporation, they want to make money. And having that kind of toxicity is a put off to the mainstream. So reddit gave them the boot and now they’re here.
JUST LOOK AT THE DIFFERENCE
Reddit has become much more pleasant since the api cry baby bitch fest. And lemmy is even more insufferable then it was before they all got here.
Don’t let it get you down
The effect is minor but nagging. I like to use hyperbole to give emotional weight to my words. It is far more intentional than it is instability. I’m pressing issues that should be pressed and creating the potential gravity to get noticed and draw attention where it is needed.
It is true that my abstractions can be misunderstood a lot here, and my hyperbole, hard to contextualize. I make mistakes often but am curious and ever growing.
All of my personal issues are circumstantial. The underlying person is still present. I do not try to manipulate anyone for my nefarious gain, but I can be a high mach when I wish to improve some deficiency, as I have attempted here.
I have left Reddit completely, but it wasn’t for the API changes as the direct issue. I take issue with any company tracking my device, vision, or page dwell times for exploitation. And I do not like anyone using algorithms to alter user retention. The way reddit did the API showed this was their objective moving forward. It is not just the app aspect that I am taking issue with. The entire internet only has two web crawlers, Microsoft and Google. All search providers query one of these two directly or indirectly. The results from these sources are not deterministic. They are tailored and tracking on several levels. This is why it really matters. It is an attack on freedom of information. We are in the age of mass individualized manipulation already. The lack of determinism in search query responses proves it. Your access to deterministic information is a critical pillar of democracy. If that pillar is lost, so is democracy. Controlling access to information is just as effective as invading with an army. It was never about banner ads.
You certainly have every right to block and ignore me (and anyone else) but if you’re going to make a point of it and then throw a tantrum about a dead platform, then you’re the one who looks like a fool
I mean, can you really fault someone for not engaging frequently if they are browsing? Especially when it comes to posts, not everyone has a reason to post. The stuff I’d post is niche so thinking about the best place is tedious and previous attempts have been disappointing.
I’ll block content/communities that I don’t care anything about, but I’d rather not block users. I don’t want to block interaction with someone just because I disliked one aspect of what they post/comment. I mean if you have that moment multiple times with someone (or if it’s really bad), understandable.
The case: to me, a downvote is for something not worth a reply. Something I think is not beneficial (or has a context issue) that will likely not be changed with a response. Particularly if it seems in bad faith/taste (especially one I’ve seen before).
The opposite is also true, If it is worth a reply it probably isn’t worth a downvote.
Though I also think about votes within their context, where I think the number should be. Which means I may refrain or even retract a downvote, given how others vote. Similarly I may upvote something I otherwise wouldn’t.
People don’t agree on anything, ever. What you think of as “normal” is absurd to someone else and vice versa.
I’ve always wondered what posesses someone to down vote a genuine question, but I’ve made my peace with it by looking at it as “people will be people”.
Today I try to read and contribute as I feel the urge. I don’t follow many, if any, people or communities and just take the feed that comes past my eyes as a slice of life.
It’s made for a lot less stressful experience and it allows me to (dis)engage as my energy levels permit.
I hope you find your way … life is amazing and diverse and there’s plenty of fun and interesting things to experience.
I engage with my projects and AI. It is a little world when one spends 80%+ of every day lying in a bed. I’m not myself if I go anywhere or do much of anything. This is truly the only place that I can really exist in in a voice I choose and can shape. The negativity is about like saying I should not exist. I tend to agree on that front. I’m largely here trying to convince myself otherwise. It is what it is. I’m a zombie that lost 8.5 of 9 lives already, there is very little left to lose.
The negativity is about like saying I should not exist.
It’s your choice to see it that way.
Why do you worry about downvoting? Most people are utter idiots and the most reasonable opinions get downvoted. The bigger issue starts when moderators start removing comments they personally dislike and this seems to be more of an issue here.
I’m physically disabled and nearly a total shut in. This is my only real outside human contact. It is not really healthy largely because of this psychotic negativity. There are many aspects of Maslow’s hierarchy that are beyond my control to remedy and solve. This place could help with some of that. When it fails for fundamentally unnecessary reasons of amplifying a tiny minority, I try to call attention to it. Some instance admins have already mentioned it is due to a half dozen people. I’m actively trying to show that those half dozen people are having a negative impact on more than just comments in a tangible way that promotes their removal.
I think the negative people, love to be negative over and over again, to spread it. To say negative things. They find eternal energy with this level of interaction.
Well adjusted people don’t need to let other people know they disagree, so they don’t engage.
For what it’s worth, lots of the down votes are from the same core group of people.
Online, we get the very skewed motivated populations engaging. It’s a very negative, and very fanatic. In the middle I think most people just scroll and don’t interact. On any media not just lemmy.
I’ve stopped trying to use Lemmy like a social group, and I now use it just as a journal. The journaling might help drive engagement, it might not…
@j4k3@lemmy.world for instance, I have 5/10 of the downvoters of your post already tagged (from previous behavior) as misanthropes.
People’s opinions are expressions of who they are and unwelcomed opinions feel like attacks for people unaccustomed to debate. Westerners; especially Americans; don’t like taking about “politics” in polite conversation so an overwhelming majority will remain unaccustomed to debate.
I agree that .world has low engagement as do all of the other non-political & non-technical Lemmy instances do and that fact is treated like another one of those unwelcomed opinions in those instances; that’s why you’re getting downvotes for pointing this out.
Lemmy was invented by and for people who exist at the intersection of leftist politics and open source technology and that makes them more amenable for debate but it could only work for you if you’re capable of comporting yourself accordingly in such spaces if those views don’t come naturally to you. If your politics or interest are too far out of sync with this core group of Lemmy users, then you either have to wait until the other social media platforms enshitify enough to force more people into Lemmy or go back to the enshitification yourself on their platforms.
I find it highly offensive when anyone tells me what I think or believe. You have no right to speak in my voice or write my narrative.
I love to debate. I love to learn and take in new information and perspectives. To assume is to make an ass-u-me. Do not assume you know me at all unless you have asked questions and are quoting or paraphrasing my statements in the context I made them.
I am not in any way resistant to negative feedback. I want to engage with people that are open minded and flexible in their thinking. Those that have a rigid mindset and parrot some narrative on the right or left are religious fools I waste no time with. Arguing belief systems is a fool’s folly.
I take offense at anonymizing negative feedback. This is not accepted or normal human behavior. It is the realm of criminals and cowards to stab people in the back without the opportunity to confront their assailant. I do not accept this criminality as normal. If you wish to have a counter opinion you must do so openly and debate and defend your opinion. Anything less is barbaric primitivism.
I would propose for you to disable down votes. I’m not sure it’s possible on a individual user level with she software you use but it’s possible on a server level, so worst case scenario find a server where down votes are disabled.
I only see them when they are negative. That is still not an explanation or justification for anonymous negativity to strangers. This should not exist. It is psychotic. Anyone has a right to be stupid or or disagree. They have a right to an anonymous user name. They do not have a right to totally anonymous negative interaction with strangers. That should have never been created.
Most people don’t actually use downvotes as a method of personal attack, but rather as a calibration. They see something they don’t want to see, they click the down arrow like someone turning down the volume on the TV.
You really shouldn’t take downvotes personally. They aren’t meant to be personal, and most people don’t use them that way.
This still does not address the fundamental existence of downvoting as a form of anonymous negativity to a stranger and what purpose it serves. This behavior is not acceptable under any circumstances in person. The existence itself is not justified at a foundational level. It is the anomaly that should be addressed. The normalization of this behavior is neurodivergent and should be corrected. Negative and opposing opinions are normal. Anonymous back stabbing has always been the refuge of criminals and cowards. Creating a path of least resistance to such a behavior is morally atrocious nonsense. The lack of philosophical awareness of this issue is reprehensible primitivism that should be an extreme embarrassment to any developer that implements the cultivation of sadism to shape a dystopian future where backstabbing and anonymous negativity towards strangers is normalized.
My unsolicited advice:
You cannot control the actions of others anymore than you can dictate their behavior. Work on your reactions. That is what you can control and improve - for you.
I don’t accept that psychotic behavior is something that should be ignored or defended. I have asked for anyone to make a valid simple explanation and all anyone has done is prove exactly what I am saying. No one so far has said any meaningful reason why this has a place or should exist.
No one so far has said any meaningful reason why this has a place or should exist.
So now you’re the arbiter of a communities existence?
Talk about psychosis, with a little narcissism on the side.
You are declaring that downvoting is “psychotic behavior”? Am I understanding you correctly here?
I am not going to entertain your attempt at rationalization.
I’ll just say this: When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
I only see them when they are negative
I got downvoted for a comment recently*. My instance has up/down on by default and to me that somewhat softened the blow… to see that it wasn’t all downvotes but roughly a 1:2 (up:down) ratio.
EDIT: Also, you could of course have total+upvotes (or upvote %) if you wish, though I guess that doesn’t work for posts which are mostly just the total (if set, upvote % only displays on hover)
*= in a very “why are you booing me? I’m right.” moment, my 2 explanation replies were not, yet did not seem to change future votes (though maybe that was not the reason in the first place)
