I feel like things on Lemmy were pretty chill several months ago, and that’s started to change.
People used to talk each other like they would talk to a neighbor. Now I get the sense that people have become quick to be negative, attack, and not be constructive.
Am I crazy in feeling like the vibe has changed?
Worth noting, the number of people who come here “to escape authoritarian moderators”. Nearly all of them were moderated for good reason.
I also don’t think the presence of places like hexbear are doing us any favors.
You can see them jumping from Lemmy server to Lemmy server as they get banned from each.
Eventually, they’ll just set up their own instances so they can bother people with impunity.
And then we block that instance! Or it gets defederated.
It would be super nice if users could block instances.
Like, I have no desire to see anything from the furry instance.
It became a thing in Lemmy 0.19 - as long as you’re on an instance that has updated to that, it should be available to you. At the bottom of the settings page in the web ui, but if you use an app they might not expose that to you yet.
I hadn’t realized it had been implemented yet since I don’t use the browser. Thanks for the update!
I think that came with version 0.19.1 specifically.
You can on instances running .19 or newer. Settings -> Blocks -> then at the bottom is an option for blocking instances.
Connect has been able to do that from the get go. As well as individual communities within instances.
I think that’s coming (or is it implemented already!?)?
I totally thought that was in 0.19 but I haven’t actually seen that yet.
0.19.1
It’s under Settings -> Blocks -> then down at the bottom is the block instances option.
If the apps don’t have instance blocking yet, the webui does (in 0.19)… I haven’t tested it, but it’s there, at the bottom of my settings page 🙂
the 0.19 implementation is so half-assed I genuinely think the Lemmy devs just don’t want that functionality but expected quite a lot of backlash if they outright said as much, so they decided to implement something that ticks the box in the “wanted features” list without having any effect
afaik it only blocks communities and explicitly lets users from blocked instances through
Feel free to make open an issue to improve instance blocking. Or better yet a pull request. We are only a few devs with limited time, and hundreds of issues to work on.
You can do this with certain apps, like Boost!
Huh, I guess I haven’t tried it recently, because that’s what I’m using.
…and then they spin up a new instance with a new domain…
Domains are unfortunately fairly cheap and it’s not impossible to get a different IP assigned to a server box.
I don’t mind costing them the effort or $10 for a new domain
Incidentally I have several domains with DNS provided by freedns.afraid.net, which allows sharing domains. Everyone who asks for a domain under any of mine just seems so very sketchy. Now I have to worry if they’re a nazi looking for a new domain to get banned
Isn’t that basically what basedcount is?
I’m unfamiliar with it. Would you be so kind as to explain what you mean?
This guy
From the siderbar:Avoid Censorship. Stay Based.
So there’s going to be a fediverse and a mirror fediverse?
And the other one is the one with opposite facial hair
That was always a risk of decentralized services, unfortunately.
You’re describing Hexbear.
The irony.
The thing that actually worried me a little bit more was people upvoting the aggressive comments to be top comments.
I was reading some thread over at !politics@lemmy.world today, and a lot of stuff advocating for political violence were the top comments. Mods yanked it, but nevertheless, people were vibing with some comments about dragging people through the street. I felt like I was on X/Twitter.
I was reading some thread over at !politics
There you go, that’s your problem. Political topics always gets heated and brings out the worst in people, no matter the platform. The first thing I did is block all politics (and general news + sports) communities, and it’s been a fairly pleasant experience so far for me, except for the odd troll or fanboy that shows up every now and then.
Lemmy.nz also defederated Hexbear, which helped a lot.
Technically they pulled a “you can’t fire me, I quit” and defederated first, but whatever.
Yea, they tend to do that, think they did the same with blaahaj. Pretty funny tbh.
You didn’t block all politics. Everything is political.
No it’s not. You can have casual communities or gaming or sports communities that aren’t political.
Casual conversation, gaming, and sports are political.
Yeah, I think it’s a legitimate and growing problem. I think a lot of folks don’t realize, but since growth has slowed from Reddit more broadly, the people who feel they have been “unfairly silenced” are the fastest growing subpopulation around here. If I’m honest, I think the only real antidote is to reestablish growth from communities with kinder dispositions.
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We don’t need to take from nicer communities, we need to build nicer communities. Right now there aren’t any left wing instances, which is a big problem. It was nicer back when lib.lgbt existed.
Lemmygrad or ml aren’t left wing? The entire platform feels left wing as all anyone can ever say is how bad capitalism is.
Right now there aren’t any left wing instances
Bro what
Also it doesn’t have anything to do with political distribution. It’s an issue of habit and disposition.
Left wing people are disposed to helping others. Right wing people aren’t. Nobody’s cultivating left wing spaces where kindness is a habit.
Well remember that any instance you federate with also gets to vote. If you feel like votes aren’t matching your values, perhaps you should try an instance with more of the “aggressive” stuff defederated.
Possibly, although those instances also have less content. I remember starting out with a BeeHaw account like many of us here. Trade off was often less content, no ability to create your own communities, but less people lashing out at each other.
Beehaw is very selective though (and that’s fine). There is a middle ground between lemmy.world and Beehaw though.
But you said elsewhere that you go on American political communities. I’m not American but from what I’ve seen, it is hardly surprising that those places would be toxic. I think at this point, arguing US politics online seems like a lost cause. You’re probably better off discussing politics IRL.
You think Beehaw isn’t aggressive?
You read my mind. It’s the same feeling I got when a reddit sub would degrade into a toxic circle jerk, and I’d have to unsub. Except it feels like it’s a lot of lemmy communities lately. I feel like I can’t respectfully disagree with anyone without being met with ad hominem attacks. I don’t think something like changemyview could survive.
Also reminds me of those anti-moderate subs, which is a sentiment literally synonymous with radicalization. I’m all for free speech, I would just rather they state whatever take they have with a calm, measured demeanor.
You have a problem with people being against the status quo?
People like to fetishize revolution.
Even offline I have friends that talk that kind of way and just reveal themselves as being poor students of history.
hexbear is insanity larping
Hexbear called me a troll for being further left than them. They thought I was an extreme caricature of a leftist for saying things like “xenogenders are real” and “slurs against disabilities are bad”. My presence was actually critically destructive because I had effective points against all their reactionary opinions that made it impossible for themselves to honestly call themselves leftists. Now it’s against the rules to like me on there. That’s how bad I was for them.
Hexbear, Lemmygrad, and Lemmy.ml bring nothing of value to the community, in my view.
100%. Seems like people are just itching to fight now and taking comments out of context constantly. They’re just throwing out insults instead of engaging or asking for clarification. Dunno what happened.
What?! How can you say this about me!
*Sobs*
No you. /j
What I found is that hot topics come with the season, in June/July about Ukraine, in July/August about Meta, in October/November about Gaza, in December about Biden. There’s been plenty of charged discussion on these topics, and internal Lemmy dramas.
However, one thing I see more often here on Lemmy than other places is people updating their comments, being willing to admit they’re wrong or that their comment came off as hostile, and open negotiation in general. Consider the near defederation of programming.dev and lemm.ee, it was resolved amicably to everyone’s benefit.
I also see people thanking others for softening their tone and being kind, to them I say, keep doing that and encouraging good behaviour and ettiquite online!
A lot of people are having a hard time right now. Try to be the change you want to see and react kindly and rationally would be my advice.
I’m over this meme, mate
I’m not your mate buddah
It has gotten worse and it will only continue to do so. There are people who are respectful and hold back their darkest impulses, but there are others who choose to hold those same features in high regard, as literal virtues in their eyes. Blocking hexbear and lemmygrad has helped my own peace of mind immensely, but you would not want to block lemmy.ml or lemmy.world or such so… here we are.
I do not really see any permanent solution to this problem, short of eternal vigilance. That’s just nature though, e.g. viruses constantly evolve and seek new hosts, hence hosts that do not keep up die, there’s no way around needing to keep up defenses against such a tireless onslaught. Similarly for information vs. misinformation too, it seems:-(.
It has also gotten much harder to have any discussion with even the tiniest hint of subtlety on the Fediverse - is Biden/Linux/socialism/religion good or bad? “Yes.” For some of us, knowing what will happen - the flood of toxic responses I mean - if we dare to speak up is enough to cause us to cringe enough that we would simply rather stay silent instead. If only the opposing side were like that too! But no, they elect not to hold their own tongues, even while expecting YOU to hold yours. That too seems just the nature of the universe.
if we dare to speak up is enough to cause us to cringe enough that we would simply rather stay silent instead.
It’s a different kind of Chilling Effect. It reduces conversation, because it convinces some people to not become involved at all.
Whereas conversations like this one with you has the opposite effect - thank you for your addition and the link:-).
People here realize that narratives have consequences and know we can’t just live in la-la land where everyone is happy all the time. I mean yeah you can do that but then don’t be surprised pikachu face when you find yourself in the company of neo-nazis who are doing the same.
Lolz you are hilarious - if I get called a derogatory term like “stupid”, and I don’t like it, then I am a literal, actual Nazi? :-P That really makes me curious… what if I DO like it:-P?
Could you please translate, that was completely incoherent.
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Maybe, but you’re still awesome.
Awe shucks. Thanks. Right back at ya.
with the american elections coming up, tensions are rising. Quite predictably so, really
Reddit exodus effects. Reddit did not have the best kind of people on the internet. It just has had a bit more tamed 4channers.
Also, it is way too clear how there is political animosity that practically threatens real lives of non-white people, or ruins their job/career lives, in the current situation that went from Ukraine side picking to Israel apartheid support vs opposition. All this as we came from COVID pandemic, horrific mental health and fucked up socialising abilities.
What’s funny about this is .ml is one of the nastiest, most toxic instances out there.
Nah, most of the extreme racism or genocide denial/advocation I moderate comes from lemmy.world and shitholefornazis. .ml users are generally tame, especially the old hats.
Lemmy is one of those places where you’re expected to be kind, but not necessarily expected to apply that to neo-nazis like on Reddit.
No, I’ve definitely had people on Lemmy upset that I was unkind to fascists.
Sure fine, but you weren’t banned for it.
Yeah, I was.
Yikes. Sorry you had to put up with that shit.
I FART IN YOUR GENERAL DIRECTION!
YOUR MOTHER WAS A HAMSTER AND YOUR FATHER SMELT OF ELDERBERRIES!
I don’t wanna talk to you no more!
Yeah, definitely the vibe has changed. It’s kind of sad.
Hexbear federated
Who is this character
I haven’t noticed, but some people say they are feeling political tensions, and…
The year 2024 is notable for the large number of elections, with 7 of world’s 10 most populous nations (Bangladesh, India, United States, Indonesia, Pakistan, Russia, Mexico) voting; countries that are home to nearly half of the world’s people will hold elections in 2024.
From the Wikipedia complete list.
I guess everyone is just a little worried about national and international elections.
This is the first I’ve heard this perspective. It’s worth keeping in mind the remainder of the year. Thanks for that
Law of probability. The more people join, the more of a chance someone will say some stupid shit.
Also: SUCK MY BALLS
Thank you for translating that into Manbird
THE MOON HIDES FROM ME
I’ve found that it depends on the community. The bigger ones get more toxic comments but more niche ones are still polite. What that suggests to me is that people who are here for entertainment are more likely to rant and mouth off, whereas as those who are here to share their passions and interests are engaging in a more fun and positive way.
YES, IT’S JUST FUCKING YOU, JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WITH THIS GUY…
Careful with the punctuation it makes you seem rather aggressive
It’s an election year and Trump is in the election.
A terrible and infuriating time. Brutal year ahead.
At least we had three years of rest, right?!??
Well, not exactly, that orange cockroach has been scurrying around this whole time.
Didn’t you guys have an attempted coup in that time?
xXX88Trump_The_Strongman14XXx personally assured me that was just a peaceful protest
Completely unprompted too. Just normal people who happened to independently organize that day.
Just happened to book a flight to DC that day, who knew?
anybody with xXX in their name is a virgin though