I’ve been enjoying that fact lately, it’s been nice to have actual conversations with people, to actually have my thoughts challenged in healthy ways and to have my mind change and to change the minds of others without the intensity that predominates a lot of other sites. I feel I can talk to people here
I think it’s because people trend a lot older on Lemmy than Reddit. I imagine a lot of the more vile opinions you see on Reddit are teenagers.
I’ve not seen much unhealthy discussion/ad hominen on Lemmy yet.
Also it trends towards a more intellectual crowd, even if primarily in the technical sense. Simply having to pick an instance probably keeps away a lot of the people who could otherwise flood every single community with inane questions - i.e. ask other people to do their work for them rather than do a 10 second internet search on their own.
Sometimes, easy accessibility is a bad thing. Nobody profits off a large user base here. We should instead focus on having good users and a platform that serves those users.
Reddit is worse because of its size, resulting in problems with spam/low effort posts and comments.
This smaller size is a bit of a double-edged sword though. If I want to discuss cooking/chef knives with people, for example, there isn’t a niche community specifically for that topic.
Maybe in this way it’s best for people to head outside of Lemmy to other forums for more specific interests, and Lemmy can be more tech/general discussion oriented.
And now for the part this platform doesn’t want to hear. THOSE “problematic” posters are a GOOD thing.
You have to understand, if you took the world and seperated its humans by intelligence, the “idiot” group is going to be much bigger than the “PhD” group. Like…by a lot.
So if you ONLY cater to smart people, you ARE limiting your growth. Again…by a lot.
So the eventual question needs to be asked. “What is Lemmy trying to be?”
Are you trying to be an alternitive to Reddit? Are you trying to replace Reddit? Are you trying to be a Reddit similiar niche community seperate from the mainstream?
Because if you want this to be a small niche unknown community geared towards older people, tech minded, then congrats. Thats what you have.
But if you want a broader reach, then you can’t gatekeep the idiots. There’s a reason they call them “the unwashed masses”. Sometimes even quite literally.
if you took the world and seperated its humans by intelligence, the “idiot” group is going to be much bigger than the “PhD” group. Like…by a lot.
No… you’d have a bell curve. But even that assumes you have a single good measure of intelligence.
I kind of agree with the rest of your post, but I would have worded it a bit differently, emphasizing that people who found it difficult to start using Lemmy might still be worth having around. Also, I don’t think “as large as Reddit” or “small niche unknown” are our only options.
I would rather, instead of dividing between have vs. lack smartyness, focus on have vs. lack kindness, consideration, empathy, etc. Remember Reddit? (A half-joke bc although you just came from there more recently, some of us haven’t been for a year or more and are legit starting to forget, almost blissfully!:-)
I don’t mind talking to people all along the intelligence scale, but I do mind talking with people who engage in trolling behaviors. I will hang out with the humble uneducated plebes but I refuse to with their opposites. I am not phrasing it well but somewhere in here it gets complicated bc those scales overlap, as often the least intelligent behave as if they were somehow entitled to be treated as the most - e.g. Dr. Fauci gave the entire world a vaccine, but it was people who flunked or never took biology in the first place who are trying to block access to not only it but to simple masks. One side works to earn respect, the other does not yet not only demands equal treatment but somehow more than equal, and sometimes at the point of a literal gun. One side actually reads the Constitution of the United States, while the other side does not yet attempts to overthrow it regardless, bc they apparently know “better” how the country should be run than those who founded it.
So while I think that fascists should have a place they can talk - that’s just humane - I also do not want to be in that place. Their rights end where mine begin. So if (like I/we did to Reddit) that means that they win and therefore I have to leave, so be it - I will leave social media entirely if need be, before I compromise and enjoy watching people “dunk on” others. If it is X or bust, then I choose bust.
Or the less hostile but just as damaging form of this where people treat social media as a place for emotional venting rather than real conversations with real people. Those two are related bc just bc you can get away with doing something, bc you have that power/ability, does not mean that you should do it. e.g. one or maybe three comments like “^This” or “I also choose this guy’s wife” or “And my bow” etc. is fine but a hundred of them!? in a row, or even like twenty, is just too much. They speak, and therefore people cannot even listen anymore bc of the crowded noise from everyone else speaking.
Who sees the last ten posts to a community being “which android phone is the best these days” (no other details provided) and decides to add an eleventh to the group? Answer: people who are lonely and need someone to talk to, but don’t care about the rules of politeness, and are so self-centered that they want another post devoted entirely to themselves. Never mind the fact that there being so many of those drives people away who would have actually answered their question. They not only whisper but SHOUT into the void, and if the only way for me to have peace is to mute them, or not go to where people do that, then so be it. Their right to post such runs up against my right to not have to listen to it.
And maybe, for some anyway, their lack of etiquette is merely bc they are young? But whoever they are, their presence foretells the absence of the people that they will drive away. So you cannot simply increase tolerance infinitely in order to grow the size of the Fediverse, bc that works in opposition to people who refuse to tolerate the intolerant and inconsiderate. We cannot have it all there - one or the other is the best that could be achieved even in purely theoretical terms, much less making it happen irl.
Thats because America alone has something like 3.5 BILLION people in it. Ohio alone has 11 million citizens. I assure you 95% of ohio is farms and cows, and we STILL have 11 million. Sometimes I wonder if they include the cows in that number.
My point is, 50k in scale to how big the internet is (and thats just America…the internet is the world. Except for north korea).
So, 50k is not really a lot. Especially when you consider that this userbase is fragmented by design.
I feel like this is the smarter design for this type of format. I also feel like this format could be so much more than it is. And it’s because this format relies on the idea that you have to please everyone. Otherwise they’ll defederate.
Well when I was 7 years old there was a girl at school who didn’t like me. My great aunt edna asked what the other kids thought of me. They liked me ok. I had some friends. It was just her that actively disliked me. So my great aunt edna says some advice that has stood the test of time. She told me “In life, not everyone is going to like you. The only thing you can do is be yourself, make sure they don’t dislike you because you’re being a problem, and then surround yourself with people who DO like you. Let the others dislike you. As long as you’re not being a problem child, you can only stay true to yourself, and likeminded friends will follow.”
And even though she said this in the 80s, and has been dead for decades, her words speak true in my 40s today. Essentially the modern version would be “haters gonna hate”.
So if there’s 50k users, and they’re segregating into their own spaces, it’s going to feel more like 1000 users. And now take into account time zones, and individual schedules, it’ll feel more like 200 users.
I think you’re going to lose a few people with that first number being off by a decimal place, but the substance of what you said is still relevant and gives insight about the Lemmy experience right now.
I’m happy to see almost 50,000 users. Sometimes it feels like there’s ten of us.
I’ve been enjoying that fact lately, it’s been nice to have actual conversations with people, to actually have my thoughts challenged in healthy ways and to have my mind change and to change the minds of others without the intensity that predominates a lot of other sites. I feel I can talk to people here
I think it’s because people trend a lot older on Lemmy than Reddit. I imagine a lot of the more vile opinions you see on Reddit are teenagers. I’ve not seen much unhealthy discussion/ad hominen on Lemmy yet.
Also it trends towards a more intellectual crowd, even if primarily in the technical sense. Simply having to pick an instance probably keeps away a lot of the people who could otherwise flood every single community with inane questions - i.e. ask other people to do their work for them rather than do a 10 second internet search on their own.
Sometimes, easy accessibility is a bad thing. Nobody profits off a large user base here. We should instead focus on having good users and a platform that serves those users.
I completely agree.
Reddit is worse because of its size, resulting in problems with spam/low effort posts and comments.
This smaller size is a bit of a double-edged sword though. If I want to discuss cooking/chef knives with people, for example, there isn’t a niche community specifically for that topic. Maybe in this way it’s best for people to head outside of Lemmy to other forums for more specific interests, and Lemmy can be more tech/general discussion oriented.
I haven’t quite figured that out yet.
If this is what the lemmyverse wants for its future, i am definitely wrong here.
There is definitely no consensus on this. I wouldn’t mind having Lemmy 2 or 3 times bigger at least
Oh yeah, we’re not at the sweet spot for mass yet. 10 times bigger would still be fine IMO!
And now for the part this platform doesn’t want to hear. THOSE “problematic” posters are a GOOD thing.
You have to understand, if you took the world and seperated its humans by intelligence, the “idiot” group is going to be much bigger than the “PhD” group. Like…by a lot.
So if you ONLY cater to smart people, you ARE limiting your growth. Again…by a lot.
So the eventual question needs to be asked. “What is Lemmy trying to be?”
Are you trying to be an alternitive to Reddit? Are you trying to replace Reddit? Are you trying to be a Reddit similiar niche community seperate from the mainstream?
Because if you want this to be a small niche unknown community geared towards older people, tech minded, then congrats. Thats what you have.
But if you want a broader reach, then you can’t gatekeep the idiots. There’s a reason they call them “the unwashed masses”. Sometimes even quite literally.
No… you’d have a bell curve. But even that assumes you have a single good measure of intelligence.
I kind of agree with the rest of your post, but I would have worded it a bit differently, emphasizing that people who found it difficult to start using Lemmy might still be worth having around. Also, I don’t think “as large as Reddit” or “small niche unknown” are our only options.
People trend towards your expectations. You’ll still have a bell curve, it’s just a matter of where it’s centered.
I would rather, instead of dividing between have vs. lack smartyness, focus on have vs. lack kindness, consideration, empathy, etc. Remember Reddit? (A half-joke bc although you just came from there more recently, some of us haven’t been for a year or more and are legit starting to forget, almost blissfully!:-)
I don’t mind talking to people all along the intelligence scale, but I do mind talking with people who engage in trolling behaviors. I will hang out with the humble uneducated plebes but I refuse to with their opposites. I am not phrasing it well but somewhere in here it gets complicated bc those scales overlap, as often the least intelligent behave as if they were somehow entitled to be treated as the most - e.g. Dr. Fauci gave the entire world a vaccine, but it was people who flunked or never took biology in the first place who are trying to block access to not only it but to simple masks. One side works to earn respect, the other does not yet not only demands equal treatment but somehow more than equal, and sometimes at the point of a literal gun. One side actually reads the Constitution of the United States, while the other side does not yet attempts to overthrow it regardless, bc they apparently know “better” how the country should be run than those who founded it.
So while I think that fascists should have a place they can talk - that’s just humane - I also do not want to be in that place. Their rights end where mine begin. So if (like I/we did to Reddit) that means that they win and therefore I have to leave, so be it - I will leave social media entirely if need be, before I compromise and enjoy watching people “dunk on” others. If it is X or bust, then I choose bust.
Or the less hostile but just as damaging form of this where people treat social media as a place for emotional venting rather than real conversations with real people. Those two are related bc just bc you can get away with doing something, bc you have that power/ability, does not mean that you should do it. e.g. one or maybe three comments like “^This” or “I also choose this guy’s wife” or “And my bow” etc. is fine but a hundred of them!? in a row, or even like twenty, is just too much. They speak, and therefore people cannot even listen anymore bc of the crowded noise from everyone else speaking.
Who sees the last ten posts to a community being “which android phone is the best these days” (no other details provided) and decides to add an eleventh to the group? Answer: people who are lonely and need someone to talk to, but don’t care about the rules of politeness, and are so self-centered that they want another post devoted entirely to themselves. Never mind the fact that there being so many of those drives people away who would have actually answered their question. They not only whisper but SHOUT into the void, and if the only way for me to have peace is to mute them, or not go to where people do that, then so be it. Their right to post such runs up against my right to not have to listen to it.
And maybe, for some anyway, their lack of etiquette is merely bc they are young? But whoever they are, their presence foretells the absence of the people that they will drive away. So you cannot simply increase tolerance infinitely in order to grow the size of the Fediverse, bc that works in opposition to people who refuse to tolerate the intolerant and inconsiderate. We cannot have it all there - one or the other is the best that could be achieved even in purely theoretical terms, much less making it happen irl.
deleted by creator
Uhm can I ask for
free laborhelp with my study? /jAlso makes it easier to keep track of the bigots and idiots
It’s me, your favorite lemming!
I like your profile picture!
Thanks! I like yours!
Tbh I want this to be 500k users and no more. That would be enough for most of my interests.
Unless only 5 of those 500k users participate in your interests…
Are you saying I just made 5 new best friends??
Especially when you see the same couple of people with profile pics post everywhere.
I see a lot more, you need to expand you communities maybe ;)
deleted by creator
Thats because America alone has something like 3.5 BILLION people in it. Ohio alone has 11 million citizens. I assure you 95% of ohio is farms and cows, and we STILL have 11 million. Sometimes I wonder if they include the cows in that number.
My point is, 50k in scale to how big the internet is (and thats just America…the internet is the world. Except for north korea).
So, 50k is not really a lot. Especially when you consider that this userbase is fragmented by design.
I feel like this is the smarter design for this type of format. I also feel like this format could be so much more than it is. And it’s because this format relies on the idea that you have to please everyone. Otherwise they’ll defederate.
Well when I was 7 years old there was a girl at school who didn’t like me. My great aunt edna asked what the other kids thought of me. They liked me ok. I had some friends. It was just her that actively disliked me. So my great aunt edna says some advice that has stood the test of time. She told me “In life, not everyone is going to like you. The only thing you can do is be yourself, make sure they don’t dislike you because you’re being a problem, and then surround yourself with people who DO like you. Let the others dislike you. As long as you’re not being a problem child, you can only stay true to yourself, and likeminded friends will follow.”
And even though she said this in the 80s, and has been dead for decades, her words speak true in my 40s today. Essentially the modern version would be “haters gonna hate”.
So if there’s 50k users, and they’re segregating into their own spaces, it’s going to feel more like 1000 users. And now take into account time zones, and individual schedules, it’ll feel more like 200 users.
An image is worth 3.5 BILLION words
OP didn’t say USA but America. How many people live in north, central and south America? 3,5 billion still seems off but not by as much.
deleted by creator
Then immediately talked about Ohio. If said the Americas that would be interpreted as North and South.
OP was way off… its actually 336 billion.
Username checks out.
I think you’re going to lose a few people with that first number being off by a decimal place, but the substance of what you said is still relevant and gives insight about the Lemmy experience right now.
You may want to check your numbers again
Welcome to the internet 🙄 Everybody else not from the US raise a hand.Posted before first morning coffee, lesson learned.
At least use the full quote.
Thanks, and also good morning. I thought my bleary eyes had scanned for the international angle but apparently my brain is still asleep.
Soz OP!