Am I the only one feeling that the quality of discussion here felt big time after big instances got created and federated (think lemmy.world)?
TLDR : we can block communities we dislike but we have no choice but to interact with instances we dislike. (Also main points in bold in the text)
I have barely any interest in conversations here compare to before and I feel it is due to a lot of very bad takes and nonconstructive comments being the norm now. I can’t help noticing/feeling like the majority of them comes from the same instances.
I was annoyed from the early days (before Lemmy got some traction after the reddit debacle) that I had to block all the ‘meme’ communities and some others. This is a sample from my block list :
cryptocurrency
Memesich_iel@feddit.deShare
Funny Videos, Images, Memes, Quotes and more Lemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world
Political Memes@lemmy.world>
Greentextmemes@lemmy.worldmemes@hexbear.net
RPGMemes @ttrpg.network
ADHD memes@lemmy.dbzer0.com
SurrealMemes@sh.itjust.works
Microblog Memes@lemmy.world
Memes@midwest.social
Star Wars Memes@lemmy.world
Risa@startrek.website
Memes@sopuli.xyz196@lemmy.blahaj.zone
solarpunk memes@slrpnk.net
Funny@sh.itjust.works
GenZedong@lemmygrad.ml
AI Generated Images@sh.itjust.works
Lord of the memes@midwest.social
Furry@pawb.socialScience Memes@mander.xyz
Comics
People Twitter@sh.itjust.worksich_iel@feddit.org
This is fine by me as at least I have a way to not bother and not be bothered by those communities I have no interest in. I feel like some conversation that could be interesting and deep get bombed by the sheer amount of terrible interaction from other instances.
There are surely better and worse instances, and depending of our interests we’ll have preferences. Because of the way federation works now I cannot filter out the ‘noise’ and things like “top of week” is… not going well in my opinion. There is no community-blocking equivalent way of blocking votes/post/comment for specific instances.
When I read ‘Hacker News’ it is so refreshing to see such a community with deeper interactions and sourced arguments and points. I feel like I am learning things there. It would be perfect if not America-centric, start-up minded place (also only about tech there). But the moderation there is amazing.
I am starting to give up on the current state of Lemmy now and looking for non-federated places that would have better communities. I haven’t found any yet (not that I’ve searched that much). I feel like there might be a way around all-federated or isolated silo choice here. I guess that would also imply a lot of technical work (thank you very much too all who contributed to Lemmy so far).
You’re never going to get rid of Communists on Lemmy, FOSS in general attracts Communists, combined with stable and growing Communist instances. If Lemmy.world wants to go its own way it can, but there’s already a right-wing Lemmy, that’s Reddit.
They never said anything about getting rid of communists, they said it’s no longer a communist echo chamber.
I read their comment too, no need to worry. Anticommunist instances like Lemmy.world and, relevantly Lemmy.ca, still can’t get rid of Communists even by defederating from Communist instances.
My point is more that Lemmy itself is structured along Communist principles, while Reddit remains the right-wing Lemmy. Choosing Lemmy over Reddit is ideological in nature, which means there is going to be a steady influx of Communists and other Leftists, less so Liberals.
Assuming that whole instances are anti-anything is a great way to judge a whole swath of people quickly and look childish, it’s less useful to do anything else.
No, Lemmy is just decentralized in nature, while that’s attractive to fringe left groups like hardcore communists, it’s also attractive to anarchists and fringe right groups like hardcore libertarians.
You only need to look at Lemmy.ca’s Hexbear refederation poll and compare it to Hexbear’s Lemmy.ca refederation poll. Lemmy.ca was overwhelmingly anti-Hexbear, while Hexbear was more reasonable and generally okay with refederating as long as Lemmy.ca understood that Hexbear hates landlords and whatnot. There are individuals on Lemmy.ca that are not necessarily anticommunist, but in aggregate Lemmy.ca is absolutely anticommunist, and the same applies to Lemmy.world.
I restate, Lemmy is built on Communist principles. FOSS is anticapitalist in nature, hardcore libertarians prefer Reddit. Anarchists are also Leftists.
Hexbear wasn’t defederated from for its too comments. It was defederated from for its bottom ones, in which people repeatedly call people Nazis and the KKK.
Given that the largest and most successful open source projects are all openly supported by capitalist companies, that is evidently not true. There is nothing inherently anti-capitalist about FOSS. Capitalism is a poor choice of resource distribution system for information because unlike material things, information can be copied and replicated freely, so there is no need for scarcity. FOSS exposes that,l flaw with capitalism but it is no inherently communist.
So you say, yet you’re admitting that the most fringe of Hexbear is the issue in your opinion, not the entire instance, so then why defederate? Why not federate and block bad-faith users? Because Lemmy.ca itself is anticommunist and anti-anarchist, as I said.
The fact that Capitalism exists and makes use of readily available tools does not mean actively choosing to support and develop FOSS, not just standard Open Source software, is compatible with right wing views. FOSS is actively sought out by Leftists out of a desire to reject Capitalism, again, Reddit exists for right-wingers.
Capitalism is an awful choice of resource distribution in general, not just information.
The argument being that Hexbear has a larger than average number of shit posters, meaning that the benefit gained from seeing their communities is not offset by the increased cost to all the lemmy.ca moderators who have to clean up after those users.
But they do. Most successful FOSS projects are actively supported by capitalist companies, from Linux, to git, to web standards, etc.
It is fundamentally ill suited to information in a way that it is not with material goods though. With material goods, it can function in theory, though always tends towards corruption and fucking the poor and working class in practice. With information, it is simply a cruel system design from a theoretical basis that imposes scarcity where there is no need for it.
That doesn’t bear out when compared to Hexbear’s thread, which was more level headed on average. The issue is in political disagreement, which Hexbear was willing to open, while Lemmy.ca was not.
I restate, again, Capitalists making use of FOSS tools does not mean it is Capitalist, or compatible ideologically. Capitalists will use what’s available, users will use what works and aligns ideologically.
Capitalism does not function even in theory for Material Goods. If it functions in theory but not in practice then the theory is wrong. That’s why Communists put a large emphasis on actually touching grass and developing theory through practice.
Hexbear wasn’t defederated from for its top comments. It was defederated from for its bottom ones, in which people repeatedly call Canadians Nazis and the KKK.
Given that the largest and most successful open source projects are all openly supported by capitalist companies, that is evidently not true. There is nothing inherently anti-capitalist about FOSS. Capitalism is a poor choice of resource distribution system for information because unlike material things, information can be copied and replicated freely, so there is no need for scarcity. FOSS exposes that flaw with capitalism, but it is not inherently communist.
You double commented, buddy