Being less hostile overall would be a huge plus.

And I don't mean that people can't criticize or provide constructive feedback. But it can be disheartening to see an interesting thread, sometimes a "normie" thread, and every comment is just negative.

It's fun to talk about stuff you like. It keeps people coming back.

I mean... it also sounds like someone browsing ALL or similar, without having taken the time to curate their personal feed. I don't see that as a Fediverse-issue really, but a characteristic of most social media platforms, including Reddit.

Do zero work to set your account up (or don't even have one), and you'll pretty much get the shittiest browsing experience out of all possibilities.

as a long time lemming i will respond with the standard lemmy response:

go back to reddit you fascist, child murdering, genocide supporter

i wonder why people get put off. when your active population might be up to 20% of rabid radicalized leftists how do you expect anything to do with current affairs to go

I keep saying that Lemmy needs normies for longevity,

Because if there's anything the left should learn from the past 60 years, it's to cater more to the normies...

Why you want lemmy to become garbage?

This sounds like a technical problem to solve, rather than "it is what it is"

They muted and permabanned me from the sub.

In my response to this post earlier, I mentioned that one of the problems (which unfortunately reddit shares too) is hostility to other viewpoints, and this is a good example of how that is perpetuated. When a culture on a platform is too homogeneous, disagreement becomes so shocking that it's seen as "trolling", "bad faith", "offensive", etc. I think it's partially a symptom of the reddit-like structure of voting + active moderation, but it's also very much the culture.

You presented your points well and fairly, and even if you hadn't, I think we all need to get comfortable with the fact that normal humans sometimes interact in a manner that doesn't sound like an HR mediation session, and that's ok too.

A lot of the issues you have with Lemmy is in large part because there’s less people here than Reddit. You really have to curate your subscriptions page to get that kind of algorithm treatment you’re used to from Reddit. There’s a lot of communities here that don’t hit the top posts in all but are still active.

You also kinda have to be the change you want to see and be stubborn about it. Keep posting things you find interesting, throw out those comments on posts even if there’s no other comments or motion. A new community isn’t going to get built up overnight.

I was trying to present my subjective experience in good faith and I hope it came out that way

It didn't, it just sounds like astroturfing and/or being lazy.

If a completely new person went to reddit for the first time (before all the corporate sanitization that has happened in the last couple of years) they were going to see shit they didn't want to see. They were going to have to put in some effort telling "the system" what they like and what they don't. After you've done that, it was an interesting way to spend your downtime. Without it, it was just the void yelling back. Same is pretty true for Lemmy. If you don't put in any effort to block the stuff you don't like and/or subscribe to the stuff you do, you aren't going to see any value. Yes, it is smaller than reddit - that's how social media starts. There isn't going to be 21 years of content chilling out on a platform that is 6 years old.

Also, bitching about hearing about Linux is just lazy. You're on FOSS social media and get surprised when people there mostly don't use corporate slop closed source OS's on their personal machines? Okie Dokie.

Might I offer you an egg trying piefed instances in these trying times?

Sorry for assuming but if you don't know Lemmy is just but one way to wrangle together the fediverse into a link aggregator style website. Piefed is another one.

What I like about piefed, and what made me stick, is the on boarding for new users. At least in the flagship instance, piefed.social, new users, up front, would have the option to choose topics you'd like to see, terms you'd like to block and then you'll have a curated feed ready to go. And at least in piefed.social they keep updating the topics. I'll say that in comparison, topics is llike multireddits. You can use the instance's topics, and can make more yourself. IIRC. It works in lieu of the algorithm reddit has. Practically for me it is the algorithm for me.

Also don't hesitate blocking communities and users. I just started blasting anything I am not interested into my block list.

Edit: another tip. I find using "Hot (Scaled)" sorting will bump up the smaller, lesser active comms' posts more in your feed. Whether that be All, Local or Subscribed.

If you want technical niche comms, it's dead. Or it's overrun with people performatively whinging about AI.

In the last month I've just about had enough of it. I'm 3 years into the fediverse and I'm done with the drama.

The magnifier valve developed for the steamdeck probably works ok? I am not sure if that can be ripped out though.

Screenreader you're on your own unless you want to run everything through emacs (you should, it's cool and can do everything they needed to get to the moon and also play tetris)

I think that this is accurate, but it doesnt make it not a problem right now. After all, you get more posts by getting more people by having enjoyable-to-consume content.

I think most people on reddit (ie, the 90% who don't have an account) are simply happy to look at 9gag shit. "Bored. Look at reddit. Guy fall down funny. Giggle."

Of people who make an account, 90% simply look at the default feed. They are the internet troglodytes who have no interest in having any actual discussion, but who simply feel a desperate need to say literally anything in a public space. "FIRST!!!"

And then there are the 1% of redditors like OOP, who have been on the site for years and who have found niche communities they like to hang out in. These communities have far less bot penetration, and tend to have higher quality posts in general.

OOP is the sort of person Lemmy could use more of, but is running into a bootstrapping problem with.

I opened reddit for the first time in like 6 months and the site takes 5 minutes to load, random ai trash, half the screen is "click on this you'll find it more interesting!!" made it nearly unusable. Also the huge concentration of bots on reddit, lemmy feels like I'm talking to real people.

its mostly AI/ or bots posting the same thing multiple time over the months, sprinkle a little current news in between.

The person who typed this out has definitely been putting in the effort in worldbuilding.

Thank god and thank you, I dunno why the spam of politics is there. I go to protests every time, vote every election, etc. but it’s mentally exhausting I just want to chill.

Slrpnk had more but got blown up and unrelenting drama seeking "power users" (lmao) drove off most of the interesting people.

Could you elaborate what you mean? I've been a slrpnk admin for near 3 years, and I haven't seen any power user drama addicts on the instance. I'm also not sure what you mean by blown up (too popular? We're still a smallish instance with 380 monthly users).

Personally I think we still have quite a lot of interesting posts and discussions in our communities.

Finding them shouldn’t be so hard though. Surely we can make the search function better. If I search for a community I’d at least like to be greeted by the most active versions at the top. I’ve no idea how it ranks them right now.

Lemmy is split into four categories across two criteria:

Whether they're banned or not from Reddit, and of they still want to be on Reddit or not.