NO POLITICS.
Almost inevitably, most of the people joining Lemmy instances are former-reddit posters those who consider it a ‘reddit clone’ as opposed to an independent link aggregator site. This can be seen in the most popular communities (simply recreations of existing reddit subreddits), terminology (people saying ‘sublemmies’ or ‘subs’) and most importantly, habits.
What social habits have you seen that are commonplace on reddit but should really be discouraged among users moving to here?
Profile downvoting. When someone goes through your entire profile and downvotes everything because they have spite for you. I’ve had it happen to me and many other prominent users have experienced it too, and you can tell because you suddenly get -1 on all your posts, even ones that couldn’t possibly be inflammatory or posts on small communities that have very little activity, and they come close enough together that it can’t reasonably be from separate people. Also related: down voting everything in an entire community.
I know internet points mean nothing, and honestly I don’t really care, but it’s just annoying. Like, what did you gain from doing that when the block button exists?
I think it is good that Lemmy does not show the total score which, I believe, reduces this effect a little bit.
A somewhat related behaviour is voting based on the score, e.g. downvoting a deeply negative comment. I fell for this too and I am so glad that you can disable the displaying of the score so that the only thing that matters is content.
A somewhat related behaviour is voting based on the score, e.g. downvoting a deeply negative comment. I fell for this too and I am so glad that you can disable the displaying of the score so that the only thing that matters is content.
A particularly egregious example on Reddit is /r/catsstandingup. Like, it’s already a joke subreddits where you’re only allowed to say one thing, but then you see some people with HUNDREDS of downvotes for saying the only thing they’re supposed to say while everyone else gets upvoted. Not that I care (I’ve never even commented in that sub), but it’s still really stupid, especially on what’s supposed to be a wholesome, non-serious community.
I have noticed some cases where it is possible to read a comment as either sarcastically humourous or sincerely insulting depending on whether it was voted up or voted down. So I think there is a real predisposition bias there.
Most people on Lemmy seem to think that this is just fine, because you can vote however you want, and as soon as you think that people should vote after a certain system or idea, you’re for some reason a Nazi.
Yes, that happens when subnormal people has access to a keyboard. They think theyre superior and start acting like plain idiots
deleted by creator
Where have you seen that on Lemmy sites?
deleted by creator
Cats vs dogs discourse turning incredibly toxic. Like, holy shit is it a dumpster fire on Reddit. It’s mostly from the cat subs where they just really love to hate dogs. For examplw: a sub called /r/airplaneears, which is about animals doing that thing where their ears point to either side, had to issue multiple statements that they allow all animals and has banned tons of users because it a sub that has mostly cats, and the cat people are absolutely rabid if someone posts a dog pic on it, complete with “I hope your dog dies” and “kill all dogs”. As a huge cat person, this is one of the biggest reasons I don’t associate with most cat people, this and the fact that most of them don’t care that cats destroy the ecosystem if you let them outside.
To be fair, dog people have plenty of toxicity against cats too. Some of it might be in retaliation to the hate they get, others might be genuine. Either way, I’m starting to see the beginnings of both sides of the toxicity here, and can we please leave that shit off Lemmy and just let people pick their favourite companion animals?
The artificial competition between cats and dogs is so silly. They’re both great animals but they’re completely different from each other. It doesn’t even make sense to compare them. They’re not the same. It’s like comparing rabbits and birds and trying to rank them. Why the fuck?
Rabbits are better
There is no such thing as better or worse when it comes to animals, just different. You’re wrong though, birds are quite clearly better lmao
I’m guilty of this one myself, but imo reddit-style usernames.
For a good at least I don’t see as much ‘this’ posting chains and similar. Nothing like clicking into a serious convo in order to troubleshoot something just to find a ‘this’ chain 20 posts long.
By troubleshooting did you mean stuff like programming or hobby communities where people post their issue and people try to help them? Maybe it’s just the communities I use, but I found that those are the last tolerable places on Reddit specifically because the rules on professionalism and high effort posts are quite strict, so a “this” chain will most likely get removed.
Honestly, those communities are the last ones keeping me on Reddit. Once Lemmy gets big enough that I can post help threads and actually get answers, I’m gone from Reddit for good.
Super late response, iirc I was trying to get a lga 775 back up and running with whatever I found lying around, the posts were ancient, of the sort you mutter to yourself ‘usersoandso’ how did you fix it’, and they left without sharing their enlightenment with the rest of the internet.
Same here, especially since I’m sharing Reddit with at least 3 other people and we all have to be wary of getting banned.
‘This’ posting chains
I was thinking of mentioning those redundant repeating of a comment instead of just upvoting the existing one, but you’ve just brought up a more extreme version.
‘This’ originated on imageboards (or if not, some other sites that don’t have voting). A site with voting like reddit makes those one-word affirmation posts a complete waste of space, or a low-effort dog-piling joke at best. “I agree”, cool story.
Having upvotes or some kind of ‘karma/points’ system changes the feel of a board dramatically.
I remember boards back in the late 90s without any sort of points system you’d be known for writing style, posting mass, or having a (lack) of expertise in an area rather than your points. It made a sense of community at the cost of making communities have a barrier to entry that made them a bit harder to grow, since it took time for you to become familiar to regulars and such.
Alao, I think awards and reddit coins (and now reddit NFTs, yeah…) are the “this forum going to shit” express. It’s like they want to turn their platform more and more infantile and full of people trying to game the awards system instead of actually participating in good faith.
I find this is a general problem with commercial sites. The goal is to keep users engaged and to show growth as opposed to create a healthy environment for discussion. There are lots of studies showing that encouraging negative behaviors actually drives engagement.
deleted by creator
True, and I would say that bumping with shitposts is abuse of that feature.
I actually haven’t see many “bump” comments yet. Hopefully it doesn’t become a thing here, because otherwise bumping threads because someone made a new (real) comment is pretty useful IMO. I believe the current sorter stops bumping threads with new comments after a while to keep the same thread from being on the front page for months (if a thread needs to be, it should probably get pinned and not rely on new activity).
I don’t mind such chains as long as it’s easy to minimise them and skip the entire chain. It’s one click to avoid annoyance for me and seemingly endless fun for the “This’ers”.
Removed by mod
I think the main issue baring that is simply Lemmy’s size. We don’t have enough users for that yet.
The sites user base is growing. I came here near the beginning of the year, disgusted with reddit. At the beginning I still used reddit primarily but would check on Lemmy. Then it was about half and half. Now only occasionally I check up on reddit, see its still complete filth and leave.
I was banned for saying that a serial rapist should be castrated. Reddit hasn’t been the same since they got bought out. The admins are fascists sympathizers who will look the other way when conservative nut jobs say stuff but knock you down when/if you respond even kind of in turn.