this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
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I have noticed that I interact a lot more in Lemmy than I ever did in any social media. Let it be Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter... I am used to be the lurker, but here for some reason things are different. Wonder if more people feel like I do.

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[–] [email protected] 109 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I feel like you are more encouraged to interact here. Like you're helping the fediverse grow. The other thing for me is that people seem to be much more civil then in other places. So yeah I feel the same.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Like you're helping the fediverse grow.

It feels like a civic duty.

From what I see, Lemmy is just at the edge of "not enough content". So many communities have one or two committed posters. So I comment as much as I can and post when I see something interesting.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

For me it's the gonewild subs... Once you start getting regular content there and they expand out to gonewildcurvy or bdsmgw or 30sgonewild etc you'll really see lemmy take off.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

They've had some issues with that though. lemmynsfw was heavily defederated from others over concerns about CSAM being federated, and after that lemmynsfw had much more mild porn.

Personally, I think that as long as porn is still freely available via old reddit without logging in, then it won't take off much. Also, we're in the post-Only Fans age, so it's unlikely lemmy will ever get that "pure" gonewild feel that reddit had, as almost every user that posts their own porn is now doing it for money.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

If you build it (the porn) they will come

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

That's the thing I find so surprising. There are so few NSFW posters. Porn pushed a lot of technical and economic innovation online. If Lemmy can't get traction on adult content, we're in bad shape.

/s (mostly)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

I’m doing my part. soldiers laugh

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Yea I’m pretty much of the same mind, anything that can encourage content on here the better

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 year ago (2 children)

With reddit having way more people and being only a casual browser, I would never make it early enough to a post to contribute in a meaningful way. Whatever I would have said would be commented dozens of times before I got to the thread. At best my comment wasn't made yet, but I'd be sure someone with more knowledge on the subject would've contributed in greater depth soon.

Here I see plenty of posts hours old with no comments. There's a greater chance whatever I might say won't get buried or overshadowed.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because a lot of stuff is fresh you get a lot less of "This was asked last week, next time use the search bar" kind of stuff too

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Funny enough, this question is asked every few days it seems.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I do, and it's not for entirely altruistic reasons either.

When I'd open a thread on reddit, if I wasn't there within the first hour of being up or first dozen or so comments, it was almost guaranteed that whatever I said would get buried and the effort I spent formulating my comment would basically be wasted. So there was very little incentive to engage with meaningful discussion just for the sake of discussion. On Lemmy, most posts struggle to get over a hundred comments at most, and even more struggle to get past ten. So, if I spend time developing my reply, I have a higher chance of that comment getting seen and other people in the community engaging with me, which is the entire point of leaving comments, IMO.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Agreed. Comments here are more meaningful for being rare. Even comments disagreeing with OP or replying from a different point of view are often well thought out and meaningful.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Not really, the post quality is low and the commenters are overly assured and aggressive.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I agree. On Lemmy, saying the wrong thing on the wrong community is like stepping on a landmine. The ideological differences are wild. Maybe I just need to get used to this and block the worse communities. It certainly feels very hostile. Especially from leftwing users and communities.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Lemmy feels very different to me as well. People seem more mature, skeptical, genuinely left-leaning, interested in discussion, and the moderation isn't totalitarian. Plus Reddit really seemed like it was controlled by moderators with an agenda. I'm not a flagrant asshole (I think), yet I was banned from a few subreddits for not following seemingly arbitrary rules. For example, I was banned from my city's subreddit for making a post asking a question that wasn't directly about the city, it was more about the state's culture/history. I just wanted to know what my neighbors thought. Apparently someone decided that wasn't what the subreddit was for.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

People seem more mature, skeptical, genuinely left-leaning, interested in discussion, and the moderation isn’t totalitarian.

You've finally found the right echo chamber for you!

Kidding, kidding. But really, I don't find people on Lemmy that much more mature or skeptical than Reddit, and I've had fewer productive discussions (though those have also been rare on Reddit for several years now). It's definitely more left-leaning, though.

Moderation seems more friendly, though, I agree with that.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You want an honest answer?
No. No I don’t.

I comment and share links at about the same rate as I did when I was primarily on Reddit. I’m less interested in Reddit these days and probably split my time 50-50. I’m pissed at what they did and continue to do, and the quality of the content has clearly taken a hit across the broader Reddit community but it’s still SO MUCH BIGGER than the entire fediverse that there is hundreds if not thousands of times the people and content.

I’ve tried to get a couple of groups off the ground, but I’m just not that guy and wasn’t on Reddit either.

I am not commenting on Reddit much anymore tho, due to the aforementioned behavior by Spez et al.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

that's honest.

i miss reddit, too. been 3.5 months since leaving and i used to spend 12 hours or more at a time scrolling and reading. it was like a good friend or partner.

but i really NEVER posted there. and i do here, sometimes.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I certainly do. Most social media algorithms feed you content that it thinks will generate interactions. Lemmy does not do that which results in whatever you decide to post having more meaning because there's no stupid and/or manipulative machine deciding wheter your post is or isn't worth seeing

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

I findyself upvoteing way more on Lemmy than I ever did on Reddit.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

I have read so many thoughtful comments on this thread that made me say to myself "Yes, that. Exactly that's the reason I mostly rarely bothered formulating a comment or opinion on Reddit." The whole atmosphere on Lemmy seems so much more mature, considerate and genuinely interesting to read. I really hope we can maintain this as Lemmy is (hopefully) growing.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Yes, definitely by a huge margin

Partially because I feel like people will actually notice, partially because I feel more a part of a community due to the smaller size and seeing the same people multiple times

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Absolutely! Less trolls, real people with real opinions make for a far more interesting community to be a part of.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (9 children)

A LOT more. It's also in part because I'm not being stalked by Nazis which I was on Reddit, but I feel so much more comfortable talking here in general.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

On R×ddit, I wrote about a scary experience I had and posted, not thinking much of it. Weeks later, someone in a server I frequent sent me a YouTube link and asked "isn't this you??", as they recognized my R×ddit username. It was a video of someone reading out my post and giving it much more exposure than I would have ever wanted.

It spooked me to realize that R×ddit is now just a content farm. Posts will be picked up for videos, news articles, Facebook fodder, etc. Most of that shit is 20000% fake anyhow. What's even the point?

Give me a smaller community any day. The moment people start farming Lemmy for content to read out in their YouTube videos? That's the moment I bow out.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nope, I'm a lurker by nature. Back to my hideyhole I go.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, definitely. I'm more willing to share my honest opinion. For me, the fear of downvotes was real. I also sorted Reddit posts by Hot, and I rarely felt motivated to connect on a post that already had 1000 comments.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Yes and no. Reddit has more niche interest groups that don't exist here.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

I am far more interactive on here. I was almost exclusively a lurker on Reddit.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Way more. There's lots of genuine posts on here and not karma farming bots. Also, my posts in c/lockpicking and c/balisong actually got replies fairly quickly. On reddit, I would've been met with downvotes or people who don't even interact with my posts.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Compared to reddit, yeah, kinda. On reddit it often feels like it's not worth it commenting on a post if it's popular and 14+ hours old. On Lemmy I will see new comments with the default sorting of comments.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I interact less on Lemmy compared to Reddit, mostly because people here seem to be very vocal and polarised, so every time I have a notification in Lemmy I start groaning "oh god what did I say this time?"

But still, Lemmy is the cradle of humankind and wisdom, compared to Instagram and Facebook.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Yes.

I've always disliked the current state of social media, because it always felt like everyone is shouting at each other rather than talking to each other. That's why I like having penpals to writing letters back and forth and shoot the shit on whatever, and I've blamed Facebook and Twitter for killing that.

I lurked reddit anonymously but I don't comment much, because it felt like the only place that you can discuss various topics with random people and learn cool things. But part of it is that slowly, it made me miserable, the hivemind with all the arguing and smugness and unfunny one-liners and most of all, the cynicism.

This place is a bit different I think, I really didn't expect to get as involved as I am, but it kind of brought back that feeling of writing back and forth to random people and having a conversation again.

I've made it a goal to read and write more and talk to more people when I have the time to spare right now.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

not really, I mostly interacted with niche communities on reddit that haven't made the switch

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

No, but I did here for you :)

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Yeah, folks are super reasonable compared to other social media sites, for the most part. The occassional nutter isn't propped up by some PR company bot net to drive engagement so they just end up downvoted into oblivion.

It's refreshing.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

There are fewer people at Lemmy who only exist to blast threads with tired old jokes and memes so there is room for well thought-out comments to get more visibility.

I come here for discussions and so far most of the posts seem to welcome it, leading to more desire to engage.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Less. There's less developed community in my interests. Heck, even the football channels are quiet today.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Not yet! A lot of my interests aren’t as easy to find on Lemmy yet, but I’m definitely on here more than Reddit. I’m not really a community leader type but I can definitely be in the hype squad.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Yes.

Sometimes it's corny or a little bit flamey though, but that actually feels like I'm discussing with real somewhat (we're on Lemmy after all) random people.

100% would discuss again.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

In my decade of using reddit, I very rarely posted and maybe commented a couple times a week. I was a certified lurker. In the months of using lemmy, I became a mod for a community, comment nearly every day, and have far surpassed the number of posts I ever made on Reddit. Lemmy is just a nice place to be, and I like interacting with people here

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I was pretty active on reddit also

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I don't. Not much less either, I don't interact much with social media. Not that I don't want to, but I rarely have anything of worth to contribute. To make matters worse, Lemmy is mostly missing the communities that I'm interested in, of if they're there, they have little engagement. On reddit it was a little better, and Facebook is just insane in comparison.

But mostly I don't have anything to say, and if I do it's mostly stupid. My primary means of helping Lemmy is to not interact (much).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Nah not really. I only ever used reddit and YouTube. I'm not the kind of person for social media. When u/spez had his fit and the subs went on strike I quit reddit, because I don't like to be pushed around and getting screwed by some greedy corpo prick. Also, privacy. I rarely ever post something myself. I mostly write comments. But the amount of commenting is the same here as it was on reddit.

I just heard about LibRedirect, so that's the next step to give less data to Google.

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