I keep seeing the same names popping up. I think it’s rather cute!
That’s generally not a good thing…
That means it’s more likely to be an echo chamber or just bots auto posting…
You want a lot of diversity - within specific groups sure, the same names are fine but across groups that’s a bad sign.
It’ll largely be an echo chamber regardless of size. The fediverse tends to lean into tech, and is very left wing. If you don’t fit the bill, you are either driven off, de-federated with, or realize the content posted here isn’t what you’re looking for, and you leave.
I don’t mind the small knit community, as I agree with most stuff, but this simply isn’t a place you can host competing ideas, or at least not feasibly. This isn’t a place for open discussion. You get down voted for your opinion, even if it is a shitty one. This isn’t the fediverse I want to see. I want to see people upvoted for their opinion, and enticed to engage with whatever discourse is present, regardless of views. Downvotes should be reserved for trolls, bots, and fascists. Everyone else should be welcome.
Is there somewhere online where you can have an “open discussion”? I’ve been struck a few times by how some ideas (even presented in a balanced way) just get downvoted hard.
why are “echo chambers” considered bad? i come to communities to chill and chat with like-minded people; not to argue and get into fights.
Well the simple reason is you can get stuck in certain world views or ideas which are wrong and hurt others.
In most cases you’re fine, like talking about your favourite TV shows or whatever. But it’s also easy to get stuck in a view like visiting your country’s instance and it turns out it’s a bit radicalised against immigrants, or certain places where you end up blaming everything on women and the “woke movement”.
In a lesser way it can get you stuck in toxic ideas (e.g., PC/Playstation/Windows/Xbox/Linux is better than the other one and you are dumb if you disagree!).
Just depends on the community at end of day, but the more echoey chamber it is, the more likely you’ll end up with those sorts of us VS them world views that are a bit blind and horribly biased.
But it’s also easy to get stuck in a view like visiting your country’s instance and it turns out it’s a bit radicalised against immigrants, or certain places where you end up blaming everything on women and the “woke movement”.
Hopefully there would be another community for the same country with other perspectives, and visiting both would allow to avoid the echo chamber effect
hey everybody! i’m masterblaster! i make modules for D&D and play in a blues band! remember, kill all conservatives for the future of humanity!
If you’re trying to turn that into a catchphrase I suggest replacing “kill” with “blast” for better branding.
I never your your names and I don’t care.
The only names I recognize are @mac@programming.dev and @ategon@programming.dev and @jeena@jemmy.jeena.net .
Most names I don’t even look at for longer than a few seconds. If there were a mode where usernames were hidden, it wouldn’t make much of a difference to me.
Is that a user? What is that?
I don’t recognize your name but I do remember that you have a CC license as your comment signature.
Ah yeah, that does stand out.
Yup, it’s fun. And im happily blocking all the tankies in between the great people. Account name like StalinSomethingSomething… nope.
Yes but the glorification of the authoritarian all stars is so sad.
The premise is “the west” is evil and anyone opposed to that is a hero and can do no wrong. No matter that these heroes and their actions usually conflict with all other ideals they claim to have.
Or you know… It could be that your impression is colored by ignorance on some of these issues, leading to false assumptions about what other people think.
According to one of the latest kurzgesagt videos we all should be in smaller communities like this and large ones like Facebook and Reddit are generally bad for our mental health.
I wish kurzgesagt joined the fediverse. They are quite big (21M followers). Being able to watch them here without going to youtube would be a nice step in the right direction.
Well a few months after leaving reddit I do feel a lot better in general so I’m not surprised.
I go back occasionally to check for something or just to see what things are like. I dunno if it’s just gotten insanely more toxic since July or if it’s just been that way for a long time but oh my god. Every comment section is just angry and bitter and hateful. I was looking at a post yesterday and thought it was cute and interesting so I open the comments. Every single one of them were either saying it was fake, that it was stupid, that it was cringey, that it didn’t make sense, etc. It’s like no one has an ounce of positivity on that site.
They banned those of us who were challenging the bitterness and hate. Whenever I’d argue against bitterness, they’d call me a bootlicker, and within a couple of comments, a nazi.
Eventually, I got banned from reddit for being a nazi.
So now that their “hey maybe stop being so bitter and take responsibility” nazis are all gone, they’ve concentrated themselves into an echo chamber based on resentment.
I dunno if it’s just gotten insanely more toxic since July or if it’s just been that way for a long time but oh my god.
I feel like it’s a mix of both: the community there became bitter, more aggressive and more assumptive, while we (people who migrated out) got less used to how things work there.
It’s really a mix of both. More heavily the way the site has been for years because people love drama more than anything else. If you want the sweet serotonin of karma, you’ve gotta be simultaneously the funniest, meanest, and most jaded person in the room, and everyone is jockeying for that position.
It just breeds assholes by design. I’ve noticed my own behavior has changed, too, since leaving that place, although partially that’s because I just didn’t want to be like that anymore.
But it really has been noticeably affected since the protests. I was originally trying to stay for one single sub I was in, because they were the kindest, calmest community I’d met since back when forums were a thing.
Just the best group, for reasons none of us really understood and some of us kept trying to find psychological commonalities to explain. Truly 98% of them were people I’d chill with irl and I still know a few on discord. And also here. If you’re reading this, hello!
But the migration away was enough to completely alter the atmosphere imo. A lot of the more conscientious users left for other pastures, leaving behind those that were more neutral or even openly hostile about the protests.
There began to be fights and insults thrown where before this, any aggression had been unusual. The posts took a turn that reflected that feeling and I really stopped bothering with the place after a few months. I’m still a bit sad about it and there are things that I miss, but there just wasn’t enough to hold me anymore. It seemed to increasingly echo every other part of the site.
For the moment, this place is quieter but better. We still get dumb shit every now and then, but it’s not to the same degree and hopefully never will be. As above, I blame the demographic. We’ve grouped all the people with stubborn morals into a little room and it turns out they have things in common. I do miss a couple people I used to see everywhere all the time when kbin first ramped up, but we run in different circles and they’ve gotten lost in the crowd.
And yes, btw, I am also going to name you one of my favorite users to see around. You seem as kind as you are prolific.
That makes sense. I know that when I was active on reddit I was way snarkier. Still comes out occasionally but it was just a lot more common. I do remember having to specifically limit myself when I first started posting to not get bitchy towards people for no reason. Kind of disappointed in myself there. I’m glad that’s at least paid off in people think I’m kind. I’m really not but I appreciate the compliment <3
Those protests really did demonstrate just how bad things had gotten. I don’t think I remember anyone ever casually discussing what was going on. I remember commenting once saying how the Spez was a mod of Jailbait thing is overblown because anyone could be added as a mod at that time without them having to accept it, much like how Lemmy currently works. I was added as mod to /c/Gay in the same fashion. Someone just added him and he didnt realize. Downvoted to high heaven because it wasn’t pure bashing of him. There are so many things to hate about Spez and that situation but I’m gonna stick to ones that have some weight.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/fuFlMtZmvY0?si=5Wd0-_6Z1pNUuQZR
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I don’t know about that. I feel like being a big fish in a small pond puts the spotlight on you more, leading to caring a lot more about whether or not your contributions are received well. And when you don’t follow the zeitgeist of the small community lock-step, that can cause lots of anxiety and lead to more mental health problems.
