Hi! In thinking about how to help the fediverse grow, I wonder if there are more mainstream Lemmy instances?
I’ve pointed a couple folks to Lemmy.world and it’s uhhh, pretty hard Left for them (as one girl, who volunteered for the Democrats said “I just got yelled at because I can’t be Left wing unless I want to destroy capitalism? Which feels weird.”) We’re much farther Left than reddit which itself was definitely Left of centre…
I don’t know if decentralized open source social media actually attracts many mainstreamers but assuming we want to grow the fediverse, I’d like to have somewhere I can point people to without feeling very nervous for them.
Thanks!
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Although I’d agree that lemmygrad, lemmy.ml, and hexbear are far-left, with only one specifically right-wing instance that I can think of, I don’t think that most of the remaining Lemmy users on lemmy.world, lemmy.dbzer0.com, lemm.ee, beehaw.org, or any of the other big Lemmy instances are particularly extreme in their views.
On average, Lemmy users do seem to be more left-wing than right-wing, probably due to right-wing Redditors being less likely to mind Reddit’s monetization of its userbase, and more likely to mind Lemmy’s far-left instances.
While I don’t think Lemmy should encourage far-right users to join, given that racism and bigotry degrade any platform that allows such speech, I do think that those on the right who are not extreme and are capable of having thoughts independent of the MAGA cult should be welcomed on any instance, given that echo chambers only serve to propagate existing views, rather than foster discussion.
The key part in joining any instance are the instances that either block it or are blocked by it, so perhaps one that blocks lemmygrad, lemmy.ml, and hexbear by default, while minimizing the number of instances that in turn block it, would be optimal to have access to as many communities as possible.
Here’s a list of Lemmy instances by number of instances blocked and blocking, for reference. Seems to not be quite up-to-date, and can’t find the instance I’m on on the list, but it should still be somewhat helpful for comparing. Personally, I prefer being on an instance with as few blocks as possible (implementing those blocks instead on a user level as a means of curating my all feed), since the Lemmy community is already small enough as it is, but new users might not want to have to configure those blocks themselves.
I appreciate the well thought response. I habe quibbles but overall agree with you.
Why not just join non-political communities and focus on the content that they enjoy. If people are nervous about meeting assholes on the internet perhaps they should stick to cable tv or netflix.
The fediverse needs a non-political, non-US instance that blocks political communities from other servers. Otherwise people who don’t want politics have to spend time curating their experience and can never actually escape it, because some douche will start spouting “OMG LOOK AT THIS POLITICIAN!” in communities about superb owls or something.
Something like that! This seems like a solveable problem…
Can an instance block individual communities? I would think if users just don’t subscribe to the political and then set the feed view to subscribed that should sort it out for them.
Yes. I don’t remember which instance did this but I remember I encountered it some time ago.
You can host your own Mbin instance.
Lemmy world is probably the most centerist instance that hasn’t been defederated. Lemm.ee are sh.it.just.works are probably good replacements if she thinks it is just to far left wing but it’s probably that she is seeing .ml or one of the other various socialist instances.
She will need to utilize her block list to block tankie users and communities if she doesn’t want to see them. A lot of entrenched users are here because they realized that mainstream platforms were enshittified a lot earlier because they of their anti capitalist views
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You’re going to get yelled at by lefties on any instance. That’s how federation works.
Well_theres-your-problem.gif
I guess… Well, I have trouble seeing the fediverse expand that far then. Which is fine but there have been a lot of pleas to make this a viable alternative to corpo social media.
The key is finding the communities you like and blocking the others, and users, that you dont.
There’s an up-front time-cost but it’s easy to adjust and makes for a great experience.
Some instances have blocked the furtherist-left instances and banned the most abrasive users from those that remain. It’s not at all how jeffw described.
I don’t think it helps that politics absolutely dominates Lemmy, where Reddit has enough diverse subreddits that you could probably just avoid politics all together.
It’s much harder to get away from it here. But hopefully, as Lemmy grows then we start to see more and more users in the non political communities and people can have a laugh without people jumping down their throats. People just need to stick to it and give it a good go and help build something great.
It’s a circling the drain problem. Even though Lemmy is (slowly) expanding.
Lemmy doesn’t have the raw numbers userbase to just have anyone come in, and find a niche topic with an active community.
But because any average user can’t come in and just find their niche community, they don’t stay.
Meanwhile politics HAS active communities. So politics grow. And thats where Lemmy is growing.
But I can’t find a community for “How I met your mother”. A tv show that concluded like 10 years ago. But the show takes place in the future, recounting stories from “the past”. Which means, in real life, Tracy, the mother who Ted is talking about, died in 2024. The story is being told in 2036. But the show aired in real time during “the past”. Which means if Ted is talking about April 2008, that episode aired in April 2008. But the whole
98 seasons (real fans don’t count the 9th season that never happened) is being told in one afternoon in 2036. Which means we could be talking about the last ciggerrette of each character as they happen in real time. I think the next one is in 2028.Instead…we talk about trump here…and seemingly nothing else. Ever.
I’d like !clevelandguardians@fanaticus.social and /c/Cleveland to grow so we can talk about eyebrows and how great Jose Rameriez is.
An idea would be to allow “plug-in able” content sorting algorithms or content filters.
I hear so many stories of people slapping tons of filters in their clients (block all comments from ml users, block “Elon” and/or “Trump” keywords)… I think tons of people are running almost identical filters. Why not bake right into the Lemmy core the ability to pull filter sets from say, a public got repo?
Same with sorting. I’d love to have a “hot” algorithms that “punishes” posts based on comment sentiment analysis. Again, let me choose my sorting algorithm from a git repo. Let some person or persons develop a “good vibes” algorithm which keeps toxity off the top of my feed.
IMO, this is the way. Sorting by engagement has obvious issues. Introducing other weights to augment a system would make a huge difference in user experience.
You can’t change the people. Look at this comment section. OP said they don’t want to be yelled at and everyone took that cue to give a lecture. Completely no self awareness. Can’t change that.
But you can improve the algorithm. And IMO if you could crowdsource that dev in a way that doesn’t impose on mainline development.
Yeah, I like all these ideas. I wondered about some sort of pooled “ban/ignore” options at the individual level. So, rather than ignoring by an instance, if I trust that Janet has good tastes and filters out children and trump, maybe I can just have an ongoing list that draws from her blocks and vice versa if she feels similar.
Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. I really like the idea of people with likewise sensibilities being able to act as their own cross-community mod team, without impacting other groups with different sensibilities.
That’s the thing though American politics get discussed here. With their perceptions of left and right.
Last season was great. It was only the finale that sucked…
(and, yes, if you want a HIMYM community, just let me know and I can make it on https://metacritics.zone/)
I mean, yeah, go ahead and make it. But based on my quick look of your instance, none of the communities are active. That’s the part we need to work on for ALL your instance.
Yeah, and this is the part where Fediverser was supposed to help. Not just with the mirrors to help bootstrap the content, but also with the whole part of Community Ambassadors. Sadly, no one got into the ambassador part.
I don’t think it helps that politics absolutely dominates Lemmy, where Reddit has enough diverse subreddits that you could probably just avoid politics all together.
I think that’s the problem with all “alternative” social media… both ones that I like and stand behind like lemmy… and the opposite end, the Parlors, MeWe’s, Truth Social etc…
The point is… mainstream people talking about shows, video games etc… rarely hit any kind of limitations in the public spaces. I myself still go on reddit to see communities of specific shows, games etc… and… it’s fine for that. If I were to try and make the suggestion for a show or movie subreddit to move to lemmy, it would be a tough case.
The ones who see the flaws and limits of the corporate platform… are the ones either teetering at the edge of socially acceptable, or over it.
Whether that’s say us lefties that believe All Cops are Bastards, or right wing guys that think america was better in Jim Crow era. Bottom line is… people looking for alternatives, are doing so because the existing platforms are likely to censor them… which means the alternatives will be disproportionately more extreme.
Speak for yourself.
There were a lot of people that looked for a Reddit alternative not because of particularly strong feelings politically or towards corporations in general but instead because Reddit broke their main method of interacting with Reddit (third party mobile apps) while simultaneously completely breaking the moderator tools to quell the shitstorm and maintain quality discussion.
I left Reddit because I saw it going further to shit faster than it ever had before, and they communicated loud and clear that they didn’t want users like me that cared about having control and options over how we interacted with the site.
None of my accounts there ever had a single comment removed by a mod, although I had been preemptively banned from multiple subs due to posting in others.
Well yeah I wasn’t saying all of them are. I was saying a disproportionate amount of them. IE say anti-capitalist views that are 1 in 1000 on facebook, are 1 in 50 on reddit, and 2 of 5 on lemmy.
Yeah, please don’t give up. I need more people like you here.
Yep, I got an absolute novel length comment from some far left .ml person as one of my first interactions on Lemmy.
I got told to go back to reddit on my very first comment. 🤣
Ouch.
Is your username a reference to this song by the way? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4LWIP7SAjY
Not really, ‘murmel’ means ‘marmot’ in Swedish but it’s often taken already so I’ve just evolved it into a marmalade-pun
Leftists famously hate other leftists
Beehaw probably
Beehaw is definitely quite left but it’s more polite so maybe that would be better for normies that are willing to follow strict rules over there.
Fediverse is anticapitalism at its core, it’s a way to escape ads and money influencing algorithims and what can be said. If you don’t like power to the people, join truth.social or some other unfederated instance.
Lemmy.world is too left?. It always looked normal to me. Although, I do want the total annihilation of capitalism, so…
Normally big instances are the most generalistic and less “politically biased”, but sometimes a more small and focused instance could be better for the things you want.
It’s… Fine for me, I’m learning to just eye roll and move on but it can sometimes be fairly u pleasant and aggressively Left. (I think I got called a fascist for pointing out problems with PR electoral systems with a “how dare you oppose a system that…”
Too bad that’s your experience. Yes it is true that some comrades can get “intense” at times. I think that, more than the ideas, it is how to express them that is at fault by their part.
Wouldn’t really make much of a difference in what server you choose, if the goal is to get “away” from Lemmy.world. The majority of users is from there.
Maybe it’s not the server, but more the community that’s an issue for you?
I find mbin at https://fedia.io/ to be just… everything…
I can’t be Left wing unless I want to destroy capitalism?
Yes. Yes indeed you can’t. How to go about that is up for grabs but if you think that leftism is all about preserving the system that allows oligarchs to accumulate more capital and power, to allow a minority to exploit the majority, I don’t know what to tell you.
…besides that you’re probably American because only y’all are so damn confused about the whole topic.
Roughly speaking, Lemm.ee is more libertarian some libright. Slrpnk is libleft but is home to pleasant politics community. Dbzer0 is anarchy leftist. World is closest to US centrist. Lemmy.ca is kind of Reddit’s onguardforthee vibe, Left/NDP wing.
Thing is that influences from other more ideological instances will make it onto All threads. “Lib-shaming” is something some folks at lemmy.ml, hexbear.net and lemmygrad.ml like to do frequently, which is where those experiences might have come from.
Lib shaming is for good reason as the US and most of the western world falls to fascism thanks to libs creating the material conditions for it.
I have to say it again:
- Fascists promise to do fascist things
- Americans elect fascists
- Fascists do fascist things
- HOW COULD DEMOCRATS DO THIS???
It’s a bit more like:
-
Capitalism creates the material conditions that promote fashism
-
Democrates aren’t fashists, but they keep capitalism
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The material conditions that promote fashism end up happening and fashism props up
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Fashists end up getting elected
The point isn’t that the Democrats are fashists, but that they would rather continue support the thing that litterally empowers fashism rather than doing anything else. Kinda like a person who refuses to get vaccinated and spreads a disease to everyone else.
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And I have to say it again: libs created the material conditions to let it happen. Obama bailed out Wall Street instead of Main Street. People aren’t born fascist. They become it. Twice Obama voters switching to trump is great example of that and as usual democrats say nuh uh im not listening!!!
So you’re mad at Democrats for not being fascist enough?
What an idiotic take. Millions of people lost their homes in 2008 and watched those responsible walk away with millions of dollars in golden parachutes thanks to Obama lining his cabinet with Goldman Sachs bros and holding no one responsible. The “tea party” that formed is trumps base today.
Jesus Christ read a fucking book.
Whatever you need to think to excuse fascists for being fascists, I guess.
You’re way too fucking stupid for this. Complete lack of intellectual ability. Fascism doesn’t exist in a vacuum and as a typical liberal you take the lazy route and refuse to see how democrats played a massive part in allowing fascism to flourish by being failed leaders, just like the Weimar Republic.
Open a goddamn history book for fucks sake. Your ignorance threatens my queer existence.
This is some incel logic.
“Women won’t date me so I’ll call them bitches and sluts!”
“People don’t vote for my side so I’ll say they’re enabling fascism!”
Typical lemmy.world user right there.
I’m a queer woman.
And the logic you’re using is very similar to an incel.
That’s literally how analogies work, you compare similarities in unlike things, e.g., my cat snores like a chainsaw. She is not a chainsaw but has a comical similarity in one aspect, even if she can’t cut down a tree and does not use gas or electricity.
“People don’t vote for my side so I’ll say they’re enabling fascism!”
iconic, I’ve been repeatedly told by liberals that because I voted third party that I’m essentially a trump voter.
that wasn’t what was said though.
they said that liberals created the material conditions for fascism. i.e. by suppressing the left and only offering up warmongering and genocide they created a situation where someone like trump could get elected. again.
a fair number of the people who are on this platform are here specifically because oligarch-owned media sites heavily censor all left wing speech, and have done so for many years.
Lib shaming is for good reason as the US and most of the western world falls to fascism thanks to libs creating the material conditions for it.
Presumably, there was an alternative group to vote for in primaries or however else this delightful person thinks change should happen. People did not do whatever they think should have happened and thus I will name call them.
There was a primary this time around and it was even more of a farce than usual. The party just straight up ignored all the people voting uncommitted, to all of our detriment.
People did not do whatever they think should have happened and thus I will name call them.
I don’t actually understand what this is saying.
Either way this isn’t the place for a back and forth on this kind of thing, so I won’t be discussing the election further.
To steer back to your original topic though, you seem accustomed to the type of censorship of the left that’s typical on Reddit. Many of the people that are here are specifically here because the left wing communities they were participating in were systematically removed from reddit.
The reality is in a place like this sometimes you’re going to hear dissenting opinions, unless you’re very selective in your instance and only browse local.
a fair number of the people who are on this platform are here specifically because oligarch-owned media sites heavily censor all left wing speech, and have done so for many years.
I got banned from every platform, and my account on lemmy.world was also banned.
Capitalist owned platforms support fascists and ban anti capitalists, anti fascists, anti imperialists. We’re a threat to power and profit. Look at all the capitalists lining up to suck trumps mushroom cock right now. They’ll do whatever it takes to make a buck, whores are more honest than them.
I got banned from every platform, and my account on lemmy.world was also banned.
Gee, from your comments on this post I could never imagine how that could happen.
If everywhere you go people smell like shit, maybe you should check your shoes.
I’d strongly suggest that the issue isn’t your beliefs, but that you’re about as abrasive as kissing the pavement at 75mph.
Typical liberal tone policing while lives are at stake.
Everything I don’t like is Liberal: A Guide to Modern Lemmy Discourse
More seriously, lives are not at stake in this particular comment section.
Edit: and I never told you to stop, just that it’s abrasive as shit and likely why you’re being banned so damn much. Do with it what you will. I’m not your parents, the police, or your boss.
(as one girl, who volunteered for the Democrats said “I just got yelled at because I can’t be Left wing unless I want to destroy capitalism? Which feels weird.”)
I get why folks do it, but I’m not sure if they’re going to get people to embrace their philosophy, if they keep jeering at other people like this. There are more cordial ways that one can acknowledge the benefits while showing why the drawbacks outweigh them.
Queer people like myself are currently in the crosshairs and don’t have the energy or patience to put up with this shit.
I’ve been screaming from the top of my lungs since 2000!!! about how we were heading towards fascism and nobody listened. I’m out of fucks to give. If they’re too stupid to see it that’s on them. In my book lib shit behavior is complicit in the rise of fascism.
Then maybe don’t waste energy being shitty online and instead build the local community and personal resources to protect your ass.
If I was in your situation looking at the changes Trump did in just the executive orders his first day, I can tell you one thing that would be at the absolute fucking bottom of my todo list: argue on the fucking internet.
I’m currently extremely ill and bedridden with a painful and dangerous dental infection that I’m struggling to get adequate treatment for thanks to capitalism.
But yeah, do tell me how to live my life. Typical liberal scolding.
Also I LOVE the assumption that I don’t normally make community when I’m well. 🙄
While I do think some ways of communicating are certainly more effective than others, social change also requires some amount of tension to be effective. Cordial methods are often the first to be tried, and are also most often summarily ignored.
Moderates often find tension emotionally distressing because it pierces their perception of themselves as a morally just person. They sometimes perceive what is often valid criticism as being yelled at. This tension is required in order to enact social change, though.
As someone who has been on the receiving end of that tension before, I can attest it’s an unpleasant experience, but it passes, and hopefully leaves room for some amount of contemplation in its place.
I’d highly recommend reading MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, as he bridges the concept much more eloquently than I could ever hope to.
Can vouch for this. I learned a thing or two from people who had the patience to explain. Including some ML people. @Cowbee@lemmy.ml for example has nerves of steel. Permanent snark isn’t useful but it’s understandable, especially coming from people who are being actively harmed. Repeating the same things over and over without frustration isn’t something everyone can do.
Appreciate the kind words! You’re 100% correct in saying that snark isn’t useful but is understandable. Many good people are being actively harmed and are out of patience in explaining how and why said harm exists, and how we can move beyond it. That isn’t even mentioning the outright hostility many Leftists face in general, on a daily basis. Ultimately, what I’ve found is that most people aren’t going to be convinced of something that seriously challenges their worldview in a single conversation, but through compatible life experiences make themselves more open to new ideas. Those are the ones that end up listening to others genuinely and taking to heart what the other person has to say.
Please, Slrpnk may by attractive for different kind of people due to aesthetic and design buy its core philosophy is not Lib, is Anarchy.
i think the content and the ‘home base instance’ can be completely separate. its all about what they would choose to subscribe to.
theoretically you could be on lemmy.world and not subscribe to or access any of its local content. conversely, an ‘onramp’ instance might not have much of any local content but have access to hundreds of remote instances. (mine for example)
it can be kind of confusing for new users.
I mean, if you don’t want to dismantle capitalism, I’m not sure I want you around, anyway.
And you shouldn’t feel “nervous”. If someone is unable to defend themselves against ideals they don’t subscribe to, they should work on their defense instead of running to an echo chamber. Debate us s crucial part of human nature.
if you don’t want to dismantle capitalism, I’m not sure I want you around, anyway.
[…]
they should work on their defense instead of running to an echo chamber.
Ahahaha, hadn’t even noticed that!
Not everyone wants to spend social media arguing with people. We have things to do. It’s not a particularly pleasant environment sometimes abd believe it or not, that bothers people.
Then go find one where you don’t interact with anyone. Interaction is discourse and discourse is the “social” in social media… Not everyone is going to share the same viewpoint, and you can either avoid them and build your wall, or you can have a discussion.
Most people are groovy and pleasant to interact with.
You should try it, it’s nice!
Most people voted for Trump.
