“Sometimes there’s a man… I won’t say a “hero,” because what’s a hero? But sometimes there’s a man who… well, he’s the man for his time and place!” – Sam Elliot (the Stranger) from the glorious The Big Lebowski
You know that classic quote about standing on the shoulders of giants (and pioneers)? Honestly, in so many ways, that’s how I truly feel about the good ol’ Fediverse.
So, to sum up-- who are YOUR heroes here, and what does keep you hanging on here, baby…?
EDIT: For people wondering about what kinds of ‘bumps & difficulties’ I’ve personally experienced, here’s a tiny sampler:
The fediverse is a “work in progress”, and that is fine. All the other social media sites are a “collapse in progress”.
It is much more fun to be on a small and growing platform, than on a big and dying platform.
The vibe is a lot like “the old internet”. Sure, you don’t get a lot of responses most of the time, but those you do get are genuine and in good faith.
On reddit you can post the most innocuous thing and be met with ridicule or disdain. Most of the posts I made were commented on in a negative way. Even harmless things like “I found this funny product at the supermarket” in the appropriate subreddit was met with insults and a bunch of negative comments. Asking for advice on a popular advice subreddit got me a bunch of insults.
Here I have few answers, but those are genuine ones and so far they’ve been in good faith, no unprovoked insults, no sifting through someone’s history to insult them based on a post from 3 years ago.
On reddit, you can post the most innocuous thing and be met with ridicule or disdain…
Yeah, I hear you on that one.
Overall, I find Reddit to be a fairly well-informed, left-leaning (which in any other 1st world country would simply be ‘average centrist’) base, but the place is indeed also chock-full of dude-bros who form kind of a vast, ‘mean-girls’ clique IMO. And they like nothing better than to punish people (or in their juvenile words “shit on”) others for not conforming and communicating in modern ‘Reddit-speak.’
So, all-in-all something of a fascinating psychological study in to how people self-guide in to becoming deliberate weirdos, haha. Anyway, yeah, sorry to hear you had to deal with all that toxicity, as a newcomer. :/
Absolutely. Reddit just gets so nasty. Lord knows WHY people feel the urge to siftthrough someone’s history and bitch them out but they do and they’re cruel. The sheer size of reddit gives them anonyminity but also reddit don’t do much about it.
I like how personal it is here, people kinda know each other and it is like the olden days. It’s a good community and you get friendly, genuine comments with far fewer bad apples. I’m really happy here
Expanding on this, because you have said almost the same I was thinking, I feel AI slop and bots aren’t really a thing here, or they are easy to filter.
I’m banned from Reddit, but still want a similar fix like a drug addict.
But this drug is less toxic and only available in limited doses
Bingo. When I start seeing the same content I know it’s time to log out.
Haha, gotta admit it’s a very successful format (and drug) in that way. Vastly more effective and useful than most others, IMO.
My heroes? The instance operators and good mods, of course, along with everyone who contributes material.
Plus there’s more community when dealing with issues, such as problem instances and users. The fediverse doesn’t have the “old internet” feel, it’s still more restrained than that thanks to instance owners probably not wanting to host a lot of darker material thanks to the instances being under private ownership, but it feels more free than a place like reddit.
I’m not here despite what it is, I’m here because of what it is.
I can do no better than to second this sentiment.
I’d love to third it, but it would start to look like a reddit thread
This
Love
was going to write something but this sums up what I wanted to say better than I could say it. I also quite like it as it is. It can stay like this forever for my tastes. I don’t want it improved to the level that im seeking something else.
My goal was to use something other than TikTok, facebook, etc… Even with all its glitches and quirks, the FV has proven to be a great replacement for those corporate apps.
No billionaire owners and algorithms.
I can interact with actual people and not get swarmed with ads and botted traffic.
easier ability block right wing astroturfing, or shilling from politics.
And how do you do that on lemmy? I use the voyager client because it offers good filter options. But is mostly designed for mobile devices and not desktops. So if you know of a good way to filter out right wing crud then please tell me.
theres a block option in the settings you can block the instances or communities, from single users, i just block that account.
The shilling and foreign interference on reddit really scares me.
because of what it’s not
Because fuck Reddit
It mostly works well.
Plenty of good and garbage content. I want both.
I don’t get the feeling there is a “motive” behind what I see when I am browsing content. It feels organic, like the old internet.
All social platforms get worse all around us. Fedi isn’t perfect or drama-free but around here every third post isn’t a targeted ad that knows too much about me trying to make me feel guilty or inadequate.
Plus, we’re not being monetized and our content exploited, as with all the commercial social media platforms.
This! And good content is not being washed away by clickbait
The worst aspects of the fediverse are really just the worst aspects of people rather than the worst aspects of people plus the worst effects of profit motives that you find on corporate social media. Also folks are really inclined to try to shun bad behavior rather than reward it with engagement that can directly lead to money for the poster
I don’t find that commercial social services are free of bumps and difficulties; they’re just different bumps and difficulties. They variously want me to:
- Log in to view this content
- Complete a captcha to view this content
- LOOK AT THIS AD
- Look at this other thing instead of reading through the rest of the comments on the post I opened
- Look at this other content instead of the people I chose to follow
- Consent to 237 different forms of tracking
- Pay for a premium account
- Don’t post anything too spicy for the advertisers
- Install an app
And people think picking a server to sign up or using an unpolished UI is a hassle? It’s a small price to pay to avoid that load of crap.
I use Lemmy and Mastodon because independent services that interoperate are how I want the internet to work. I still use some of the big commercial services because people or communities I value are there. It’s not all-or-nothing.
And people think picking a server to sign up or using an unpolished UI is a hassle? It’s a small price to pay to avoid that load of crap.
Strong disagree. I find that the learning curve is far bigger, more complex, yet also more subtle getting the ‘full FV experience’ than on Reddit. And I know a little something about that, having used my ~10yr experience there to create this WIP guide. Because most features or tips there are either still not available on the FV, or usually more complicated here.
Also, I’ve had a litany of issues using the FV, very briefly alluded to here:
https://piefed.social/post/1431056#comment_8685458But the FV is the real future IMO, so I keep on keeping on, as well as keep generating 95% of the content for my community here.
The comment you linked to says
For example, last time I checked, the top four FV software bases still don’t connect to the Lemmy / PieFed / etc side of things. Mastodon is just beginning to rudimentarily connect to PF, but IIRC Lemmy still doesn’t.
and I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Lemmy and Piefed obviously interoperate; you’re posting to [email protected] from a Piefed account right now. It’s a rougher experience trying to interact with forum-like software using blog-like software, but someone wanting that should probably just use two accounts.
“Not sure what I’m talking about?” Really?
So, according to the “Fediverse-Observer” (and similar services AFAIK), in terms of software, sorting by user-count, it seems the top four user-bases are:
- Mastodon: 9.4mil
- MissKey: 3.2mil
- nodeBB: 2.5mil
- Lemmy: 1.2mil
Now ask yourself how many of those (plus others) are STILL largely unconnected in terms of the FV. See my point now…?
Nevermind. But, dude-- just because I started this thread up and made some vanilla, non-controversial statements, with no intention of specifically putting anyone down here, does not mean that I have any automagic responsibility to do others’ homework for them, as in your case, evidently.
And, dude-- I’ve already offered something like 2doz personal replies here to the many, many comments and queries, upon this thread. Still, if you like, I suppose I could create a sort of an ‘extra-guide adjunct’ for people who clearly slacked on their homework, and for some reason want ME to make up for that.
Cool…?
So, according to the “Fediverse-Observer” (and similar services AFAIK), in terms of software, sorting by user-count, it seems the top four user-bases are
Not relevant to the comment where you posted the following to a Lemmy community from Piefed:
Mastodon is just beginning to rudimentarily connect to PF, but IIRC Lemmy still doesn’t.
Which looks to me like you’re saying “Lemmy still doesn’t connect to Piefed”, but reading it three more times I guess it’s possible you meant “Lemmy still doesn’t connect to Mastodon”.
If you meant the latter, then I do have some idea what you’re talking about. It actually is possible to interact with one from the other with the constraint that Lemmy can only see Mastodon posts that tag communities. It’s not a smooth experience at all to try to consume community-based content from Mastodon.
Wow… congratulations on representing EXACTLY the kind of weirdness and negativity I was alluding to, above. So have fun with that, mate! And I do hope others come to appreciate your particular sense of ‘you-ness.’
Good bye.
Interactions feel genuine. I like talking to people here.
Can confirm. I am a human and I love human things such as… um… breathing air, and um…
It is a great day to be a human, fellow human!
I humbly confess I never watched that show
At first I also refused to watch since its animated and I thought it was childish, but then I learned that there are like a lot of dirty stuff and supposedly for adults, so, given how popular it became, I just had to watch it.
And its worth it. Yes, its weird af and I always feel so confused and something things just makes zero sense, but some stories are interesting. Never really got bored of any of it (although some episodes aren’t really that great for a re-watch imo).
one of those things that’s quite funny and high production value but the fandom is largely obnoxious and some of the creators are jerks
it’s also not everyone’s style of humor. give it a shot sometime and see if it resonates though!
It can be brilliant, and I find it rare that it’s any less than very good. It plays with scifi tropes (any and all tropes really), is very self-aware… I am sure it stands to be criticized, but I personally love the show. Apart from season 5, of course
I love that with shows anymore there’s always a pariah season, lol. Maybe I’ll catch it on tv one day.
