The constant spam of murica politics, linux evangelists and the lack of niche communities have almost made me stop using lemmy. Almost because there just isn't any alternatives.
this post was submitted on 22 May 2024
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Fedigrow
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To discuss how to grow and manage communities / magazines on Lemmy, Mbin, Piefed and Sublinks
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I blocked those two topics a while ago. Feed has improved
There is also a problem with feddit.de for a couple of months now, one of the bigger instances on the fediverse. People are leaving, some are opening accounts on other servers. That didn't help at all...
They posted today on !dach@feddit.de that they were organizing to retake this.
I wish them good luck, and I hope they succeeded. Feddit.UK was also there a few months ago, hopefully people like @Emperor@feddit.uk took over
Overall since November, its been trending upwards. Given the big spike in March, I think its only natural some people realize they didn't want to be here in the couple months that follow.
Also there's bit of a controversial topic lately that has made a certain demographic feel like this place is about as unwelcoming to them as much of the internet.
I think the extremist politics on here drive people away. I don't even tell anyone I use Lemmy because of that.
Hexbear is obviously the worst, but Lemmy.ml is also openly spreading propaganda.
Not just the politics, but the news threads I feel have degenerated into ragebait topics with shallow conversation. I used to find a conversation or 2 a day to participate in, but now I don't want to touch many news or politics threads.
Not just spreading propaganda, actively censoring anything critical of their Chinese overlords as well.
Yeah, it's a malicious instance that shouldn't be federated.
I see where you come from, my usual advice to new joiners is to block hexbear and to avoid news and political communities
It's hard... when a user blocks an instance, the propaganda still shows up when the offending users comment on other instances.
Does it? I thought it muted every user of that instance
A mute is not the same as an outright block.
Muting effectively just means you don't see the instances posts, but you can see the users comments if they are federated with your instance. For example, I have kbin blocked, but I can still interact with kbin users - when they reply to my comments or posts, which they can still do, I simply just don't get a notification for it.
Dessalines doesn't care about stuff like this. Beehaw has been asking for proper moderation tools forever and effectively just told to get fucked every time.
Beehaw is still using version 0.18.4 which will soon celebrate its first birthday. We made countless moderation improvements since then, but of course Beehaw won't get those if they refuse to upgrade.
This is pretty much my beef with Lemmy.
The fact that the development team is also the ownership and administration of the instance spreading propaganda is just absolutely insane to me.
Vote logs just show them supporting the extremist behavior.
We could stop implying that everyone who uses Windows is a moron...
But then how would I get my kicks in the morning?
(I use random.choice(linux_distros) btw)
Why does it seem like this function always returns Arch?
Wait until reddit shoots itself in the foot some more.
The Valve strategy.
The problem is that the average user on Reddit doesn't give a fuck about the ways the platform is shooting itself in the foot, because it's still functional, has a critical mass of users, and is still the de facto online global discussion forum.
Lemmy doesn't serve the function well enough because there are not enough of a variety of users driving niche topics. It's the same dozen topics I see every day. Star Trek memes, Linux discourse, data breach reports, stupid bullshit about Musk, incredibly biased political content and straight up propaganda; it gets extremely tiring to see the same stuff over and over knowing that's just what the current userbase enjoys discussing. It also doesn't help that the development team tacitly endorses the extremist propaganda spreading behavior on their server. You can go check mod and vote logs and see the development team actively encouraging all of this destructive behavior across the fediverse.
Star Trek memes, Linux discourse, data breach reports, stupid bullshit about Musk, incredibly biased political content and straight up propaganda; it gets extremely tiring to see the same stuff over and over
Agreed, it's tiring, that's why I recommend blocking all of these.
Then stuff like !gardening@lemmy.world or !map_enthusiasts@sopuli.xyz starts to show up
Natural growth is better than surge. Lemmy will eventually be the defacto. Reddit will do something stupid and people will star pouring in.
I'm usually on that side, but I'm afraid we might just go down to 30k, 20k then snowballing to a very small number that would just kill the platform
I've been a bit concerned as well. I had gotten to know a fair number of regular commenters, but I haven't seen probably half of them recently.
New subs are still joining the community, but it's still low participation. The big communities still seem to be growing steadily, but it's not necessarily bringing the positive attitude that initially won me over to Lemmy.
Indeed.
By the way, thank you for your work on !superbowl@lemmy.world
Of course! I've got to be the change I want to see after all.
People who don't want to be here, leaving, isn't necessarily a problem until their absence begins affecting the level of activity.
As long as the total user count keeps growing, that means new people are trying out Lemmy, which should mean new people who actually want to use it, are finding it.
That that is currently happening more slowly than the rate at which people are leaving the platform, isn't cause for alarm IMO.
Lemmy doesn't need a billion users, it needs enough to be worth using if it's something you want to be using, and it does.
Stuff like the Reddit API drama put it in front of a lot of new people, and I think even brought it up to critical mass in terms of user activity. But except for something like that happening again, the only "fixes" I can think of are small and slow ones.
Stuff like spreading knowledge of the fediverse through word of mouth. Or purchasing ads for it with your own money.
I've also been playing around with the idea of creating activist stickers that "advertise" federated social media, to place in public around my city.
I've thought about doing stickers too but I'm not sure if I'd want to do it for a local community rather than a specific instance.
Might need to be both, with how the fediverse is structured.
Maybe fix the problem where a lot of users can't post half the time they're on
OKAY I didn't think this was unique to me. I seem to have been muted for pretty innocent stuff? I have been muted at least 6 times. The posting bans have lasted anywhere from a couple days to a couple weeks. It's very frustrating when you type out a well thought-out comment, click to submit, and it never posts. 😑 I try to select all & copy my comment before I submit.
If I know some mod has muted me, I just comment 'A' on random posts to see if I'm allowed to speak again. If it doesn't post successfully, ban remains in effect. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
It almost has to be a muting ban of sorts, because I can't post on my main but on a secondary I can post just fine. I haven't left Lemmy (yet...) because I'm not going back to Reddit & aside from this, Lemmy is a decent substitute. Lemmy has been really frustrating, trying to be a member of the community. Forced into being a lurker six different times by some anonymous coward(s). Not knowing when your ban will be lifted.
If my theories are correct, I'd like a little more transparency in the process. Who issues the muting bans, WHY, and when the talking ban will expire. It can be a simple, private direct message. "Butthurt Bob has muted you for: hurting his fee-fees. Butthurt Bob's ban will last 6 days."
Both of you seem to be on Lemmy world, is there a technical issue on their side?
About your last point, you should be able to see exactly that in the modlog (orange button in community sidebars)