I’ve always wanted to ask such a person what their deal is. I mean they could be miserable, or one of the people who always complain about everything. Or it’s supposed to be some form of trolling that no one gets… Maybe I shouldn’t ask because it’s not gonna be a healthy discussion… And I don’t care if that happens in an argument. But I really wonder why someone downvotes something like an innocent computer question. Or some comment with correct and uncontroversial advise. Or other people during a healty conversation. It doesn’t happen often to me, but I had all of that happen. And maybe thoughts like this lead to the current situation. And some people think about exposing such people and some think it should be protected.

And i think weighing the votes is a realistic idea. We could also not count votes of people with bad attitude at all.

Thanks for inviting me. I’ll see if I have something meaningful to contribute. As of now I’m not really involved in growing communities. Well, at least not as a moderator. Maybe I should try it.

Fair enough. From the other perspective, I think it’s a good thing. When the Reddit API thing happened, people were complaining, too. And focused to hold things together. So there wasn’t any time to purpusefully take a step back and guide things. Everyone was busy with admin stuff. That makes me believe when a wave hits us, also isn’t a good time to actively shape this place.

poVoq and anon6789 pointed out similar things with the growth happening in waves. I’m not sure if it’s healthy, though. It puts additional strain on the platform, devs and mods and everyone. And there are (long) dry spells in between. I’d rather have it grow constantly and slowly. And I believe quite some other Free Software projects do. It’s a bit of a different story with social media platforms as we have some unique circumstances like the network effect…

And I think the correct way to do it is to provide something to the people, so they want to join. Idk… be useful to them, a delight to spend time here. And offer something distinct or unique. That’d make the platform attractive all around the year. If we don’t have a superior product, we just rely on the other platforms becoming worse and that’s where our new users come from. Kind of accepting the role to be (and stay) an inferior Reddit clone. But that’s not how I see Lemmy or the Fediverse. I want to attract people who’ve never used Reddit before. Tech enthusiasts, … join because it’s a great platform to discuss their matters. Linux forums switch to Lemmy because it offers them interoperability. And sure, also Reddit users. But not just because they’re pushed out, but because they’re positively motivated to join this place.

The software is one thing. I think we’ve come a long way and both Lemmy and the network feel pretty stable now. It’s part of the equation. But I think the thing that really makes a difference is the community and the atmosphere. That’s why people would want to join. I’ve started this discussion now, because i think after the Reddit exodus, things had to settle down for a bit. And as other people pointed out it seems we’ve reached a plateau now. I think that’s a comfortable position to take a step back and think about the way forward. I’d like to take this as an opportunity to not just wait for incoming waves shape us, but now decide where we want to go and actively steer in that direction.

I think we have to actively provide something to the people to attract them. Something better than other platforms so they’ll want to be here. Not just because the other places become worse and this is the only alternative… But both is part of the equation.

I don’t think the timing is quite right.

What makes you think that? Because I think it’s a good time now, but I’d like to hear different perspectives.

[…] as the fediverse became just another online space instead of something new and distinct

You’re hitting the nail on the head with saying that. I mean the Fediverse is what it is. But I envision it to be something distinct, with added value and not just an average online space. If i didn’t care, I could just use Facebook/Reddit/Discord. But I do and I’d like this to be the nice alternative to that. Maybe way smaller and with its own problems, but at least more friendly and enjoyable…

With the emoji reactions: I agree with what nutomic pointed out. It’d also be difficult for the users to understand and use properly. And it’s a bit vague how that translates to a simple score for the ranking. I don’t think there is any technological issue, though. And we have platforms that use emoji reactions successfully. Notably Github and Discord. It works well for linear conversations.

Why do you downvote all the stuff anyways?

They collapse as well. But PieFed is pretty open to new ideas. If someone likes it differently and decides to address it, it can probably be changed.

Is there some precedent to believe that they correlate (encrypted) datacenter traffic, find the patterns and actually use that somehow?

I mean I can see how that’d theoretically work under certain circumstances and low network load on the VPN server. But that’s really complicated, circumstantial, unreliable and takes lots of effort and probably can’t be used in court anyways. So I wonder if that’s ever been done. Maybe for some circumstancial evidence for some proper crimes to find out where to investigate? And I mean I’m pretty sure the NSA snoops everywhere. Still they’re unlikely to be able to look inside with just these tools. And they’re also unlikely to prosecute some swedish user for some lame copyright violation.

Knowing things about people and having lots of info on them gives someone power over them. And they don’t just do it for fun. They have some motives. I’d also rather not give it to some authoritan regime.

Ultimately everyone has to decide… Do I tell everyone my exact salary? Do I keep it to some people and not tell others? Do I close the blinds of the bedroom while having intimacy? And what harm is there in the neighbors knowing what I like to do in private?

To add a bit: It doesn’t make a difference whether you’re use a cable or the wifi. It’s still the same internet connection. What helps is the VPN connection. And it doesn’t really matter if you’re setting it to your home country or a random one. If it protects you as intended, they can’t find you either way. And if it doesn’t, you may be screwed either way.

Thanks for the clarification. I think we’re on the same page. Especially the following resonates with me:

The time to set our tolerance levels for certain behaviors is now before we get too big to reign it in.

And I’d agree we need to do that in the context of what we have. Have a step back and think before doing something.
I don’t want to see that as an excuse to stay inert, though. But at the same time we may not skip it.

I frequently disagree with the Lemmy developers’ take on things. But what I give them high credit for, is not to prefer growth above other things. I wrote this post now, because I think the Reddit exodus is far away now. Things have settled. And the argument “let things settle first” is out of the way now. And as you pointed out we might have reached a steady plateau for now. I think that’s a comfortable position from where we can decide what to do.

Oh, forget what I said. I was going to write a lenthy reply… But in fact it is configurable in the user profile. -10 is just the default value.

Thanks for your nuanced comments. I’ve never moderated any community worth mentioning, so that’s quite some additional insight for me. I’m not entirely new to this either, as you might have deducted from my account age. I’ve moved away from lemmy.ml as my own values don’t properly align with theirs. Then I lost an account because the instance I was on died. And recently I switched to PieFed and that’s my current account. But all in all I’ve been here since well before the exodus. Still, I think we have a different perspective. I’ve attended a bit more to the technical side and using it, while you’ve been fostering a community, which I didn’t do at all.

I’m not sure what to make of your “helped me get through feeling much like OP”. I’m not sure if I have to come to terms with how things are. Or if we instead should improve the place to become what I (and other people?) envision it to be. Sure, it’s not black and white. And when you’re doing critism (as I did), you focus on the negatives. I tried to also mention the other side. But due to the nature of this post, it’s not been the focus.

I’ll take some more time thinking about what you and all the other people said. I definitely see the potential of this platform. And that’s why I’m here. I also see some issues and lack of progress with some things. And that hurts because I like this place. And I kind of refuse to accept it and change my expectations. I don’t want it to be perfect. But there’s quite some room for improvement (I think) and that made me speak up and post this.

I don’t know. I halfway agree and halfway disagree. We’ve always had things change. I always found a comfortable niche. Lots of Free Software exists, despite the odds being against them. I almost exclusively use software that respects my freedom. At least in private. The important thing is we pick up the fight. And concerning the services I use, we regularly succeed.

I don’t really care for Reddit, or all the people moving to Discord. And their millions of users. All I want is a nice niche with an atmosphere I like. And enough users who are aligned with my interests so I can talk about what I like.

And I think you’re right and Lemmy -as is- isn’t stopping any trend. Because we can see it’s stagnating. It’d have to change to do that. Provide anything meaningful to users that they don’t have some place else. Whatever that is, great software functionality, nice people, good content… (Ideally all of that.)

I’m a bit the wrong receiver for that kind of information. I’m not on lemmy.world but run my own instance. I’ve donated days worth of developer hours already, and I’m planning to do more… But I can’t speak for other people.

And I dislike money being involved. That leads to obligations, envy, and people stop doing it for the fun and because it’s a nice platform. I think that shifts things and I’m not sure if in a good way. We’d get closer to commercial interests and we already have enough commercial platforms. I liked the old way how Free Software worked. Some random people doing it out of their own motivation. Coming up with all kinds of interesting software that’d help them. And they’d generously share it and invite everyone to participate. And it’d stop there. No ulterior motives involved.

But with that said, yeah. Someone has to do the development, pay for the servers and do the community work. That’s not optional. And we have a broader issue with money in the Free and Open Source ecosystem.

make it immediately and publicly clear that a negative interaction is unwelcome

I couldn’t agree more strongly… I mean we kind of have that already. Everytime I see something that has a score of like -40 because of all of the downvotes, I think they got their just punishment and it’s clear that no one likes what they wrote. I think it’s superior to replying because it doesn’t give that person any reply to start an argument. Just silence and downvotes. But however we decide to do it, i think we should be very open and upfront with what’s expected behavior. And I’d like to see that happen more often.

switch off visibility for posts/comments that have received a certain proportion of downvotes

PieFed has that feature. Comments with a score less than -10 (I think) just collapse. I think we need more of those features in Lemmy and the respective apps.

Yeah, it wouldn’t. I’ve never interacted with a threads user. And none of my lengthy ramblings involves any of them. So it wouldn’t change anything which I addressed.

What I don’t want to do is pointing at people and distributing blame. We maybe need to do that, too. But that shouldn’t take away from each and everyone of us asking »What can I, *myself*, do to make this a better place.«. That’s what I’d like to focus on with this post. So I’m not saying you’re right or wrong. But I consider that out of scope for this discussion.

Yes. That’s a good call. In fact, I’ve been subscribing to a few more beehaw communities lately. I think I’m not completely aligned with their vision. I think they’re a bit too restrictive and trigger-happy with the defederation. But… The atmosphere there seems nice. So they seem to be doing it right. And I have to revise my prejudices.

But I don’t want them to be out there by their own. I definitely want this to be a federated place. So… Maybe we should form some alliance? Some instances that agree on some expected behavior from their users? And these instances then collaborate more closely than with the rest of the network?