this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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This is going to be a short and sweet little history of Reddit. Reddit was founded in 2005.

Take a look at what Reddit looked like in 2006: https://web.archive.org/web/20061206235353/http://reddit.com/

Note that it didn't have subreddits back then because the user base was too small.

Look at Reddit in 2008 (December 31): https://web.archive.org/web/20081231080128/http://www.reddit.com/reddits/

Politics had just 72,314 subscribers. Technology had 85,678 subscribers, and the "Nicher" Food subreddit had only 4,438 subscribers.

Lemmy/Kbin follows the same path. Initially, generalist communities like Politics and Technology will have the most momentum and gain subscribers, just like Reddit did back then. As the user base grows, "niche" communities will be able to sustain themselves.

Let's not think about the Reddit of today, let's think about Reddit of old. Rome wasn't built in a day.

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[–] AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Lemmy/Kbin will follow the same path.

I hope it's not the same toxification path at least.

[–] varzaman@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago

It’s 100% going to be.

Lemmy isn’t “special”. I’ve already seen hot takes and other things to get people riled up on Lemmy.

[–] hoodatninja@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)
[–] varzaman@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

r/politics problem isn’t that it’s infested with maga nonsense….idk what you’re even talking about.

R/politics problem is that it’s a doomer cesspool that doesn’t actually like talking about politics, but likes to complain and talk about Trump all the time.

I’m a borderline socialist, so pretty left leaning, and that subreddit is way too toxic for me. I’m not interested in that type of discourse.

[–] hoodatninja@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Let me clarify because I can tell I implied too much and it just ended up not being communicated. That's on me.

My point is an issue with moderation. The simple fact is toxic behavior is allowed because mods/admins/etc. on forums tend to be too cautious with the ban hammers unless a rule is explicitly violated. If someone is disruptive to the community and constantly starting fights, even if they don't "break a rule on the side bar," the mods at /r/politics needed to just show them the door but never did. I don't know if it's a well meaning but misguided commitment to "Free Speech :TM:" or concern about the optics to the community or whatever, regardless if there is someone in your hen house riling up all the hens every day, it doesn't matter if they're a wolf or a hen. Kick them out.

At present I have not seen many admins with the stomach to enforce like that. But if we want to actually not be reddit all over again, that's what it will take. Beehaw I think has some decent ideas about how to handle this problem via defederation, and I think it's a real solution that needs to be explored more, but ultimately admins need to just kick people out when they're particularly toxic and disruptive.

The reason I mentioned the "stop the steal" crowd in particular is because 100% of the time it is just a horrible flame war the moment they pop in. Dozens of removed comments and just insults hurled everywhere.

[–] AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Admins did take steps against far-right instances. But I didn't even mean politics, but more stuff like Redditors coming here and trying to import toxic stuff that Reddit used to allow, the whole "I'm gonna stalk you and downvote you everywhere" retaliation mentality because of karma, the low-effort comments and the flame baits (which Reddit loved since it created more engagement) etc...

[–] livus@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

I've already seen a couple of downvote-you-everywhere people being called out for doing it (votes are accessible in ActivityPub, and very easy to see in kbin).

I don't think it's as easy for them to flourish here.

[–] Ohthereyouare@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So far on Lemmy, whenever I see someone comment this, it's because they're mad Reddit got "toxic towards my free speech to stupid ass MAGA nonsense". Is that what you mean by Reddit being "toxified"?

[–] PenguinJuice@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think there's a lot of people who desire free speech outside of MAGA people.

But I even believe they should have free speech too. Free speech is the most important element of our society imo.

[–] wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The problem is some people only believe in free speech for their ideas. They want to censor the other side.

I believe in free speech but disruptions should be prevented.

Reddit took a weird approach to Covid which caused a lot of misinformation to proliferate without any discussion.

People were banned if they questioned the efficacy of masks. Leading experts in the field were saying they were not effective. Yet, Reddit was trying to determine what the “truth” was.

I believe it should be discussed. Now we it resorts to just name calling or cliche such as follow the science. It needs to be put down.

Passing ideas and debate are good for society.