Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
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Positivity, or at least more constructive comments.
I know a lot of bad stuff is going on worldwide, and I'm not upset the bad news gets mentioned, but it seems we have more tendency as a whole to revert back to the old Reddit ways. More arguing, more downvoting, more piling on to people without any comments why people are disagreeing.
Yesterday there was a discussion about homelessness and I shared stats from Census.gov, as the article from the OP was paywalled. Someone asked a question as to why certain states (basically the red ones) had less reported homeless and why it seemed they had a better handle on the issue than states like CA or NY. While I was typing up a nice response demonstrating causation vs correlation and how looking at a chart showing # of people as counted only in shelters may initially make it seem they had many less homeless when in reality, they have homeless people, but they may either be provided no shelter or they may end up in jail as opposed to being left alone.
By the time my reply was done, I saw the person that asked the question was being downvoted. They hadn't made a statement saying the red states were better with the homeless, they asked a valid question as to why it appeared that way as they had called them the "poor states" and seemed confused how they had funding to keep homelessness down better than the other states. I had also responded to this person before on other occasions when they had questions, so I knew they weren't trolling or spreading misinformation, but no one else, save one other person (with an accurate but snarky reply) chimed in with any type of answer, they just downvoted a legitimate question while offering no help.
I don't feel Lemmy a year ago would have acted this way, and I see it on many threads each day. I for better or worse, have interest in politics and associated things, so I end up reading many negative threads, but I try my hardest to avoid making straight negative comments, and instead try to provide stats or more background info so people are understanding what they're seeing and trying to clear up any confusion so they can make informed choices based on facts. I'll even get downvoted though (not badly) for just sharing info with trustworthy sources. Heck, yesterday I got downvoted for talking about my heat pump, and almost every animal pic I share gets at least 1 or 2 downvotes. Never any comments why, so I just am constantly confused by it.
Just wish we did a bit more to foster a better vibe here. I spend less and less time in other communities and stick to my own, but that doesn't feel like a good way to grow Lemmy. And I'm someone who currently posts and replies daily. Most people still just lurk, no matter what we try to do, and nobody is going to post if they're going to get negged for no reason.
Came here to say this, but shorter. Imagine my surprise to see "Positivity" first word in the top comment. I know we don't all agree on everything, but the vibe on Lemmy (for me at least) seems to be share our views or shut up.
The other thing is how political everything seems to get. Even outside of political communities you see it seaping into the comments. I might be remembering wrong, but reddit didn't seem to have that issue (as much). If you weren't in a politically orriented community the mods kept that kinda talk out.
All that being said, I'm sticking with Lemmy. I don't hace any desire to go back to reddit even as a lurker. I hope lemmy gets nicer as more people join. I've embraced being downvoted. I will try to love communism and linux to a greater degree than I already do.
I didn't want to ramble on too long, but I've had discussions before where I talk about how I feel the Reddit attitude towards mods there has kept mods weak here, out of fear of being overbearing or whatever you want to call it.
Was talking to the person running MaleFashionAdvice and they had wondered why people weren't hanging out there. That isn't typically a group I'd follow, but I checked it out, and the latest post was full of "not interested in this," "fashion is stupid," and I feel there were a few anti-capitalism comments. Otherwise, recent threads included more "normal people" advice than I expected to see in a fashion sub, ie. not all about super expensive or limited things, things that came in less common sizes, etc. But I told them, hey, you might want to clean some of these posts out of here, because if new people start browsing and see way more negative comments than helpful ones, why would they sub? As you said, we can disagree, but bring something to the table instead of just basically going "you suck bro!" Something like a "can we get a thread on some more affordable clothes or about brands that the clothes last" is much more useful and not rude.
It may be the things I browse, but I feel Reddit had plenty of "why do we need to make eveything political" stuff. I read a lot about the environment, animals, and conservation, so of course politics do overlap with that as much as some "old school outdoorsman" may see that as a safe space. But again, there's reasonable ways to discuss it, and we should be open to listening to others, especially if they bring supporting facts to back them up.
I see we have a similar analysis of the average Lemmy commenter! 😆
Yeah, I try to save my snarky or sarcastic comments to top level replies about the article itself, I could do better for certain.
Maintaining a good vibe is an important issue, I used to be more active on Beehaw which was all about that and I still am cognizant of it when I comment there.
!Superbowl@lemmy.world is one of the cooler communities with your frequent photo posts, we could use a lot more of communities like those.
Ultimately the points don't matter, yet it genuinely feels bad when you or someone that you're certain is posting in good faith gets downvoted, which we need to deal with if we want to encourage posting. Stuff like hiding scores for 20 minutes or vote fuzzing can deal with this issue, but at the same time, I do appreciate having the transparency that Reddit had taken away for years.
A lot of negative news coming in (which has been over the past month) does get reflected in the snarkiness of my comments, but I know that maintaining a positive tone adds a feedback loop for the non-trolls to contribute positively or at least interact genuinely. In threads like this, I try to reward people that have contributed with a similar effort reply.
I'm glad you enjoy my content. I always try to maintain it as an oasis for positive, peaceful, and factual content.
I miss Beehaw. I didn't get it at first since most of Lemmy felt the same, but as time went on, Beehaw kept the same vibe while other instances started to feel more like Reddit. Sadly, Beehaw walled off their garden a bit too much for me, which I respect their choice, but I was already doing the bulk of my posting on World and wanted to keep growing the audience.
Downvotes for trolling or misinformation are important, but when they're used just to be bitchy, I don't get the point. It's rude and discourages the small number of commenters we have.
Snarking at depressing news can be healthy to help process it, but I wish it would focus on the problems and the people causing it, but not be outright crappy to people. Scrolling the threads about Senator Inhofe yesterday, the guy sucked and did a lot of bad things, but the gloating over a guy's death isn't a great look for us. I won't be shedding any tears, but publicly cheering a guy's death isn't something I like keeping company with.
A bit of a rant here.
Recently joined the wider Lemmy community (coming from kbin.social, o7). I like it, but the constant negativity and fear mongering/bait in large communities keeps me from engaging more. I just kind of wish there were more relaxed communities like how niche subreddits can be. I've seen a lot more arguments here than the kbin-specific communities or even Reddit honestly.
I'm going to continue using Lemmy at least for now, but I just hope this place can move past the negativity that plagues major social media platforms already. I get everybody has their views, but is it a requirement to share them every comment/post? It's all jokes and no seriousness on Reddit to all seriousness here. Not very enjoyable. Feels like a lot of the users who created cool niche communities after the Reddit exodus got driven away by the negativity and frivolous downvoting.
Thank you. I feel many are falling in the same trap as the actual media: they want engagement in their community, and the stuff that riles people up does that and gets them coming back. My question is if that is what we want growing here?
I'd rather this just be a place to chill and have fun, but stay up to date on news too. I don't know why people want to argue with the same dozen people here when they could antagonize many more people at Reddit if that's their thing.
I try to post nothing but positive stuff, but if I look around one day and don't enjoy anything else around me here, why would I stay?
Agreed. It's sad that so much of modern media is wired for negative engagement, and it's probably hard to avoid "the anger" spreading to the nice corners of the internet as well.
However it sounds like you're doing your part to bring positivity and rational discussion to Lemmy, so thank you for that :)
I pitch in where I can and try to steer things back. I look for accurate but shitty responses and try to rephrase them in a more helpful and respectful manner, for example.
It is hard to share articles when they come already set with ragebait titles and writing styles, but we can still hold our own selves accountable how we respond and interact with that content.