As a little background, I didn’t actively use Reddit for months following the blackout. I still barely stop in over there and if I do I’m never logged in our contributing to the communities there (where I was previously a daily poster/commenter).
Just bringing up a point that I’m not sure I’d seen anyone discussing directly over here; the general sentiment and quality of posted information on Reddit has become tangibly worse in multiple ways (I think coinciding with this group, us, leaving).
Now don’t get me wrong, Reddit sucked in many ways and for long before the migrations to Lemmy, but there is a noticeable difference in a few key areas:
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Less skepticism in replies
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Less sourcing of information in posts and replies
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Less counter positions expressed generally
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If there is a decent reply, you have to scroll much further down to find it
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Less plain labeling of obvious bullshit
Many of us used to introduce counter viewpoints or clarifying information into posts, with sources. That functionally worked as a roadblock to stall the quickly building momentum of disinformation/misinformation. Those roadblocks often feel absent over there now, IMO.
Not saying we hold a responsibility to go back there or that we were saving lives before, but the difference is very apparent to me - Have you seen it? Any examples?
Reddit: bots talking to bots.
Lemmy: the socially awkward talking to the neurodivergent.
I was wondering if I’m in the socially awkward category or the neurodivergent category… pretty sure I’m both.
I’m the socially awkward one that comes off as combative and uses “To be fair” too often. Nice to meet you.
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You’re telling me other Tumblr users are on here?
I don’t know, the idea that users on Lemmy were the best part of Reddit is a bit egotistical, bordering on narcissism.
I think what you’re looking at is simply differences in scale and variety of communities. The user migration to Lemmy was negligible, and I don’t really think content quality here is inherently better than it is there. Rather, I think Reddit has just become too big and mainstream.
- More Boomers are now using Reddit, which for me seems like the same downward spiral that ended up hitting Facebook.
- Corporations see people using Reddit for advice and so they spam it up to try to influence shopping habits and land on Google search results.
If Lemmy ever becomes as popular as Reddit, the same thing will happen.
I find the comments here in the fediverse are of a higher overall quality, like Reddit once was over a decade ago.
I didn’t say the “best part” anywhere. I was implying the moral and rational part. You make some fine general points, but they aren’t in response to what I said.
Migration being negligible is subjective when talking about the users that may have been powering a certain sentiment or tone. Tens of thousands of people leaving would be more than enough to feel that change.
I think you’re grossly overestimating
Lemmy shaved off 0.0057% of reddit users. An actual inconsequential number.
This would be like you losing a grand total of 1 grain of rice, from ~35,000 rice bowls.
Even if that was the best tasting grain of rice of the whole bunch, you wouldn’t notice.
That number doesn’t really tell us anything about the amount of post/content generation that was lost. One or two persons could change the general tone of a smaller sub easily, and often did so.
If only those two hypothetical posters left it could very well lead to a downward spiral into whatever bullshit is going on over there now.
Some of the smaller more specialised subs I frequented simply don’t exist anymore due to what happened.
I thought I explained that pretty well no?
If you had a grain of rice that tasted unimaginably, unmitigably, good. The highest quality grain of rice ever seen in the world, in all of history.
It will not change the flavor of 30k bowls of rice.
We’re talking an absolutely tiny amount of users here. And we shouldn’t delude ourselves over it, circle jerking for being the “higher society”. Reddit didn’t change because we left, the number of users on Reddit change more on a daily basis than 5 Lemmy’s.
That said, the smaller niche subs definitely saw some hits. I won’t deny that. However, by definition, a small number of users leaving from small subs isn’t a “gotcha” moment for what I’ve stated. That’s is, almost by definition, what would be expected.
The discussions here are of higher quality for sure. But you’ll still notice that in many threads it’s almost indistinguishable from Reddit in many ways.
I generally agree with your point, that said, in the analogy you gave, the flavor would come from the posts, not the users. We don’t know what the breakdown is between “active users” who create more posts and comments and those who are more like active readers.
What proportion of Reddit users are “good” though? 0.0057% might be all of them
Sounds about right
Many groups left, lemmy was actually a minoritarian destination.
And lots and lots of bots came. Almost immediately. It was weird looking how all the people left and yet the amount of stuff there stayed the same.
Any idea what the other major destinations were beyond Lemmy?
I guess discord was the most popular one.
People talked about a few more at the time, there were some table running around telling where your subreddit went. But I really don’t remember them.
lmao, its really not that different here, other than there just being fewer of us.
I think the quality is better here, although there’s a shit ton of propaganda.
Reddit is large enough that it’s user base is very diverse and niche hobbies can still get a substantial following. From what I can tell, us lemmings are all kinda the same nerdy person who’s into Linux and gaming with not enough of us to really make communities for divergent interests.
When I first came in a few people were trying to get /c/bjj going but it just kind of fell off because the middle of a venn diagram of people who are nerdy enough to be here and also into grappling is like me and 6 other people
Still, I peek in here now and again because the shitposts tend to be better.
Maybe try martial arts as a whole rather than bjj?
I noticed AMP links started popping up all over Reddit. Before Google started injecting money, posting those was discouraged. Surely it’s a total coincidence.
Strange. What happened to the discouragement of AMP links and why are they suddenly popping up now?
The subreddit I was active on is still going strong, albeit with less interested mods. I think the impact of us leaving depends on the types of subs most lemmies used to be on. I don’t think anyone from the sub I was on left reddit.
I could have clarified, impact would be less on our own niche subs, more about general contributions to stories that made the front page and saw contributors from all areas as a result.
While I agree that seems the case, there likely has been a corresponding shift in niche communities, even if the effect is less measurable. I don’t check in on my niche subreddits often anymore (I’ve fully moved over to here and Discord), but with some of them, their quality has dipped slightly. Possibly could be chalked up to continuing trends independent of the migration, though.
Smaller communities also require builders, so I’m sure the necessity alone has driven content quality on Lemmy.
I think there’s also a general age demographic shift down as the mods and people who care about moderation, third party apps, bots, etc left. Something similar happened during the digg exodus where social norms and consensus around some topics changed, just not at much with the bots at the time. People who remain may not care, or they just may be unaware. There was always some propaganda blindness too in the ‘i don’t use social media just reddit’ crowd.
I think, beyond simply offering counterpoints, Lemmings are also better at accepting nuance and taking measured opinions. It would be really interesting to track changes over time in the usage of certain keywords on Reddit that would imply nuance. For instance, words like “but,” “however,” “think,” “believe,” “may,” etc.
I have no doubt that the usage of these words would go down after seeing how Reddit is like now, but it would definitely be interesting to see the formal data on it
Agree, would be very interesting to see it tracked and objectively analyzed
Lemmy users acting like they are superior human being to people on reddit is the most cringe shit I’ve ever seen.
Yall are exactly the same and people on Reddit.
This is cope if I’ve ever seen it.
Cope for what? I don’t think you know what that word means
Cope harder.
Lemmy is barely any better its just more left leaning.
Well, I started the keitruck subreddit and look at me now banned from the site. They just lef me build it until they came and then banned me from the entire site. But yeah I bet they gotta be filling the place with bots now.
I still have a few niche subreddits that I check a few times a month (like /SamsungWatchFaces) but I haven’t posted anything there in ages.
Oh is that what we’re doing today? Big Ole circle jerk?
