I only downvote on stuff where people are outright mean or lying. If it's something where I think people should just ignore it, I move on, but if someone is hateful or talking stuff that is knowingly false or dangerous and I feel others should know to ignore whatever they're saying, that's worth downvoting.

It is nice having a place that isn't commercial in any way. That is one thing we still got.

There are still a lot of positives here, don't get me wrong, but the early adopter phase feels over and some of the shine has worn off.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 2 points 6 days ago (2 children)

the early adopter phase feels over and some of the shine has worn off.

Yeah, we are not in growth phase, but maintenance. Finding fulfillment from the actual relationships and engagement we have is important.

The dopamine hits of growth phase Lemmy are very much feast or famine, but can't be the only reason we are here.

[–] DonaldJMusk 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, we are not in growth phase, but maintenance.

And I just feel like Lemmy is actually bleeding off users. People have become too extreme. It's keeping people from joining, and making others like AdmiralPatrick @ptz@dubvee.org leave.

I don't have any stats, but it def seems that way to me. Every real life friend I tried to turn on to Lemmy, tried it and very quickly nope-d right out. All of them think it's more toxic that Reddit. I agree with them too.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 2 points 4 days ago

Yeah, that is why I stopped posting to every community - it mostly didn't start any conversations.

I'm just posting basically personal journals now that I can reference later to find something, or to send to friends on a subject i care about.

I do really highly value the good conversations and I have here, but they are fairly rare. Maybe 500 bad encounters for 1 great encounter.

Lemmy extremism (in any direction) is quite a challenge, the negativity users meet is a great way to drive people away. We need small niche safe spaces for common interest groups to grow and talk, mini-forums. The current everyone drives-by all and basically puts every post up to a popular referendum hasn't worked.

I said a unpopular thing on a YPTB post awhile back, but I'm sticking with it - People are communal, and they define their communities by a shared interest (belief, experience, geography, etc), but that is just a nice way of saying that communities need a way to EXCLUDE people without that shared interest (two sides of the same coin). Basically we need highly curated opinionated chambers to grow thriving communities where people like to come back as their home base.