I feel like things on Lemmy were pretty chill several months ago, and that’s started to change.

People used to talk each other like they would talk to a neighbor. Now I get the sense that people have become quick to be negative, attack, and not be constructive.

Am I crazy in feeling like the vibe has changed?

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      2 years ago

      Blocking still works though.

      It’s almost always a small amount of people causing problems.

      I still get some ghost replies occasionally, but it’s never going to be anything worth reading. Most of the toxicity comes from reply chains they start as well, so you’re not missing out on any constructive conversation.

  • june@lemmy.worldEnglish
    35·
    2 years ago

    People have been asking this for as long as I’ve been on lemmy.

    It depends a LOT on which instances you interact with. It’s a challenge of the fediverse in that every person has their own unique experience, some bad others good.

  • Sekrayray@lemmy.world
    321·
    2 years ago

    The vibe has gotten much more negative, to the point that I don’t really want to post anymore. I came here in early June with the Reddit API stuff, and was shocked at how communal it was. It actually got me to start posting again (I hadn’t posted on Reddit since the early to mid 20-teens because it had gotten so toxic).

    My last three posts (nothing inflammatory) have gotten flamed. Someone actually hunted me down based on my post history and I had to take the time deleting most of my old posts.

    So from my perspective it’s not just you. I’m back to being a lurker.

  • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
    27·
    2 years ago

    No you. /j

    What I found is that hot topics come with the season, in June/July about Ukraine, in July/August about Meta, in October/November about Gaza, in December about Biden. There’s been plenty of charged discussion on these topics, and internal Lemmy dramas.

    However, one thing I see more often here on Lemmy than other places is people updating their comments, being willing to admit they’re wrong or that their comment came off as hostile, and open negotiation in general. Consider the near defederation of programming.dev and lemm.ee, it was resolved amicably to everyone’s benefit.

    I also see people thanking others for softening their tone and being kind, to them I say, keep doing that and encouraging good behaviour and ettiquite online!

  • robocall@lemmy.world
    26·
    2 years ago

    My suspicion is that a lot of redditors migrated over here about 7 months ago when certain apps shut down, including myself. At first, they were polite in an unfamiliar environment, but they’ve grown comfortable and act out, or speak less thoughtfully, like they originally did on Reddit.

  • Grammaton Cleric@lemmy.world
    251·
    2 years ago

    Law of probability. The more people join, the more of a chance someone will say some stupid shit.

    Also: SUCK MY BALLS

  • forgotmylastusername@lemmy.ml
    231·
    2 years ago

    Lost among the “internet sucks now, it used to be better” discourse is that the old internet was heavily moderated. The laissez faire parts of the old internet were known as the seedy corners of the web. Social media and its modern derivatives like lemmy take on that latter philosophy.

    It’s no wonder it’s chaos every where. The libertarian tech bros have really impressed their world view on everyone. So the prevailing philosophy is these “digital town squares” should be absolute free speech zones. Except town squares in real life do not work like this anywhere. At least not in most liberal democracies. In real life there is bureaucracy. There are police, fire, ambulances. There is the simple matter of neighborly social contract. You cannot go into a real life town square and do whatever you want. You cannot just up and fight strangers, engage in lewd acts, set up encampments or what have you without permits. In the same way internet requires structure. Counter intuitively it used to have a lot more of it on account of sites being run by a real human being. Not the mega conglomerate investor groups feeding off ad/engagement profits.

    Those users unfamiliar with the old internet yet pine for the good old days would have hated it. Power hungry mods is a meme as old as the internet itself. It’s a necessity of the internet. Hardly anybody gets banned for being an asshole anymore. Sometimes (often more like) people need to be forced offline so they can go outside.

    • b_n@sh.itjust.works
      3·
      2 years ago

      Say something dumb in an IRC channel? Get banned.

      The good ol’ days when I was young and irresponsible and got banned for it. I learnt how to converse with people online through this. Talk shit, get banned. I also feel like I forgot some of this on later platforms.

      I hated it at the time, but like most learning experiences, grown to appreciate it later. I can’t believe I had free and unmoderated access to the internet’s back in the early 2000s. Shout out to those mods for putting a teenager in their place!

  • ???@lemmy.worldBanned
    275·
    2 years ago

    Coincidentally, a genocide has been unfolding in the past 3 months, and that tends to put people on edge.

  • _sideffect@lemmy.world
    231·
    2 years ago

    Holy cow I thought I was the only one running into rude people.

    I’m dealing with that right now, and also what I noticed is the abundance of downvotes on facts, but upvotes on feelings.

  • schizoidman@lemmy.mlEnglish
    242·
    2 years ago

    I feel the mainstream lemmy instances have attracted the reddit mob mentality where any deviation from the groupthink is treated as radicals or bots.