so i just saw this post in the new all feed … was deleted the moment i wanted to open it for being “off topic”.
pls, everyone, be nice to new users. don’t just remove their first post for being “off topic”. we’re already having a problem of not getting enough new users (link)
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Yeah I did ask that user if they found the mentally ill Lemmy users https://sh.itjust.works/post/64695905/26795857
NGL the more hostile Lemmy users kinda keep you from exploring more obscure communities. They’ll just dog pile you for having somewhat controversial opinion and if you explain yourself they play the victim.
PieFed has a feature that lets admins move posts. If My instance federated lemmy.ml, I’d undelete that post right now and move it to a better community for the topic, like maybe [email protected] or [email protected], and greet the user there. I think moving the post is the right solution here.
That post is just setting off all kinds of alarm bells.
What are the odds that something could impersonate them in a way that gets their account banned? And if that really did happen, why on earth would they not be able to talk about it?
Shady AF.
Off topic is off topic. Removing a post for violating rules isn’t mean, it’s maintaining the integrity of the communities people come here for.
That post is just setting off all kinds of alarm bells.
yeah actually now that i look at it again, you might be right.
i kinda just saw “oh hey new user” and went into auto “treat them nicely” mode. didn’t actually note much what they wrote on their backstory
It’s a tell for delusional thinking/paranoia.
I think it’s more indicative of pathological lying
Many people complain that there isn’t enough content on here, yet many people also expect all new users to not only share their beliefs, but know how the Threadiverse works before joining.
If the Threadiverse is to grow, people need to be patient with new users, ensuring they are well-informed with an informational DM at the very least if their post must be taken down. People also can’t expect all new users to fit squarely within the relatively niche set of interests the Threadiverse currently caters best to.
ensuring they are well-informed with an informational DM at the very least if their post must be taken down.
I try to average a post a day, spread around a loose collection of maybe a dozen communities. In the past month I’ve goofed twice, and posted something that didn’t quite fit the theme, or contained AI content that I didn’t notice at the time (it was a really good, topical comic, but was also an AI copy of the original, oof). Both times the posts were deleted, which was fine, but no mod note was given, not even to gruffly say “watch it, bub.”
Good, communicative, active mods are hard to find anywhere, but I reckon the relative lack(?) of such across the FV probably has an unfortunate knock-on effect in that it can discourage new-ish users, even just by accident. This was an easy example above, but as I see it, few communities around here have the actual luxury of not being welcoming and supportive where possible. OTOH, a quality mod to my mind requires a combination of experience, personality and skillset. Plus the ability (or imperviousness) to wade through shite, sometimes. Where are they coming from? Because along with more users, the FV could also use more mods, if only at this point to fill in positions for mods who’ve vamoosed and are now inactive.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
The sheer amount of toxicity on the Threadiverse is a real issue. Multiple people have claimed to have been stalked irl (weirdly even incorrectly so, as in thinking they were someone else?) or received death threats (I dunno how credible but how relevant would that even be here?), over and above issues shared by Reddit mods.
My point is that it is incredibly draining. Add to this how ineffectual the tools have been all this time on Lemmy: no notification of moderation events, no modmail, no ability to continue discussing the matter on the very post that was merely removed from the community listing but not full-on deleted, and even no ability to bring on additional mods from another instance, where they can see the moderator reports (bc those do not federate). The upcoming v1.0 will help a tiny bit with very little of this, and the rest of the issues will remain. PieFed helps with significantly more of them, but not all - e.g. without a modmail, which mod do you contact on the list if you want to ask why your content was removed, especially when it is obscured by the modlog merely saying it was done by “mod”?
In all, this space is becoming simultaneously both less moderated overall, while also vulnerable to overzealous power-hungry mods who do things like preemptively ban people from communities that they’ve never so much as heard of, while using insults in the ban reason section (being protected by your admin means that you can say whatever you like, in the modlog - call people trolls, when you are a mod they have to let you do it, with no ability to stop you).
It’s a 4chan mentality, and it’s extremely unwelcoming to new users. It is entirely understandable to me why subreddits are refusing to migrate here, even as access to old-reddit is in the process of being curtailed (removed?).
All good points IMO, and we might also say that this place in terms of software sophistication is not unlike early Reddit, but of course without the business plan, and being node-based, yadda yadda. So, like but unlike. But with better principles and more promise, at heart.
One thing that I enjoy here and I think is important to embrace as much as possible is that lots of us on the FV run in to each other over and over. So to my mind, it’s important to get to know people here where possible and perhaps build a sort of coterie or friends list. Which of course, is only possible on a limited basis with the current state of software. (PieFed recently introduced a ‘followers’ feature FWIW).
I guess what I might be saying here at the end of the day is that the FV is a place that needs a user plan, more awareness and more education than other, similar social media sites. This (or soemthing like it) is probably something which should be emphasized better in the introduction & signup process. I’m thinking it would better prepare and prevent people from just dropping out when they hit certain frustration mile-markers.
Counterpoint: those will happen naturally and don’t need planning.
Sometimes those are fraught with frustration though. Like I remember really enjoying discussions with the highly controversial user FlyingSquid, who left Lemmy at least a year ago. My discussions were about Star Trek, and I had already blocked all politics themed communities as well as the largest meme ones. It turned out that within the politics sphere, he seems to have shown a bit of a different side of his personality to people who tried to post in the communities that he modded. Was he right? Are all the people decrying against him - many of whom I note are often proven liars in other matters - right? Actually truth is significantly more complex than that, plus not having delved in depth I honestly and truly do not know (though suspect a bit of both).
And people say likewise about PugJesus too. I was never on the receiving end of his wrath either - perhaps I never could be, since my aim is truth and he wouldn’t have to be firm as I would literally welcome correction where needed? But now he is gone too.
Most of the people that I enjoyed speaking with the most are either gone, or comment far less frequently than they used to. Or in different communities.
A lot of the communities that I do frequent the most - among those that still exist anyway - have barely anyone who comments at all. I tend to avoid the largest ones (I make an exception for this one we are in now due to the subject matter), bc that is where the toxicity is highest. But then the niche communities barely exist at all… e.g. [email protected] has only had one post in the last 4 months, [email protected], oops that one seems to have died a year ago already, so I just unsubscribed, the last post in [email protected] was 2 months ago, oops I just noticed several places I am subscribed in were on lemm.ee so obviously those are defunct now, the last post in [email protected] was 8 months ago, one of my absolute favorites was [email protected], but the only post other than one asking the content creator where he went was again from 8 months ago, and so on. There’s also just a WHOLE BUNCH of communities that have next to zero comments in them - maybe they are bot posts that people prefer to block? e.g. [email protected]. Others are not quite as often fully zero but are still less than 5 per post, like [email protected], [email protected], and every single poetry community I can find across the entire Threadiverse.
Don’t get me wrong, some people like ThePicardManeuver and LadyButterfly are holding up a good half of the Threadiverse by super posting to many many communities. But people used to say the same about FlyingSquid and also PugJesus as well. Like see this old appreciation post: https://feddit.org/post/3602869.
So anyway, you aren’t wrong, but it’s not as simple as that, when a good fraction of the communities here keep turning into ghost towns, and those that remain are either the largest, which again attracts the most controversial crowds, or else super super tiny.
But I do enjoy talking with you wherever I see you:-).
one of my absolute favorites was [email protected], but the only post other than one asking the content creator where he went was again from 8 months ago, and so on.
Yeap, and notice what I recommended back then to the person complaining right there, and notice how nobody seemed to take my advice…?
Rinse, wash, repeat?
Which echoes something I’ve pointed out many times (I think actually in this very discussion, but earlier?), which is that the body of FV users seem to have the non-sustainable idea that they don’t actually have to do anything on their part to help contribute in a positive manner to FV appreciation and content. Unfortunately, I find that such an utterly casual, nincompoop sort of belief that naturally it degrades everything it touches, to the ultimate detriment of said FV.
I could also give you a million specific examples of such, but as someone in relentless pain, nursing a terminal disease, I’m not specifically-aiming to write a novel with each comment. PJ was in a similar boat, and I feel like that should be understood and respected. FlyingSquid’s work on “Out of Context Comics” was awesome to my mind, but despite whatever toxicity he was a part of, I understand that he was in a rough life-situation during his time here.
So anyway, you aren’t wrong, but it’s not as simple as that
Of course it’s not as simple as that, my dear OpenStars, but what I said sufficiently fit the context of the situation, and again I’m not here to write a novel every bloody post. The fact is that what I was getting at was moreso a small aspect, or perhaps the tip of, yon iceberg(s).
Communities founded with naive eagerness, then relatively-quickly abandoned are something I’ve been weighing-in on for years upon now, mate. So I appreciate the examples, but you’re preaching to the choir.
All part of why I feel like my pledge-posting project might help out with things, just that I’ve been in and out of the hospital to the extent that it’s gotten side-tracked, lately. But if you scroll through my comments, you’ll see the concept pop up from time to time.
Anyway, cheers mate!
Oh hey, that was you!!! Like I said earlier, I enjoy your contributions. Though so many other people - like PugJesus - keep leaving, and based on the number of empty communities in my subscriptions, nobody rises up to replace their level of contributions (well not nobody, e.g. there’s Lady Butterfly, tirelessly lifting up pretty much half to all of the most strongly encouraging communities:-).
I’ve wondered myself if I should help set up a community for comics. But there’s a legal liability issue, which I suppose is why I am able to enjoy older ones like Foxtrot and Calvin & Hobbes delivered daily to my Subscribed feed, but not modern ones like Nathan W. Pyle’s work.
So what I did instead was to create a community c/AskUSA. Virtually nobody reads the rules though - e.g. to avoid politics (there’s even helpful links directly in the sidebar to alternatives to post those to), and the reality of what is happening to the USA right now is too depressing to contemplate so… I became one of those people who abandons communities myself. Realistically, I just don’t think we have the subscriber base to support niche communities. Multiple times I have stumbled upon a community that someone created (to hold the name I suppose?) and became the exclusively sole poster to it, never to have been followed up with even by the creator of it themselves. Community discovery is exceedingly poor on Lemmy.
Hence I put all my hopes into PieFed instead, to be all that Lemmy never will… at least until PugJesus left due to the issue of shadow-censoring users contributions. That kind of thing is enough to kill off an entire project, causing communities to choose to not migrate there from a Lemmy instance or from Reddit, or to decide not to switch over their instance or open up a parallel one running PieFed (e.g. sh.itjust.works was considering that at one point in time, I am not sure if they still will now though…). My hopes that PieFed will “save” the concept of the Threadiverse are dashed - even though ironically there is now more reason to have hoped for it than ever before - e.g. Reddit has begun killing off old-reddit, which will cause many to look for alternatives to run to. They will not come here though, as my earlier link mentions in their very own words, nor can I argue all that believably that they should, when what awaits them is to be bullied here into expanding the base to receive tankie falsehoods and propaganda, and otherwise incel toxicity.
So I am choosing to listen rather than always only ever speak, and see if I can understand this shifting landscape better.
Oops, but here I wrote a novel along with that. Don’t worry - there is no expectation for me to receive one in return:-).
Time marches ever onwards. Each new generation (of posters) will figure out what it wants to use this space for, if anything at all, or not. In the meantime I hope it has been more enjoyable to meta-discuss these matters, or at least more so than to add to your already considerable pain.
Over here, I’ve been running a niche community for 3+yrs now on the FV, so I’m not totally receptive to your complaints & observations upon such, but that’s just me. Also, I average at least a post per day upon other communities that I appreciate and want to support.
And I’ve already spoken ad naus. above about all this (did you read?), for goodness’ sake.
Also, in terms of PJ-specifically, I love his efforts, hence why I sometimes initiate stuff like this:
https://piefed.social/c/[email protected]/p/2215387/pugjesus-on-us-moderns-s-tendency-to-assume-everything-should-have-been-possible-in-antWell, fuck me if that’s some kind of impossible-to-achieve goal for participants upon a next-gen platform, based on the power of the people. In reality, in terms of other /c’s, it just takes a few minutes per day, minimum. Dammit.
Mate, I don’t mean to be totally rude, but it feels like you have a lot to unload upon, which is perfectly fair. And you make many solid points IMO. My personal suggestion is to take that right back to the top level of sublemmys like this, and you’d have every right to IMO.
I don’t expect another response from you unless you have a specific question for me, thanks very much.
I’ve been trying to fill the void left by dubvee.org being taken down with periodic posts to [email protected], but in the long run there’s far too many communities on here that rely on one or two users for content.
A related, significant issue, yes.
Sometime back I had the idea that perhaps a group of us could pledge posting to a smallish set of communities that were great /c’s in themselves, but needed a bit of help with content. My idea is that we’d each rotate between a group of communities, taking turns posting there so that no one person needed to be responsible for any certain place. Frequency of posting would simply be on some kind of regular basis, maybe anywhere from one post a week from each of us, to posting every day.
Things haven’t been great for me lately, so I’m lagging in that project, but at some point I’d like to git 'er going. If that sounds interesting to you, keep your eye on [email protected], yeah?
we’re already having a problem of not getting enough new users
The best way to attract new users is to have not just a quantity of content but a curated feed of quality content. Part of that means ensuring users’ posts end up in the correct community. If you just allow people to post whatever they want, wherever they want, that’s going to drive users away.
PieFed allows mods to move posts from one community to another.
Actually I think hexbear might too, as it runs a custom-modified fork of Lemmy.
Mods have enough to deal with. If getting a single post removed turns someone away from the platform because they couldn’t be arsed to read the rules or search again for the right community, that’s probably a net benefit for the entire Lemmy community.
They came from Reddit, communities having their own rules which you’re supposed to read before posting isn’t an alien concept to them. I believe it’s justified to expect that much from them.
Also, that post was restored pretty much right after it got removed.
Just nuke asklemmy. Those mods must have migrated here when StackOverflow lost traffic.
Your account is five days old. So I don’t think your message here carries a lot of weight unfortunately. That post is violating the community rules as well. And the account defended itself to not be a bot when no one accused it of that. So it’s probably not a great case to use to start a warm welcome campaign.
Former redditors should be familiar with something like forum rules and how to check them.
yeah i basically fucked up and sent a direct link to my old account to a couple people that i know irl. after considering that this is not good, i had to make an alt.
also thanks for recognizing me, that makes me proud.
Yeah, I never know if people write genuine, stereotypical posts like that. Or if that’s bot activity. Being adamant not to be a bot is kinda what bots do.
Could we make a quick start guide like they have for mastodon? https://fedi.tips/
Thank you for this. I will make the extra effort to steer new accounts here that get posts removed from where I moderate.
This is a much better idea than not removing posts.
I guess that’s not enough. Software needs to be more self-explanatory.
we’re already having a problem of not getting enough new users
Why is this a problem? Right now lemmy is small enough to mostly not draw attention from bots. It’s also small enough that blocking people can actually shape the type of comments you see.
It’s not a problem if you’re into
- (leftist) US politics
- Linux and other IT topics
- Star Trek
- German Memes
As soon as you try to talk anybody else, you might find you struggle to have a community large enough to sustain a conversation
Point thoroughly taken, thank you for changing my mind.
Sometimes I open threads with 6+ comments and there’s nothing there because I blocked them all. Bliss.
yep, where’s the gaming community’s, the non doomer ai tech community, the political compass memes?
Should fediverse stay a niche “project” for idealists? Or should it become an actual alternative?
I would really like for it to become a proper reddit alternative, but that is not happening. Less because of the platform and more because of the people.
Collectively this has already been answered.
But… The post wasn’t deleted, it’s still there. At least it appears so for me.
oh yeah you’re right, it got restored.
Yes, I see it as well, looks like the mod just said to “read the rules”
That gets in the way of the narrative though
What other reasons can be given for post deletion? Lemmy isn’t worse off due to that post no longer being here.
The graph is surprising, I expected the opposite, due to reddit becoming more and more reddity every day, along with the current political/social climate in multiple countries. It seems a good time for people to want something different.
Honestly, I use Reddit more now that I’m also on the threadiverse. There’s active local content and more Reddits and posts tied to the genres of books I read. Yes, I should be the change I want to see, but there’s only so much of that I can do.
The “active local content” even here in australia , is often trash on reddit, it still has that murican feel to it. No doubt that varies by location, and subject though. My reddit feed most days is completely empty, it’s more for if I want to look something up, or ask a question about something (guaranteed mixed results there of course, but probably no worse than any other platform).
That’s counterbalanced by the fact Lemmy is acquiring more and more of a reputation as a tankie bar.
When I made an instance, I decided not to advertise it as a particular platform. It’s MULTIVERSE, it’s a social media app, that’s pretty much what you need to know.
yeah the “tankie bar” issue is a real problem.
I’ll have an absinthe thanks
If lemmy is getting a “reputation as a tankie bar” and that is keeping the type of people away who repeatedly regurgitate tankie, leftist etc, that will lower the quantity of users, but the quality ratio will improve.
All My friends are anarchists who hate tankies and avoid Lemmy because of the tankies.
The first part is very unlikely to be true, the second part is probably not a bad thing for lemmy, your “anarchist” friends are most likely much more at home on twitter, facebook, instagram etc.
Good thing you found this forum for complaints.
i’m not complaining about mods or sth, just as a general viewpoint of how to treat new useres.
