For context: I was a much more ignorant person back in 2014 than I am today. My views then do not reflect my views now (tw: Fatphobia, Sexism, Sinophobia, transphobia, Z-propaganda)
This isn’t my first rodeo dealing with a reddit migration. My first attempt to leave the site happened back in 2014 when several subs got banned, including several shaming subs when Ellen Pao was CEO of reddit.
Back then, there were a lot of unfounded rumors of the site being taken over by the Chinese government (cause Ellen was Chinese American), and being an ignorant person, I fell for it hook line and sinker.
So around that time, a few reddit alternatives started getting passed around, including a site called Voat. It was basically just like reddit, but the bandwidth and UI wasn’t nearly as sophisticated as reddits, thus the site constantly crashed. I spent a bit of time on there before heading back to reddit and never looking back. And the main reason I left was because the overall culture there was mean spirited, unhinged, and basically a reactionary version of reddit (which looking back makes sense considering this reddit migration was basically a reaction from trying to protect people)
Fast forward to now, and I’m starting to get de ja vu from the fediverse. At first I was on kbin, which seemed promising at first until I noticed that any article involving trans issues had a slew of transphobic comments that had a lot of traction. Realizing there was very little moderation being done there, I gave lemmyworld a try, but same issue, plus it seemed any article having to do with Ukraine had a lot of pro-Russian posts. And whenever I bring up this fact, I get a lot of pushback from users and mods. Part of the reason I ended up here is because one user told me “If you need a safe space, you should go over to beehaw with all the other snowflakes.”
At this point, I already have a fairly negative view of the fediverse. I hate what is happening to reddit right now, and yet it feels like the alternatives aren’t much better in providing a safe environment for its users.
Maybe my problem is with redditors, but at the very least reddit was equipped to keep the dumbest of dumbasses out of visibility. Here, even in supposedly more open minded communities and instances, such dumbassery has just as much weight as thoughtful, upvoted posts.
I don’t know. I can’t see myself staying involved with this project for long, if it’s just going to remain as unpleasant as it is now.
Also, sorry if this isn’t the right community to be posting this in. I’ll gladly move this where this needs to go if its the case.
Edit: riveting discussion example: @Cat_of_the_Round fuck philosophy. unless you reeeeelly care that much. your behind a kb for christ sake. Oh no. Someone had an opinion. I’m assuming you can in the very least ignore them. Othewise who the fuck cares?
yeah, I think I’m done here.
I don’t disagree that there are evident growing pains, but I think a lot of people leaving Reddit have their head screwed on ass backwards about what “leaving” implies and demands.
Many of the redditors trying the fediverse aren’t trying the fediverse. They’re looking for Reddit, and nothing is ever going to be more Reddit than Reddit. You have to accept that the technology, terms, and culture may be different.
Many people are leaving Rome expecting to arrive in Carthage. What we have instead is a camp. The fediverse is still very small, new, and under developed. The moderation tools and culture are not established. Reddit went through years of growing pains to get to where it is now.
So yeah, you left something people put a lot of time and energy into, of course it’s going to suck a bit for a while. But it comes back to why you left - was it because of the interface changes, or the implied constitutional changes?
If you left because of Interface changes alone, you will not last. You want to consume, and not build.
Otherwise, If you’re like me, you’re sorta tired of putting effort into communities that get dumped on by corporate interests, and who are only willing to work towards safety so long as it furthers the bottom line. The fediverse kinda sucks right now, but it offers the promise of building something that may actually serve its community rather than a VC.
Like fixing a house you own versus an apartment you rent. Reddit will always be limited by what its share price demands. The fediverse will not be. I think it’s worth fighting for here rather than Reddit or other mainstream platforms.
Very great analogy, too bad op already checked out and rage quit.
Completely agree. Rome is falling and we decided to leave before it’s in crumbles. We’re sitting outside its walls now in our camp, and some people may look back there and ask where are the theaters, the shows?
But for us we know what we left, and for now we’re content with our stories and small band of people making each other laugh. Because we’re looking towards what this camp will become.
It’s not going to be a 1:1 parity. If there was a clone of reddit everyone would know about it, they’d have a similar valuation. Every alternative is going to be small, until it isn’t.
Couldn’t have said it better. Let’s actually build something for ourselves this time around!
Now I’m thinking about Reddit as England and the Fediverse as North America and wondering what the world would be like if people decided “Shit, this is nothing like home and it’s too hard. I’m going back.”
Native culture would have thrived. Those who came and made the effort to integrate would have been welcomed and found a place. And maybe the real treasure would be the friends they made along the way.