Why does Lemmy feel so fresh compared to Reddit?

As a long time Reddit user, there's something about Lemmy and the fediverse that feels really refreshing and new. I think it has to do with a few things...

  1. People are more respectful of each other and interested in discussion and being social.
  2. Less trolls (users are probably older?)
  3. Due to it not being absolutely huge, I feel like people will actually see my posts and comments instead of being lost in a sea of content. I suppose once Lemmy grows this will change, however the cool thing about the fediverse are the new servers. So you can stick to the server when you want smaller community discussion and go to "all" when you want more populated threads.
  4. The clean UI feels refreshing and clean, almost like the early internet.

What have you noticed? Do you find it refreshing too?

Grosshirn,

I have been a user on Mastodon for quite some time but wasn't that active and felt it lacked some content for me. Now that I joined lemmy I learned that mastodon is federated and I learned about kbin! That's what makes it refreshing for me. A lot of new stuff and small communities emerging :)

kiddblur,

The thing that I think makes lemmy more valuable than mastodon is the focus on content versus personality. With Twitter, you followed people because you were interested in what they had to say and share. With Reddit, you followed communities. So even if a lot of the people don’t move over, once enough of the community does, it’ll feel the same (or better). I was never super active in my various subreddits (although I did comment, I just never posted), but I’m making an effort to comment and vote a lot on here just to help build that sense of community

Grosshirn,

Yeah that perfectly summarizes my feelings aswell. The topic oriented communities are what I preferr!

yads,

Really good summary. I think this is exactly why I never really took to Twitter and I never really realized why, but it's exactly that. I'm more interested in topics than specific people.

danielton,
@danielton@lemmy.world avatar

Not disputing what you're saying, but one feature that was a game changer for me on Mastodon was figuring out that I can follow hashtags in addition to people.

But I do agree with everything you said!

kiddblur,

Oh yeah, that is nice, but I guess at the end of the day it's still just that idea of "I'm a person saying a thing" (and using a hashtag) versus "here's this article I found"

Wander,
@Wander@yiffit.net avatar

You don't have your post deleted for forgetting a minor rule and there's a chance that your post will be seen instead of hidden under countless new posts.

Vlyn,
@Vlyn@lemmy.ml avatar

Even worse when you browse /r/all, find an interesting post about some topic, join the discussion, type out a long reply, hit send…

And 3 seconds later you get an automod message that your comment was removed. Because you aren’t a subscriber to that (default!!!) sub, or you aren’t verified, or you used a word they don’t like.

And even worse: You join a discussion, got some good points back and forth, everything is great. You try to reply to the latest comment in that chain to keep the conversation up and suddenly your comments get blocked. Because it was a /r/blackpeopletwitter post (you didn’t even notice as you found it on /r/all) and at some point they only locked it down for verified black users, kicking you out of the discussion.

I mean sure, have your own space on Reddit (even if it’s basically racism), that’s fine. But then subs like these shouldn’t be default subs on /r/all when they constantly lock down threads.

orcrist,

Of course it feels new, because it is new to many people. :-)

I felt like people were seeing my Reddit posts and comments, and I feel like people are here, as well. As with any commenting website or service, as the numbers of commenters grow large you need to be relatively quick to reply if you want many people to see what you write. On Reddit, obviously that means it depended what subreddit you were commenting on. And surely it will be the same or already is the same here.

The UI all depends on what client you're using. In my mind it doesn't feel like the early Internet, but that probably depends on our relative ages.

MyMulligan,
@MyMulligan@lemmy.one avatar

The negativity is definitely less. Sure, out of say fifty comments to a post there's maybe two disgruntled souls. Overall it's conducive to discussion.

Over on reddit I kept to just hobby subreddits for the most part to make comments. Only way to not come across the trolls.

Yes, the clean UI is wonderful. It's good to have something simple. It's also fun to watch something grow.

StarLuigi,
@StarLuigi@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

The hobby subreddits and the smaller subs were the only ones I was sad to see go when moving to Lemmy, I was surprised by how much I didn't miss anything else at all .

git,

I think it has people with above average reading comprehension because amount of people I saw that said opening a Lemmy account is too hard and they couldn't manage to do it is way too high

Grosshirn,

Yeah that's true! If an article is posted, the discussion shows that people really did read the article!

Very_Bad_Janet, (edited )

Early adopters of any innovation likely have certain personality traits that make them able and willing to assess a new technology and learn/overcome some obstacles to use it. Maybe those traits translate into pleasant, respectful online communication?

ETA: I need to see if I still have my old grad school copy of Diffusion of Innovation. It might have some answer in there.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations

ETA1: Most everyone seems thoughtful and patient. So maybe those are early adopter traits?

dodgypast,

That's my thinking. As an example the people who usually end up answering people's tech queries are the most likely to end up here.

gylotip,

What does ETA mean?

Very_Bad_Janet,

Edited To Add. :)

MyMulligan,
@MyMulligan@lemmy.one avatar

My wife is a teacher at a small district. She's watched student's abilities drop over the past twenty years and the time of covid left them severely lacking. Yes. Their writing skills are practically not there. It's truly sad.

danielton,
@danielton@lemmy.world avatar

It seems like the people who actually cared about Reddit and the community left for Lemmy (and others). It definitely shows.

Reddit will learn very quickly that there is nothing particularly special about it. It's a forum. With the people who posted and moderated on there being chased away or even banned, there isn't going to be much of value left on Reddit going forward.

samus12345,
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

The only thing special about Reddit now it that it became insanely popular and got its hooks into millions of people. Those who are interested in actual discussion will go elsewhere, and those who want to mindlessly doomscroll reposted memes and have ads shoved in their face will stay. That's where they belong.

Haan,

I agree. I think Reddit is delusional if they think they will be able to successfully monetize what are essentially just forums. Reddit users themselves don't give a hoot about Reddit as a brand, company, or product. They care about communities and being able to have discussions on their favorite subjects. There's no secret sauce proprietary to Reddit at all and people will go where ever everyone else is

Noedel,

It will probably continue as a shell... Like Digg, Facebook and other failed social medias that once were golden.

danielton,
@danielton@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah, I don't think Reddit is going anywhere, but it won't be as good as it used to be.

5redie8,

Yeah, couldn't have put it much better myself. I'm fine with it, let them stay.

pickle_party247,

In addition to what everyone has said, Lemmy doesn't have an established culture compared to Reddit. No in-jokes like the poop knife for example

Kurumatron,
@Kurumatron@lemmy.world avatar

How long until the "broke two arms" story comes here?

goat,

huuuuuuuuuurr, we should make a really clever and quirky comment to identify ourselves. something something narwhal bacon sings.

XD XD ;p

adj16,

But we do have the no poop guy.

Refuses to shit. Refuses to elaborate. Leaves.

Rob,

I also choose this guys poop knife

mim,

It's inevitable with time though.

Maybe to a lesser extent, since not every instance federates everything. If clusters start to form, you'd expect some in-jokes to be limited to certain communities / instances.

Ciari,

The poop knife has already made its way here 💀

Jumuta,

wtf did i just read

datavoid,

Quick someone link the swamps of dagobah, Jolly rancher, coconut, or broken arms

esty,
@esty@lemmy.ca avatar

I haven't read any of these words in years and I'm kind of upset you made me remember their existence

abcd,

TIL about the poop knife!

bigkahuna1986,

You’re one of today’s lucky 10000! Sort of…

Lurra,
@Lurra@lemm.ee avatar

Definitely people here are much more polite, the contrast is just striking.

Griff,

(Love your pfp!)

Haan,

I haven't seen a single comment that began with "Imagine.." yet. The lack of immature and pointless sarcasm is a breath of fresh air

bigbox,

Those users aren’t intelligent enough to understand what the Fediverse is, why they should use it, or even how to sign up.

ulu_mulu,
@ulu_mulu@lemmy.world avatar

I noticed the same, probably because reddit has become really bad in the last years but I didn't realize it until I joined here a couple of weeks ago.

It's indeed refreshing being able to have honest discussions on a platform that's not infested by bots, propaganda, disguised ads, mass shitposting, hidden agendas, etc.

If lemmy becomes wildly popular to the masses, it's possible things will change for the worse, who knows, but I'll enjoy it a lot in the meantime.

incompetentboob,

I feel exactly the same. It’s really feels like the early days of reddit on here. Everyone is nice and the content is genuine.

I got really tired of typing out comments only to delete them because I didn’t have to patience to be told I’m wrong.

If things go bad here and the bots and the ads take over, we can move to another instance make new communities and start over.

hikarulsi,
@hikarulsi@lemmy.world avatar

Because

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/f2aac837-940c-4079-bf59-bc2b4377df2f.jpeg

jrs100000,
@jrs100000@lemmy.world avatar

Ok so let me throw out some old timer wisdom. This is what the social media/forums/the Internet are like when the cream is skimmed off and the 90% of users who only browse, and the 8% who only vote are gone. Enjoy it while you can. The summer always ends.

sneakyninjapants,

I was a bit late one the social media train, isn't that where the "Eternal September" thing came from?

AnyOldName3,
@AnyOldName3@lemmy.world avatar

That's because way back in the past, every September, a bunch of students who'd never had home internet access would have access via university for the first time. It would take some time for them to pick up the culture, so there'd be a month or so of questionable posts.

Noedel,

Absolutely, my first thought was this is what internet was in the 90s and 00s. Slow, good yarns, and lame jokes.

Tbh there's already too many memes here though. Half my front page is 196 and German me_irl sometimes.

samus12345,
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

You can block those communities if you want.

Noedel,

I guess I want some memes not all memes

jrs100000,
@jrs100000@lemmy.world avatar

Yea but dont be too hard on the kids. We were sticking frogs in virtual blenders and abusing the /blink/ tag at their age, so let them have their fun.

static_motion,

This is exactly it. I haven’t come across a forum where the “summer syndrome” wasn’t permanently present in a decade. I’ll be lurking around here to see if this is going to finally be it.

yads,

The funny thing is on Reddit I was mostly a lurker/content consumer. There was little incentive to actually post because your post or comment was likely to just be drowned out in the absolute torrent of other posts/comments. Here I'm actually able to be heard.

zzz,

Unfortunately some communities don't seem to exist without the froth. The FIRE community seems difficult to recreate here, or local subs. But do you all remember when r/Bitcoin was mostly programmers?

Very_Bad_Janet, (edited )

The FIRE community could use the existing Mr. Money Mustache forums. Only hiccup is, I believe, that it is difficult to get a new account (not sure why that is, maybe that's an old problem and it's easier now). I've lurked that forum for years; they seem like a friendly, helpful, well regulated, un-frothy bunch.

neanderthal,

I love The Good Place! To get a Mr money mustache account, you have to know the answers to a few questions covered by the blog. If anyone needs help, PM me. I'm a long time follower of the FIRE community and can assist.

If bad Janet poops because she chooses to and ends conversations with long farts, I'm a bit afraid of what a very bad Janet does...

chaddy,
@chaddy@feddit.de avatar

I think the lack of a karma equivalent, and thus karma farming, results in much more thought out and unique posts/comments.

WalrusDragonOnABike,

Torn between replying with "this!" as a meme about how generic responses like that are used to farm karma and making a joke about how "of course someone with only 1 reputation point would say there's no karma equivalent." Idk how reputation works and if its only internal to instances or a shared across instances. But its possible it does become a karma equivalent in the future.

DoucheAsaurus,
@DoucheAsaurus@kbin.social avatar

Reputation seems borked at the moment, it counts downvotes but not upvotes so I'm sitting at -34 right now lol

Kantiberl,
@Kantiberl@kbin.social avatar

Boosting is the only way for reputation to go up. I boosted you for science.

Very_Bad_Janet,

Interesting! I gave you a boost as well, also for science. Funny how we all seem to be tinkering and figuring what does what here.

ivanafterall,
@ivanafterall@kbin.social avatar

I'm not sure I feel comfortable taking advice from a person with -51 reputation...

Kantiberl,
@Kantiberl@kbin.social avatar

Ooo everybody come look at Mr. Non-controversial over here with his +40 reputation.

cunnilingsus,
@cunnilingsus@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Do you mind explaining what boosting is for us on Lemmy?

Kantiberl, (edited )
@Kantiberl@kbin.social avatar

It adds your comment to my profile feed if anyone is following me. I think it's a way to work better with Mastodon like sites but I don't really know. I understand that @ernest is in the midst of changing that.

chaddy, (edited )
@chaddy@feddit.de avatar

Lol, I think the first one would definitely have flown over my head without explanation. Also, I don't know if it's instance specific, but I can't seem to find my reputation on my profile, neither on feddit.de(lemmy-ui) or Jerboa. Where do you get that information?

Maybe it could be useful for moderators or admins to access that information? But that also poses the risk of accounts "reputation-farming" like on reddit to sell the account to some bot-farm that uses it for astro-turfing or sth similar.

russjr08,
@russjr08@outpost.zeuslink.net avatar

I'm not 100% sure, but I think the reputation thing is a Kbin feature, at least everyone I've seen mention it so far has been on a Kbin instance.

I do not think Lemmy has the same thing, but don't quote me on that!

Very_Bad_Janet,

There is a thing called Reputation (IIRC) tucked away in your profile. Im not sure if that's a true karma equivalent. Also not sure what you can do with it.

awsamation,
@awsamation@kbin.social avatar

It doesn't matter what you can do with it. You couldn't really do anything with karma either.

aski3252,

I think right now, there are a lot of passionate old school reddit users on lemmy who are exited about it and eager to participate and who are finding a lot of things they were missing from reddit.

The community is a lot smaller and made up largely of enthusiasts.

CalcProgrammer1,
@CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml avatar

Definitely this, Lemmy feels like the early days of Reddit. I wasn’t a super early Reddit user as I came over just before the Digg migration (and mostly used Digg prior to the migration) but 2010 Reddit felt quite different to modern Reddit. Lemmy recaptures that smaller community feel, but I am excited to see it grow.

PrivateNoob,

I have noticed similar things, just like you. Here are mine:

  1. More respectful, thought-provoking commenters
  2. Being early on a fundamentally different site is cool (federated vs centralized)
  3. In really small sublemmies (Less than 10 posters I guess) I kinda get the small village feeling, where eventually everyone will know eachother, which is kinda wholesome.
MentalEdge,
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

I'm really liking number 3, as well. Hello PrivateNoob!

PrivateNoob,

Literally you're the reason why I wrote the third one. ^^

SkyNTP,

I feel like I’m eavesdropping a private conversation.

samus12345,
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

I'll translate your comment into Reddit-speak: "now kith"

StarLuigi,
@StarLuigi@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I just wanted to say I love your banner and profile picture, what are they from?

PrivateNoob,

Oh, thank you for the compliment! I don't know if they are a specific character from a series or a video game, I just took them from Pinterest. With the banner, I specifically wanted to find a wallpaper that captures a bit of retrowave internet aesthetics.

OSHI NO KO ENJOYER. It's a pleasure to meet you.

StarLuigi,
@StarLuigi@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Pleasure to meet you as well!

sideone,
@sideone@lemmy.world avatar

People are more respectful of each other

Less trolls

I think you mean fewer 😜

floofloof,

I see what you’re doing there, but it caused me real pain on Reddit that no one could do effect/affect or reins/reigns or populace/populous or phenomenon/phenomena or you’re/your or they’re/their/there or lose/loose or who/whom or counsel/council or “she and I”/“her and me” or may/might or i.e./e.g. or its/it’s or lay/lie or pique/peak or pore/pour or… sorry, I’m a bit anal and a bit traumatized. Anal trauma, if you will.

sideone,
@sideone@lemmy.world avatar

Sounds uncomfortable

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