The fediverse is small, and thats both a blessing and a curse - one of its several blessings is that in a smaller space we all individually have a bigger impact on what the culture of this space is like.
On this comm (and on lemmy broadly) there’s a lot of discussion about how to grow the fediverse, what to improve, but an easy thing you can do for the fediverse is right in front of us-
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Be kind
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Ask people what they think, and why
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Approach folks you disagree with with curiosity rather than hostility (EDIT: no, this is not specifically referring to Nazis. I get it, they’re the first thing that comes to mind. I’m not telling you to approve of Nazis I’m just saying be kind to your fellow lemmites)
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Engage sincerely
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Ask yourself if there’s something nice you can say
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Make this small space worth being in
A platform lives or dies by what’s available on said platform and often we have this conversation in the context of “content” or posts - and we may never have as much content as reddit does. But content and posts aren’t the only thing this kind of platform offers- it also offers people. It offers community, and human interaction.
Culture and community is lemmy and the fediverse’s biggest differentiator, and we all have a role to play in shaping the culture of this space.
The biggest thing you can do to help the fediverse is make it a place worth being.
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There was a movement in the blogging community ~15 years ago to leave positive comments on posts you like. It was an approach to conquer negative comments and a general destructive nature of online conversations. I still do it to this day. If I really like something or appreciate someone’s work, I leave a nice comment.
I usually try to until the other person shows me that there’s no reason to be.
I disagree with your premise.
It should be “The best thing that you can do for humanity is to be kind”.
Seriously. We’re living in a time when fascism is in an upswing and at least one religious leader has publicly called empathy a sin. Kindness and empathy are rebellious acts.
I can get behind the Kindness Rebellion.
You know what, I can respect that take. I was trying to tailor things to my audience, you’re not wrong though :)
Here are some more specific examples to think about!
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Compliment people’s art and ask about their process
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Teach people about something you’re knowledgeable on
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Give constructive criticism on peoples projects when it’s welcome
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Thank people for posting things you’re glad you got to see, tell them you enjoyed it
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Tell people you’re glad they’re here
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Tell people you hope they have a good day
Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts :) if you have thoughts of your own, I’d love to hear them!
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One thing that has been concerning me lately is that the Fediverse is being treated as a refuge for people who get banned on Reddit or other social media. Sure, sometimes those bans are based on arbitrary power tripping nonsense. But people actually do get banned for being assholes, and so I’ve got some worry that this is distilling the population of the Fediverse in an unfortunate direction.
Every troll server gets defederated from by everyone. And every troll gets banned on the normal servers. I think the federated nature is a blessing, those assholes have their own part of the internet which is usually far from my part of the internet.
“Asshole” is a broad term. It includes racists, abrasive personalities, anger-management problems, and so forth. Ie, people who have a tendency to get banned from other places. It’s not just trolls.
Being banned from Reddit is a unitary action. They can’t get back into Reddit, they’re just gone. Whereas in the Fediverse you can just go to a different instance and sign up afresh each time you get banned. This is part of the Fediverse’s design. And so I am concerned that the Fediverse will accumulate the worst users.
They can’t get back into Reddit, they’re just gone
It takes all of 30s to spin up a new Reddit account, just has to have a new name that isn’t already taken. If anything it’s easier than on a lot of Lemmy instances
Love how the point of the post is “hey try to be nice” and everyone sounding off in the comments like “FUCK YOU AND FUCK THOSE SPECIFIC GUYS TOO”
Maybe more people should just post their reviews of vacuums here
Its definitely fatiguing not gonna lie 🙃
Clearly I left it too ambiguous whether I meant Nazis specifically when I said you should try to approach people you disagree with with curiosity. That sounds super sarcastic but I don’t mean it that way, I just don’t have the energy to reword it
This problem probably could have been anticipated and avoided, it’s just hard to always do so perfectly on the internet when speaking to a lot of people you don’t know who will interpret what you say in any manner of different ways
Nah I think that what you said was legitimate and I don’t think you need to reword it. I’d rather be part of a social media experiment where there’s allowed to be some nuance and subtlety. Also I think you’ve made it pretty clear that nazi’s are excluded from the list of people to try to be nice to. I agree with you there!
I’ve noticed most discussions i have here end with a LOT less anger and a LOT more learning and that makes me happy.
Because there’s fewer foreign bots trying to make you hate everyone in your country, and fewer social media engagement bots trying to make sure you stay online arguing with someone.
