We could be nicer.
I hope you all have a good week.
this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
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Ask Lemmy
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Agreed. We're still one of the most polite online spaces I'm aware of, but it's harsher than it was right during the third party app exodus.
I’m a cis, white, male, everyone is nice to me
I really don't get why there are so many mean people here. I don't mean everyone has to go around being extra polite all the time - hell, even I don't do that. It's the intentional stuff, trying to hurt someone's feelings, that baffles me. There's way too much of it, and it just boggles my mind.
I don't care how big an asshole the other person was being - responding that way just makes two assholes. Block them and move on. Don't add to the toxicity that ruins social media in the first place, or you're part of the problem.
I believe there is some huge level of insecurity among people that make them act that way. It has to be. It's their poor way of coping in a world they probably didn't have any plans in how to navigate in, so why not just be a bastard online? It gives them a sense of superiority and power I guess, as false as it is.
If you're having to go around and mindlessly pick arguments with people, be an asshole and try to tell them how you're better than them? You're most likely not better than them. You've only sunk down several levels yourself.
The biggest thing for me is searchability. After a post is off the feed, it may as well be deleted. God help you if you're looking for something new, like a guide or help post. Most of the Fediverse is unindexed by search engines, and the built-in Lemmy search makes Reddit search look like Google in it's prime. I know PieFed has helpped a bit by adding flairs, so you can at least sort by that, but to my knowledge thats about as far as anyone has gone trying to address this.
When I block someone, I want to be a ghost to them. I want them to not see anything I’ve said and I wouldn’t want to see anything they’ve said either. I don’t want to block them and find out they engage me on an alt just with things to continue the bullshit with.
Unenforcible without Real ID Verification.
I could just have a dormant account in a different Tor Session and it would be unlinkable to me.
If you block me, I could use that account to browse and still see you.
I could have 10 or 100 of these alts.
(Hypothetically speaking of course, I don't have the energy to do all that stuff, I always lists every alt in my profile)
The Fediverse could improve how things are shared. If I wanted to share your post with a friend, I'll give them this link: https://piefed.ca/c/asklemmy/p/424338/what-do-you-feel-the-fediverse-could-improve-on.
If they're also on the same instance as me (Piefed.ca), then all's good. But God forbid they're on another instance and they want to comment or vote on your post. They would have to go back to their own instance, find this community, and then search for this specific post.
And I know some of you guys are itching to tell me about using a browser extension/script or another front-end to fix this, but this should be officially integrated with every front-end. I don't understand why there still hasn't been any integration with something like Threadiverse.
How can a social media grow if you can't even share posts properly?
- Starter Packs in the MicroBlogVerse (Which is coming to Mastodon!)
- Multis in the ThreadiVerse (Which is also coming to Lemmy!)
I wish I could block community categories, like anything associated with news could be blocked once instead of having to block dozens of individual communities.
You can block keywords on Piefed.
You can do that with adblocker custom filters too:
lemmy.world##div.post-listing:has(span:has-text("/trump/i"))
Specific to Lemmy, I'd like to see cross-posts get combined. The problem I'm seeing with Lemmy as a whole is everyone wants to submit new topics but not so much comment on others. And it doesn't help when you're browsing /all and someone has posted the same exact thing to like 15 different instances (same community across different instances, I mean). So... which do I reply to, assuming my instance wasn't posted on? World? ML? SJW? Hexbear? Those are the big ones I see. So, I think when someone posts to, say, AskLemmy, it should show them a list of all federated Ask Lemmy communities, and they should be able to uncheck the ones they don't want it crossposted to. And then you would only see one, because they would be connected, and all the replies would be in one place. This would do 2 things. One, it would declutter /all (and make OP look less like a spammer); two, it would encourage conversation. You just reply and it posts to the crosspost on your instance (or lets you choose one). Then, if one instance is defederated, only those top level comments disappear, but the rest of the conversation is preserved.
I think there needs to be a higher emphasis on real life community building instead of recreating the services that destroyed communities.
We don't need another twitter clone. We need a marketplace and volunteer organizing software.
I can easily imagine tiny towns, neighborhoods (and even apartments) using a Mastodon server to create a community based social media. Now, whether people would WANT to use that, and if it would just turn into NextDoor, are separate issues.
I think those are great ideas. Event planning is a general-purpose app that can be leveraged for mobilizing political groups. I don't think there's really anything like Facebook Groups, unless Friendica has some of that.
When I block someone, I want to be a ghost to them.
Depends how one defines 'blocking', maybe?
I mean, when I block someone (which I do from time to time) it's because I don't want to see whatever they can say or post. I don't care the slightest that they can read what I write, nor do I care what they can say about it either. I just don't want to be bothered by them. They could say the worst thing they want about me, that's fine provided their noise does not reach me ;)
I think moderation logs to be open is a bad idea
To me it relates to the idea that users, all of us, are supposed to be responsible and reasonable persons. The kind that is able to face unpleasant facts, words, and people too. Very much unlike users in most closed source/walled-garden social media that are treated like little children that need to be protected from everything, even their own shadow.
Alas, if the idea is great the reality is a little less so and not all of us are able to deal with... our own emotions when facing unpleasant things. Still, no matter how not perfect it is, I think it's worth promoting that approach. Even if it has a (real) cost.
I’m new here. I’d like to be able to find communities by size (ie. locate the ones that actually are used).
You can do this on piefed with the community browser.
Thank you, this was EXTREMELY helpful.
I would also like to see custom feeds in lemmy
That is coming to Lemmy, but is already present on Piefed.
When I block someone, I want to be a ghost to them. I want them to not see anything I’ve said and I wouldn’t want to see anything they’ve said either. I don’t want to block them and find out they engage me on an alt just with things to continue the bullshit with.
They can already do this if you block them even if they can't see what you say. Especially on the Fediverse where people can just create alternative accounts on different instance.
I think the Fediverse has corrected that aspect that, when you log off, you can’t see shit. So it prevents that. Though that’s practiced from the instance I’m on for all I know.
Yes, this is purely your instance. You can see content logged out on most instances.
Furthermore and this is a bit of a controversial part, is that, I think moderation logs to be open is a bad idea. Again, it is to me, just one more thing to add to the fuel of a fire that isn’t being let to wind down. Because people often jab and joust at others with shit like “LOOK WHUT U DID IN THUH MODERATION LOG!” and that just does nothing but escalate.
This is you very much. Open moderator logs massively increase community moderator transparency in the long-run.
Yes, I like the idea of a "two-side" block. It really could calm down situations. For example I have a guy who shouts "bot" or "troll" whenever we appear in one thread. It would save me a few bans if he couldn't see my posts.
Someone floated the idea of people being able to do temporary blocks, to allow for cooling off. But the problem with two-side blocks is that it's often used to shut down discussion rather than function as a meaningful block.
Also, people can spin up alternative accounts on here on different instances easily. So the impact of a two-way block will always have much less value if someone is truly determined to irritate you on here as compared to Reddit. Ultimately your harasser is a community instance issue, so far as I can see.
Shut down the discussion? How is it a problem? It is the very purpose. I just don't want to have anything to do with some user. And I don't want him to have anything to do with me. Discussion is impossible in the first place.
Yes, "determined" enemy can still bypass the "ban", but do we have any significant amount of such people? Most will forget the situation in 10 minutes after the irritating person is out of sight.
Shut down the discussion? How is it a problem? It is the very purpose. I just don’t want to have anything to do with some user. And I don’t want him to have anything to do with me. Discussion is impossible in the first place.
People can make an argument and block the other user to force the last word essentially. Blocking is a difficult discussion however you try to do it because there's no right answer.
Yes, “determined” enemy can still bypass the “ban”, but do we have any significant amount of such people? Most will forget the situation in 10 minutes after the irritating person is out of sight.
Yes we do. It's trivial to spin up alternative accounts.
A global landing page that let's people join from, asks them some basic questions and selects a server based on those answers wall while explaining in laymen's tense why. Then when the user finishes signing up presents them with a printable page of their login (user ID, server, etc.) for them to keep in their records and a button to take them straight in.
Hell, add fediserach somewhere in there as well.
People need an information kiosk
Someone could make this today. In fact, it probably already exists, but how would you find it? Also, how would the service catalog instances without being an instance itself and federating? And at that point why not just join that instance? Doesn't having a "front page" for the whole fediverse kind of defeat decentralization? I feel like every aspect of these apps runs counter to that happening.
I really don't know how - or even if - the "discoverability" issue will be solved. I also don't know if it needs a solution. I've been enjoying the slow drip of organically discovering neat little comms. It's almost exactly like the Internet used to be imo.
So, I look at this how I first saw the fediverse. There was a promise of collaboration, a united against monopolistic tech companies that originally drew me in, but how it worked was not clearly explained and I didn't really understand until much after joining Lemmy, most users don't care for the complexity and while you are correct that a cetralized Lemmy would go against the purpose of the fediverse, my idea would be of a communal lobby not one ran from a single instance but as a collaboration between the biggest instances. It only would display a catalog of instances and use API endpoints to create a new users account. The feddisearch already exists and could just be either linked to this page or also pulled in using an API if possible. Management would be handled by the owners of all member instances as well as financing.
I guess the question finally falls in do we want to go up against the big tech companies and improve the internet, or just want to exist inone of the Internet's corners and be left alone?
Yeah I hear you. I was mostly playing devil's advocate with my questions. I think your idea is very interesting, I just wouldn't expect Lemmy devs to pick it up.
I would like to see local feed of other instances directly.
The influx of new users in the last 4 months has shown me there needs to be some disincentive for posting the same regurgitated sentiment-based shit that you see every time you log in. Regurgitated sentiments and memes represent 95% of the content... yes AI bad... Israel bad... Cheese powder face man bad... I feel depressed... I can't afford a house... robots took my job. How many times can we as a community re-state what we already know to be true.
This is Reddit 2.0 let's not kid ourselves.
It wouldn't be reddit 2.0 without complaints like this about popular social concerns being popular on social media.
This is Reddit 2.0 let's not kid ourselves.
What exactly were you expecting? I think the only one kidding themselves is you
Are we in the same reality? No, because the question is what do we need to do to make the Fediverse better.
You being here isn't one of those things apparently.
I want to have upvotes/downvotes in the modlogs so we can see which moderation actions are popular with the community or not.
I'd like a softer block, like an auto collapse or hide their posts but not the comments. An anti-shitposting tool.
I'd like it if there were little indications about whether post OP upvoted or downvoted a comment, and whether the author of a comment I'm replying to upvoted or downvoted my reply.
I actually like that blocking only stops you seeing their stuff. You shouldn't be able to stop someone else's account being unable to see your comments, that shouldn't be within your power. But if you can't see what they said, that should be enough for you, since they won't bother you any more. I'd even have it that blocking is entirely client side.
Another thing I would like though is the ability to group community and posts together so posts and comments can be linked together and smaller instances can get use without shovelling everyone to a single point of failure larger instance.
So what you're saying is that you like the idea of online arguments? No, I can't follow everything you've said in the first bit. If you want to argue with someone online, go do it in DMs or wherever else. Not at the expense of the community, nobody here usually comes to read sissy slapfights that usually escalate into insults and escalates into spite-reporting which drives mods/admins angry.
The Fediverse should be learning as to what not to be. This kind of behavior was very frequent on Reddit and still continues today. There should be an end to that kind of thing.
"So what you're saying..." is such a tired meme, and the irony just piles on when you follow it up by strawmanning their argument.
Wanting to block someone else from seeing what you're writing on a public forum is straight-up petty. Blocking as it works right now already does exactly what it's supposed to: it stops the other user from engaging with you further. They can still interact with your posts, but you won't know about it.
If blocking worked the way you described, it wouldn't just affect you and the other person - it'd screw over everyone else on the platform too. For example, someone spewing utter bullshit could block everyone fact-checking them, and suddenly those corrections vanish for the whole audience.
Plus, it'd be ridiculously easy to circumvent. Making a new account takes a few minutes, or just log out and boom - you're unblocked again.
Oh god, the word salad. Not even going to try with you.
Why is it in my many decades of online discussion I have never blocked anyone, yet I see people who somehow think they need it?
Why?
You cant just move on or ignore them? I find it so weird.