Relaxed section for discussion and debate that doesn't fit anywhere else. Whether it's advice, how your week is going, a link that's at the back of your mind, or something like that, it can likely go here.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
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I agree with OP and the general consensus of the comments here.
This may sound corny, but all I really wanted to add to this thread is...thank you. Thank all of you for being so kind. So human.
I really hope the positivity of this platform continues on, as it's truly been a bright spot slipping through the dark clouds of the internet.
Rock on, Beehaw. Rock. On.
Honestly, Reddit was really good at the start, but they took too long to react to communities like: FatPeopleHate TheDonald FemaleDatingStrategy The child porn reddits
These people stretched their tendrils or worked around the admins, and eventually, were deeply engrained in reddit.
I'm not even sure why they didn't react immediately. But, I feel like allowing these communities to fester for years had real life consequences too.
I don't like that we can't make communities in Beehaw ourselves, but maybe, it is neccessary until later to prevent communities from showing up
This is the biggest reason I left reddit. It made me never want to post anything, and reading the comments section most of the time just made me angry. People are much nicer here!
I didn’t realize how afraid I was to comment or post until being on here. Almost low-key traumatized. Really has been making me question what social media can ‘bee’ and how many people resort to lurking when perhaps they’d rather engage
Also more willing to engage from what I've seen
I totally get it. When you get that kind of reaction to just trying to contribute or you read a toxic comments section, it makes you wonder why you should contribute or be there at all!
Right? I'd see a couple of notifications pop up in my browser and my first thought would be "Oh, fuck, what did I say that pissed everyone off this time?"
It's actually be kind of hard to turn off "reddit mode" when I comment here; I honestly didn't notice how I'd started to enter every comment thread with defensiveness and verbal aggression/threat displays right off the bat, as an anticipatory maneuver. There've been a couple of times where I re-read something I commented here and said "Oh, that was an unnecessarily aggressive way to phrase that. I hope nobody sees it before this edit goes through."
The hostility was exhausting and constant, but equally so was knowing I would have to bake in a bunch of qualifiers into my post to try to head off common bad faith arguments at the pass. When you're doing this for the very real problems you're having just existing in society as a minority, it's absolutely soul-sucking. Even if you know it's by design, you're still just one person dealing with a lot of weighty garbage in real life who then has to deal with redditor JAQing/name calling/strawmanning the minute you try to talk about it to try to offset even a fraction of the emotional burden.
I am pretty happy to watch reddit die. Less happy when I think about how this can further distill the abuse within a lot of current discourse.
I can relate to that a lot. I usually also comment on niche subs with a help question. Not sure what it is about reddit that makes the common redditor act like a hostile person with a superiority complex. It's very irritating, like they do the opposite of touching grass 24/7 and hate you for posting.
Beehaw and Lemmy are much smaller so that's also why the quality of the people here is just overall better. the moderation style in beehaw also helps. It also helps me feel like I can freely comment the way I want to.
yeah, it's a lot nicer here
Have you had similar experiences with Reddit...
Countless. It's one of the reasons that I am devoted to Beehaw.
Honestly, that's what generally happens the more public an online space becomes. The loudest most obnoxious people ruin it. Once Reddit wasn't a bastion of niche hobbyists and power users, and open to everyone, the chances of Dunning Krueger showing up grows exponentially. Also just assholes in general.
It's also sort of built into the system anyway. The mods are cronies to the despot. Many are good, but its not the good ones that do the damage and piss people off. They run their subs like petty little tyrants, and it rubs off on people.
It got so bad on reddit that I would hope my posts wouldn't hit the front page of a sub, and often when I'd comment I'd immediately disable inbox replies.
Someone in another community linked an archived reddit thread, and the unnecessary hostility and toxicity were readily apparent since I hadn't been on reddit for a while.
What's scary is how I started to feel numb to it and even feel like I started to become like that myself.
Oh man, that’s intense. I know what you mean about that kind of hostility fostering more hostility even within yourself. It’s not a good environment for anyone.
i have quit reddit multiple times over such behavior. everyone is looking to become the most upvoted dunk on there
Come to think of it, I too, notice the difference. How nicer people are on here.
Here's another thing that I don't miss about Reddit. I am glad there is no downvotes on Beehaw, there is not this constant passive aggressive downvoting which was really frustrating.
But yeah, I guess that what I don't miss the most is it's comment section. I don't miss the constant hostility for no reason. I don't miss the whole comments section being filled with masturbating monkeys every time there is a women in a picture. And I know, it sounds like I'm a fucking white knight or whatever, but that used to bother the hell out of me!
Every time, EVERY TIME you would see a photo with a woman as the subject of the photo, the common section would be unbearable to read...
Same thing, I also don't miss seeing a video or a picture with a black person on it and seeing that the comments section has been locked. And I don't even have to wonder why, I know why.
I don't miss the frets that are political in nature, talking about things like racism or queerphobia, going on there, and just seeing a locked comment section, with giant, sprawling discussions, of just deleted comments after deleted comments, with entire threads being nuked.
...I guess I just don't miss the bigotry and people being all around assholes.
You know, I'm writing this, and I'm just realizing how horrendous that place was, actually.
I guess, overtime, you end up getting used to it, or maybe, just getting numb to it. And you should never get number to seeing stuff like that, that's not normal. Bigotry, people acting like assholes, it should be outrageous, it shouldn't be just something that you're so used to seeing that it makes your roll your eyes. But I know that here, when I see a bad take, when I see someone behaving like an ass, it sticks out, it jumps out of me. I see it immediately, and I get frustrated with it. Because I am not numbed to it, because it isn't common here.
Maybe I am now in a bubble, in a safe space. Maybe. Screw everything else, I'm not leaving. I like it here. Real life is already stressful enough for me to be annoyed by people on Reddit.
I thought I would miss it. I don't. I haven't returned ever since I made an account here. The only times when I check read it, is if I'm looking for something, like, I have an issue with a game, something like that, I look it up on my search engine, and often, I would get linked to a Reddit thread about it. But that's it. Other than this, I don't go on it, I don't interact with it, I don't log into it. And I don't miss it.
This was like leaving social media for me, when I left Twitter and all of that, good fucking riddance.
Same experience on Reddit. Any comment saying "I'm having this problem" would usually get hostile responses. A post about a laptop hinge on my machine that failed in an absurdly short amount of time had people saying, "You don't know how to open your laptop." The worst IME were the cell carrier and manufacturer subs. People on those were consistently just vicious.
Indeed I do. Reddit is specifically crafted to drive continuous engagement. Beehaw, Lemmy, Tildes, etc. are not. My understanding is that the engagement is driven through emotional manipulation. That just doesn't seem to be here and I think it makes people not be so mean.
It's improved my outlook on the world and on people.
It depends on the instance in my experience. Beehaw is a good one though, I feel.
I got told I was "larping" on Reddit once about operating a hiking group. A huge number of my posts were about hiking, and I think I even named my group a few times.
Also continuously got told by Americans that our anti gun laws weren't actually working. In fact, anything suggesting they did was a instant downvote
So happy I deleted my primary account a few months ago. Much better environment here
I agree with you, I gradually became more lurky because the interaction with others was terrible. I hated talking to people.
So far on beehaw it's been overwhelmingly positive, and my dumb questions didn't receive snarky remarks or vitriol. Sometimes, people just want to ask a question and create a discussion. That's mostly me, I'm sure I can find a lot of answers myself, and usually do, but every so often I just want to talk about something with someone, so I'll repeat a question which was asked 2 years ago.
Besides, asking the same question again could lead to a different discussion anyway. It's terrible to tell people to "just Google it". Yeah, they could do that, but its such a negative response. Could easily just say "Hey I found this link on Google, here you go. Try looking into x, y or z and include that in your future searches, let me know if you have any other questions"
I find it interesting that while I don't yet have many posts/comments on beehaw yet, I find myself significantly more motivated to interact with the community than I ever did on reddit. I think it's that the community tends to legitimately want to have a conversation rather than seeking validation or wanted to feel superior to others.
It's terrible to tell people to "just Google it". Yeah, they could do that, but its such a negative response. Could easily just say "Hey I found this link on Google, here you go. Try looking into x, y or z and include that in your future searches, let me know if you have any other questions"
I felt that to the core. I'm a mid-level software engineer (and by no means do I claim to be an expert on anything) and I sometimes find myself getting frustrated with some of the newer developers when they seem to continue asking the same question to me. That being said, I don't think I've ever been deliberately mean to any of them, maybe just short with them if I'm under a lot of stress (which is something I've been working a lot the past year or two).
Telling someone to "just Google it" is very deliberately being mean or rude just to be mean or rude. I'd rather have an empty thread that no one replies to over being talked to like that. No matter how green or nieve someone may be, they still deserve some level of respect.
Not to mention, the “just google it” comment is also terrible even if it was made in good faith considering how bad Google seems to have gotten at providing actual useful search results. Hence, why so many people add “Reddit” to the end of their search query, just making everything full circle. You’re providing the content people are googling by making your post.
It's Twitter, but in longer form.
Everyone's just there to be outraged at something. The whole internet is outrage-bait.
For reasons I already pointed out several times (and which I don't mind pointing out again), I had severe anxiety and rejection sensitiveness when I wrote comments on Reddit, fearing their responses. Sometimes those fears were correct, and sometimes don't, but the fact that I suffered those things was enough to feel myself in danger. Twitter, Reddit, all was the same shit regarding interaction with other people.
Since I joined the fediverse and became more active, those fears were lowering. That, and the fact that I'm taking medication for my ADHD. But a good environment and friendly human interaction help too.
I've been struck by the same thoughts lately as well, coming from Reddit where I expect hostile attitudes and at times even contributed to it, Lemmy (and to a greater extent, beehaw) is still pretty quiet as far as trolls/haters go, there's active moderation keeping them at bay when they do show up, and the bulk majority of contributors are friendly and enthusiastic about their topics (rather than the toxic circlejerks of Reddit past.)
I still use Reddit occasionally. A little bit to scratch my news/social topic itch and for the few communities that haven't migrated here yet.
In general I will say that I find federated services to be more reasonable and willing to discuss topics without going down the path of pure hostility when compared to corporate social media. It also helps when you have active moderation teams that actively believe in the service their using and police bad behavior!
I live in a poorish country and I'm not flush with cash either currently not being employed except some volunteering. I wanted to build a network server for a charity who were struggling with their internal services.
Over a period of six months I cobble together enough to buy a second hand mini PC. I couldn't get a network card similarly because of shortages, so someone buys one from ebay US and brings it after a few months.
For some mystery reason, the card refuses to work with the PC. It's detected but as soon as I push some traffic it results in a kernel panic. I spend a month looking at similar problems online and trying out different solutions. With no dice, I post on Reddit.
On the my first two tires, I get no replies and no one notices it because it doesn't get any upvotes. Then I try another two subreddits and people just say that CPU/NIC sucks, just get another one.
This whole thing pretty much put me off from posting on Reddit after that.
Yeah the answer on Reddit is always "why not just buy the more expensive option," which is always the most upvoted and least helpful suggestion.
Yeah the answer on Reddit is always “why not just buy the more expensive option,"...
In one thread I pointed out that some car fees being proposed in California were highly regressive and would make life much more difficult for those who could least afford it. One guy said that wasn't a big problem because they could just buy a new car. 😱
It's not a matter of being overly respectful really - it's the culture of being shit scared to say anything which someone might find offensive. Sometimes you want to be comfortable enough to just be friendly with strangers, and hope that they will take things in the spirit they were intended...
Reddit is one of two sites (the other being a private tracker, the 'cappers' of which are a very very touchy breed - if you even suggest that it wouldn't be difficult for them to name their files in a logical manner they throw hissy fits and threaten to quit... so that everyone simply SIMPS over them and worships the ground they walk on.
The difference being that if you upset someone on Reddit you get cut off for a few days. It's a painful addiction - it's like a 20 per day smoker being forced to go cold turkey for 3 days, and then being allowed to smoke again until the next cold turkey.
I guess I'm waiting to see if I actually encounter the toxic behaviour I heard people have seen in the Fediverse - I'm sure it's out there, but really I'm mostly happy that it isn't any longer part of the second most evil organization on earth...
Google being the first, and Reddit being the second... I'm hoping to see alternative search engines catch up ASAP (I used SearXNG to get a 'blend' for a year already) but there are many other issues which need sorting out.
Fediverse is a nice start.
Everyone tries to be overly snarky there out of trying to be "funny" and get upvotes. That's one of the things I dislike the most about that community; it feels as if people try to hurt others to benefit themselves, all for the sake of internet points.
Yes, totally. There is a real sense of hostility on most subs. (Larger ones anyway) It's so hostile I'd always think twice about speaking my mind about anything. Like going back to high school or something.
I got downvoted to oblivion for providing the same (right) answer to a what is that song question as someone else. We posted at the same time but people saw the other one first and downvoted mine. Like my answer wasn't even wrong or unhelpful why the downvotes lol
Too many morons use the downvote button as a “Dislike/Disagree” button. It’s why I like that downvotes are disabled here. If you disagree with someone, you’re encouraged to actually have a discussion instead of lazily pressing the downvote arrow and leaving.
Yup.
I've seen it used quite effectively as a way to supress discussion, actually.
In the France subreddi, which I was quite active in, as I'm French, if you sorted by controversial, you would often find Queer related topics. Especially Trans issues related threads. Just downvoted to oblivion. But, It's not like people were disagreeing or anything, all of the few comments on there were positive. It was just a really effective way to suppress discussions about those topics.
As most people sorted by Best, all it would take was a couple of initial downvotes on your thread to bury it for the vast majority of people.
And it worked. Every so often, I would check what was in controversial that day, or that week. Without fail, I would see some of those topics on there, topics which were rarely discussed in this sub, because it was actively being suppressed by the downvotes.
Once I noticed this pattern, I began to check some subreddits, and I noticed the same thing happening on a bunch of them. Often, targeting the same subjects.
Yeah, I’m really loving the downvote feature being gone. I’ve been on another forum that had a noticeable decrease in toxicity when they removed their dislike reaction too.
I was amazed how many times on Reddit I had hostile comments in response, repeatedly to a comment that was days old. It's like there were people just trolling around looking for a comment to attack, and once they did it was relentless. I'm so glad I was able to quit Reddit entirely. It was a toxic environment.
This. And I'd get banned if I responded in kind. Subreddit mods have an agenda and it isn't “be(e) nice.”
I'm a game developer of 10 years and was on several programming and game development subreddits was constantly hostile. The annoying thing is that Reddit downvoted anything that was against the hive mind information. Information that was simply repeated a lot because it sounded logical but when you came in with actual experience and concrete information it was pinned up against this hive mind information, if it differed the hive mind information was upvoted and your actual industry experience and inside information was downvoted.
I've provided information from game studios I've worked at just to have people initially call me a liar, have someone else pop up and say, "you know this person actually works there." And get upvoted.
Frustrating for anyone trying to share industry information that they can't immediately back up with a website.
Default hostility, being snarky and trying not to answer when you need help. And 'oh that will fail in two months' when americans look at a normal roof window. That's about what I remember from reddit. Stuff like this warps you, being abused and gaslit and molested in any single interaction really makes you act in a different way, you can't be honest or open in that kind of environment.
Honestly I've deleted a great majority of the threads I've ever made within minutes, and immediately regretted a huge amount of the comments. It's almost like people are being paid to be shitty on Reddit sometimes.
I’ve seen that countless times on tech based subs when I was on that site. Very weird to see a feature suggestion bring up so much hostility from people.
I've receiced a reddit cares message just because I supported a male idol group. I definitely don't miss that part of reddit. My experience browsing lemmy/beehaw/kbin is much nicer since people aren't willing to tolerate vitriol and want that part of reddit to stay at reddit. Everyone's tired of always being angry at a faceless mob.
Thank you for sharing your experience. Reading the replies it seems like most of us have experienced similar from Reddit, and I agree with ArtZuron's comment "the more public an online space becomes [...] [t]he loudest most obnoxious people ruin it". I'm reminded of Alyaza's post of how unchecked toxicity can rapidly poison a userbase and drive away positive interaction. MayonnaiseArch sums it up better than I can: "being abused and gaslit and molested in any single interaction really makes you act in a different way, you can’t be honest or open in that kind of environment"