The reason you don’t get many “normal” people here is that the community is absurdly hostile to anyone on the “normal person” spectrum.
If you’re not a software-pirating techbro obsessed with “privacy,” a leftist, or a furry, this place generally shits on you.
I very frequently post incredibly lukewarm takes for any mainstream community, and literally get called a Nazi. I have stalkers lol.
I, personally, tend to have “normal” views but significantly more resilience to online communities than “normal” people - which is why I still come here. Most normal people left back before this place even defederated from Hexbear. They ain’t coming back.
Until mods of what are essentially “default” communities get serious about growth instead of wanting “their” spaces, Lemmy is never going to grow. Most people don’t find getting blasted with piss-takes by Marxists funny the way I do.
Dude made a simple joke in the same vein as the other joke and was downvoted because it didn’t “toe the line” so yes it’s exactly what I wanted to link.
If you can’t shitpost, there’s another huge chunk of people gone.
Bro a “your black certification ran out” joke is miles different than a “white to black trans” “joke”. Aside from being inappropriate, it’s also just unfunny, and so wildly out of left field, it screams “I’m doing a bigotry reference to be edgy/for attention”. It deserves downvotes for those reasons alone.
I don’t disagree with your point that Lemmy in it’s current state isn’t the most casual/normie friendly place. But if you think trans “jokes” are what will make Lemmy more approachable, you and I have very different casual audiences in mind.
You don’t have to think it’s a funny joke. It’s a hip shot, a shitpost.
Isn’t the whole point of a shitpost to garner downvotes? Mission accomplished I guess. Point still stands, it’s deserving of downvotes.
Again, I don’t disagree that Lemmy is not very casual friendly at the moment. But let me reiterate, “more trans jokes/shitposts/whatever you want to call it” isn’t going to attract the types of “casuals” that I (or most people on Lemmy, I’d assume) want to interact with.
It’s social disapproval; most people care about social approval–it’s human nature. When googling the question, Ican’t find scientific studies, but general conversation where pretty much everyone involved agrees that downvotes are at least disappointing and at can make people not want to participate.
If you care about downvotes, then I could see your point about the Fediverse being hostile to some more mainstream opinions. I’ve made some pretty vanilla comments about markets/politics that have gotten downvoted for not being left-wing, but I don’t really care about that.
I’ve never been called a “nazi”, but I don’t go out of my way to antagonize anyone and try to add to the conversation and if my reply is something along the lines of “socialism sucks and you suck” then I don’t post it.
I think what it comes down to though is that the fediverse experience requires some curation and restraint compared to other larger platforms where you can go pretty much unoticed and can pretty much always find a group of people of similarly ideologically minds
If you care about downvotes, then I could see your point about the Fediverse being hostile to some more mainstream opinions.
I don’t - that’s why I’m still here. Most people do.
I regularly get called a Nazi just for saying Israel is demonstrably either not committing genocide or is so laughably bad at genocide that the claim is irrelevant.
30k people dying is bad, and the war is especially brutal, but the US killed nearly that many civilians in Mosul, and that wasn’t genocide - the topic was never even broached. Modern war is horrific for civilians. That’s why war is not seen as a good thing.
That take will absolutely get you called a Nazi if you post it in Politics or News/World News. This is a very normal position to have, and a significant majority of people will agree with everything above in the real world - these people aren’t going to hang out here.
I think what it comes down to though is that the fediverse experience requires some curation and restraint compared to other larger platforms
Yes, this is why it will stay small and insular until changes are made, which is what I’m advocating for.
With sensitive, charged, and tragic topics such as the Israel-Hamas war; that same vitriol is going to be thrown on any platform. And in my experience is worse on other platforms like tik tok and Reddit.
There is discussion to be had on the topic but probably not on social media. Politics and News communities typically have to be heavily moderated. Even on old school forums the politics thread/board is usually just as vitriolic. I usually don’t participate in those threads anywhere.
I feel like more of the stuff that is egregious is commenting or posting something along the lines of “I like cars” or “I like my job” and someone comes from the All feed with a “fuckcars” or “antiwork” reply. The unnecessary antagonism outside of their community is what bothers me. But even then, those are easy to ignore.
I regularly get called a Nazi just for saying Israel is demonstrably either not committing genocide or is so laughably bad at genocide that the claim is irrelevant.
This being the internet, you might be simply being downvoted because you are wrong. As the old adage goes, the easiest way to raise engagement find the answer to a question on the internet is not to post the question, but to post a wrong answer.
That might be relevant if my point wasn’t the hostility, rather than the disagreement. I don’t give a shit if you disagree with me - you’re allowed to believe whatever you want.
The hostility costs this place users, and this is a thread about advertising for more users.
Perhaps consider reading the entire comment before posting.
Lemme cap this: showing a defensive (or counteroffensive) posture against people who sport passive support for genocide “costs users”… and not wanting those users is somehow bad?
Sounds quite simple math to me: while we could mayhap be advertising for more users, we don’t need to cater to everyone.
Disagreeing with someone saying there is a genocide happening, when there is indeed one happening, is not just a matter of opinion, it is effectively denying the suffering of thousands, or giving it some legitimacy. You can’t just complain about hostility when your opinion, whether consciously or not, carries its own share of violence.
Maybe you should try jumping on Truth Social and suggesting they’d have a larger userbase if they’re were more tolerant of left wing views?
Why is it always “leftists” who are supposed to welcome any and all political views with a warm mouth?
What exactly are you offering in return besides entitled posts complaining “these people I’m stereotyping with open contempt weren’t nice enough when they replied to my unsolicited opinion with opinions of their own”?
It doesn’t appear to be posts, moderation, money, code or insight.
Does Truth Social have threads about wanting more people to join Truth Social? Because this is a thread about advertising for lemmy.
Yes. Brainstorming how to “redpill” people is one of the far-rights favourite past times, right up there with using slurs and obsessing about strangers having the correct opinons about their own genitals.
Did you very carefully dodge using the word “discussion” in your reply? Because this is a thread discussing the growth of Lemmy but it looks like we were supposed to just grovel at the feet of your opinion.
Hexbear exists and you can join it.
Have you forgotten which one of us was having a big teary about not feeling welcome because this thread right here was too left wing? I’m fine where I am thanks.
Growth. The thing this thread is about.
Yep. Growth and growth only. The user count goes up by one and we can pretend “bigger number means better” like we’re sad little middle managers.
My contribution to this discussion is making it clear just how little genuine value there is caving to your slimy little guilt trip.
Yes. Brainstorming how to “redpill” people is one of the far-rights favourite past times, right up there with using slurs and obsessing about strangers having the correct opinons about their own genitals.
Cool then yes, if I could tolerate those people as much as I tolerate leftists, and thus hang out with them, I would make these same posts. I struggle to do that because when they speak I want to put a hammer through my skull.
Have you forgotten which one of us was having a big teary about not feeling welcome because this thread right here was too left wing? I’m fine where I am thanks.
You still seem to think this is about me, and it is not.
Yep. Growth and growth only. The user count goes up by one and we can pretend “bigger number means better”
It literally does. I support the fediverse and thus want it to grow. If you need a place just for you, you can find one that aligns with you or create your own.
You still seem to think this is about me, and it is not.
The longest paragraph in your comment literally starts with “I, personally”.
Scattered around that are your opinions about why Lemmy isn’t bigger, that you’re insisting this thread was created to solicit.
But the moment someone does the same thing, in the same thread, but disagreeing with you about the reasons? “This thread isn’t about that”.
We can play the game if you want though. Was reddits growth – literally the measuring stick in the discussion – thanks to it peppering the centre right with gentle kisses every time they blessed the site with a visit?
Nope. It was about as left-wing as Lemmy and if you said something that was demonstrably bullshit, 8 different people would tell you to fuck off.
The reality is that it became a centralised location for memes and pornography.
Whatever “growth” it saw by giving brave little conservatives a place to call their own had to be repeatedly undone because they just couldn’t stop using slurs, brigading threads and advocating terrorism.
So they moved to Voat instead, instantly turning it into a cesspit of mask off neonazim and “not technically child pornography but we’re going to use it as child pornography anyway”.
How did that “growth” work out for them? Oh right, terminally.
It literally does. I support the fediverse and thus want it to grow. If you need a place just for you, you can find one that aligns with you or create your own.
Yet your solution wasn’t “someone should make a center-right server that is more tolerant to our completely reasonable views and harmless slurs”, it was “all these perverts and nerds should be nicer to us”.
You know, that exact thing I mentioned. You’ve just made it clearer that your take genuinely is “this platform is overrun by leftists who need to be nicer to us poor oppressed conservatives and if they’re don’t like it, they can create their own space just for themselves”.
I assume the next step is that you join that new instance, complain it’s full of leftists and insist they go somewhere else.
Nope. It was about as left-wing as Lemmy and if you said something that was demonstrably bullshit, 8 different people would tell you to fuck off
Early reddit was not left wing. It was techbro-libertarian. The famous Ron Paul “It’s Happening” gif comes from reddit lol.
I’d love for this place to be as openly welcoming as early reddit.
I understand you don’t like when normal people come into the frontiers, but that just means you’ll constantly need to find new frontiers.
Such is life for people who move to the frontier to be alone. You’re not unique, this has happened throughout all of human history, and it’ll happen to the fediverse too.
You’ll always have Hexbear tho. For want of a frontier, it’s easy to have an island.
Honestly, I couldn’t even recommend it to anyone in its current state to normal everyday people.
If you have normal, moderate political positions you will get shit on constantly here. Doesn’t help that everything needs to be political on Lemmy.
Meme communities are like 50% “hurr durr normies bad” or “everyone nazi”
Add the Linux circlejerk and that’s about 90% of the content I see on here. I don’t care to engage a lot with that and I just hope more normal people migrate…
The reason you don’t get many “normal” people here is that the community is absurdly hostile to anyone on the “normal person” spectrum.
If you’re not a software-pirating techbro obsessed with “privacy,” a leftist, or a furry, this place generally shits on you.
I very frequently post incredibly lukewarm takes for any mainstream community, and literally get called a Nazi. I have stalkers lol.
I, personally, tend to have “normal” views but significantly more resilience to online communities than “normal” people - which is why I still come here. Most normal people left back before this place even defederated from Hexbear. They ain’t coming back.
Until mods of what are essentially “default” communities get serious about growth instead of wanting “their” spaces, Lemmy is never going to grow. Most people don’t find getting blasted with piss-takes by Marxists funny the way I do.
Case-in-point from this thread
https://lemmy.world/comment/6400270
Oh and one directed at me
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Dude made a simple joke in the same vein as the other joke and was downvoted because it didn’t “toe the line” so yes it’s exactly what I wanted to link.
If you can’t shitpost, there’s another huge chunk of people gone.
Bro a “your black certification ran out” joke is miles different than a “white to black trans” “joke”. Aside from being inappropriate, it’s also just unfunny, and so wildly out of left field, it screams “I’m doing a bigotry reference to be edgy/for attention”. It deserves downvotes for those reasons alone.
I don’t disagree with your point that Lemmy in it’s current state isn’t the most casual/normie friendly place. But if you think trans “jokes” are what will make Lemmy more approachable, you and I have very different casual audiences in mind.
It’s not out of left field. Read the user names.
The dude who says “I’m not sure which one I am” has the username “Certified Black Guy” which is why the joke was made. They’re all replying to this
It’s a play on how the expectation was that the trans reference was between gender. Twist-on-expectation is a core conceit of many jokes.
You don’t have to think it’s a funny joke. It’s a hip shot, a shitpost.
I read the thread, the “joke” is bad.
Isn’t the whole point of a shitpost to garner downvotes? Mission accomplished I guess. Point still stands, it’s deserving of downvotes.
Again, I don’t disagree that Lemmy is not very casual friendly at the moment. But let me reiterate, “more trans jokes/shitposts/whatever you want to call it” isn’t going to attract the types of “casuals” that I (or most people on Lemmy, I’d assume) want to interact with.
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I’m defending that person’s joke.
Read the screen names involved. It’s a decent hip-fire joke, but people took it the wrong way and downvote-spammed him
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Your average person cares very much, and this topic is about getting more of them to join lemmy.
This isn’t about how I feel about people being shits. I clearly don’t care. This is about growing lemmy.
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It’s social disapproval; most people care about social approval–it’s human nature. When googling the question, Ican’t find scientific studies, but general conversation where pretty much everyone involved agrees that downvotes are at least disappointing and at can make people not want to participate.
Asking for a source on this is silly. Go to any reddit thread.
The thread linked is a person trying to convince people to come to lemmy.
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There’s a reason why quite a few instances have blocked hexbear.
I block those people all the time here and it’s made the experience very enjoyable. It’s a small enough community where blocking is highly effective.
I’ll have to review who sh.itjust.works has defederated.
I browse All’s top posts without blocking anyone, and my biggest comment would be duplicate news stories.
If you care about downvotes, then I could see your point about the Fediverse being hostile to some more mainstream opinions. I’ve made some pretty vanilla comments about markets/politics that have gotten downvoted for not being left-wing, but I don’t really care about that.
I’ve never been called a “nazi”, but I don’t go out of my way to antagonize anyone and try to add to the conversation and if my reply is something along the lines of “socialism sucks and you suck” then I don’t post it.
I think what it comes down to though is that the fediverse experience requires some curation and restraint compared to other larger platforms where you can go pretty much unoticed and can pretty much always find a group of people of similarly ideologically minds
I don’t - that’s why I’m still here. Most people do.
I regularly get called a Nazi just for saying Israel is demonstrably either not committing genocide or is so laughably bad at genocide that the claim is irrelevant.
30k people dying is bad, and the war is especially brutal, but the US killed nearly that many civilians in Mosul, and that wasn’t genocide - the topic was never even broached. Modern war is horrific for civilians. That’s why war is not seen as a good thing.
That take will absolutely get you called a Nazi if you post it in Politics or News/World News. This is a very normal position to have, and a significant majority of people will agree with everything above in the real world - these people aren’t going to hang out here.
Yes, this is why it will stay small and insular until changes are made, which is what I’m advocating for.
With sensitive, charged, and tragic topics such as the Israel-Hamas war; that same vitriol is going to be thrown on any platform. And in my experience is worse on other platforms like tik tok and Reddit.
There is discussion to be had on the topic but probably not on social media. Politics and News communities typically have to be heavily moderated. Even on old school forums the politics thread/board is usually just as vitriolic. I usually don’t participate in those threads anywhere.
I feel like more of the stuff that is egregious is commenting or posting something along the lines of “I like cars” or “I like my job” and someone comes from the All feed with a “fuckcars” or “antiwork” reply. The unnecessary antagonism outside of their community is what bothers me. But even then, those are easy to ignore.
Strong agree, and I also agree that things will be tense and some leeway should be given. That’s not the line we’re walking here, though.
This being the internet, you might be simply being downvoted because you are wrong. As the old adage goes, the easiest way to
raise engagementfind the answer to a question on the internet is not to post the question, but to post a wrong answer.That might be relevant if my point wasn’t the hostility, rather than the disagreement. I don’t give a shit if you disagree with me - you’re allowed to believe whatever you want.
The hostility costs this place users, and this is a thread about advertising for more users.
Perhaps consider reading the entire comment before posting.
Lemme cap this: showing a defensive (or counteroffensive) posture against people who sport passive support for genocide “costs users”… and not wanting those users is somehow bad?
Sounds quite simple math to me: while we could mayhap be advertising for more users, we don’t need to cater to everyone.
Not agreeing with you does not imply support for genocide.
Disagreeing with someone saying there is a genocide happening, when there is indeed one happening, is not just a matter of opinion, it is effectively denying the suffering of thousands, or giving it some legitimacy. You can’t just complain about hostility when your opinion, whether consciously or not, carries its own share of violence.
That’s your mistake.
Getting down voted for saying disagreement isn’t tolerated on this site. You can’t make this shit up lol
Maybe you should try jumping on Truth Social and suggesting they’d have a larger userbase if they’re were more tolerant of left wing views?
Why is it always “leftists” who are supposed to welcome any and all political views with a warm mouth?
What exactly are you offering in return besides entitled posts complaining “these people I’m stereotyping with open contempt weren’t nice enough when they replied to my unsolicited opinion with opinions of their own”?
It doesn’t appear to be posts, moderation, money, code or insight.
Does Truth Social have threads about wanting more people to join Truth Social? Because this is a thread about advertising for lemmy.
Hexbear exists and you can join it.
Growth. The thing this thread is about.
Yes. Brainstorming how to “redpill” people is one of the far-rights favourite past times, right up there with using slurs and obsessing about strangers having the correct opinons about their own genitals.
Did you very carefully dodge using the word “discussion” in your reply? Because this is a thread discussing the growth of Lemmy but it looks like we were supposed to just grovel at the feet of your opinion.
Have you forgotten which one of us was having a big teary about not feeling welcome because this thread right here was too left wing? I’m fine where I am thanks.
Yep. Growth and growth only. The user count goes up by one and we can pretend “bigger number means better” like we’re sad little middle managers.
My contribution to this discussion is making it clear just how little genuine value there is caving to your slimy little guilt trip.
Cool then yes, if I could tolerate those people as much as I tolerate leftists, and thus hang out with them, I would make these same posts. I struggle to do that because when they speak I want to put a hammer through my skull.
You still seem to think this is about me, and it is not.
It literally does. I support the fediverse and thus want it to grow. If you need a place just for you, you can find one that aligns with you or create your own.
The longest paragraph in your comment literally starts with “I, personally”.
Scattered around that are your opinions about why Lemmy isn’t bigger, that you’re insisting this thread was created to solicit.
But the moment someone does the same thing, in the same thread, but disagreeing with you about the reasons? “This thread isn’t about that”.
We can play the game if you want though. Was reddits growth – literally the measuring stick in the discussion – thanks to it peppering the centre right with gentle kisses every time they blessed the site with a visit?
Nope. It was about as left-wing as Lemmy and if you said something that was demonstrably bullshit, 8 different people would tell you to fuck off.
The reality is that it became a centralised location for memes and pornography.
Whatever “growth” it saw by giving brave little conservatives a place to call their own had to be repeatedly undone because they just couldn’t stop using slurs, brigading threads and advocating terrorism.
So they moved to Voat instead, instantly turning it into a cesspit of mask off neonazim and “not technically child pornography but we’re going to use it as child pornography anyway”.
How did that “growth” work out for them? Oh right, terminally.
Yet your solution wasn’t “someone should make a center-right server that is more tolerant to our completely reasonable views and harmless slurs”, it was “all these perverts and nerds should be nicer to us”.
You know, that exact thing I mentioned. You’ve just made it clearer that your take genuinely is “this platform is overrun by leftists who need to be nicer to us poor oppressed conservatives and if they’re don’t like it, they can create their own space just for themselves”.
I assume the next step is that you join that new instance, complain it’s full of leftists and insist they go somewhere else.
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Early reddit was not left wing. It was techbro-libertarian. The famous Ron Paul “It’s Happening” gif comes from reddit lol.
I’d love for this place to be as openly welcoming as early reddit.
I understand you don’t like when normal people come into the frontiers, but that just means you’ll constantly need to find new frontiers.
Such is life for people who move to the frontier to be alone. You’re not unique, this has happened throughout all of human history, and it’ll happen to the fediverse too.
You’ll always have Hexbear tho. For want of a frontier, it’s easy to have an island.
Don’t worry you can start your own server, just like everyone else who disagrees with you is supposed to.
Nah, we can just keep calling them Nazis. That’s your entire explanation for why those “normal people” aren’t here remember?
Yeah it’s pretty clear that your faux-wisdom is nothing more than a premise to label people as undesirables.
I’m already on our server, Comrade.
You’re the one unhappy with new people
You hit the nail on the head.
Honestly, I couldn’t even recommend it to anyone in its current state to normal everyday people.
If you have normal, moderate political positions you will get shit on constantly here. Doesn’t help that everything needs to be political on Lemmy.
Meme communities are like 50% “hurr durr normies bad” or “everyone nazi”
Add the Linux circlejerk and that’s about 90% of the content I see on here. I don’t care to engage a lot with that and I just hope more normal people migrate…