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-

Be kind
Ask people what they think, and why
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)
Engage sincerely
Ask yourself if there's something nice you can say
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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 20 points 6 days ago (2 children)

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.

[–] Cris_Color@lemmy.world 12 points 6 days ago

Yeah, I think that was a big issue with the culture of platforms like Voat.

The fediverse doesn't have it as bad but it's still definitely a risk. And being decentralized makes it easier to dodge bans and whatnot.

You're right, and like I said elsewhere in this thread, big corporate platforms definitely have issues but that doesn't mean there aren't any unique challenges the fediverse will have to contend with.

[–] rikudou@lemmings.world 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

"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.

[–] gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

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

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Reddit is able to do global IP bans. The Fediverse is not able to do that because there's no "global".

[–] rimu@piefed.social 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I have an idea of how to fix that. Other fedi Devs are trying similar things too.

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 3 points 6 days ago

I don't consider it something to be "fixed." I like that the Fediverse is fully decentralized, with no authority over who gets "in" and who doesn't. Once you've got some kind of authority that can decide who's allowed on which instances, with some kind of global registry of individual users that can exclude you if the wrong people don't like you, we're basically back to being Reddit with some fancy extra steps.

Sure, it risks allowing assholes to continue getting new accounts. But we already have a Reddit, I'd rather try something new even if that comes with downsides.