For binge-watching yes. If I’m in the mood and it’s the one off occasion that I’m re-watching some old episode (or the newest one of the week), then of course not 😅

I agree. I must admit my title was a bit clickbaity. Growth - meaning growing in user count - wasn’t my intention. I think it’ll be a result, sure. But I agree with you (and the Lemmy developers) in that growing (above all) isn’t what Lemmy is about. And it’s not healty anyways. And I think I didn’t include any reasoning or suggestions in my text that’d propose doing it.

What we’d need is the communities be at a healty (and useful) engagement level to allow having a conversation in the first place. Well, and I occasionally keep an eye at such metrics, because for example seeing something stagnate or decline could mean there is an issue, somewhere. I think I mentioned that in the post. But it doesn’t necessarily mean we have to push that metric. It’s tackling the underlying issue (if there’s any) that’s the important thing to do (in my opinion).

I’ve always wanted to ask such a person what their deal is. I mean they could be miserable, or one of the people who always complain about everything. Or it’s supposed to be some form of trolling that no one gets… Maybe I shouldn’t ask because it’s not gonna be a healthy discussion… And I don’t care if that happens in an argument. But I really wonder why someone downvotes something like an innocent computer question. Or some comment with correct and uncontroversial advise. Or other people during a healty conversation. It doesn’t happen often to me, but I had all of that happen. And maybe thoughts like this lead to the current situation. And some people think about exposing such people and some think it should be protected.

And i think weighing the votes is a realistic idea. We could also not count votes of people with bad attitude at all.

Thanks for inviting me. I’ll see if I have something meaningful to contribute. As of now I’m not really involved in growing communities. Well, at least not as a moderator. Maybe I should try it.

Fair enough. From the other perspective, I think it’s a good thing. When the Reddit API thing happened, people were complaining, too. And focused to hold things together. So there wasn’t any time to purpusefully take a step back and guide things. Everyone was busy with admin stuff. That makes me believe when a wave hits us, also isn’t a good time to actively shape this place.

poVoq and anon6789 pointed out similar things with the growth happening in waves. I’m not sure if it’s healthy, though. It puts additional strain on the platform, devs and mods and everyone. And there are (long) dry spells in between. I’d rather have it grow constantly and slowly. And I believe quite some other Free Software projects do. It’s a bit of a different story with social media platforms as we have some unique circumstances like the network effect…

And I think the correct way to do it is to provide something to the people, so they want to join. Idk… be useful to them, a delight to spend time here. And offer something distinct or unique. That’d make the platform attractive all around the year. If we don’t have a superior product, we just rely on the other platforms becoming worse and that’s where our new users come from. Kind of accepting the role to be (and stay) an inferior Reddit clone. But that’s not how I see Lemmy or the Fediverse. I want to attract people who’ve never used Reddit before. Tech enthusiasts, … join because it’s a great platform to discuss their matters. Linux forums switch to Lemmy because it offers them interoperability. And sure, also Reddit users. But not just because they’re pushed out, but because they’re positively motivated to join this place.

The software is one thing. I think we’ve come a long way and both Lemmy and the network feel pretty stable now. It’s part of the equation. But I think the thing that really makes a difference is the community and the atmosphere. That’s why people would want to join. I’ve started this discussion now, because i think after the Reddit exodus, things had to settle down for a bit. And as other people pointed out it seems we’ve reached a plateau now. I think that’s a comfortable position to take a step back and think about the way forward. I’d like to take this as an opportunity to not just wait for incoming waves shape us, but now decide where we want to go and actively steer in that direction.

I think we have to actively provide something to the people to attract them. Something better than other platforms so they’ll want to be here. Not just because the other places become worse and this is the only alternative… But both is part of the equation.

I don’t think the timing is quite right.

What makes you think that? Because I think it’s a good time now, but I’d like to hear different perspectives.

[…] as the fediverse became just another online space instead of something new and distinct

You’re hitting the nail on the head with saying that. I mean the Fediverse is what it is. But I envision it to be something distinct, with added value and not just an average online space. If i didn’t care, I could just use Facebook/Reddit/Discord. But I do and I’d like this to be the nice alternative to that. Maybe way smaller and with its own problems, but at least more friendly and enjoyable…

With the emoji reactions: I agree with what nutomic pointed out. It’d also be difficult for the users to understand and use properly. And it’s a bit vague how that translates to a simple score for the ranking. I don’t think there is any technological issue, though. And we have platforms that use emoji reactions successfully. Notably Github and Discord. It works well for linear conversations.

Why do you downvote all the stuff anyways?

They collapse as well. But PieFed is pretty open to new ideas. If someone likes it differently and decides to address it, it can probably be changed.

Good idea. I think GrapheneOS won’t work with that as they’re focused on the Google Pixel devices. But you could have a look at the LineageOS compatibility list. Just the manufacturer is a bit unspecific. But you can look up the exact model in that list.

I can’t really comment on all of the other Android variants. There are so much of them and I’m not up to date anymore.

Before getting your hopes up: Check if your specific phone model is supported by any of them. On lots of phones you can’t change the software and you’re stuck with the manufacurer’s version.

Thanks for the clarification. I think we’re on the same page. Especially the following resonates with me:

The time to set our tolerance levels for certain behaviors is now before we get too big to reign it in.

And I’d agree we need to do that in the context of what we have. Have a step back and think before doing something.
I don’t want to see that as an excuse to stay inert, though. But at the same time we may not skip it.

I frequently disagree with the Lemmy developers’ take on things. But what I give them high credit for, is not to prefer growth above other things. I wrote this post now, because I think the Reddit exodus is far away now. Things have settled. And the argument “let things settle first” is out of the way now. And as you pointed out we might have reached a steady plateau for now. I think that’s a comfortable position from where we can decide what to do.

Oh, forget what I said. I was going to write a lenthy reply… But in fact it is configurable in the user profile. -10 is just the default value.

Thanks for your nuanced comments. I’ve never moderated any community worth mentioning, so that’s quite some additional insight for me. I’m not entirely new to this either, as you might have deducted from my account age. I’ve moved away from lemmy.ml as my own values don’t properly align with theirs. Then I lost an account because the instance I was on died. And recently I switched to PieFed and that’s my current account. But all in all I’ve been here since well before the exodus. Still, I think we have a different perspective. I’ve attended a bit more to the technical side and using it, while you’ve been fostering a community, which I didn’t do at all.

I’m not sure what to make of your “helped me get through feeling much like OP”. I’m not sure if I have to come to terms with how things are. Or if we instead should improve the place to become what I (and other people?) envision it to be. Sure, it’s not black and white. And when you’re doing critism (as I did), you focus on the negatives. I tried to also mention the other side. But due to the nature of this post, it’s not been the focus.

I’ll take some more time thinking about what you and all the other people said. I definitely see the potential of this platform. And that’s why I’m here. I also see some issues and lack of progress with some things. And that hurts because I like this place. And I kind of refuse to accept it and change my expectations. I don’t want it to be perfect. But there’s quite some room for improvement (I think) and that made me speak up and post this.

I don’t know. I halfway agree and halfway disagree. We’ve always had things change. I always found a comfortable niche. Lots of Free Software exists, despite the odds being against them. I almost exclusively use software that respects my freedom. At least in private. The important thing is we pick up the fight. And concerning the services I use, we regularly succeed.

I don’t really care for Reddit, or all the people moving to Discord. And their millions of users. All I want is a nice niche with an atmosphere I like. And enough users who are aligned with my interests so I can talk about what I like.

And I think you’re right and Lemmy -as is- isn’t stopping any trend. Because we can see it’s stagnating. It’d have to change to do that. Provide anything meaningful to users that they don’t have some place else. Whatever that is, great software functionality, nice people, good content… (Ideally all of that.)

I’m a bit the wrong receiver for that kind of information. I’m not on lemmy.world but run my own instance. I’ve donated days worth of developer hours already, and I’m planning to do more… But I can’t speak for other people.

And I dislike money being involved. That leads to obligations, envy, and people stop doing it for the fun and because it’s a nice platform. I think that shifts things and I’m not sure if in a good way. We’d get closer to commercial interests and we already have enough commercial platforms. I liked the old way how Free Software worked. Some random people doing it out of their own motivation. Coming up with all kinds of interesting software that’d help them. And they’d generously share it and invite everyone to participate. And it’d stop there. No ulterior motives involved.

But with that said, yeah. Someone has to do the development, pay for the servers and do the community work. That’s not optional. And we have a broader issue with money in the Free and Open Source ecosystem.

make it immediately and publicly clear that a negative interaction is unwelcome

I couldn’t agree more strongly… I mean we kind of have that already. Everytime I see something that has a score of like -40 because of all of the downvotes, I think they got their just punishment and it’s clear that no one likes what they wrote. I think it’s superior to replying because it doesn’t give that person any reply to start an argument. Just silence and downvotes. But however we decide to do it, i think we should be very open and upfront with what’s expected behavior. And I’d like to see that happen more often.

switch off visibility for posts/comments that have received a certain proportion of downvotes

PieFed has that feature. Comments with a score less than -10 (I think) just collapse. I think we need more of those features in Lemmy and the respective apps.

Yeah, it wouldn’t. I’ve never interacted with a threads user. And none of my lengthy ramblings involves any of them. So it wouldn’t change anything which I addressed.

What I don’t want to do is pointing at people and distributing blame. We maybe need to do that, too. But that shouldn’t take away from each and everyone of us asking »What can I, *myself*, do to make this a better place.«. That’s what I’d like to focus on with this post. So I’m not saying you’re right or wrong. But I consider that out of scope for this discussion.