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-
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Be kind
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Ask people what they think, and why
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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)
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Engage sincerely
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Ask yourself if there’s something nice you can say
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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.
Speaking past each other is IMO the biggest source of friction and division on the fediverse.
I honestly feel like I can do better in this area. Thanks for the post. Gives me something to think about.
I have mysteriously vanished for like 2 or so months now (which is a good thing, please take breaks from the internet every once in a while), I don’t really remember NOT being kind here.
And this post reminds me of why Lemmy is a good place to begin with.
Love this post!
We also need people sharing their niche interests and creating discussion… Reddit thrives on these small communities that only find an accessible entrypoint on their platform.
Best I can do is rewind.
Yeah try telling people here to be kind
This place is still nicer then reddit but it’s still got problems with a**hole users
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The ones that spam a certain viewpoint amd downvote people who disagree with them and I’m not talking about bigoted users who you should downvote as they want dystopia but users who have different viewpoints to them
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People who act like assholes if you don’t share their holier-than-thou viewpoint that they try to enforce everywhere
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The users here who insist everyone here be atheists, I’m not atheist nor am I religous (I also have a dislike for organised religons) but I still do dislike those kinds of users
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The people here who act like like a**holes when you critique something or give feedback
I’m sure there’s more I’m missing but those are what I remember from the top of my head that I dislike about certain lemmy users and why I think not everyone here is capable of being kind
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offtopic:
Test to see if from here it is possile to engage the friendica server of @utopiarte and @requeteche.btw and ontopic:
I usually try to until the other person shows me that there’s no reason to be.
Here are some more specific examples to think about!
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Compliment people’s art and ask about their process
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Teach people about something you’re knowledgeable on
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Give constructive criticism on peoples projects when it’s welcome
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Thank people for posting things you’re glad you got to see, tell them you enjoyed it
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Tell people you’re glad they’re here
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Tell people you hope they have a good day
Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts :) if you have thoughts of your own, I’d love to hear them!
Have a great day :)
Thank you! You too 😊
On constructive criticism - definitely rule one is make sure that it’s invited first, but second, the best way to “sweeten” a critique and make it more appealing is to put it between compliments. Don’t have a bare remark about the problems or suggestions, tell them what you like first, then how they might change things, and then close with something else positive or simply thanking them for sharing it. Even if someone says they want to hear what people think, it’s normal to be defensive, so help lower that reaction first, and then leave them feeling appreciated even though you pointed out issues you saw.
Aka the compliment sandwich. A technique I personally dislike. Be honest and open with your feedback in a positive way, don’t try to hide it between compliments. If your feedback is simply negative, keep it to yourself.
I agree it can be used fallaciously, often found in the business world. My point was to include both good and bad honestly and not hide it, and people won’t shut down if they get the good first. It also depends on the subject - if they’re on the right track and your suggestion leads to better results, that’s not as negative as telling someone they’re doing something incorrectly and offering a different way.
In the end, how you say things is just as important as what is said.
100% agreed. If I see a compliment sandwich, I assume that the person using the technique is lying about the compliments and I lose all respect for them.
Absolutely agree, some folks just wanna share, some folks wanna get constructive crit to try and technically improve! Its important to be respectful of what kind of interaction folks are looking for :)
And absolutely, talking about both good and bad doesn’t just make it less unpleasant or more enjoyable to get feedback, it also makes better, more helpful feedback! (Assuming that’s a thing they’re looking for)
Are you open to some additional thoughts / feedback on feedback / constructive criticism?
I am! Thank you for asking :)
Ive gotten a lot of assumptions about what I meant and that’s a bit frustrating but I really value honest sincere dialogue, if you have thoughts you think would be worth sharing I’d love to hear them my friend!
I thought I had hit reply on your other comment going into more detail (whoops!).
Like I did in this example, ask if people are open to feedback (if you’re the one giving it).
Often when I am training groups on how to work together, I always try and frame feedback as a gift.
If someone is giving you feedback, they are genuinely trying to help you grow - and that’s a gift. The issue here though, is not everyone is a good gift giver - and we can’t control that.
What we do have control over is how we recieve gifts - often all you need to do is say thank you. Don’t explain why you’re not going to use this feedback (if you plan not to incorporate it). Other than clarifying the feedback to better understand how to incorporate it, saying thank you is the best way to go about it.
As far as delivering feedback I always say “if you can choose to be anything in this world why choose anything other than kind.”
It is important to state that “being kind” doesn’t mean not having the difficult conversations or delivering difficult feedback - you can still do that without being cruel. Being assertive isn’t being aggressive.
A bit rambly but if you’re ever working with folx on delivering feedback, I’ve found that presenting these frameworks with it ste super helpful
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There was a movement in the blogging community ~15 years ago to leave positive comments on posts you like. It was an approach to conquer negative comments and a general destructive nature of online conversations. I still do it to this day. If I really like something or appreciate someone’s work, I leave a nice comment.
Oh neat, being younger there’s a lot of how folks approached the web in its earlier years that I don’t have any experience with, and think there’s a lot to learn from
I love that!
A nice comment is worth more than 1000 upvotes, emotionally.
I’ve noticed most discussions i have here end with a LOT less anger and a LOT more learning and that makes me happy.
Fuck yeah! I think that’s the thing that makes the fediverse special :)
We all care enough about the online spaces we choose to inhabit that we leave the big platforms for something kinder. I think that’s worth leaning into :)
100%
Internet by the people, and for the people, truly.
Because there’s fewer foreign bots trying to make you hate everyone in your country, and fewer social media engagement bots trying to make sure you stay online arguing with someone.
I disagree with your premise.
It should be “The best thing that you can do for humanity is to be kind”.
Seriously. We’re living in a time when fascism is in an upswing and at least one religious leader has publicly called empathy a sin. Kindness and empathy are rebellious acts.
Great post.
To add to this, not resorting to calling others tankies or Russian bots when you have differing opinions, especially around politics.
I came to Lemmy (lemm.ee originally) with this attitude. Tankies really made me regret trying to be sympathetic too them. It was the most vile interaction I’ve had on the Internet maybe? You shouldn’t call people tankies if they’re not but real tankies are by far the biggest problem with the fediverse and it’s growth
yeah i’ve met some thorough tankies recently and wow are they annoying. just completely blind to reality.
1 billion percent agree, not everyone you disagree with is acting in bad faith
when you’re dealing with fundamentalists or extremists things turn nasty very quickly because you’re questioning their fantasy world
doesn’t matter if they’re good or bad faith, often they will just ban you
On Reddit, I once bragged about having universal healthcare and got called a Nazi and a communist at the same time.
This is what happens when Xbox kids that use the n-word grow up. They learn new “bad” words and throw them around out of context and contradictingly. They don’t actually know what those things are, though, so it never makes sense.
I’ve been called a tankie here. I didn’t know what it was and looked it up, just to discover it was the literal opposite of the things I was saying. I was very confused and just put it down to frustrated self-projection. At some point they had been called that, it upset them, so now they use it to upset people too but they still don’t actually know what it is they’re saying.
If I see someone defaulting to Russian bot or tankie, I’ve found another Xbox kid and it’s in my best interests to just move on.
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Instance admins have pretty good information at their disposal to identify bots.
I have yet to see any instance admin say that there is any significant amount of bots, outside of the occasional spate of spamming. I only see such theories & accusasions come from non-admins, with no accompanying compelling evidence.
well the good news is that everybody - and that includes the US - creates psyops all the time, so that makes it fair.
This is Eglin Air Force Base checking in. 
Most addicted city (over 100k visits total)
Eglin Air Force Base, FL
Oak Brook, IL
South St. Paul, MN?
What I’m saying is that Reddit is packed with US government psyop coming from Eglin AFB https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eglin_Air_Force_Base#Department_of_Defense
I’ve had the thought that if I were to design a psyop campaign, a pretty solid option for dominating the discussion would be to come out swinging and accuse everyone else of being an agent. That way, people have to either constantly defend against accusations, or they conclude, rightly, the accusations are baseless and decide to disregard the very idea that there is a psyop going on.
I could be wrong but to me it feels odd to think lemmy is big enough to be worth organizing psyops for.
Not to say it couldn’t be an issue in the future, but it feels much more likely that people expressing pro Russia sentiment are just people who bought into that particular brand of propaganda.
Which like, to some extent all of our individual world views are shaped by the environment of propaganda we’re exposed to. We’re all products of our social conditioning, and ultimately that’s exactly what propaganda is. Media designed to socially condition people to a certain set of beliefs. All we as individuals can do is be aware of it and be willing to look at our own beliefs critically.
But at the end of the day I think the folks praising Russia on lemmy are just people. People I personally think are misguided, but I don’t think theyre generally acting in bad faith any more than the general population here.
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Honestly if anyone is doing that I really feel like it would be the US, not Russia.
Russia’s goal is to sew discord and unballance the populace that drives politics, and for that to work you need a MASSIVE scale that we just don’t really have. They don’t really have much to gain from the IP addresses of a handful of leftists
But Lemmy is exactly the kind of hotspot for people DEEPLY angry about the government of the US to organize that if we’re big enough to be on their radar, the US government would have a vested interest in keeping an eye on potential dissidents. Unlike Russia IP addresses and personally identifiable information would be useful to them, in identifying threat actors, tracking their activity and volatility online, and building cases that would allow them to prosecute should said dissidents escalate
That’s how it looks from where I’m standing anyway 🤷♂️
Lemmy being splintered and opposed to all forms of authority makes it perfect for radicalizing individuals to commit great harm and violence in their community.
All movement starts at the grassroots.
Sometimes they literally just are. Not seen it on Lemmy but on Reddit I definitely interacted with users, age under 1 year, all suspiciously pro-Putin. It’s rare and I’m looking for it, but still.
It’s rare and I’m looking for it
Unfortunately not that rare of a POV to find. They just generally don’t do the young account thing. Some are true believers. Others likely state actors. Don’t see as many bots but the greater levels of transparency and lower active population probably makes it less worthwhile of an investment.
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Nah fuck tankies, zero tolerance for the intolerant.
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Lol. How fucking faaaaar right do you have to be to consider .world tankie.
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The second best thing is remember that tolerance of intolerance breeds intolerance.
This is a whole different train of thought (mine is, I won’t speak for yours) and I don’t wanna derail my original thought but that’s a thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.
I agree with you, and subscribe to the idea of tolerance as a social contract that, once broken, is no longer owed to the one who broke the contract.
At the same time, I’ve also learned that very explicitly, feeling persecuted is a requisite ingredient in radicalizing people into hate groups. And that at an individual scale, it’s generally undeserved compassion that helps deradicalize them. We know this from the accounts of people who managed to leave hate groups- a little while ago there was really good (and long) interview with someone who used to be leader of a white nationalist group where he talked a fair bit about that idea, since he now works with a nonprofit that helps families and friends support and deradicalize loved ones, but it’s far from the only account
At present I’m really not sure how I personally reconcile those two things I belive to be true. The Nazi bar analogy is real.
I know wading into this more specific conversion runs the risk of immediately derailing what I was trying to start a discussion about, but I figured I’d share my thoughts. If anyone reads this and has thoughts to share (though I’d prefer not to get 50 comments just saying I suck for having complicated views on what we do about the predicament the US and world is in with the rise of fascist ideology. I’m interested in what’s effective in terms of fixing the problem just like you are) I’d be interested in hearing them. I’m still looking for a way to synthesize my beliefs into a coherent whole.
Edit: thought I’d add the interview for anyone curious. I don’t see everything exactly the way he does but I think understanding the problem and exactly how it works is necessary of we’re going to address it, and I think his account is a really useful glimpse into certain aspects of how that world works
I agree with everything you said at the top and this comment as well. You don’t have to be mean, cruel, or shitty to the bad actors. In fact the best case scenario is to make your case once and then walk away. It’s much easier to talk about than to actually do, but it’s really effective. If you assume they’re not trolls or bad actors, even better. All of these actions curtail flame wars, which is what they’re after anyway if you’re correct that they’re a bad actor or troll.
Thanks for your thoughts, thats a bit different of an approach than I’d really thought about, I feel like my thoughts have kinda been stuck at both extremes
That gives me new things to think about, thank you ❤️
they’re going to “feel” persecuted, no matter what. might as well make them actually fucking fear it.
I think part of pleasantness is not bringing politics into things that weren’t intended to be about politics.
The problem is politics impacts everything and the word “political” means different things to different people.
To some, talking about being gay is political, even though to people who are in that community, it’s literally just talking about their lives.
It did not impact this thread at all before this comment which was my point exactly.
I definitely saw several comments that strike me as political, which is exactly my point, everyone has a different definition.
When every aspect of your life is affected by politics, everything is political.
There are now, this one was the first.
Aight dude
To interject with a somewhat pedantic point, nothing is truly apolitical. But there is something to be said about sensing the proper time and place to start a political argument.
i think if someone’s intolerant, pointing out that they’re wrong is something appropriate, but picking a fight over it is not worth it. it makes you like that person in that meme:
edit: in bad cases, report it and move on with your life.
Call them out so that resistance is visible, then block them to remove their agency to engage you.
That suggests we should be intolerant of intolerance, which is an oxymoron.
Almost as if the statement is referring to the paradox of tolerance.
By allowing people like Nazis, Christofascists, Tankies, etc. a platform, it only invites more sharing that view to spread their bullshit around. This makes those that don’t share those extremist views uncomfortable they then leave those places. You see it on platforms like Truth Social, X, and 4Chan.
If this is to be a kind place, we must encourage kindness and rid ourselves of unkindness. You can’t tolerate intolerance, lest it spread and take over.
If you allow wolves and sheep into a space, that is a wolves-only space.
(For context, I agree with you.)
it’s only an oxymoron if you’re a moron. tolerance is a social contract. the intolerant break that contract and are no longer to be protected by it.
Not really. Nazis are scum and deserve to be kicked out.
If you actually had a coherent definition of what a Nazi is, it might be possible to agree with you. But in reality, it’s used as a catch all by shitty people to justify their shitty behaviour.
To be clear, I mean people who praise Hitler, get swastika tattoos, blame everything on a Jewish Conspiracy, etc.
You know, Nazis.
That’s coherent. Unfortunately most people who use it today literally mean “someone who disagrees with me.” It really muddies the water because it’s often accompanied by threats of violence. The net effect is raising the temperature in the room on both sides, because it’s effectively dehumanising others who have perfectly valid political disagreements, and calling for their death.
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That’s what you say today because you think it’s convenient to your argument, but it actually shows exactly what I’m talking about because the definition you’ve offered would make no sense at all to anyone a year ago, but people like you were still calling everyone Nazis then.
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Bro can’t you even follow the premise of the thread for like 2 comments
Paradox of Tolerance - Karl Poppler - 1945
It’s a shame that something we already figured out 60 years ago still needs to be learned by most people.
The good news is, this is an opportunity for you to grow and be better right now. It’s never too late to improve yourself.
60 years ago? Buddy, I have some bad news for you…
Wdym financial cashes, pandemic, doomscrolling, Trump got the presidency twice??
You’re talking crazy it’s only 2005 bro, futuristic computer interface means frutiger aero, I listen to music on my iPod and text on my candybar flip phone </3</3
Don’t worry, at least 2005 was only ten years ago.
…wait.
Sure, if you think of it as purely semantic, or a zero sum game with no nuance, but it’s not.
Gotta be intolerant of those being needlessly cruel to those just trying to live their lives, and gotta be tolerant of those just trying to live their lives that don’t affect you, even if you find it cringey.
