Yesterday me and Blaze had a bit of a back and forth and upon review I had some thoughts.
Let me state first and foremost, I adore Blaze and his contributions to the threadiverse. I think he makes the threadiverse a better place with his presence alone.
That said, when we were arguing I had a few problems. But the biggest and most pertinent was that I felt he was chasing Redditors.
I can’t speak for everyone, but I chose Lemmy. Since I got here, I have put my fair share into making this place everything I want it to be. Whether that’s conducting myself properly or whether it’s trying to engage or provide a platform for engagement.
One thing I really don’t want Lemmy to be is Reddit. I engage on here far more than I ever did on Reddit. I have a perfectly curated timeline which is the perfect mix of news, entertainment, enlightenment and conversation. I want Lemmy to remain Lemmy.
Lemmy works for me and my mental health. The way Lemmy is set-up, I relish the fact that I can discuss popular topics away from the general populus. In general, I have zero interest in participating in the biggest communities with, what is inevitably the bottom of the barrel posters. So for my peace of mind, I stick to strongly moderated instances and away from the catch-all communities.
That’s not to say those communities don’t have their place. They do! In fact they have a special place in my heart because they filter the bad actors away from me.
And ultimately that’s what makes Lemmy beautiful. That there’s different instances, different crowds and different discussions.
One thing that Blaze said yesterday was that, “people from Reddit say it’s a ghost town.” and I said that doesn’t matter. He felt that we need to rectify that to ensure growth, but at what cost? Becoming Reddit? I don’t want to be Reddit. Even at the software level, Lemmy has tried hard to not be Reddit, hence no karma.
I don’t want Lemmy to sell its soul to attract the very people I don’t want to be around. I’m not saying there’s not room to grow or improve, I’m just saying we have to grow and improve while holding on to our values and having some integrity about it.
Interesting. This is exactly the same thing that took down lemm.ee itself.
I personally find this the wrong approach which is why my instance doesn’t try to be “generic”. It’s specifically around my interests and my biases and of course attracted other people like me for this reason. As such, actually enjoy the vibe of the m@tes and we have plenty of people who are encouraged and enthusiastic to help maintain it. I had way more admin applications than I needed when I opened them and I’m sure I could have many more if I do it again.
I don’t think trying to run a “neutral” or “generic” instance is healthy. You’ll end up having to moderate people you disagree to your core with and that just ends up with constant admin drama. Even with our own approach of democratic decision making and me trying to shed as much responsibility from myself as possible, I still get way too many people thinking I’m a benevolent dictator who can solve their lemmy problems.
Anecdotally, I have found a similar experience modding slrpnk. It’s been (IMO) extremely low in drama, and due to the theme, the community is filled to the brim with incrediblely pleasant people who make it a joy to participate in, and often step up to moderate abandoned communities and reduce the load on us admins.
Though it probably helps that we’re still a smallish/medium sized instance, require written applications, and defederate from a small handful of instances to decrease potential conflict.
Yes, being strongly opionated at least ensures you get people joining with the same opinions which helps with cohesion.
I get what you’re saying about lemm.ee (and I share that opinion) but it’s definitely a bit of an apples to oranges comparison.
.ee was very averse to defederating opting to leave it up to the users; I have no such qualms and don’t federate with more extreme or problematic instances. That cuts the workload down considerably.
My “theme” here, such as it is, is providing a non-toxic and (relatively) safe environment by default. It’s even an official mission statement now. By “generic” I mean a good mix of content while not pigeon-holing the whole instance into a single set of topics (nothing wrong with that - look at your instance and startrek.website as great examples - but just not what I’m going for myself).
Not sure if you are in your response, but I’m also factoring in federated content as well. I’m certainly not saying that I have to agree with everything that comes in via federation, but I definitely do not feel compelled to platform everything or everyone either. At the end of the day, regardless of where it comes from, all this content is all showing up under a domain registered to me. There’s a sense of implicit responsibility and tacit endorsement for that content which is stressful to even think about. Really, the only solution to that is running an instance that doesn’t federate or federates very narrowly. That introduces FOMO to the point of “why bother?”
I dunno. There’s definitely a balance to be found, and I’ve mostly modeled mine off of Beehaw, but keeping that balance has been challenging.
Probably once the .ee evacuation settles down, and all the new alts of previously banned accounts are taken care of, things will be a bit less stressful.
Hm, what I have noticed is that a lot of “generic instances” like lemm.ee and l.w., sjw etc, end up with mostly absent admins, so it doesn’t seem like you’re the first to deal with burnout like that. And yes, it takes a quite a bit of courage to host social media for randos. I’m putting my life straight on the line especially since my instance tends to be more spicy than most. But I don’t let it stress me in advance.
Very good points.