If Reddit had a soul/conscience, I think it was us, and we're all on Lemmy now...

As a little background, I didn't actively use Reddit for months following the blackout. I still barely stop in over there and if I do I'm never logged in our contributing to the communities there (where I was previously a daily poster/commenter).

Just bringing up a point that I'm not sure I'd seen anyone discussing directly over here; the general sentiment and quality of posted information on Reddit has become tangibly worse in multiple ways (I think coinciding with this group, us, leaving).

Now don't get me wrong, Reddit sucked in many ways and for long before the migrations to Lemmy, but there is a noticeable difference in a few key areas:

  1. Less skepticism in replies

  2. Less sourcing of information in posts and replies

  3. Less counter positions expressed generally

  4. If there is a decent reply, you have to scroll much further down to find it

  5. Less plain labeling of obvious bullshit

Many of us used to introduce counter viewpoints or clarifying information into posts, with sources. That functionally worked as a roadblock to stall the quickly building momentum of disinformation/misinformation. Those roadblocks often feel absent over there now, IMO.

Not saying we hold a responsibility to go back there or that we were saving lives before, but the difference is very apparent to me - Have you seen it? Any examples?

Boozilla ,
@Boozilla@lemmy.world avatar

Reddit: bots talking to bots.

Lemmy: the socially awkward talking to the neurodivergent.

Broken_Monitor ,

I was wondering if I’m in the socially awkward category or the neurodivergent category… pretty sure I’m both.

Boozilla ,
@Boozilla@lemmy.world avatar

Achievements unlocked!

Speculater ,
@Speculater@lemmy.world avatar

I'm the socially awkward one that comes off as combative and uses "To be fair" too often. Nice to meet you.

massive_bereavement ,
@massive_bereavement@kbin.social avatar

Wasn't there already a subredit where bots talked to each other?

Boozilla ,
@Boozilla@lemmy.world avatar

Yes! There was at least one experimental one that openly did that, and it was funny at the time. I forget the name of it. But it wasn't trying to pass itself off as real conversation to fool the shareholders.

Blaze ,
@Blaze@reddthat.com avatar

Subredditsimulato, inactive for a while I think

FaceDeer ,
@FaceDeer@fedia.io avatar

R/subredditsimulator. I actually preferred it before it upgraded to GPT2, when it was just Markov chains. You got the most glorious nonsense sometimes.

dumbass ,
@dumbass@leminal.space avatar

No eye contact on lemmy!

zorflieg ,

You're telling me other Tumblr users are on here?

Stovetop ,

I don't know, the idea that users on Lemmy were the best part of Reddit is a bit egotistical, bordering on narcissism.

I think what you're looking at is simply differences in scale and variety of communities. The user migration to Lemmy was negligible, and I don't really think content quality here is inherently better than it is there. Rather, I think Reddit has just become too big and mainstream.

  1. More Boomers are now using Reddit, which for me seems like the same downward spiral that ended up hitting Facebook.
  2. Corporations see people using Reddit for advice and so they spam it up to try to influence shopping habits and land on Google search results.

If Lemmy ever becomes as popular as Reddit, the same thing will happen.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod ,
@Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social avatar

If Lemmy ever becomes as popular as Reddit, the same thing will happen.

The Eternal September claims every social network eventually

Snapz OP ,

I didn't say the "best part" anywhere. I was implying the moral and rational part. You make some fine general points, but they aren't in response to what I said.

Migration being negligible is subjective when talking about the users that may have been powering a certain sentiment or tone. Tens of thousands of people leaving would be more than enough to feel that change.

PlasticExistence ,

I find the comments here in the fediverse are of a higher overall quality, like Reddit once was over a decade ago.

FisicoDelirante ,

True, though I can't pinpoint exactly what it is.

SkyNTP ,

Agreed. Some (mostly different) positions here are arguably more entrenched, or at least absolutist, with just as much reactionary down voting instead of nuanced debate.

Blaze ,
@Blaze@reddthat.com avatar

Downvotes create echo chambers

marcos ,

Many groups left, lemmy was actually a minoritarian destination.

And lots and lots of bots came. Almost immediately. It was weird looking how all the people left and yet the amount of stuff there stayed the same.

superduperpirate ,

Any idea what the other major destinations were beyond Lemmy?

lens_r ,

Kbin, real life, discord, etc

applepie ,

Kbin is federated with Lemmy...

Its the same guy, I am posting this from kbin

loobkoob ,
@loobkoob@kbin.social avatar

I think a lot of people on lemmy use lemmy/kbin/the threadiverse interchangeably. But yeah, I use kbin, too.

I definitely find myself being much, much more active on Discord since the whole reddit thing went down. It has its issues, and it's not exactly a 1:1 substitution for thread-based forums, but I enjoy the greater sense of community that comes with Discord.

PrimeMinisterKeyes ,

Could you please post a link to "real life"? Thank you. I just hope it's not invitation-only.

marcos ,

I guess discord was the most popular one.

People talked about a few more at the time, there were some table running around telling where your subreddit went. But I really don't remember them.

Blaze ,
@Blaze@reddthat.com avatar

https://sub.rehab/

douglasg14b , (edited )
@douglasg14b@lemmy.world avatar

I think you're grossly overestimating

Lemmy shaved off 0.0057% of reddit users. An actual inconsequential number.

This would be like you losing a grand total of 1 grain of rice, from ~35,000 rice bowls.

Even if that was the best tasting grain of rice of the whole bunch, you wouldn't notice.

kralk ,

What proportion of Reddit users are "good" though? 0.0057% might be all of them

fuckingkangaroos ,

Sounds about right

andxz ,

That number doesn't really tell us anything about the amount of post/content generation that was lost. One or two persons could change the general tone of a smaller sub easily, and often did so.

If only those two hypothetical posters left it could very well lead to a downward spiral into whatever bullshit is going on over there now.

Some of the smaller more specialised subs I frequented simply don't exist anymore due to what happened.

douglasg14b , (edited )
@douglasg14b@lemmy.world avatar

I thought I explained that pretty well no?

If you had a grain of rice that tasted unimaginably, unmitigably, good. The highest quality grain of rice ever seen in the world, in all of history.

It will not change the flavor of 30k bowls of rice.

We're talking an absolutely tiny amount of users here. And we shouldn't delude ourselves over it, circle jerking for being the "higher society". Reddit didn't change because we left, the number of users on Reddit change more on a daily basis than 5 Lemmy's.

That said, the smaller niche subs definitely saw some hits. I won't deny that. However, by definition, a small number of users leaving from small subs isn't a "gotcha" moment for what I've stated. That's is, almost by definition, what would be expected.

The discussions here are of higher quality for sure. But you'll still notice that in many threads it's almost indistinguishable from Reddit in many ways.

LesserAbe ,

I generally agree with your point, that said, in the analogy you gave, the flavor would come from the posts, not the users. We don't know what the breakdown is between "active users" who create more posts and comments and those who are more like active readers.

Devi ,

What numbers are we using here? Reddit has roughly 70m active users, the fediverse has between 2 and 3 million, that's quite a few people over here.

douglasg14b ,
@douglasg14b@lemmy.world avatar

I last did this math a while back so let me redo it.

Lemmy != The fediverse. Lemmy is fairly small with 45k monthly active users. https://fedidb.org/software/lemmy

Reddit has 430 million monthly active users (70m daily) according to their disclosures for IPO.

So a 0.000104 multiple. Or 0.01% a little less than 2x my previous calculation. So, still a tiny number.

livus ,

I've noticed it too but I don't think it's only because of the exodus.

I think it's also because by removing mod tools and opening the floodgates for bots, Reddit has enabled all kinds of vote manipulation and content manipulation by all the shill armies.

Everything from the Hasbara, the 50 centers, Putin's troll farm, Musk's troll farm, whatever Zucc runs that used to come and sealion me anytime I talked about facebook's role in genocide ... all those things have come into their full power now.

Snapz OP ,

Definitely multiple factors contributing

IronKrill ,

I don't reckon Lemmy users are as great as all that, but I definitely agree on the downturn of Reddit. It's been on a downward trend for years but we've past a milestone recently where I truly no longer want to interact with most of it.

I saw a Reddit post a few weeks ago that was a 1-minute cut down clip, clearly reuploaded from a YouTube video without credit. Several thousand upvotes, fair enough as it was a good video, but I went to the comments to find a source as you always could on Reddit. One person. One person out of hundreds of comments had posted the source and they had about 10 upvotes so I only found it after scrolling multiple pages. In the old days that would have been top comment with a "why didn't you post the source of this stolen content" attitude, now it was almost impossible to find. Made me realise the audience truly has changed. The top posts are all Facebook slop for people that want to pretend they're better than Facebook users.

Default_Defect ,
@Default_Defect@midwest.social avatar

lmao, its really not that different here, other than there just being fewer of us.

fuckingkangaroos ,

I think the quality is better here, although there's a shit ton of propaganda.

BurnSquirrel ,

Reddit is large enough that it's user base is very diverse and niche hobbies can still get a substantial following. From what I can tell, us lemmings are all kinda the same nerdy person who's into Linux and gaming with not enough of us to really make communities for divergent interests.

When I first came in a few people were trying to get /c/bjj going but it just kind of fell off because the middle of a venn diagram of people who are nerdy enough to be here and also into grappling is like me and 6 other people

Still, I peek in here now and again because the shitposts tend to be better.

Blaze ,
@Blaze@reddthat.com avatar

Maybe try martial arts as a whole rather than bjj?

Detheroth ,

But that is no longer a niche community for my specific interest. Tai Chi, Muay Thai and BJJ are all martial arts. They are not alike.

Blaze ,
@Blaze@reddthat.com avatar

Indeed, but that's a way to have a more active general community that would build some traction.

The alternative is having a niche community with only one or two posters, and those tend to stop posting quite fast

Jilanico ,
@Jilanico@lemmy.world avatar

The subreddit I was active on is still going strong, albeit with less interested mods. I think the impact of us leaving depends on the types of subs most lemmies used to be on. I don't think anyone from the sub I was on left reddit.

Snapz OP ,

I could have clarified, impact would be less on our own niche subs, more about general contributions to stories that made the front page and saw contributors from all areas as a result.

Ashtear ,
@Ashtear@lemm.ee avatar

While I agree that seems the case, there likely has been a corresponding shift in niche communities, even if the effect is less measurable. I don't check in on my niche subreddits often anymore (I've fully moved over to here and Discord), but with some of them, their quality has dipped slightly. Possibly could be chalked up to continuing trends independent of the migration, though.

Smaller communities also require builders, so I'm sure the necessity alone has driven content quality on Lemmy.

PrimeMinisterKeyes ,

I noticed AMP links started popping up all over Reddit. Before Google started injecting money, posting those was discouraged. Surely it's a total coincidence.

Tag365 ,
@Tag365@lemmy.world avatar

Strange. What happened to the discouragement of AMP links and why are they suddenly popping up now?

whotookkarl ,
@whotookkarl@lemmy.world avatar

I think there's also a general age demographic shift down as the mods and people who care about moderation, third party apps, bots, etc left. Something similar happened during the digg exodus where social norms and consensus around some topics changed, just not at much with the bots at the time. People who remain may not care, or they just may be unaware. There was always some propaganda blindness too in the 'i don't use social media just reddit' crowd.

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

The biggest difference I've seen is that while hot takes are fewer, when they do appear they are much spicier than hot takes on Reddit.

Speculater ,
@Speculater@lemmy.world avatar

I really wish you'd stop calling me that.

muntedcrocodile ,

Lemmy is barely any better its just more left leaning.

Contramuffin ,

I think, beyond simply offering counterpoints, Lemmings are also better at accepting nuance and taking measured opinions. It would be really interesting to track changes over time in the usage of certain keywords on Reddit that would imply nuance. For instance, words like "but," "however," "think," "believe," "may," etc.

I have no doubt that the usage of these words would go down after seeing how Reddit is like now, but it would definitely be interesting to see the formal data on it

FaceDeer ,
@FaceDeer@fedia.io avatar

This has been the opposite of my experience, unfortunately. I think the smaller population of the Fediverse seems to result in a more insular community. I see the same names cropping up in many disparate communities, whereas on Reddit I never bothered learning usernames because I rarely met the same people twice.

I also get downvoted a lot more here, which was rare on Reddit. I haven't consciously changed my opinions or writing style, and I am still active on Reddit as well, so I don't think it's just me.

Contramuffin ,

Thanks for the input.

I personally interpret your story not as evidence that Lemmy is insular. Or at least not in the way that perhaps you intended it. It seems to me (and this has generally been by experience with Reddit) that Reddit is generally really good at putting people together with others of a similar viewpoint. To me, the fact that you are more accepted on Reddit seems more indicative of the fact that Reddit prevents people who disagree from even talking to each other. Downvotes and upvotes, after all, have basically never been used as a measure of discussion. Both here and on Reddit, they just measure how many people agree with you.

My experience on Lemmy has generally been that even while people disagree with you, they make a more earnest attempt to engage with your viewpoint.

AnalogyAddict ,

That probably just means you're more mainstream on Lemmy. I've seen a lot of ignorant, biased commenting.

Blaze ,
@Blaze@reddthat.com avatar

I also get downvoted a lot more here, which was rare on Reddit.

I moved to an instance that disabled down votes, one less thing to worry about

FaceDeer ,
@FaceDeer@fedia.io avatar

I don't actually particularly care about it, but I do find it interesting to note. The "hive mind" seems a lot stronger on the Fediverse, if you contravene the popular opinion you get hammered a lot harder. At least compared to the subreddits I'm in on Reddit. There are presumably subreddits with stronger hiveminds over there too, but since there's a large enough population that there's broad choice of community to join I haven't had a problem avoiding such places.

livus ,

Really? That's so interesting, and a bit disappointing.

I'm still on kbin so I can't see downvotes from other instances, only our own. So most downvotes for me indicate actual spam.

FaceDeer ,
@FaceDeer@fedia.io avatar

I do sometimes voice opinions that I know will be unpopular, in fairness. But I do that on Reddit too. Unfortunately mbin has decided to hide the identity of downvoters, I was thinking back when I first got onto the Fediverse that having your identity tied to your votes would make the spite-voting less prevalent.

Blaze ,
@Blaze@reddthat.com avatar

Definitely. In the next version, mods will be able to see them to fight brigading. That's something I guess

Jilanico ,
@Jilanico@lemmy.world avatar

I see the same names cropping up in many disparate communities

I think one reason for this is because it's easier for a post to bubble up to "All > Hot" on Lemmy since there are less people and less posts here.

fiercekitten ,

You currently have two downvotes for sharing your personal, factual, non-offensive experience. I’m not sure if the downvotes were meant to be cheeky but they certainly validate your post!

Snapz OP ,

Agree, would be very interesting to see it tracked and objectively analyzed

njm1314 ,

Oh is that what we're doing today? Big Ole circle jerk?

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