Ask Lemmy

I feel like you are more encouraged to interact here. Like you're helping the fediverse grow. The other thing for me is that people seem to be much more civil then in other places. So yeah I feel the same.

With reddit having way more people and being only a casual browser, I would never make it early enough to a post to contribute in a meaningful way. Whatever I would have said would be commented dozens of times before I got to the thread. At best my comment wasn't made yet, but I'd be sure someone with more knowledge on the subject would've contributed in greater depth soon.

Here I see plenty of posts hours old with no comments. There's a greater chance whatever I might say won't get buried or overshadowed.

I do, and it's not for entirely altruistic reasons either.

When I'd open a thread on reddit, if I wasn't there within the first hour of being up or first dozen or so comments, it was almost guaranteed that whatever I said would get buried and the effort I spent formulating my comment would basically be wasted. So there was very little incentive to engage with meaningful discussion just for the sake of discussion. On Lemmy, most posts struggle to get over a hundred comments at most, and even more struggle to get past ten. So, if I spend time developing my reply, I have a higher chance of that comment getting seen and other people in the community engaging with me, which is the entire point of leaving comments, IMO.

Lemmy feels very different to me as well. People seem more mature, skeptical, genuinely left-leaning, interested in discussion, and the moderation isn't totalitarian. Plus Reddit really seemed like it was controlled by moderators with an agenda. I'm not a flagrant asshole (I think), yet I was banned from a few subreddits for not following seemingly arbitrary rules. For example, I was banned from my city's subreddit for making a post asking a question that wasn't directly about the city, it was more about the state's culture/history. I just wanted to know what my neighbors thought. Apparently someone decided that wasn't what the subreddit was for.

You want an honest answer?
No. No I don’t.

I comment and share links at about the same rate as I did when I was primarily on Reddit. I’m less interested in Reddit these days and probably split my time 50-50. I’m pissed at what they did and continue to do, and the quality of the content has clearly taken a hit across the broader Reddit community but it’s still SO MUCH BIGGER than the entire fediverse that there is hundreds if not thousands of times the people and content.

I’ve tried to get a couple of groups off the ground, but I’m just not that guy and wasn’t on Reddit either.

I am not commenting on Reddit much anymore tho, due to the aforementioned behavior by Spez et al.

I certainly do. Most social media algorithms feed you content that it thinks will generate interactions. Lemmy does not do that which results in whatever you decide to post having more meaning because there's no stupid and/or manipulative machine deciding wheter your post is or isn't worth seeing

I have read so many thoughtful comments on this thread that made me say to myself "Yes, that. Exactly that's the reason I mostly rarely bothered formulating a comment or opinion on Reddit." The whole atmosphere on Lemmy seems so much more mature, considerate and genuinely interesting to read. I really hope we can maintain this as Lemmy is (hopefully) growing.

I findyself upvoteing way more on Lemmy than I ever did on Reddit.

Yes, definitely by a huge margin

Partially because I feel like people will actually notice, partially because I feel more a part of a community due to the smaller size and seeing the same people multiple times

On R×ddit, I wrote about a scary experience I had and posted, not thinking much of it. Weeks later, someone in a server I frequent sent me a YouTube link and asked "isn't this you??", as they recognized my R×ddit username. It was a video of someone reading out my post and giving it much more exposure than I would have ever wanted.

It spooked me to realize that R×ddit is now just a content farm. Posts will be picked up for videos, news articles, Facebook fodder, etc. Most of that shit is 20000% fake anyhow. What's even the point?

Give me a smaller community any day. The moment people start farming Lemmy for content to read out in their YouTube videos? That's the moment I bow out.

A LOT more. It's also in part because I'm not being stalked by Nazis which I was on Reddit, but I feel so much more comfortable talking here in general.

Absolutely! Less trolls, real people with real opinions make for a far more interesting community to be a part of.

Nope, I'm a lurker by nature. Back to my hideyhole I go.

Yes, definitely. I'm more willing to share my honest opinion. For me, the fear of downvotes was real. I also sorted Reddit posts by Hot, and I rarely felt motivated to connect on a post that already had 1000 comments.

I think the reasons I'm more inclined to interact on Lemmy/Mastodon are because, firstly, the fact that we were all attracted to the fediverse means we instantly have something in common in addition to whatever subject matter our chosen instances and communities focus on.

Secondly, the communities are a lot smaller—for now. This could be a temporary thing if Reddit continues hammering nails into its own coffin, or the fediverse might be niche enough that it never becomes as massive. But right now, posting a comment on Reddit feels like shouting into the void whereas Lemmy is like tossing a message in a bottle into the ocean. Neither are great for communicating, which I have always felt is the biggest problem with this format compared to classic message boards; but at least the message in a bottle is more likely to wash up on a shore where it might be seen.

Yes and no. Reddit has more niche interest groups that don't exist here.

I am far more interactive on here. I was almost exclusively a lurker on Reddit.

I interact less on Lemmy compared to Reddit, mostly because people here seem to be very vocal and polarised, so every time I have a notification in Lemmy I start groaning "oh god what did I say this time?"

But still, Lemmy is the cradle of humankind and wisdom, compared to Instagram and Facebook.

Yes.

I've always disliked the current state of social media, because it always felt like everyone is shouting at each other rather than talking to each other. That's why I like having penpals to writing letters back and forth and shoot the shit on whatever, and I've blamed Facebook and Twitter for killing that.

I lurked reddit anonymously but I don't comment much, because it felt like the only place that you can discuss various topics with random people and learn cool things. But part of it is that slowly, it made me miserable, the hivemind with all the arguing and smugness and unfunny one-liners and most of all, the cynicism.

This place is a bit different I think, I really didn't expect to get as involved as I am, but it kind of brought back that feeling of writing back and forth to random people and having a conversation again.

I've made it a goal to read and write more and talk to more people when I have the time to spare right now.

not really, I mostly interacted with niche communities on reddit that haven't made the switch

Compared to reddit, yeah, kinda. On reddit it often feels like it's not worth it commenting on a post if it's popular and 14+ hours old. On Lemmy I will see new comments with the default sorting of comments.

Way more. There's lots of genuine posts on here and not karma farming bots. Also, my posts in c/lockpicking and c/balisong actually got replies fairly quickly. On reddit, I would've been met with downvotes or people who don't even interact with my posts.

Not yet! A lot of my interests aren’t as easy to find on Lemmy yet, but I’m definitely on here more than Reddit. I’m not really a community leader type but I can definitely be in the hype squad.

In my decade of using reddit, I very rarely posted and maybe commented a couple times a week. I was a certified lurker. In the months of using lemmy, I became a mod for a community, comment nearly every day, and have far surpassed the number of posts I ever made on Reddit. Lemmy is just a nice place to be, and I like interacting with people here

Yes.

Sometimes it's corny or a little bit flamey though, but that actually feels like I'm discussing with real somewhat (we're on Lemmy after all) random people.

100% would discuss again.

There are fewer people at Lemmy who only exist to blast threads with tired old jokes and memes so there is room for well thought-out comments to get more visibility.

I come here for discussions and so far most of the posts seem to welcome it, leading to more desire to engage.

Yeah, folks are super reasonable compared to other social media sites, for the most part. The occassional nutter isn't propped up by some PR company bot net to drive engagement so they just end up downvoted into oblivion.

It's refreshing.

Less. There's less developed community in my interests. Heck, even the football channels are quiet today.

No, but I did here for you :)

Dude, yes. I feel more comfy here than in the corporate hellscape of centralized social media apps

Yup, the people here are cooler

I don't. Not much less either, I don't interact much with social media. Not that I don't want to, but I rarely have anything of worth to contribute. To make matters worse, Lemmy is mostly missing the communities that I'm interested in, of if they're there, they have little engagement. On reddit it was a little better, and Facebook is just insane in comparison.

But mostly I don't have anything to say, and if I do it's mostly stupid. My primary means of helping Lemmy is to not interact (much).

I was pretty active on reddit also