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-

Be kind
Ask people what they think, and why
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)
Engage sincerely
Ask yourself if there's something nice you can say
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.

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[–] microdickie@lemmy.world 11 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

When I see small, I see potential. More people know each other which fosters genuine relationships and understanding, ingredients missing from the toxic environments of the big social networks.

My ex used to call me a very small dude with a big city attitude. She didn't mean it as a compliment, but I took it as one.

The fediverse is just a beautiful place to be you. It feels calm, relaxed, intellectual and full of supportive people. It's a refreshiong alternative to the sprawling and sometimes impersonal nature of vast social networks.

One thing we should all agree on, we all have a role to play in shaping the culture of this space.

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[–] Alaknar@lemm.ee 32 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I'll add: "be supportive and helpful if you can, and just shut up if you can't".

Fediverse is sometimes suffering from the same kind of people that Linux has - "oh you have a problem? Well, here's the GitHub repo and a project Wiki, figure it out".

[–] desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone -2 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

RTFM is always a good strategy, the manual/wiki/source code will almost always have more info than a comment can reasonably contain.

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[–] Cris_Color@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago

Yeah, if I don't have the answer I usually just stop in to say I hope someone more knowledgeable can chime in and wish them luck.

That way the post at least gets a little engagement for visibility. But the "rtfm" attitude, while understandable, can be really miserable to be met with when you're out of your depth doing your best to learn about something new and need some help from another actual human.

We all begrudge the automated phone systems that try to reduce the need for human beings by helping people with simple problems, and that approach to helping people exists for good reason but it does feel like sometimes we're too eager to leave people to figure things out by themselves just because it's a lot of work to actually help them, human to human. None of us enjoy being treated that way when we need help.

[–] But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (16 children)

This place is becoming very Reddit, if you post anything that deviates from someone’s beliefs they call you names and insult your intelligence. So many people can’t have a debate or discussion without jumping to personal attacks and hate. It’s really disheartening. I love political debate but there’s no such thing anymore, only name calling

[–] AceTKen@lemmy.ca 6 points 18 hours ago

You sound exactly like the kind of person I want in my community: !actual_discussion@lemmy.ca

Check the sidebar to see if it suits you too!

[–] Emperor@feddit.uk 9 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Report it - people jumping straight to insults are trying to shut discussion down which really isn't acceptable.

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[–] Cris_Color@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Its definitely rough, I can understand why. I live in the US and as a queer person whose loved ones are almost all minorities the outlook is feeling pretty bleak, but its definitely frustrating that it feels like even slightly different left wing ideas, or thoughts on what we do about our problems can spawn flamewars.

Literally with people you're in the exact same camp with :/ I'm also big on political debate, I think democracy can't function unless people can discuss with eachother what problems we have and what we think we should do about them. (And yes, I know we increasingly may not have much of democracy here in the US. I still think my statement is true of how democracy functions in general)

I think it's really valuable to learn how people arive at worldviews other than mine.

[–] missingstring@retrolemmy.com 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah. So much of our social media is structured to reinforce being combative. Even the upvote/downvote feature of Reddit/Lemmy etc has this effect of rewarding performativity over substance. People start competing for points and start to interpret high point totals as the equivalent of winning an argument or saying something of substance.

Since it’s a lot easier to get upvotes if you’re pithy or snarky or unserious the whole mechanism that underpins this tech tilts people toward simplistic and aggressive rhetoric.

I don’t want to get too “the medium is the message” here and complexity in political discussions (or any discussions really) have been decreasing generation over generation - so it’s not just a social media problem. But social media seems to have broken so many of the traditional guardrails we’ve had against demagoguery. It’s going to take a lot to unwind it.

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[–] towelie@lemm.ee 22 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

The thing that I appreciated most about Lemmy and my transition from Reddit is how cordial everyone has been. Even if a comment is taken out of context, people tend not to jump down each others throat and assume the worst, or make bad faith arguments full of fallacies. I've had legitimate back and forths with people, something that basically never happens on Reddit.

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[–] mriormro@lemm.ee 1 points 13 hours ago

https://youtu.be/ouTXff7lvq4

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