The best thing you can do for the fediverse is just be kind

I honestly feel like I can do better in this area. Thanks for the post. Gives me something to think about.

Speaking past each other is IMO the biggest source of friction and division on the fediverse.

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.

Best I can do is rewind.

Okay I agree, so let's start from Linux related any post, tell them if somebody asks a problem don't tell them just install mint , or how one is crazy because they are facing the problems in Linux or if you are not using Linux what idiot are you. I stopped participating because
Linux dude bros are just idiots troubling me
I can't find content which is though not niche is just is plain not news or Linux
It's very confusing to use fedverse as I don't know of i can go all subs via my boost app or do i need something else , if so where to access them.
So let's make it ACCESSIBLE, NON DERAGORTY FOR ANON LINUX USERS ALSO

Tell that to the people who make a dozen sockpuppet accounts to insult me just because I disagreed with them.

This applies to real life as well. Results may vary.

So I can't be myself?

Fuck you!

On the one hand, yes, yes, yes, absolutely.
On the other hand, way too often people are absolutely vile here and nobody sticks up for themselves or for others. Really a shame that r-word-it bullshit behavior is often times totally accepted and approved and even rewarded here.

Sometimes being kind doesn't necessarily mean being nice.

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.

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.

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".

https://youtu.be/ouTXff7lvq4

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

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.

Everyone's been really nice as long as I don't touch anything political - then it becomes a fart sniffing smug fest.

I arrived at LEMMY after what I think we very optimistically called the Reddit Collapse. We wish. And I had toe in LEMMY and a few others at Reddit.
Recently with their abusively patronizing redesigning and gamification and just ugly bullshit, I can’t stomach Reddit at all. So LEMMY grows increasingly important, not just to me but to folks who haven’t yet even heard of it.
So, I’ll just say thanks for your post here. I have, I confess, engaged with a couple bullies on LEMMY and I always try to say… I don’t like to do this on LEMMY— and I say that precisely for the reasons you mention.
And as you encourage: I will try to be kinder, even in when feeling… hmm… less than kind.

ngl this is such a toxic community. The Nazi thing is definitely part of the problem -- we live in an age of "soft fascism" so of course we have our fists up and we see nazis everywhere. Honestly I think most of the nazis are on twitter or truth social though, they don't come to lemmy so much. Hmm, don't assume that someone espousing an (1) conservative-looking belief is a nazi maybe?

One my favorite ways to summarize this kind of thinking is with the Bill & Ted quote "Be Excellent To Each Other, and Party On Dudes" (mostly the first half applies to this post though). The part that applies to this post, Keanu Reeves said he interprets as follows:
I think that the sentiment of it is really just be the best person, the best human being you can be, and if you do that, then you can party on and live life to the fullest, but you’re gonna be safe... You’re going to be supported, you’re going to get the gift of giving, you’re going to get the gift of receiving, you’re going to get to the gift of sharing. We’re all just some humans on a rock in space, and so it’s kinda nice to kind of promote that idea of ‘give a little, get a lot’, kind of bring it in for a group hug."

No

Getting better at communication takes time and practice. Depending on where someone is in that journey, a post like this can make a big difference. And I think we can all use a reminder to be kind every so often. So, thanks for taking the time to write this out

I disagree, yes being kind is very important but even more important is people engaging and upvoting comments.
Reddit was great because of what happened in the comment section, not the headliners, and I see very little voting engagement even in active posts.
Remember, it's free to do and it encourages others to engage as well. But yea be kind too
- Voting is boring. Just comment yourself. Thats much better. We want content and discussions, Not just numbers;)
  
  Did you not see the part where I actually commented myself?
- @Angry_Autist@lemmy.world
  @Cris_Color@lemmy.world
  It is only "free" if you choose not to pay. Unlike commercial social that's free for you to use BECAUSE you are the product being sold, federated social is only free to you because someone else is paying.
  I completely agree that mass adoption requires well primed communities which requires early adopters to put more effort into engaging.
  I would also add that clicking on anything linked helps too.. Many news outlets are data driven. If you want them to invest more with federated social, click the links so the engagement shows up in their analytics.
  
  Right. The Fediverse is the PBS of the social media.
  "It's made possible by people like you." Is it worth a few dollars a month? Yes!
  
  I agree that folks should chip in!
  Voting specifically doesn't really have meaningful server costs, I think that's really what they were talking about, but your point is very fair :)
  This platform exists only if we decide it's worth existing and give it support :)

Well I came here to chew bubblegum and talk shit, and I’m all out of bubblegum.

The thing in this post about curiosity isn't just a lemmy/online thing.
The vast majority of people are mainly interested in themselves. Like - if you have trouble on dates, making friends, getting along at work, anything to do with people in general - approaching them with a sense of sincere curiosity will completely change things overnight.
Get people to talk about themselves, be supportive in your discussions with them, and shut the fuck up wherever possible and suddenly you're interesting, a good person, kind, whatever - traits you've done exactly fuck all to demonstrate, but that people will swear are true because you seem interested in them.
It's fucking bonkers but it's true. Curiosity can change your world.

No, I don't think I will.

@Cris_Color@lemmy.world being nice helps establish the "tone", but I'm not sure that wouldn't change with another "API event" on Reddit that results in another, larger mass migration.
Another suggestion I have for college graduates is to ask your alma mater if they are going to start using something other than commercial social to engage with alumni.
Most universities don't want to make mistakes investing in the bleeding edge, but they are quick to follow. When a few schools do something, many more quickly copy that. They are also looking for low cost wins. Their engagement numbers are already telling them that Xwiiter no longer works to reach alumni or potential students.
If even a handful of alumni suggest a change at the right time, that is often enough to get them to give federated social a try.
That is when the less toxic "tone" really helps.
- @Cris_Color@lemmy.world being nice helps establish the “tone”, but I’m not sure that wouldn’t change with another “API event” on Reddit that results in another, larger mass migration.
  The way I see it - the early adopters set the tone of a place and new arrivals are more likely to adopt that approach. So it is important to be kind now, so people will be kind later.
- That's an interesting and specific actionable idea, I love to see those! Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
  Don't hesitate to talk about that idea (or others) more often with folks here on the Fediverse!

I don't miss the thousands of obnoxious, foul mouthed folks on FB that I routinely blocked. Haven't experienced any of that on the fediverse yet.

Most people know this in some capacity, but it's not talked about enough: the shape of the platform massively shapes its culture. Every mechanism, intentional feature or not, is a factor in resulting user behavior and should be accounted for.
Reddit Karma was (shitty) reputation from the start, but Slashdot user IDs became one despite being mere sequential identifiers; negative user feedback such as downvotes can be harmful to communities (yet, users without an outlet may lash out in other ways e.g. reports); even how the platform communicates with users influences them; and so on.
I'm not saying you shouldn't be nice and incentivize others to do the same, but unless the system naturally leads to the desired behavior, you'll have a bad time in the long term because building culture by interactions doesn't scale. By the time you realize there's a shift, it's too late; interactions will compound and affect how the average user acts faster than you can try to course-correct.
I wish lemmy was more experimental, because by building a clone of reddit, we've copied too many of its faults. We've already got gatherings to complain about mods, and the one time devs considered changing a core component, discussion was killed by an onslaught of users. Problems with the current setup that were brought up then will likely never see that amount of people thinking about how to solve them.
Contrast with Mastodon, which gets crap for not being a faithful copy of twitter, but their reasoning for not including quote-reblogs is understandable. They're now putting a lot of thought into how to add them safely. Not ignoring functionality users want, but also not ignoring how it will affect culture, that's compromise.
I'd like it if we could talk more about how our platforms work and, particularly, how they affect us, because that's a big way we can build better platforms, right up there with being nice.
- What if we had a tribunal instead of moderators? Actually just in the time it took me to write that out I could see it going terribly wrong LMAO
  
  The point of this system isn't to centralize control under moderators, this isn't some bug to iron out or a duct-tape solution that is meant to be temporary until we can figure out how not to centralize power.
  The point of this system is to encourage communities to create an explicit shared set of values, those values have to be attached to a specific community and thus that community will then have specific people tasked with dealing with grey areas and problems that occur when people don't adhere to the values.
  People need to stop focusing on the moderators and focus on what it means to be explicit with a positive step forward about proclaiming the kinds of values you want to hold in a shared community space. THAT is what gives this place such immense power to shape the world.
- I 1000% agree, the design of the space we inhabit shapes our behaviour.
  I don't think collectively we can stop at intentionally being kind, but forming a coherent design vision to effectively shape human behaviour and social outcomes as a community project is HARD and legitimately takes an actual vision and understanding of incredibly advanced design cobcepts very few have the experience to have any realy expertise in. Still important, but I think this is an easy way everyone can contribute. Similar to making donations.
  They're not the only things we need, but they're a small thing that becomes valuable when the culture decides we collectively prioritize them.
  You couldn't possibly be more right though. Erin kissane has talked a fair bit about that idea in her research. If there are specific design features of Lemmy you wish were different I'd be curious to see discussion posts on this comm about how we can design a space that facilitates more compassionate interactions and healthier community! (Or just to hear about them from you if they're not fully formed enough yet to post about :)
  
  I don’t think collectively we can stop at intentionally being kind, but forming a coherent design vision to effectively shape human behaviour and social outcomes as a community project is HARD and legitimately takes an actual vision and understanding of incredibly advanced design cobcepts very few have the experience to have any realy expertise in.
  Yeah if you want to get a PHD in this stuff, but you could also just become friends with a bunch of artists and ask them how they like this place, and notice how they talk about it feeling free and vibrant or dead and dying.
  By the way, we are already doing this work and it barely feels like we are... because the work is a basic product of the world views, shared values and shared explicit ideological and practical goals of this community space.
  You don't need this crazy apparatus to make this place a vibrant garden, having expert gardeners is definitely helpful, but it is about getting out of the way of kindness and empowering kindness, not coming up with some grand unified strategy to manipulate people into being better humans.
  Basic things like the way a lot of Mastodon instances don't by default prioritize showing the precise number of likes a post has add up to a significant difference in how healthy a social network is for the people in it. You can encourage people to obsess over unhealthy aspects to communication by making the numbers front and center, encouraging people to associate popularity and self worth with those numbers, and creating situations where everybody has to become an expert in gaming getting the best numbers possible even in the realm of their personal life (or so we are made to feel).... or you can de-emphasize the numbers and make it a thing people can check if they want to, but the UI and general philosophy of the place doesn't really encourage or worship that kind of thinking in the first place so why bother?
  The reason it feels weird not to have numbers quantifying how successful a social media post/piece of content is that the people who designed these systems were programmers not artists, they didn't understand the incredible farce that attaching the atoms of communication in a community with direct quantification is... would immediately lead to unhealthy environments, they just saw it as the easiest way to make money and identify who the valuable influencers to pay to do ads are.
- People were right to be angry about removing voting visibility.
  The surest sign a community is toxic is voting patterns and removing our access to that removes our ability to combat the continuing enshittification of lemmy.
  And there are many, many mods that need to be complained about.
  Though you are right that no-nuance upvote/downvote is a really shitty metric

Hey thanks, I appreciate your post :)

Give quiche a chance.

If I'm in a toxic mood, I go to reddit.

Kinda wish we could pin this post to the top of everyones feed for a while! 😅 Lemmy has been a great place so far but think we can do even better. Especially with the points you bring up.
Thanks for sharing 😊
- ❤️ thank you!

Love you guys

Here are some more specific examples to think about!
Compliment people's art and ask about their process
Teach people about something you're knowledgeable on
Give constructive criticism on peoples projects when it's welcome
Thank people for posting things you're glad you got to see, tell them you enjoyed it
Tell people you're glad they're here
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!
- 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.
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compliment_sandwich
  
  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'm not one for religion, but I for one would like to join the Church of Cris.

A big problem is too much politics, feels like politics is always brought up even in posts where it's not the topic of discussion. Just look at this post. Then if someone disagrees with your view they'll attack you and then they'll claim they "are on the right side". People have forgotten the golden rule.
- That's because politics are getting to the point where people cannot ignore them any longer. Think it's bad now? Just wait till the grocery gets hit.
- It's very front of mind because these are the "interesting times" from the Chinese curse. Even people I've always known to say they don't pay attention to politics, can't watch the news it just makes me sad, etc. These people are talking politics every day. It's hard not to.
- I disagree, if political discourse can't survive public debate, then it isn't a very good political ideology.
  We have been artificially hampered on other platforms by having to be nice to the nazis, we don't have to do that here and I fully welcome such debate because none of their abhorrent ideologies hold up under scrutiny
  As for left leaning political debate, we have ALWAYS argued with each other. That is one of our greatest strengths that we just don't all into line with everything the top says. Also one of our greatest weaknesses.
  But to stifle that artificially will just force it to bleed into other discussions.
  I say up with political discourse and let the marketplace of ideas be conceptually free of bias and the results will be that humanity in general considers nazis pretty bad people
  
  disagree, if political discourse can’t survive public debate, then it isn’t a very good political ideology.
  They made it clear they're talking about spaces and topics not about politics. People who feel entitled and compelled to make everything a political culture war are insufferable. Made worse when they call everyone who disagrees with them a Nazi. The word has lost all meaning now.
- Dunno maybe you can subscribe to more instances (sublemmies? I don't know the lingo) and somehow filter out the ones that go bad quickly. My enjoyment of Lemmy went up by a lot once I started ignoring the front page and curating my subscribed instances. Just make sure you visit the list of communities every so often

OP simply asks people to be kind, People proceed to tear each other apart..
OP now knows how Jesus felt 🤣
- i gotta lead by example. I gotta lead by example. Lead By Example. IM GONNA LEAD BY EXAMPLE 🥲🙃
  we're doin our best out here lol. But that's what it takes! There is no perfect, no "I literally never make mistakes" or "never let my frustration dictate shitty behaviour when compassion would yield the outcome I want"
  You gotta decide you care more about what's effective than how good it feels to act on your anger, and then you gotta do your best :)
- Or how Doctor Who felt after asking the master for help.
- That'll do it

Hey this is a nice post, I wonder what the comments say :3 click
"Oh you think being kind is good? You're a fascist OP >:T. You can't make me vote republican"
- im having a time. 🥲
  
  I can imagine x3 clicking on this gave me mental whiplash
- If I steal your identity I can make you vote republican. But I don’t like to steal. Maybe: lend it to me? I promise to give it back at the end.
  
  Im not a US citizen (or a citizen of any other country that has a republican party), so that may be more work than you're signing up for on your end.. getting a citizenship can take ages :3
- I'm glad there's still sane people here.

Completely right OP, and this is worth repeating as MUCH as possible. More than almost any UX or intake changes, Fediverse will only grow if their experience of the community is good.
Unfortunately, some people have never caught a vibe in their life and it shows lol. A single person with a bad attitude can completely tank your experience in a small community, versus a 20,000 person subreddit where usernames are basically indistinguishable.
- some people have never caught a vibe in their life and it shows
  Lmao 😂
  And yeah, we actually have tangible evidence to support that idea Erin kissane has done a lot of incredible research work on how to effectively design the fediverse and support people in navigating it and one of the earlier things she did was interview people who left Mastodon after having bad experiences and collate that data-
  A lot of people's reasons is that when they joined they were met with hostility. It plays a huge role in people's experiences here, and even just from a purely pragmatic perspective it's REALLY important
  
  I feel like this conversation is slipping into equating "makes fediverse grow faster" to "good".
  Maybe most people need to have an initial experience where they get pushback for behaving the way they did somewhere else?
  That is of course a dangerous rationalization to apply, as it can be used for any kind of shitty treatment of people, but there is also a similar danger to assuming that whatever will bring people in the fastest is inherently good.

Unless you're a republican or other type of nazi. Then you can absolutely go all the way to hell.
Tolerance got us here.
- It’s not about tolerance imo, it’s about discussion. You’d be surprised to learn their reasoning if you actually listened to it. You don’t have to agree with it.
  Both sides have this problem right now. Both only converse with their own. Why are republicans not changing? Well if their friends, family and everyone they talk to is a republican, they’ll never be exposed to different opinions.
  Don’t forget that both sides can have valid policies depending on how you view the world. I’m not taking about trump and whatever you people are doing out there in the US, but in general, conservatism is the idea that people will manage their money, rather than the government.
  Look at Quebec for example. A very socialist government. 2 years ago they invested a ton of money into one electric bus company. Well that company failed really bad and while they aren’t completely bankrupt, they aren’t far. It’s easy then to then see why conservatives would want to vote conservative. If their money had stayed in their pocket instead of going to the government, this wouldn’t have happened.
  Same thing with health. The public health system is currently clogged up so a lot of people end up having to pay to go to the private sector to actually get cured in time. So conservatives believe this whole system is a huge waste of taxpayer money. Most conservatives I know aren’t agaisnt the government helping with that, but they’d rather the government just pay the invoice after you went to a private clinic, similar to insurance in the states, rather than try to control a system that clearly isn’t working.
  
  You’d be surprised to learn their reasoning if you actually listened to it.
  Turns out their reasoning a lot of the time is divinely ordained racism and sexism. Turns out thats been the reasoning behind a lot of humanity's choices.
  
  I'm not interested in the reasoning behind bigotry.
- Nazis can always join their own defederated server and have their little circle jerk, nothing is stopping them from going and joining exploding heads; they don't have a right to be part of federated fediverse and have their bullshit heard.
  For that matter, nothing's stopping the people who disagree with me from creating their own nazi-friendly Lemmy instance. This is not the Nazi bar, and it's not going to be, so go ahead and open it yourselves. No need to let me know how it turns out, I'm pretty sure I've got a good guess.
  
  like Truth social
- Generalizing is a logical fallacy. Not all Republicans are Nazis.
  Some are rotten. Some are good people that just got duped.
  It's not black and white.
  
  Nope. They've had plenty of time to see the results of their actions. They're complicit at this point.
  
  If you’ve been getting duped for 50 years, then maybe you’re just too stupid to vote. People with a bit of a plant in their pocket have been disenfranchised for a lot less
- Except the non-US republicans, they're cool :D
- Ik a few people who lean to the right economically but aren't in favor of all this authoritarian stuff And they're not Nazis, you cant just generalize so broadly about what should or shouldn't be tolerated. Ofc if someone is being blatantly racist that shouldnt be tolerated, but economic discussion is totally fine
  
  Turns out Republicans social and economic policiy is dogshit. There are three types of Republicans; power hungry sycophants, cultural chameleons that dont care but to blend in, and then the largest proportion... salt of the earth morons.
  
  Electing republicans is in itself blatantly racist.
- Lol the irony
  
  The nazis during WW2 were defeated with love and kindness 🤗
  (lol no, we shot them to death)
  
  Zero irony. Nothing funny here. Nazis fuck off. Republicans fuck off. Trumpers fuck off.

I totally agree with your message.
These days everyone who is not ultra-left easily gets labelled as Nazi, similarly everyone who brings up any rather left argument will be called a woke snowflake.
Thus, any dialog is immediately shut down. Listen, understand, exchange arguments.
That is what unites everyone who believes in liberal values.
- The last listening and understanding I had with a Trumper was over whether Haitians were eating cats and dogs in Ohio. They're not serious and I'm not going to pretend they are.
  "Ultra-left" in America has boiled down to not hating minorities.
- It's a rough time, not helped by how profoundly important politics is right now. And the more broken the state of things get, the more divided we become, and the harder it gets to look others in the eyes and be okay with what they're supporting :(
  I don't think there's any easy answer. But I do think it helps to confront people who are doing harm, and open sincere dialogue with people you disagree with (when theyre willing to engage in good faith. No point otherwise.) And try to understand how they got where they are, and share why you don't agree with them
- These days everyone who is not ultra-left easily gets labelled as Nazi, similarly everyone who brings up any rather left argument will be called a woke snowflake.
  What the hell are you smoking? Have you turned on the news? Paid attention to politicians? Check in with how exactly companies chose to sustain and expand DEI (A <- where did the accessibility go we wonder?) after Trump and DOGE attacked it?
  You are so wrong, if the universe repeated at the edge of itself like in the old Asteroids arcade game, you would have long ago crossed into Very Right by slamming straight past the most extreme extent of Completely Wrong.
  
  Wow, keep your emotions at bay, will you?
  Not even sure what to respond, except for what I wrote previously: A lot of discourse is broken by calling people whatever and not listening.
  You are somewhat setting an example of what I am talking about, since I am not even disagreeing with the opinion that I am infering from your writing.
  
  I've seen people here call ai and crypto fascist technologies. There is an element of truth to what cyberblob saying, some people are labeling things as Nazi simply because they don't like them.

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.

Love how the point of the post is “hey try to be nice” and everyone sounding off in the comments like “FUCK YOU AND FUCK THOSE SPECIFIC GUYS TOO”
Maybe more people should just post their reviews of vacuums here
- I have a shark vacuum, I don't know the model. It's really good for two reasons. First, it slides down low profile to go under things easily. Second, it has a three foot long detachable suck stick so you can get bigger stuff or get down in cracks. It's great for around the litter boxes. 4.5 stars because things could always suck more.
  
  Hell yeah thank you for your service
- The vast majority of people here are reddit refugees, raised on a website that encourages being a prentious dick(me inclusive, too often, though I'm trying to be better) it's unsurprising they'd take issue with the message
- Its definitely fatiguing not gonna lie 🙃
  Clearly I left it too ambiguous whether I meant Nazis specifically when I said you should try to approach people you disagree with with curiosity. That sounds super sarcastic but I don't mean it that way, I just don't have the energy to reword it
  This problem probably could have been anticipated and avoided, it's just hard to always do so perfectly on the internet when speaking to a lot of people you don't know who will interpret what you say in any manner of different ways
  
  There's a limit to how carefully you can word things to protect its meaning from people determined to read it in bad faith. I have it too - the desire to be long winded to preemptively protect myself from misunderstanding. But there's a risk that we'll turn everything we say into long blocks of soft useless mush. There's no precision precise enough to be safe.
  We have to, I think, decide to write for people willing to reach for us when we hold out a hand. There are enough willing to try that any general misunderstandings can be clarified with conversations other people can read if they want to understand. If enough of us are willing to do this for each other, it might be possible to build spaces where people who slap that outheld hand away don't have to dictate conversation. And maybe we can both be less wordy.
  
  Nah I think that what you said was legitimate and I don’t think you need to reword it. I’d rather be part of a social media experiment where there’s allowed to be some nuance and subtlety. Also I think you’ve made it pretty clear that nazi’s are excluded from the list of people to try to be nice to. I agree with you there!
- Sucky! sucky! five dolla!

Great post.
To add to this, not resorting to calling others tankies or Russian bots when you have differing opinions, especially around politics.
- 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.
- 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.
- My biggest worry on Lemmy is actually bots and Russian psy ops though. If centralized reddit couldn’t stop them before misinformation spread, how is Lemmy supposed to?
  
  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.
  
  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.
- 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
- Lemmy.ml and lemmy.world are infested with tankies though. It is probably going to make me leave Lemmy. I've already started to discourage people in my life from joining because of how bad political and technological communities are. A lot of other communities are just empty.
- 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.
- Nah fuck tankies, zero tolerance for the intolerant.

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 just hope people won't turn it into another 4chan

As I get older I have found that making my world smaller and focusing on the things I genuinely care about (and not the things I’m “supposed to” care about as a “good” man/American/worker etc) results in me being happier and more satisfied with life.
Lemmy is my close little corner of the internet. I hope that the fediverse grows ands takes over for the good of other people, but if it stays in this niche for another decade I’ll be happy because I already love it for what it is.

I have a couple of suggestions to add:
I was considering leaving the other site before the API fiasco because it felt like so many users approach engagement as rhetorical combat, that is, the point of discussion is to defeat the other person. Instead, think one of Covey's habits of highly-effective people: "Win-win, or no deal." Approach discussion on the Fediverse as a collaborative act, in which you're exchanging ideas with another person. Even if you disagree, you can both win by respectfully hearing out the other person. And if the other person won't collaborate? No deal! Just disengage.
Just like in intimate relationship, use "I" statements instead of "you" statements. Telling people who they are and what they believe is not only disrespectful, but probably wrong, often exaggerated or distorted for rhetorical combat purposes. People get angry when their identity gets poked at. One exception, of course, is when giving advice, like, stick to what you know, and share your thoughts and your reactions to a topic.
- Well yeah but consider that everyone that doesn't think like me is a Nazi at best

Agreed, love it!
- ❤️
  Have a good one!

Love your take and call to action. Appreciate it :) and I'm not surprised it's coming from you either :)
- D'aww, thanks. Always lovely to see your username and pfp around :) take care!
  I had something I was thinking about posting for the soulslke comm, I gotta remember what it was!
  
  That's so nice of you - likewise :)
  Ooh, looking forward to it! 👀

The second best thing is remember that tolerance of intolerance breeds intolerance.
- Call them out so that resistance is visible, then block them to remove their agency to engage you.
- 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.
- 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.
  
  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.
  
  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.
- That suggests we should be intolerant of intolerance, which is an oxymoron.
  
  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.
  
  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.
  
  Not really. Nazis are scum and deserve to be kicked out.
  
  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.
  
  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.

the second best thing you can do is to make nsfw posts
- Lol. Porn does make the internet go round
  I already did that, but not on this account >.>
  
  Multiple accounts are a must!
  ...or so I've been told
  
  something about that oily wetness lubricating the engine of thought.
  
  expose your fetishes
  now
  you have no choice
  
  I thought it was more 'up and down' :)
  Can people see what groups you subscribe to on Lemmy?
- Make any post of quality. More high quality posts reducing reasons for visiting reddit the better

You would think the internet is full of bees looking to make honey but really it’s full of beetles wanting to roll their shit.
- The Internet can certainly lend itself to discord and hostility. I think that makes it all the more important we think carefully about what kind of spaces we want to build
  Both in the sense that we should pursue kindness, but also in the sense that we should be designing our platforms to be healthy social spaces! Another commenter made some really good points about how important it is that we shape our platforms in a way that facilitates the kind of social spaces we want to he a part of :)
  
  I disagree that kindness should be pursued foremost. Knowledge and truth should be pursued and kindness shouldn’t be allowed in charge because when it is you get shit like language policing which is insanely toxic and stupefying.
  You want kindness? Go somewhere designed to be wholesome but please, for the love of honesty and free speech, don’t enforce that crap site wide.
- Don't kink shame me!

I generally say bullet points are good ideals, but there's a much bigger issue with mental health.
There are certain people in lemmy that need to learn what "you have no enemies" and "I'm gonna do my own thing" means. It's fine people are different live on earth is very diverse
- I agree, and like with many of the culture issues we have challenges with, I think the extent to which Lemmy is a echo chamber or political and philosophical monoculture really sets us up to struggle with those kinds of problems
  You're not wrong though. Even I sometimes find myself falling into it, it's hard. And a lot of people believe following the behavior their anger drives them to isn't just okay, it's actually a good think and combats the problems they're angry about. Personally I think that usually couldn't be any further from the truth
  Regardless, I hope you have a good one :)
  
  Lol so you agree with this post I made just not the other