I’ve been on reddit for a long, long time and i’ve seen all the changes that have happened in the past decade. I spent a lot of time on Reddit, and have seen the slow infestation of bots, karma whores, and guerilla marketing disguised as posts.
I’m genuinely excited for the fediverse - it seems like an actual improvement over reddit, and not just a clone. There’s a learning curve, but there was one when joining reddit too.
I participated in the migration to Voat, and saw how/why it failed. I’m more optimistic about the fediverse for various reasons, and I’m dedicating my time to helping this thrive.
I was a lurker on Voat, but I’m trying to be active here. I don’t like modding, but I’ve even created my own community here, which is saying a lot given how lazy I am. Hope to interact with y’all more!
And if you’re still reading this, i hope you don’t mind a shoutout to my new community, maliciouscompliance - recreated this as it was one of my favorite places to lurk on reddit!
/c/maliciouscompliance@lemmy.world
https://lemmy.world/c/maliciouscompliance
!maliciouscompliance@lemmy.world
EDIT: since a few people asked - I posted in this comment below why I think lemmy has a much better chance than voat did
I find Lemmy generally more welcoming to post comments. Its likely because of the lack of bots and trolls. Let’s hope they stay clear from here.
Seriously.
Going back to Reddit to read about the blackouts was jarring after spending the past few days on here. I didn’t realize just how negative, toxic, and mentally draining Reddit was until I stopped using it.
It really is like night and day. I quit reddit on Sunday when I noticed my feed was already looking empty. I’ve been here ever since and last night for the first time in a while I went to bed feeling happy with life. It’s amazing how I never noticed the toxicity that was seeping into my day.
I’m noticing the same, but at this point I’m not sure if it’s a coincidence or something real. Lemmy definitely feels like a breath of fresh air though.
certain right wing elements havent sunk their claws in yet. I hope it stays that way.
They can make their own instance and stay within their echo chamber.
i’m sure it’ll come, but we’ll deal with it then!
yup, they will follow the population. If lemmy reaches critical mass it’ll only be a matter of time.
Yeah exactly. Being a a not-for-profit open-source project, I’d expect features to eventually be put into place to help moderate this kind of stuff in the future.
Mod bots exist on reddit already, I’m sure they can be ported over when needed
I’ve definitely also noticed the difference, I’d pretty much stopped commenting at all on reddit. But if feels different here, we’ll, not so much different but reminds me of those older Internet message board days.
It reminds me of the early days of Reddit like 2006-2009.
Never experienced that. I joined more or less just before the AMA drama, and Pao. I really do Hope Lemmy takes hold. After all, ask threads get better the more varied the people participating
The difference is also on Reddit, it felt like your comment would never be seen, because there were so many. It’s not the same here. Which makes commenting actually feel worthwhile.
People are much friendlier here as well so far
there also seems to be options to disable seeing bot activity - not sure if lemmy looks different with those enabled, as I am of the same mindset
I’ve yet to see a bot. So I’m keeping them on for now
Towards the end browsing Reddit just made me angry instead of providing entertainment. Like you mention, what really got under my skin were all the ads disguised as genuine posts, and then all the bots asking for a place to purchase the item advertised.
Do you remember a time where news would break on Reddit and the it would be two or three hours later you would see cable news stations pick it up? It hasn’t happened on Reddit for a very long time. Happened to me yesterday here on Lemmy for the first time. That was a nice feeling. It reminded me of how good reddit once was and how bad it is today. But more importantly, it showed me that Lemmy isn’t just a reddit replacement, it’s looks like it’s the future of the internet.
Anyways, I guess I don’t really have a point, just needed an excuse to shit on reddit again. Fuck reddit.
I know exactly what you mean with that feeling of being ahead of “the story” or whatever breaking news was coming out. Made me feel a sense of satisfaction that I was actually being well informed instead of just being fed a story.
I am also an 11-year Reddit vet making the move. Welcome! This isn’t my first Fediverse experience, but definitely my most promising (I don’t really tweet, so Mastodon is kind of whatever to me). This and kbin have been great.
I was also part of the Voat migration. I never left Reddit, as I didn’t mind them cracking down on some of the more questionable content, but I did check Voat out. I wasn’t part of the cesspool that showed up there, but I did enjoy participating in some of the smaller communities. I think what didn’t work was that it just got stale. Same reason I didn’t like Snapzu or some of the other “Reddit alternatives.” Even larger communities were just… dead. What made Reddit work was that everyone was there, and even small, niche communities had active users.
Yep, 11 year redditor, spent some time on Voat before it really became a cesspool, and use Mastodon. I am happy to see a Fedi-Reddit take off.
11 year reddit lurker here too, trying to be more active on this platform. Welcome.
Also an 11 year Redditor here haha.
I got my start browsing rage comics on iFunny and 9GAG, then began browsing Reddit around 2010/11. I finally made my account in 2012. I too watched as Reddit became overrun with bots. I watched as summer Reddit stopped ending and became the norm, people responding in comments with corrections and more information lessened, the obvious astroturfing increased, obvious propaganda took over almost all the defaults, and most importantly, they started shutting down subs that might possibly maybe make them look bad for an IPO.
They desecrated the grave of Aaron Swartz on spit on his name by removing him as a co-creator of Reddit. The cartoonishly evil decisions came one after another and I’ve had enough as well.
Voat didn’t stand a chance because the people who were migrating over were lurkers.
I genuinely believe in Lemmy because this time, it’s the mods. The people that actually keep the site running.
Fuck Reddit, fuck u/Spez, go Lemmy
I mean, didn’t help that the ones who weren’t lurkers on Voat were among the worst the internet has to offer
Welcome aboard and thank you for your service, SenatorBumCuckets 🫡
Haha thank you, it’s good to be here 🫡
I have been a redditor since the great digg migration. I am enjoying the fediverse experience so far. It makes me realize how much reddit had slowly changed into a place i did not like as much.
What ruined it for me was hidden viral marketing and low-effort karmar whores. I think it was HailCorporate which highlighted just how many posts were straight up viral marketing attempts, and how many of these were posted from accounts with a strange comment history. I couldn’t unsee it after that.
As for karma whores… it’s funny to see a pun chain, but not when that’s the top comment for 99% of all popular posts.
What happened to hailcorporate anyway ? I remember a few years back it was cited or showed up on my feed regularly, but you made me realize it stopped at some point.
It seemed like there was a backlash against it. At some point you would get downvoted for citing hailcorporate in comments. If I were more conspiratorial-minded, I would think that Reddit started throwing in downvotes at any comments mentioning hailcorporate, because it would hurt Reddit’s image and advertiser-friendliness. But I’ve noticed that, across social media, some folks seem to get really upset when you point out that a post is fake/marketing/staged. So maybe that’s just online culture now…
Edit: there were legitimate issues with people citing hailcorporate on posts that they just didn’t like. But that seemed relatively minor to me.
Certainly feels like there’s some ‘ignorance is bliss’ to it. Folks don’t want to hear something is an ad because it takes away the illusion that their feed is in their control. And they don’t want to feel gullible.
Any examples?
well… go to /r/HailCorporate and sort by all-time top scores.
Here’s a specific example, although you may not be able to see the actual post until/if the sub is back up https://www.reddit.com/r/HailCorporate/comments/6cq3xe/i_told_popular_shaving_company_i_was_canceling/
My first day here too! I’m still not quite sure how this works. hello from lemmy.world! Lol
Very excited for malicious compliance to be back. It was also one of my favorite subs. That, pettyrevenge, and prorevenge were some of my favorites.
oh yeah that was some good reading material!
Same here was on Reddit for like 11 years at least. It’s definitely a learning curve. I didn’t even know lemmy, mastadon, or the fediverse even existed before this blackout.
Let me know if you have any questions. Lord knows I was confused at first, but it really helps to have a buddy bring you up to speed. And then you can pass that knowledge on to the next batch of newcomers.
Thanks! Will do!
11 years with Reddit in September here.
As some other people have mentioned, I have missed that rawness of old internet forums, and I feel like this brings it back in some way. Which I love, as Reddit was becoming too corporate, which has obviously been their downfall.
I feel as I can be more active on here, though I became more and more active on Reddit as time went on, but didn’t really enjoy it.
I was on Reddit 14 years and 8 months, saw the Digg migration and saw how the influx of people made the site better in so many ways. Hopefully this community will grow and we can make this place be even better by learning from the mistakes Reddit made.
Next month, I would have been on Reddit for 12 years. I’m with you here man, hope to see your community thrive smoothly
I’m surprised by how quickly it’s become active. Most discussions are still about Reddit or Lemmy, but even that feels like it’s changing.
My only concern is that I seem to have “Subscribe Pending” for a lot of different communities. Not sure what that means and not sure what the limits are for that.
Overall, I prefer it here over reddit. I think I will actually be more active.
I read somewhere that it’s a bug and means you’re probably subscribed.
FWIW, I’m seeing posts from “Subscribe Pending” communities in my feed.
I unsubbed and resubbed and it worked today
I tried that a couple of times and it’s still showing pending. I can give it a go again today.
Hello!!!
waves
