Hi! In thinking about how to help the fediverse grow, I wonder if there are more mainstream Lemmy instances?
I’ve pointed a couple folks to Lemmy.world and it’s uhhh, pretty hard Left for them (as one girl, who volunteered for the Democrats said “I just got yelled at because I can’t be Left wing unless I want to destroy capitalism? Which feels weird.”) We’re much farther Left than reddit which itself was definitely Left of centre…
I don’t know if decentralized open source social media actually attracts many mainstreamers but assuming we want to grow the fediverse, I’d like to have somewhere I can point people to without feeling very nervous for them.
Thanks!
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Lemmy is different from Reddit in one important way.
Reddit is a product. You install the app, you look at the ads, the mods and admins curate an endless feed of cartoons and safe ragebait and awwwunexpectedsmiles.
Lemmy is an environment. If you’re passive, then any random thing may happen to you. So you have to be proactive in this environment.
- You could subscribe to communities that are non-politics/news, non-meme, non-tech, and browse these “subscribed” communities.
- You could use blocklists, as described elsewhere in this post.
- You could find an instance that does some of this work for you, by defederating and blocking certain types of opinions and behaviors. This seems to be what you want, and many people have provided suggestions.
These are all ok. But the one defining characteristic of Lemmy is that it is not just another product.
Mods please install an upvote twice button.
I’m on sh.itjust.works. Which is actually run like a democracy, funnily enough.
According to a post made in our Main Community, sh.itjust.works is the fifth largest Lemmy instance by total posts, after lemmy.world, hexbear.net, www.hexbear.net, and lemmygrad.ml. So figuring Hexbear got duplicated, and anyway hexbear and lemmygrad are commonly defederated with because tankies, that puts sh.itjust.works at #2 on this side of the Silicon Curtain.
It shows lemmy.world at 390k total posts, with sh.itjust.works at 65k. Sh.itjust.works has very, very few of THE communities people use. !Games!games@sh.itjust.works is the biggest one by subscriber count.
So sh.itjust.works is a popular place to access other instances from, and I think others like lemm.ee and lemmy.ca are in the same boat.
“Join this instance, they’re not as radical left as lemmy.whatever” misses the point. Who cares which door of the building you walked in through when everyone congregates in the same room anyway?
Does hexbear run two instances or is that a mistake?
Well, I’ve always said that Communick is not meant to be an instance focused on any particular group, so perhaps it could count as “normie” for her?
Kind of a silly question, but asked honestly: How much do you think the name “communick” matters when trying to convince “normies” to try it out? Would they see that, read it as a play on “Communist”, and assume it’s only for extremists or whatever?
You are the first that makes this association, at least that I know of.
Communick is rooted on “Communication”, “nickname” and “unique”: because the original idea was that people that sign up to the service get an unique username across all instances…
Honestly, I got also the impression that Communick was about communism, not communication. I just felt I needed to state it anywhere.
Looks like I need to improve the marketing and messaging…
See that “grayed out” SIP part? That’s what was meant to be my first actual service, but I can not afford to offer SIP until I consistently hit ~$1000/month in revenue.
Actually that was my instinctual thought as well. Though, I might be primed as a result of some of the responses.
Sorry, it wasn’t clear to me. Are you saying that your first association of the name Communick is with “Communism”?
Add me to the list. Not helped by the fact that “-ik” is a common russian suffix.
Yep me too
To my American eyes and English speaking self, I assumed it was associated with communism. (I don’t think it’s bad or anything.)
I’m finding it incredibly ironic. Mine is the only instance that is unashamedly for-profit and access is only for paying customers…
i think the content and the ‘home base instance’ can be completely separate. its all about what they would choose to subscribe to.
theoretically you could be on lemmy.world and not subscribe to or access any of its local content. conversely, an ‘onramp’ instance might not have much of any local content but have access to hundreds of remote instances. (mine for example)
it can be kind of confusing for new users.
Lemmy world left??? Lol they’re milquetoast liberals and capitalism is garbage. Your friend needs to grow up.
Yeah, this is exactly the childish annoyances and unpleasantness I’m talking about.
Sorry not sorry. The world is falling to fascism thanks to the conditions created by capitalism and your friend needs to grow the fuck up and read some history. Lemmy world is centrist lib shit takes, if your friend thinks that’s “left” then maybe they should go to a fascist platform like meta or x where they belong.
Mate, you’re not going to deconvert libs by pushing them towards the fascists. You don’t have to be so antagonistic all the time.
As a queer person I’ve completely lost my patience with shit libs. They’re fascists.
Also if they’re that easily pushed to fascism they had it in them all along and were never an ally and don’t belong on lemmy.
Fine, you don’t have to have patience with them, but that doesn’t mean you have to jump in and start flaming when they’re not even making reactionary statements. There’s others who do have the patience to help deconvert them.
Calling lib shit lemmy world “too left” is reactionary
If you are making alternatives to republicanism more unpleasant and unappealing to the people whom we need to persuade, well, it seems like you are aiding fascism…
If it’s that easy to support fascism you’re a fascist all along. Typical liberal.
You’re missing the point.
By being wildly unpleasant at people, you’re making it less likely they’ll read the news you agree with, read the same books and come to the same conclusions…
“Oh good, that person who called me a fascist is recommending something! I’ll definitely read that!” - said no one ever.
alternatives to republicanism
You calling spez’s little playground and a far right “enlightened centrist” instance like . world “left-wing” makes it abundantly evident to anyone with more than half a brain and the slightest bit of education that any supposed alternatives to fascism you’d find acceptable would be effectively indistinguishable from fascism.
Only fascists and idiots would want to be appealing to fascists.
It’s a very good thing that you don’t feel welcome outside of your fascist echo chambers.
Interesting take.
I think what you‘re talking about is called „anecdotal evidence“. Destroying capitalism is definitely not the „mainstream“ on lemmy, far from it. Although We dont have „normie-lizing“ moderation and bot armies that bury every post thats out of the norm.
Of course we attract a lot of freedom loving people. Freedom, turns out is an extremist left view. Asking to be paid for work done, asking to be able to work from home, etc.
I would ask your friend to show you more than one incident and also ask them to be open to making a new experience.
And although everyone will hate me for it: if you want fediverse lite (or bastardized corpo fediverse) you can always test bluesky and threads. They are more mainstream since they have larger user counts.
Not sure this is the way to share comments but in this post we already have people arguing about liberalism creating fascism etc:
https://fedia.io/m/fediverse@lemmy.world/t/1703782/-/comment/9075608
I think she deleted accounts but if you really want I can hunt down the last time folks got angry at me for the same thing.
I didn’t delete my account I blocked you. Open up a fucking history book, look at the Weimar Republic, then look what came next.
As a queer woman I’m so fucking sick and tired of liberal bullshit. Liberals create the conditions that allow fascism to flourish. In America, when bush couped in 2000, they rolled over, leading to citizens United, 9/11, the patriot act, the afghanistan and Iraq forever wars. In 2008 they bailed out the bankers. In 2016 they fucked over Bernie and lost to a fascist. In 2020 they fucked over Bernie again and the only reason biden won was because of covid. In 2024 they proudly support a genocide and gaslight the public about the economy - just like the Weimar Republic selling out the Germans in their ww1 concessions.
You liberals just don’t fucking learn. And now my life is on the line. Either fight capitalism or get fascism, your fucking pick liberal.
You should block better or.something?
And the people who failed Bernie were the voters who didn’t show up. Age wise, the youth got their heads kicked in by the seniorsin the primaries by a depressing margin. If you don’t vote, you don’t make differences.
I mean, bailing out the banks as a failure? Shit, there shouls have been regulations (like Canada had) to stop crazy trading but unless you wanted a lot pf people to lose their pensions and life savings, this is an impressively silly point.
Edit: also, the she wasn’t about you it was about the person whom OP had asked about. (Yes, not everything revolves around you, though admittedly that wasn’t super clear from the paragraph construction) I just used you as an example of lemmy’s delightful crazies.
Are you aware that when they use the term liberalism, they likely mean economic liberalism?
I think the way to do it would be this but you probably can do it a lot more ways.
Lemmy (and the fediverse as a whole) are not supposed to be a drop in replacement for reddit and other corpo media. No central moderation or “direction”, just a ton of servers with very varying user counts, ideas and ways to do things.
When on the fediverse, you will definitely encounter bad stuff. You will learn to use the block button and maybe block whole instances. Thats how you make your own “bubble”.
Since the fediverse is federated, horizontally organized and has freedom of association, it is hugely different from any other social gathering in the outside world. All our Lives we live in hierarchical structures: Families (more or less), Schools, Companies, etc. That can be the reason why it feels alien. But I dare you to try and see if “freedom” cant feel nice to you.
It will never feel like reddit or other places on the corpo web. If you need that, its not the place for you. If you can be open to a new experience and just decide between listening to an opinion or blocking it, you might have a lot of fun. Good luck
I don’t think it’s the non hierarchy, I think it’s the being called a fascist enabler for supporting mainstream Democrat positions etc that is offputting.
I have trouble recommending this place to others because of some of our less than delightful members.
Reddit was big enough that once you got into niche communities, the angry crazies were either banned or hadn’t found community or whatever. Lemmy is still small so we don’t have that. So, was just hoping for an instance or whatnot that was less communism and linux and more friendly to an average person.
Yeah, i cant help if you wont use the block button. The not banning people is part of the horizontal structure. I suggest you open up to the concept. Otherwise youre just out of luck.
Also nobody here gives a shit if you recommend lemmy to anything. Thats reddit thinking. We dont make money, dont have the slightest benefit from someone getting a recommendation coming here. au contraire, we give people refuge who are sick and tired of the way reddit treats its users. If your friends are happy on reddit, please god leave them there. We do not want them here.
There have been a bunch of pleas to grow the fediverse, as stated in the opening.
And the block button isn’t a particularly good recommendation for new people.
Out of curiousity, say there was an instance that allowed all speech and had great content. Would you tell a trans friend “hey it’s great, just block every time you see something hateful.” Or can we see how that would be an unpleasant experience.
Anyway, if you don’t want a larger fediverse, that’s groovy but that seems contrary to the nature of almost every post here.
We‘re talking about different things.
I have trans friends that are fine here. They will absolutely shit on you for not dismantling capitalism though.
See my point?
Everyone has the right to their opinion. You want extras? Either get on an instance that backs your exact flavor or make your own. Freedom of association, baby!
Also, you know what I dont like? Smartasses. Yes, there are people here that dont want this place to grow and others do. Neither of them is wrong. The only one who is wrong is the one trying to convince them otherwise repeatedly.
If you have any other questions, I‘ll gladly help. If you want to convince me why I‘m wrong, you‘re getting the block treatment. Your decision.
Reddit was only ever left of center for Americans. To many/most non Americans, America consists of a far right party and a center to center right party.
What you’re seeing is the result of a platform that wasn’t first created by and for American audiences, and whose initial takeup wasn’t dominated by American perspectives.
Agreed. I got lost at ‘Reddit is left…’
Huh?Until r/TheDonald you wouldn’t really see right wing concepts on the frontpage.
No I don’t agree with that at all. You see right-wing Concepts all the time if you know where to look for them. Anytime there’s any discussion of protests? Comment section is militantly right-wing. Reddit gets hard that idea of running over and killing protesters. Anytime there’s anything about criminal justice? Nothing a redditor loves more than the idea of locking people up and torturing them. And don’t get me started on any video game subreddit.
Pre 2016 reddit front page was not as you describe. I’m not saying it was perfect, I’m saying open conservative concepts were not prevalent or popular.
Strong disagree.
Ok
I distinctly remember liberal messages rising to the top on Reddit, stuff like that you should just accept that you have to go out and work for a living. That’s not left!
10s of millions of “left wing” (read, the entire spectrum from center to marx) folks believe that, for better or worse.
That opinion is entirely valid as “left wing” but certainly isn’t very left, on an absolute scale.
I disagree. Having some kind of grievance with capitalism an sich is central to being leftwing.
If left-wing covers all concepts left of center, and many mild left policy still incorporates capitalism, then it can’t be reduced that strictly. I could agree that progressive or far left policy isn’t compatible with capitalism
Edit either way, we disagree on semantics. It’s off topic for the original question now (I’m not sticking that on you, I contributed to this semantic rabbit hole)
To circle it back, I think there’s a way to invite “normies”, maintain left leaning (even very left leaning) positions, and not compromise the platform.
Edit edit and I think that’s possible without purity testing or shotgunning people with theory
yes you would. you would see straight up imperialism apologia which is ok to their democrat audience i guess.
fuck i remember a post on r/arab getting nuked from the frontpage without a trace when they posted a video of the us bombings in iraq. a few similar ones but this is the one of the worst i remember.
the us has no significant left wing movement. maybe among the minorities.
Imperialism isn’t unique to right wing
The world is a hugely diverse place that doesn’t easily fit into a left or right category from the perspective of politics in an individual country. While I agree that the US is a conservative country, this narrative is a bit exaggerated. The median global opinion on various issues would be all over the place from a US perspective, from far right to far left or even defying any categorization. As a result saying that the US is to the right of most of the rest of the world is a huge oversimplification.
The US has a nazi sympathising president, backed by a billionaire who gives nazi salutes in public. So I don’t agree that saying the US is to the right of most of the world is incorrect.
Well, there is a distinction between the the leadership and the populace. The context here was about the populace, since that is who is participating in these online conversations. I agree with you that the current government is an extreme right one. And yes many people did vote for this but I suspect many do not support his full agenda, they were just fooled into thinking this was the least bad option.
A nazi sympathising president was voted in, because the overton window has shifted sufficiently to the right to allow that to happen.
I’m not American.
Lemmy is much farther left than any of our national discourse.
I get that American parties are farther Right than most but the discourse here is much farther Left than almost all political discourse. Edit: I’m happy to be corrected, show me a serious party in a position of power in a Western democracy committed to ending capitalism!
Is hating for profit healthcare a leftist ideology?
I agree that most of Lemmy is rather cynical and very far lest
I’m not saying that if you don’t want to destroy capitalism that you’re not left. I’m saying that the perspective that reddit itself was “definitely left of center” is not a widely shared perspective, and if you believe that reddit of all places was left of center, then lemmy, which actually is left of center, is going to feel very left of center.
I’d strongly disagree. I think reddit is generally on the left side of most cultural and political institutions.
To each their own though.
Then honestly you must live in some radically conservative country.
Canada.
No mainstream party suggests UBI as a matter of principle for example.
I don’t think that UBI is the predominant reddit viewpoint either - I think that’s just the subs you’re in.
I’m Canadian too, and I certainly don’t consider reddit as left of center on average. It’s almost like 4chan lite.
But on that note, if you’re looking for Canadian instances, there are a few good ones.
The obvious one is lemmy.ca, but the other (bigger?) one is sh.itjust.works which is bilingual and I think is québécois.
Presumably a Canadian instance would have relatively Canadian political leanings, although as has been said before, instance doesn’t really matter.So basically the same as America but behind by 18 months then politically?
Our overton window is only a few degrees to the left of the US.
Also the Ontario Liberals conducted a UBI pilot in Hamilton during the 2010s with the goal of proposing some form of it as a policy if results were positive.
Then there’s been the UBI experiment in Manitoba during the 70s.
There it is.
Your “country” is a collection of mining and timber companies in a trench coat.
Who is much more left wing than Canada?
I don’t know if its what you are looking for but futurology.today is the fediverse sibling (same Mods) as r/futurology on Reddit.
(Disclaimer I’m a Mod on it & the subreddit)
At a minimum, you’d want to find an instance that blocks lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net. lemmy.world already blocks both of those though. The next instance you’d probably want to block is lemmy.ml, which not many other instances do. beehaw.org does, but also blocks lemmy.world, which cuts out a lot of the threadiverse.
If you felt like it, you could explain how to do instance blocking on your user profile. That might be too much for people that don’t really care either way and just want stuff to work, though.
@Blaze@feddit.org might also have opinions on this, having spent a lot of time over on Reddit convincing people to try out Lemmy
I really don’t get this “if you don’t block XYZ, it means you are in favor of them”.
My instance does not block any of the big tankies, and yet it has not been a problem.
I’m not saying that leaving an instance unblocked means you’re in favor of them, to be clear. My response was only addressing the issue of achieving a “normie” experience.
Much appreciated!
Yeah, I think .world is the biggest and so I’d love that to be the “base” but even responses here go to “if you ain’t against capitalism, I don’t want you here.”
I mean, it’s probably best to stay out of political subs at that point. Reddit’s pretty far left of… mainstream US media, and yeah lemmy is fairly left of reddit.
But to be honest, just politics in social media will always be arguing. You aren’t likely to find a political group that perfectly lines up with exactly where you are.
Good points!
I mean, if you don’t want to dismantle capitalism, I’m not sure I want you around, anyway.
And you shouldn’t feel “nervous”. If someone is unable to defend themselves against ideals they don’t subscribe to, they should work on their defense instead of running to an echo chamber. Debate us s crucial part of human nature.
Not everyone wants to spend social media arguing with people. We have things to do. It’s not a particularly pleasant environment sometimes abd believe it or not, that bothers people.
Then go find one where you don’t interact with anyone. Interaction is discourse and discourse is the “social” in social media… Not everyone is going to share the same viewpoint, and you can either avoid them and build your wall, or you can have a discussion.
Most people are groovy and pleasant to interact with.
You should try it, it’s nice!
Most people voted for Trump.
if you don’t want to dismantle capitalism, I’m not sure I want you around, anyway.
[…]
they should work on their defense instead of running to an echo chamber.
If you read it again, maybe you’ll find the subtle difference.
Ahahaha, hadn’t even noticed that!
I’m like your friend. F— leftists and f— conservatives. I’m a hard core liberal and y’all can suck my d—.
I find lemm.ee is better than most but yeah as others have said, since everything is federated and the majority mass of users are hardcore leftists there’s no way to really avoid them. Just get used to the downvotes and easily offended snowflakes and instabans and hope that as more people leave the mainstream social medias for federated socials that these people will be watered down.
There are tens of us already!
You’d have to show who specifically was yelling. You see everyone from all instances they’re federated with. They might not have even been from Lemmy.world.
Why not just join non-political communities and focus on the content that they enjoy. If people are nervous about meeting assholes on the internet perhaps they should stick to cable tv or netflix.
I think one of the issues is “normies” do not want to learn the lore like:
“don’t bother with anyone with lemmygrad after their name”
“Block these communities on day one”
“Be sure to pick an instance that you researched aligns with your moderation tolerances”
If you have to do setup stuff, many folks are already out. Someone may see that as a feature, but I don’t see Lemmy growing much more with that “feature”.
So if you’re happy with the size of things, mission accomplished. If you want to discuss “how to grow Lemmy” well, the above topics need to be addressed.
I had hoped your question would yield some informative responses because as a normie I am struggling to find a more centrist space here. Every community from technology to memes is wall to wall “DEA TRUMP HITLER!?” I get it, I don’t like him, but surely there are other things to discuss besides that? The users are obsessed with American politics and as a non-American it’s exhausting and I think a little pathetic. Do they have nothing else going on in their lives?
The responses confirmed that the users don’t want opposing opinion and instead really, REALLY want an echo chamber. Message received.
