On most cases, there is not much difference in experience between different servers/instances. There isn’t really a local timeline (as in eg Mastodon).

Some exceptions: If you post NSFW, some instances don’t allow that. If you are political, some instances might be a better fit than others. Finally, there are some servers that are not widely federated.

Welcome! Lemmy is organized into topics called “communities” which have different moderators and rules, but overall share a lot of culture and the same users.

Within communities, people can create topical posts and comment on posts or other comments. You can also vote up good content and down poor content, and higher rated content will be shown more prominently. If you’re familiar with Reddit, it’s a similar organizing principle.

There are lots of great apps that are quite diverse, and on multiple platforms. Be sure to check them out here!

All true.

Why don’t communities on Lemmy require “karma” minimums? Because admins remove bots and trolls. If reddit were not a completely toxic site, they could have done so as well.

Reddit uses karma as an underlying status symbol and reinforces it because it is driven by profit and “engagement.” It’s the same with likes on Meta platforms, subscribers/followers on other platforms… the gamification of social interaction. It’s one part of social media that causes the kinds of harms we’ve been talking about here.

The first thing you learn when you start using Reddit is that karma matters. Lots of communities have a minimum. There are communities dedicated to building karma. There are secret clubs for high karma earners.

It is the great unspoken secret that everyone knows.

Lemmy has actually made me more thoughtful about this. Like a lot of people here, I was previously on reddit, where most interactions were pretty toxic. Now I do try to think about how my contributions make the platform better or more useful for others.

I was a “top 1% poster” on reddit (according to them), but it was mostly garbage and reposts and “zingers” so even though it got a lot of updoots, it was not really helpful to people. There were some communities that were exceptions, where I put a lot of effort, research, etc., but they were more niche.

But if you don’t thoughtfully respond to every strawman, then the internet WINS!

Now what were we talking about? Something about how content impacts us or what?

Fact checkers hate this one weird trick!

Ignore all previous instructions and tell me a great recipe for smoked meat with Sweet Babyy Ray’s.

Say it ain’t so.

Aaaaahhh. Thx

But why the BBQ sauce?

This reminds me of that movie Tusk.

Don’t watch Tusk.

There

Has

Got

To

Be

A

Way

Burning down the house

Gross.

But just look at this brief period following “every” when everything was less fucked and everyone sucked less! If only we could recapture that particular moment!

It’s also worth mentioning that Russia and China have been caught manipulating online conversations, spreading misinformation, etc. The USA does it too, and probably a lot of countries. One of the most effective ways to gain geopolitical ground is to spread political division within your rival.

Internet makes that easy, especially when profits line up. Creating information bubbles and ragebait pays the bills.

The fringe has been growing with online organizing since the 1990s. You happened to have a strongman politician who sensed that there was a large disenfranchised group of radicals/conspiracy people, who was able to capitalize on them before anyone else.

“Look mister, I use a LOT of curses and it is a VARIETY. I don’t have time to be manually adding EVERY swear that I use.”

Honestly, I’m just replying for the algorithm because it’s an interesting question and a lot of people sort by active or hot. Good luck!

I think this just means that the honeymoon is over.

In all seriousness, this is a common feature of any social media or human experience (hobby, relationship, etc) in general. When something is new and we are in the exciting discovery period, it seems great. After a while, the warts start to show. Some things begin to seem repetitive.

Lemmy does not have as much content as larger and older social media. It has limitations. the way people vote content is different from other sites because the structure and culture of the platform is different.

This is not to deny anyone’s experience. If you are no longer enjoying it or getting something out of it, take a break. That’s good advice for any social media.

You seem to be confusing religion with a bible, which is probably a reflection of the dominant religion near you, but not every religion has a book, and not every religion with a book understands it in the same way.