1y ago

I went back to Reddit…

...And WTF events related to Karma led me to come back here, because Lemmy really surpasses Reddit on all points (even if it cruelly lacks users compared to Reddit).

On some subreddits, we ask to have a Karma in comments good enough on all Reddit to be able to publish one on the community in question (it happened to me on /r/iOSBeta). I don’t know you but these communities shouldn’t get involved in what I do on other Reddit communities, it doesn’t make sense.

Another problem is users who feel superior to others because they have a better Karma. There was a discussion on r/privacy that talked about alternatives to Fire Stick and Chromecast, and one guy had proposed Apple TV, another had replied that Apple was worse than Google and Amazon when it comes to data collection. So to this guy I told him that he would have to be a little clearer by giving evidence. And there, he answers me « You’re a fresh 0-Karma account, you bring proof ».

Well, that’s what Reddit is for me. A huge social game where only Karma allows you to express yourself freely. It reminds me of the episode of Black Mirror where everyone has social points.

In short, I stay on Lemmy.

49 comments

There's a lot of trash on Reddit. But the reason why I stayed as long as I did was also because there were a lot of nice people swimming among the trash. And those few made it worth it. Always someone willing to help, to empathize, to laugh and find comfort with.
I've bumped into trash here on Lemmy as well. But the ratio of trash to nice people seems to be far lower here, luckily. I am grateful for that.
One thing that hasn't changed is the up vote/down vote lottery you play in the comments. When people see "0" or "-1", they seem to jump and smash that down vote button, too. Human nature, I guess.
- The vote lottery does happen here, but the lack of karma makes it less impactful. I feel like it's a good balance.
  (I just wish that the downvote here gave you more feedback on why you're being downvoted, while still being somewhat anonymous. Multiple types of downvote would solve this, I think.)
  
  Multiple types of downvote would solve this, I think.
  I don't think this is a bad idea. You'd have a reason for being down-voted. Some people I think need that, either for closure or to learn about themselves, whether they want to or not.
  Although where would it end... There could be so many reasons for down-voting someone.
  Maybe an alternative could be to establish a simple ground rule for down-voting, like "a down vote is for something that doesn't belong on this platform" or breaks the TOS or something, in combination with a popup or similar that reminds/nags you about it each time you down-vote. Of course that'd be up to each client to implement such a thing, as that would be client-side behavior. Perhaps opt-out-able in settings, but a sane default after a fresh install.
  Just brain-storming. 😅
- Yeah, Stern language and a downvote seems to sway most uninvested readers.
Lemmy lacks on users and content that's a fact. But you get no engagement at all from Reddit.
I can post a comment there and see another 800 people posting comments. You rarely get replies from anyone. I don't care about likes and awards. But it's nice to see someone agreeing or disagreeing with you.
- Agreed
- Disagreed. ^/s
- Agreed.
- I used to use “sort by rising” on Reddit and felt like I was able to engage much more that way. Then they took that option away and I was either getting junk posts or ones that were already too popular to remotely be a part of the conversation. That’s actually when I went to third party apps, I know everyone hate the native app but before they changed the sort options I was fine with it. Then a few months later they destroyed access to third party apps and I joined the exodus and came here. But it honestly felt like they were intentionally pushing me away, as stupid as that sounds. Anywho, I do wish there was more content here but at least I feel like I can participate and not be lost at sea
- Neutral reaction that's neither leaning one way or another
- Perhaps you get replies on Reddit but Resdit AI censoring them because they deem them untrustworthy, or they have been (incorrectly) flag as spammer in the past.
Karma whoring is the oldest profession on Reddit.
- It's not much but it's not honest work either.
- I wonder what Gallowboob's account it sitting at these days
A global score (karma) is one of those ideas that sound great on paper: you're encouraging people to post better stuff by associating it with some score.
In practice though OP shows why it's a bad idea, on multiple levels. And why I'm glad that Lemmy doesn't have karma.
On some subreddits, we ask to have a Karma in comments good enough [...] (it happened to me on /r/iOSBeta).
Issue #1: enabling shitty moderative practices. Some assumptive = braindead mods think that karma is a viable heuristic to keep trolls and morons at bay. It is not.
Contrast OP's user experience with mine: when still using Reddit I often had a shitposting account, that was never locked out any subreddit due to karma. Why? Because I was willing to game the system and farm karma before shitposting.
And that leads to issue #2: gamified systems are made to be gamed. It's actually easier to farm karma without contributing than to post shit that contributes with Reddit. Repost old stuff, replying comments with shitty one-line jokes (nowadays I'd probably use ChatGPT for that), sticking to high-activity subs (i.e. the worst of Reddit)... you get the idea.
Another problem is users who feel superior to others because they have a better Karma. [...] « You’re a fresh 0-Karma account, you bring proof ».
Issue #3: karma is yet another thing that distracts users from what is said, towards who says it. A user with more karma... has more karma, that's it - anything else is assumption.
In short, I stay on Lemmy.
Welcome back. Lemmy isn't perfect but it's less worse than the options.
Karma was used as a means to prove you’re not just an astroturfer or a bot.
That’s what they were gate keeping you over.
Don’t get your panties in a twist in the way you did, the power you’re cowering from only exists in your head.
- I understand your point, but if I give an opinion I'm usually quite happy to provide a link or reference.
  
  The last point I made is the most important one.
Nothing new about karma or age threshold to post in certain communities, that's been a thing for years and years...
Let the garbage have Reddit. It's not like corporate reddit really cares anyway because they're still getting their sponsor money regardless of how their site is. It's lousy with censorship, hypocrisy, and superiority complexes. People talk to each other like they've never talked to another person before.
Why am i sitting here on Lemmy, getting frustrated over reading about something that is happening over at reddit and is the reason why i am on lemmy...
- Sometimes we need to be reminded of certain things in order to have a clear picture of how things are.
- You can watch a dumpster fire and enjoy the fact that you don't own that dumpster, and it is indeed on fire.
  
  Yeah that's the thing i dont get though. The 'good thing its not me' approach has never worked for me.
I don't understand folks wanting more users on the federation. Its at a pretty good level now. If it grows great but if it doesn't that may be for the best as those who do come I bet are a bit higher quality than average reddit.
Well, I think its not right to think that Lemmy is better than Reddit. Its just different. Both are susceptible to similar problems, and both suffer because of these.
For example, that this one community I once saw related to conservative American politics. Before I blocked it (I block all political communities regardless of what it is about), I took a look and every single post there was sitting at like -80 to -120 votes. And there were a lot of posts, like at least 75+. It is very clear that particular community was a victim of constant, repeated brigading, and the fact that it stayed like that must mean that either the instance admins have no power to stop brigading or they approve of brigading that particular community. Surely you can see how this is not a great concept if it suddenly gets applied to a community you happen to like or post in.
Additionally, in the not too distant past there was a problem with users spam posting CSAM all over Lemmy. Fortunately, the moderators were very fast to clean that up and remove the bad actors, but unfortunately because of the sheer volume of posts and limited number of moderators, some of us saw things you would actually never see posted on Reddit, and would probably not even see posted on 4Chan. Reddit, as unsavory as the place has become, has significantly more moderators that could work much faster to clean that kind of thing up, and they have more tools built into Reddit to prevent that. It was a growing pain for Lemmy, and likely one that Reddit had in its past as well. In the end it was a good learning experience for Lemmy instance owners and moderators alike, but when it happened it was not a fun time.
Lemmy still has the same problem Reddit has with its vote system. It can still be manipulated, it can still make people feel superior or insecure. The only difference is that SOME ui frontends have the option to hide vote scores. And from what I know communities cannot limit posts based on account vote score (but I may be wrong).
Lemmy is a nice alternative to Reddit, particularly of you are a politically left leaning person that has an unreasonable obsession with either Karl Marx or Linux, but to say that it is better than Reddit in every way completely ignores the fact that it suffers from the same problem Reddit does:
Humans can post basically whatever they want and can hide behind near complete anonymity.
That will always bring out the worst in people. It already happened here (as I mentioned before, and especially when Hexbear was going psycho on every other instance before they got majorly defederated), and it will probably happen here again. Just like Reddit.
- We can't even escape these problems per se, because communities irl end up developing the same way.
Finding the few spaces that had no karma restrictions for new users has been an issue for years.
There might've been 3 subreddits left that regularly made the front page that didn't ask for a karma threshold when I left reddit.
It happened because mod tools were so bad, that moderators had to come up with other ideas to get a hold of the bots and trolls. I think they turned it to an official feature a couple years ago.
- There was a sub created specifically to help people get enough karma to post. I believe it got banned for going against rules about gaming the system. Funny enough I found it through the profile of a troll
Reddit is actually more or less a mirror of society at large now. I hate it. For all intents and purposes, we live in a Black Mirror episode, the one where the like ratio determined your lot in life. We HAVE that, with a few extra steps.
- This is exactly it. Reddit right now is what our society is like. This is the lowest common denominator.
  EVERY forum and community online will always approach the lowest common denominator as it's size grows. This has always been the case on reddit, where niche communities lose their niche to the lowest common denominator.
  The only way to avoid this is active moderation, clear quality expectations, and a strong stance on what does and does not belong in a community.
Lemmy FTW
Lemmy uses a Karma system too though...
- ...
That’s always been a thing to prevent bots / new accounts created just to spam or ask basic questions without searching the sub. You will be able to comment but you need some karma to post. If you are a regular user of the sub, you’ll most likely not make a post about a basic question discussed everyday in the sub.
sadly, nothing on reddit can be trusted anymore. Not only AI bots, but mods ban and delete users who do not espouse a narrow view, Basically, if you do not fit into their "reddit/facebook/whatever/commerce IPO reddit world", then you are banned. Reddit has become a massive echo chamber of people and bots rubbing each other's backs.
I still search old reddit posts whenever I have a general question about something, or about The Sopranos.
On the r/privacy discussion, I was on Reddit almost ten years and I never once had an interaction like that over karma. I barely even remember seeing it in discussions. People can get prickly when being asked for evidence, so how you ask is also important (and for good reason, sealioning is a thing).
I think the takeaway here is what's asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence, and not to worry about conversations with people obsessed with imaginary numbers. It's not worth giving it this kind of headspace.
And you have blackbox AI censoring you.
It make link back to your device, perhaps your Facebook account, because those shared cookie.
So, if you was flag once, there are no escape for average user.
But professional spammer always be able to spam with link and scam.
You’re a fresh 0-Karma account, you bring proof
“You’re a non-zero, karma-holding account, you should know better.”
Reddit is a complete cesspool. I don't remember it being 4chan levels bad but today someone linked this thread from the asmongold subreddit about LGBTQIA+ writers in video games and the comments are vile.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Asmongold/comments/1dzqstb/dark_times_for_cdpr
- The piece of shit app won't even let me look at the picture in the post. Clicking on it just brings me to the comments again, in an infinite recursive loop.
  The fuck happened to the Internet as a whole?! Google images refuse to display in full screen (using Firefox at least, I'm sure it's intentional). I've deleted my Facebook account and any time a friend sends me a video hosted on FB it nags me about an account and refuses to allow me to unmute the video. News articles are perpetually behind paywalls.
  I'm sick of it. Everything has been hollowed out and reduced to a drip fed stream of garbage. Christ, is this the fucking future? Can't wait for AI to make it all even worse.
  Sorry, I'm aware this is a Wendy's. The door's right there, yeah? I'll see myself out.

49 comments