Yeah tbh you really gotta be super trigger happy with the block button, there's just a bunch of obnoxious terminally online dickheads on lemmy. It helps if you're on an instance that uses a decent blocklist, which lemm.ee is not, from what I've read others saying. Maybe you also want one that disables downvotes if people are using them to be shitty?
this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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More then noted my friend, thanks for mentioning that as an option.
Thing is, these jerks are everywhere on here, seriously, I keep getting jumpscared by them when I least expect it, anything that's vaguely populated here has them lurking around and waiting to pounce on anyone who dares not 100% act, think, and behave like them, regardless of the community, so do I literally have to block all of lemmy to avoid these guys? What do I block and don't block exactly? This place is desolate as it is, kinda don't see what's the point of sticking around if there's nothing outside of politics and tech, and the majority of the people here are cult minded assholes...
Legit, posted in one of the fediverse communities, said I was new and all, discussed some stuff with people (thankfully a lot of them were reasonable), but immediately someone got ticked off and lost their shit at me for daring to say "guess there's not enough creatives around for anyone to bother with making a pinterest alternative, bummer" at the end of a discussion with someone, and yeah, seriously, I kid you not, that's all it took for somebody to get mad and start harassing me. Told them to back off, and they didn't, reported them and nothing happened, nobody cared, so I deleted the post. Fun. I guess it's my fault for engaging back with them, thought this place would be less tolerant of toxicity but, nah, quite the opposite it seems (strangely enough I've never experienced this before on any other social media, none of them were this bad, seriously, this is so jarring for me)...
Like right now, I'm being downvoted into oblivion for having any opinions or experiences that isn't "lemmy good, everything else bad" smh, this is legitimately the same - if not worse - then reddit, can't say anything here at all without people losing their minds, I'm not even being rude to anyone or saying anything remotely unhinged but everyone still takes offense to it anyways? It's an echo chamber man, they act like you insulted their prophet if you say anything "wrong", this place will never improve or grow if nobody can take any fucking feedback other then "everything's perfect, hail the fediverse :)" no wonder why normal people aren't bothering if they get treated like that as their welcome, it being "hard to use" is the least of the problems with these niche platforms, don't care how "easy" it is if everyone's an asshole all the time...
I only know of one instance that has disabled downvotes, but it's even emptier then the rest of lemmy, and apparently as I've read it doesn't really matter, every other instance can still downvote you on their end, and as those are more populated it kinda ends up with the same result anyways, not sure what the point of it would be honestly. Also doesn't really stop somebody from casually commenting something super passive aggressive or hostile at you.
Anyways, sorry for the tangents, think it's best that I just quietly leave and keep trying with reddit again at this point, this place sucks and doesn't seem to wanna change, and because of that it scares off normal people, and so it only gets more echo chambery, don't see how that loops ever gonna get broken, at least reddit doesn't centre it's entire identity off of screaming at people who you don't like until they leave (putting the memes aside) lol.
What's a normie? Lol.
But I'm sorry this has been your experience. I wish people would be a bit more friendly but I dunno that's just how online interactions are. That's why it's better to socialize in real life. I personally don't find it much different than Reddit, they're both kind of hostile places. A better experience can probably only be provided by a bigger shakeup to how content is sorted or filtered than Lemmy offers.
No clue, but it sure is a word lol.
Again, believe it or not I've never had a experience this bad before anywhere else, I'm kinda baffled by my initial experiences here, maybe I'm just lucky or something? But it takes a while for me to bump into someone toxic on any other social media, and you can sorta see them from a distance so it's easier to avoid. On here? No, they come completely out of nowhere and jumpscare you over the smallest of bullshit, and they're everywhere on here, can't avoid them other then just not posting anything I guess. Toxicity seems to be the majority here, not the (loud) minority, and it's clear why: it's an echo chamber, with all that entails.
True, but real life just isn't what it used to be anymore, nobody wants to talk to anyone, very few places to socialise anymore, and everything's retreating online: friendships, dating, work, even government shit, all of it is social media and apps and websites now, your kinda screwed if you don't already have your connections or live somewhere decent, stuff sucks everywhere now.
Definitely! And it seems so straightforward too, but looking at the main audience here and the mentality of everyone: yeah, no, I don't think any major improvements that would help these issues out are coming anytime soon to say the least. It is what it is I guess. Thanks for not being an ass stranger, appreciate it lol.
I have been having a great time overall. I don't click into the hostile topics. If it's controversial I try to make a good faith effort but I won't engage bad faith actors.
I'm also on the sociopath spectrum so it helps that I don't get much emotional connection with random Internet people.
Lemmy is what you make it.
When I see a large negative reply, I block the whole damn community most of the time.
You're on EE, and I think they are on a newer version than LW, so you should have an option to turn off all negative votes. I would use that if I had access.
Remember that Lemmy is not curated and tuned for your retention. You must actively prune your feed. I have over 300 communities blocked and nearly 200 users. Blocking people here is a bit less effective that a centralized platform, but not interacting with them is the main thing.
Wait users can do this now? I thought just instances.
It was in the next update from the one that LW is on and has been on for a very long time
Hmm I tried it out but it's just a visual change. It doesn't actually change the scoring or sorting of content the way disabling downvotes at the instance level does. Not quite what I had in mind.
Ironically when I first joined I argued to reinstate downvotes on my instance. But I've come to wonder if I was wrong. Even though they are useful to punishing misinformation or toxicity, they're very often used outside of that context so I am not sure they are a net benefit overall.
Anonymous negativity towards strangers is neurodivergent at best and pathological at worst in my opinion. Normalizing such behavior is ridiculous nonsense. Everyone has a right to confront their detractors and attackers. Anyone can write a negative comment and therefore give the person a path to block the negative person in reciprocity. Anonymous negativity is more like sadistic terrorism.
This. ☝️
Please normalise discouraging assholes from, well, not being that lol.
Also yeah, definitely, people on lemmy exclusively use downvotes to shove people that they don't like down and that's it, I've never seen it used for anything else. It's basically a dislike button on here if I'm honest.
It's fine for me, but I mostly just read political and shitposts on new-all. I make a few quips and doomscroll. It occupies my time. I wish there were more users and content but I think it will come. If not, 🤷♂️
I like it.