It reminds me of this tradition. Especially this quote from a modern incident “Successfully counting coup disgraces your opponent. It’s a way of publicly shaming them. We believe that if you are shamed, you must admit defeat.” It makes me wonder how much of the motivation for the incidents is internal consumption. Acting aggresively, but in a carefully crafted way to avoid an escalated response. The message sent internally that the other side restrains themselaee not out of reason, but fear.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does

Seeing the world through this lens has been both freeing and disheartening…

You can’t polish a turd; you can roll it in glitter.

This seems pretty sound advice - https://youtube.com/shorts/JhQI06_V6NQ Source: Single/dating for ten years, now married for ten years.

That’s new daily installs though, so cumulative number. I don’t think they’re trying to draw a comparison, just show the increase.

We have the momentum now, and that makes a world of difference. Lemmy isn’t beholden to any “engagement” metrics, so all the dark patterns that infect other social media have no incentive here. The internet wasn’t always toxic (as a general statement). People engage more in conflict than in an interaction with no winners and losers, we’re just hardwired that way. The “Web 2.0” crowd hijacked that to keep us in front of more ads for longer, “Hur-dur, number go up.” Without those institutional incentives I’m very hopeful that the strong foundation of the Lemmy community can “hug it out” with the few rage baiters that are bringing their bad habits here.

Exactly the same here! I lurked on Reddit for yeeears (like, the pre Pao days). I made one post in a very specialized sub, and three general comments elsewhere. The post went well, I got a quick answer but it really could have been an e-mail or forum post. The general comments were absolute DUMPSTER FIRES, and so I never did engage or contribute.

Lemmy has been so different, the community is smaller, but every post interaction I’ve had it feels like the folks I am engaging with read what I wrote and are making a good faith effort.

After the last ten years of social media, it’s a little… weird. But good weird. “Oh, this is what it’s supposed to be like.”

Unfortunately, it motivated people to post content that would be upvoted, which, given the state of popular posts on Reddit over the last year or so on Reddit, has become very different from “good” by which I take you to mean “valuable”.

Give time for the dust to settle, and the shitposts and memes should congregate to a few communities, which can be filtered from our feeds if desired.

It seems (given the beans) that the newly enlarged user base is in the “spaghetti against the wall” phase of posting, just trying to see what sticks.

This to shall pass.

Oh! Almost forgot, most of the instances are getting hammered and are all volunteer run, so big helpings of kindness and patience are helpful, and if you’re able doing the whole “Toss a coin to your Witcher” thing will help keep the lights on. I’m trying to think of a commercial website or service that has undergone this level of growth without just completely falling over, and I’m coming up blank. I blame FOSS. 😉

Absolutely! The vibe is more chill. There’s not the content churn there was on Reddit, but when I examined my consumption habits on Reddit I realized most of the churn was just reposts anyway. Lemmey is all the meat, and none of the fat.