One of the main things I seem to notice on the Fediverse is that we don’t have enough active users when it comes to answering questions as well as commenting.
It varies widely from one community to another, but Lemmy is certainly much smaller than reddit. I think that some communities have hit the tipping point where there are enough people to keep things going. The smaller communities are still working at that, but they still provide useful information and good company. Lemmy is growing so I expect the situation to improve over time.
Personally I haven’t run into the kind of hostility that some people are reporting. It’s sad that it’s out there, but be aware that it is not the universal Lemmy experience. I suspect it depends heavily on what communities you frequent and what instance you are on. Eventually I expect the toxic areas to implode, or just drift away into isolation, as they are replaced by similar communities with better members and better moderation.
Answering questions and commenting get you a barrage of downvotes if you deviate from the hive. Asking questions gets you a barage of downvotes. There are a bunch of angry abusive people here that discourage any discussion or debate.
That’s a problem everywhere, but I’ve found that people are a lot better on here about downvotes?
On Reddit I’d see comments and questions with no replies and only downvotes. Here you’re a lot more likely to see responses
@Haywire That sucks, I think the Fediverse was made-for-discussion. What good is it without communication and community?
On lemmy world, that’s the case. Everywhere else? Not so much…
Does it bother you to get downvotes? They’re just numbers on a website, they don’t really mean squat. Say your piece. Ignore the numbers.
@spacecowboy Yeah they are just numbers on a screen, I know when I go to comments if a comment has more upvotes than down I know it is most likely a good source / answer compared to the ones with hundreds of downvotes.
I try not to focus on them at all because it gives you a preconceived opinion on the comment. That doesn’t seem very helpful in a discussion based community.
That’s fair enough, especially if the Fediverse grow to the point of Social Media becoming non-existent (Other Than as a Social Network such as the Fediverse is)
There’s really not much we can do about it?
Let’s just hope it is a function of size and that we’re still growing.
