Ask Lemmy

When I joined Lemmy it felt so nice. It felt like the early Internet; all the bullshit I got used to on Reddit, it wasn't here. It was like feeling at home.

Nowadays, whenever I see toxic bullshit and sedition disguised as leftism, it's someone from lemmy.ml; my Lemmy-experience got a lot better after blocking the lemmy.ml-instance. But I will start blocking more aggressively and I hope things get better after the US-elections.

Lemmy.ml is basically Lemmygrad trying to look more neutral, but actually is the same thing. That's why I block all lemmy.ml communities that I come across. As for users I might not inherently judge them, but I do keep a close eye on them in regards to potential political statements being made, because of how many of them I've seen making bad faith arguments, or straight up spread disinformation and other bullshit.

For the most part I judge communities based on their instance, not the people. I might be more inclined to block you if you can something sketchy but probably not. But if a server get super toxic/tankie, I may block the whole server. lemmy.ml isn't there yet.

The only instance that I'll usually immediately give a side-eye to is Hexbear, and only them because a significant percentage of those folks have a certain.... style and culture that gets on my nerves. But an individual can still be a cool person and it's not like I'm about to come in the comments and dunk on you or preemptively block you based on your home instance. I block users because they're assholes, or annoying, or argue in bad faith, not based on where their account is hosted. And I would expect that's probably consistent across most lemmings. You won't get a bad rap only for being affiliated with ml. Now if you say something stupid somebody might use it as a bludgeon to talk bad about ml as a whole, or vice versa, but that's going to happen any time you have something approaching "team sports" like this.

In general, don't stress this too much. In specific, keep up with what's happening on your home instance and if they're doing something you don't like, pack up and move elsewhere. That's a core function of the way the fediverse is constructed. If it sucks, hit the bricks. You can just leave, and set up shop in another instance, or host your own, and you aren't beholden to anyone. But if you don't care then you don't have to.

If you're on lemmygrad or hexbear I will immediately dismiss pretty much anything you say and assume you aren't worth interacting with. Otherwise I don't put a lot of stock into what instance a user belongs to. Sometimes your instance can indicate that you have certain interests (technology based instances, startrek.website) or how you identify (blahaj.zone, pawb.social, etc).

I have a lot of issues with the admins of lemmy.ml, but I don't think the users are inherently problematic. The server itself is advertised as being for privacy and FOSS enthusiasts, so I think a lot of people join without realizing the admins enforce their explicitly communist viewpoints that sometimes border on being pretty tanky.

Personally I do not assume anything about a user’s instance (or look at it at all usually). But I do pay attention to the instance a community belongs to, because some instances have significant numbers of hostile people that belong to them (Lemmy.ml is a prominent example). Personally I would not want to belong to that instance because it would put me into more contact with those people.

I think there are some instances that are more averse to defederation, and based on what you’ve said, those might be a better home for you.

I've had people guess that I'm probably Canadian since I use lemmy.ca, but for me, generally, I don't judge people by their instance since I don't default to looking for it and my default apps don't display it, but when I've gotten into frustrating circular arguments with people I have often noticed that they're from lemmy.ml.

Personally I think this is why Bluesky's ATProtocol design of not tying identity to instance is a good thing, but since that's not opened up yet that's a little neither here nor there.

Yep. If I see someone from hexbear, anything they're saying I immediately ignore. Lemmy.ml is full of assholes, but they don't advertise it that way so a lot of decent people are on there too. You can't really judge an individual just because they're on lemmy.ml imo.

Welcome to the fediverse, where you are morally complicit in the crimes of your admins!

But yeah, personally I think the way instances and defederation are handled in Mastodon/Lemmy is one of the big problems with it at the moment. Depending on what instance you are on, you'll get "locked out" of certain communities and from certain people, and there's generally very little accountability and transparency about it.

For example, lemmy.ml blocks one of the two furry instances, so you'll have less comments from furries. It's also apparently becoming more hardcore tankie, so other instances may start blocking it themselves.

I like to think that I'm above all that and don't discriminate based on instance, but there's one instance out there that has done heinous things and I'm not sure I could remain impartial towards people who stay on it...

Generally no, it doesn't make a difference to me. However if you say something which I think is extremely stupid I might dismiss you based on the instance assuming it's one of the usual suspects; lemmy.ml, hexbear, lemmygrad etc.

If you’re concerned you should set up accounts on other instances. It’s easy.

I don't judge users for their instance. I'll judge mods and admins for what they promote and allow, but not users. Unless they're tankies from lemmygrad.

I have never once looked at a user's instance.

There probably are some people who do, just like how there are people who will judge you based on what brand of pants you wear, but most people are just glad that you're wearing pants.

For me, it's out of sight out of mind.