legolas

It was probably suggested before, but the topic is not raised too often so here goes the solution:

1. We introduce two types of threads - normal and "controversial/heated/political" (probably there is a better name)

Normal type is for "technical" discussions, where the best answer is accepted as best by some very large percentage of people, lest say 90-99%. The treshold could be a matter of discussion, but you get the idea. So that would be questions like "How to fix dead radiator in PC", "Whats best way to do this or that"

Controversial is for discussion where there is potentially lot of disagreement, but also where there could be just some disagreement, but we want to hear other points of view. So all of the political things, questions about genders, etc, everythign that creates heated conversation. Probably could also be used for humourous topics.

The thread type is set while opening a thread, but it can be changed any time during the discussion by forum moderator

2. We leave normal type discussion as they are on reddit/lemmy whatever. For controversial first when user enters the thread, all of the comments are sorted in random order. All of the comments vote scores are hidden. Now user casts votes in "one go". Only until they finish casting votes, other votes are visible for them. Changing already casted votes on these threads is NOT POSSIBLE. They unfortunately cant vote on new comments which were added after they voted. THey are only allowed to vote once. TBH users dont usually come back to threads after they visited them once so its not like we make some common behaviour impossible

This way we eliminate sheep behaviour and demand making their own decision by user. And we force user to be responsible for making a decision. Someone might argue that we sometimes change mind, but it doesnt matter, cause the number of times we change minds is really tiny and the gained changed behaviour is far more valuable. After everything is visible for user they can now sort by most popular comments which is now available.

That should be it. We also might introduce thread freezing if necessary.

What do you think? And also, since lemmy is open source, do you think there is a change that some bigger instance migght create a fork that introduces some of these changes as an experiment?

Interacting on instances which are not yet discoverd and connected to instance where we are registered is pain in the ass. Copying URL into search bar? That is really repelling. I'm sure it was discussed before but I can't find this discussion. How to make it easier? Do devs need to make changes to protocol or it's enough and it can be done within the apps themselves? How close are we to the solution?

My lemmy users per capita guess: 1. Russia 2. Finland. I can understand Russia cause developers are from there but why Finland?

So it's been 1,5 months since I started the instance. People I invited from reddit basically don't post anything. LIke null. I recently made an announcement on Mastodon, two people from there joined and I think they like it, cause they post. But It's not like I imagined. I posted on X, invited people on reddit, tried also on fb. Still have only about 20 people here.

The amount of time I spend on these invitations, posting to keep instance alive, keeping up with the lemmy updates, managing the infrastructure of the instance is just big. And the counter of users looks freezed. If it was going up, thats another story. So that got me thinking. I had to reevaluate.

In short I think it's a very long game, and we should keep that in mind. I'm still confindent in the fedi but that revolution will come slowly. And I think, at least for me inviting people and trying to forcefully post may be somewhat counterproductive as there are gaziliion ways to act to make the world and people's lives around us better. And creating fediverse instances is not my only talent. So I'm cutting some time on that and moving it to other projects I have in mind.

Ofc I will still maintain, keep up with lemmy and UI updates, post here and there but just less. The bond that connect people with X, with facebook, reddit are so strong that it's just crazy. But I guess I can understand. I was once one of them, until I hit the wall with what's possible on these platforms in terms of the content that is being displayed, opinions and style of discussion. It has to be a long game. Honestly I hope for some reddit fuckup in the near future though I'm not sure. Look at how much trash is on FB and people are still using it (maybe messenger is the only thing that keeps them there though. And groups)