Asklemmy

Reddit doesn't care; they sold out.

Yeah, I never feel like I'm commenting/posting into the void. By my surprise, it has actually encouraged me to post more, which isn't something I expected when I joined Lemmy, and definitely not something I ever did on reddit.

Sorry, but I disagree. Note that I don't disagree with the idea or the technology itself (and the concept of Fediverse), the problem is the current state of development. Saying that it's the moderators job doesn't absolve the responsibility of the software, when the software, in it's current state, doesn't really provide any decent tools for moderation and user access controls.

CSAM was never a problem on well-configured traditional forums, which were based on forum software such as Invision, vBulletin etc. To elaborate, in traditional forums, you'd get a LOT of controls for filtering out the kind of users who post such content. For instance, most forums won't even let you post until you complete an interactive tutorial first (reading the rules and replying to a bot indicating you’ve understood them etc). On top of that, you can have various levels of restrictions, eg, someone with less than 100 posts, or an account less than a month old may not be able to post any links or images etc. Also, you can have a trust system on some forums, where a mod can mark your account as trusted or verified, granting you further rights. You can even make it so that a manual moderator approval is required before image posting rights are granted. In this instance, a mod would review your posting history and ensure that your posts genuinely contributed to the community and you’re unlikely to be a troll/karma farmer account etc.

So, short of accounts getting compromised/hacked, it’s very difficult to have this sort of stuff happen on a well-configured traditional forum.

I used to be a mod on a couple of popular forums back in the day, and I even ran my own server for a few years (using Invision Power Board), and never once have I had to deal with such content.

The fact is Lemmy, in it's present state, is woefully inadequate to deal with such content. Dealing with CSAM should never be a volunteer mod's job - that stuff can scar you for life, or even trigger PTSD/bad memories for those who might've suffered abuse in their forgotten past. If people are involved, it should be a job for professionals who're trained to deal with this stuff.

Once again, I don't disagree with the general idea or the concept of Lemmy, it's just unfortunate timing the Reddit exodus happened when the software was essentially an alpha.

This is a transition period.

Reddit lost a lot of important contributors during its little krystalspez crackdown. The formula for a successful, self-propagating online community is: good moderation + posted content + interesting comments + lurkers = healthy community.

Reddit still maintains a lot of its heavy posters, but a lot of the interesting comment makers have drifted off... a lot of them moved here. The federated communities don't have the continuous churning content creators en masse yet, but they do have interesting comments coming from the people that are here.

Reddit is somewhat the opposite. The content creators are churning away, but the interesting comments are dying off. There is more content being created on Reddit, but the comment that you will quote, or think about all day, is now slightly more likely to be made in a federated thread.

So Reddit feels hollow, and out here feels growing but still light on content. I predict that prolific posters prefer pointed ripostes to their posting, and will work their way here. That will be great, but it will also drag along a lot of the problem children of reddit as well. That will put a huge burden on the moderation here, as well as start piling on those server fees. I predict in a year or two, we will face the choice of doing zany pledge drives to protect our larger servers, or face some forms of blatant monetization. Also we'll have to figure out how to avoid giving the hug of death to new federated servers with interesting content.

...and there will be hidden corporate shill servers trying to latch in. Another problem with federation we need to consider down the road.

But it's worth it. Capitalism will always try to exploit community, but community is an important human experience. If we can keep the leeches down to a minimum, we can build great things together, and help each other in a world that increasingly only offers what profits most. That type of community is what Reddit pretended to be, and it's what the Federated Communities can be.

I disagree. Too many people take one side or the other, take for granted that their side is 100% correct, and refuse to believe anyone could possibly be center.

People behave in normal distributions. By definition vast majority of people are in the centre. The extremists (outliers) scream the loudest and warp an observer's perception but the actual population is still a normal distribution.

It takes three to Tango

I think this is the biggest reason. A huge amount of content on reddit is astroturfing / brand manipulation; both in posts and in the comments. And in addition to that, a there's a huge amount of 'karma farming', where heaps of popular but low-effort content is recycled over and over again to gain points and create a sense of credibility for accounts that will later be used for marketing / manipulation.

And at that point we can defederate from corporate instances. Its so user first.