People say lemmy isnt as toxic as reddit and while i feel thats partially true i also feel its partially not
if you have the best of intentions but the group or user circles dont think so then you are turned away
I recently shared a video in a post that in my opinion contains feedback that could be beneficial to open source, met with mostly hostility on that post when i only wanted to share that video to help open source
and then there is the toxicity of some groups on lemmy, im left wing because i think everyone should be equal and the world should be free from bigotry and intolerance but some of the left wing comments on lemmy read as toxic and i feel like I’m a person who wants better in the world but I’m excluded from other left wing people because of the toxicity
it makes me feel i have the be careful on lemmy with what i say and cant give good intentioned feedback or criticism to other users because it’ll just be met with hostility if the group / user circle/s doesn’t like it or be misinterpreted as an attack
all of that can feel very unwelcoming me at times
sorry if this doesn’t come across as clear, its just that i suck at writing “high quality posts / comments” and i wanted to get emotion to text and vent
A bit yes, a bit no.
Part of it is just being on the anonymous internet, doesn’t matter if it’s here on Lemmy, Reddit or what have you. You’re going to have some toxicity, flamebait, trolling, highly upvoted groupthink and the like. Especially as many people are here to begin with opinions and lean strongly and be charged one way or another.
Without thick skin it can be hard to deal with and feel unwelcoming and I agree with you there.
Where I see Lemmy differentiate itself is that many of the unpopular (but not rulebreaking) opinions are not hidden/deleted automatically, many are debated despite receiving double digit downvotes. On Reddit it’s been very rarely, feels like once a year when I’ve seen pairs or groups of users originally in disagreement come to a mutual understanding on something. On Lemmy threads it’s been several times more frequent despite the smaller size.
Another thing to highlight: When a comment is deleted, there’s a evidence trail using the modlogs rather than the opaque moderation of other platforms. I won’t name examples but in most cases it’s generally clear from the outside when something is deleted due to being genuinely toxic vs. being against certain instances’ values.
The experience is what you make of it. Spread positivity online if that’s what you want to see more of.