With Reddit just announcing ai mods for sub reddits I think it’s finally time I fully give it up. I’ve been slowly trying to transition back into the fediverse but damn is it hard sometimes. Listen I have left leaning politics but does every other post have to be about some political shit on the all tab, I feel like I’m forced into this box that is my subscribed feed or I have to actively search out new communities because all is just a political circle jerk that I don’t care about. Not to mention the moment I came back I saw a fucking flow chart on the instances drama of the week. If I wasn’t so dedicated to dropping Reddit I think the average Joe would have left by now seeing all of this. And YES I have been trying to be the change I want to see if you check my profile I regularly post in meme subs non political just funny memes to be like “lmao” and people can move about their day. I’m not saying there ISNT other type of content on lemmy or piefed it just feels like the stuff that floats to the top is political
You can just curate your experience by making changes to the feed and shutting off what you feel are sources of distressing content.
Given the current state of affairs where if being a progressive American is a harrowing struggle, it’s not surprising the fediverse is a refuge and outlet for angry progressives and people who have been alienated by spez’s war on left-leaning content, as he will ban anyone even remotely or casually talking of committing violence on awful fascists.
What you’re missing is the algorithm.
You didn’t want to see that on Reddit, and it’s designed to steer away. Lemmy doesn’t decide what you see. You have to curate your own feed through a long process of blocking users and communities and using subscribe rather than a steady diet of all.
You can shape the All feed to your liking by blocking communities that regularly post stuff you don’t like. I did this with meme communities and rarely see any memes anymore. Sometimes it’s a whole instance that is full of communities you don’t want to see, then you might want to block it. Examples of those for me are ani.social for sexualized anime and fedinsfw.app for NSFW content.
Once you do this kind of trimming, the All feed becomes a lot less annoying.
You can set default subs to show, and block communities. It’s much nicer to look at the news when you want to rather than all the time.
There’s a couple ways to use Lemmy and make it nicer to use, one is curating a well fleshed out subscribed list, the other is using all but blocking every community that doesn’t interest you or has topics you actively dislike, making it just as pleasant as your subscribed view.
Personally I do both. My subscribed view is just things I like and no news communities. My All feed blocks everything I don’t like, let’s me discover new communities, and gives me a dose of news when I want it.
I blocked all the manga shit. And life is now good.
There’s lots on content on the Threadiverse that I find pointless or dumb, but that’s why I only subscribe to communities that interest me… If I feel like punishing myself, I go to /all 😂😁😘
Agreed. Wish there would be a political filter similar to the nsfw one. In that way you wouldn’t have to isolate yourself to certain subs
Tell me all about the political shit going on mate! I blocked them, keywords + communities. Lots of USA communities that never end but populate for no reason.
There’s also no curated algorithm to cause that dopamine rush, that causes the addiction, so you want to scroll and hit those juicy dopamine posts, but without the manipulation designed to keep you engaged and stuck, not going to happen. So it’s also a great place to detox from your brain being in the habit of seeking dopamine that way, it’s like a slow lowering to the ground, instead of cold turkey.
I was really feeling the loss of those dopamine hits, when I first transitioned over here, but now I don’t look for those hits here at all, and I can just enjoy a small scroll, without getting stuck in here, and put my phone down, which is nice.
What reddit and Facebook do, is hugely manipulative and created and curated to trap you there. I don’t know if that needs to be the same here, as much. And maybe curating your home page, really is the way to go.
I don’t like how people talk about The Algorithm™ as though any feed algorithm is inherently a problem and exists to keep people trapped in the app.
I’d love to have an algorithm automatically curated my feed so I don’t have to manually curate it, since the curation tools are so coarse.
PieFed categories of communities do this, with user-customizable and shareable Feeds. Perhaps check out PieFed.ca - it has the same set of admins that you have now, and even without an account you can view these and then subscribe to those communities in your Lemmy one, see full list at https://piefed.ca/topics.
What juicy dopamine posts are you talking about?
there are a handful of users who just post shitty low quality rage bait from shitty websites constantly across various communities all day long. many of these users were not on fedi a year ago.
like, websites you have never heard of, that are highly editorialized and frame things as dramatic and hyperbolic as possible.
and these posts dominate many of the news and politics communities, because juicy dopamine headlines mean people upvote.
and the comment sections are dumpster fires of similar minded folks, and anyone who is skeptical/critical gets dog piled and/or the OP comes out swinging calling them a fascist for daring to challenge the ‘trump does thing world is collapsing’ narrative they are all addicted to.
it’s all engagement/rage bait quality stuff. it’s not like, respectable moderate journalism that reports facts, that shit doesn’t get upvotes because the headlines are not juicy enough.
FWIW I have been on fedi for 3 years and this stuff is exploded the past 6-9 months, I used to like the news/politics subs a year ago because they were not dominated by this low quality content and typically had more respectable news-sources. but you can’t compete with low-brow rage bait trolls who are just here to collect as many upvotes and flood the zone with dramatic bullshit to drive engagement, and that’s what these posters are doing. if you confront them they just say you are a bad person who clearly supports Trump etc.
Somehow on the backend the wires must have got crossed and sent c/Lemmyshitpost content over to c/news instead 🤪
(/s …?)
You curate the content you see on your own, doesn’t have to be political if you don’t want to.
I suggest to use https://lemmyverse.net/ to find communities you like and keep the feed to subscribed, so you see them and them only.
this way, Lemmy is actually good, no algorithm, I choose what to see and that’s a beautiful thing.
Agreed. Too much politics. I started my own communities for things I’m interested in and I recommend you try that.
Block politics and join femcelmemes.
Block users that seem extreme and it will clear up. Its like 10 people responsible for 95% of the posts.
yep.
and like 2-3 instances responsible for those 10 people. they have multiple accounts on various instances.
I have always felt surrounded by right wing bullshit, on previous socials and in life.
This is the only place where I look around, and believe that it is people further to the left of me that are maybe taking things a bit far. I do NOT, for the record, agree with the apologists who want us to let more fash in, I like being in a place where I am, for once, the moderate.
Delete the All feed! It’s just stupid. Subscribe to what you like. Maybe have a short glimpse at the All feed on a biweekly basis for 5min, but that’s it.
I default to subscribed+scaled, and I check all+top 6-24 hours when I feel like staying on top of news. It works pretty well.
How do you find what you like? I sew, and do dollhouse miniatures, but I haven’t seen any of that on the fediverse yet.
Be the change you want to see.
For now you could post to [email protected] which has a little bit of everything. I’d love to check out your projects.
Ehhh, the sidebar makes it sound like a super depressing place, but thanks!
Fair enough.
Check out lemmyverse.net to find communities. If you set your home instance (top right, button with a home icon, enter
slrpnk.netin your case), then it will open the page where you can subscribe directly. There’s a longer guide here with more tips: https://fedecan.ca/en/guide/threadiverse/finding-communitiesIf you aren’t sure what you want to subscribe to, there is a list pinned on [email protected]
@[email protected] had an amazing list of non-politics communities that unfortunately I can’t seem to find right now.Once Lemmy releases the big v1 update, both Lemmy and Piefed will have multi-communities that you can subscribe to in order to get a lot of similar content.
As for your requests specifically, check out these. Some are more relevant than others, and the small ones grow as interested people post to them:
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected] (as an example of a community that grew over time)
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
Slrpnk also has a full list of every community on it and I love that
Also, not who you’re responding to but I just subbed to all of those, thank you!
No problem!
The list is pinned on [email protected] !
That’s the one I forgot to check 🤦 I looked in [email protected]
Thanks!
Yeah, unfortunately the Fediverse isn’t as big as I’d like it to be. I can’t find people to talk about some of my interests, either. I’ll occasionally put in keywords on https://lemmyverse.net/communities , have a look at PieFed’s curated feeds and topics (Edit: another topic list)… But there’s probably just not enough people here who are into miniatures…
I just went looking for something similar after getting into battletech. I know thats too niche for fedi but I was hoping to find a comm for minis/painting/wargaming or similar catchall.
There’s [email protected]
Sub to all the new com communities, and keep your eyes peeled for any links to interesting stuff in the comments and then immediately subscribe if it seems at all interesting.
But the reality is that niche comms don’t really fire on Lemmy yet, so you’ll mainly find stuff that’s either mass appeal or nerd/leftist stuff.
I tried to create a community about trees (the wooden kind) when I joined. It’s still here but after a lot of effort posting there I realized there just wasn’t enough of an audience to keep organic discussions going at all times. Same with my local geographic area.
Hopefully someday there will be more growth and these can start to become more viable.
The trouble, I think, is that even Reddit wasn’t Reddit (as we think of it now) for years and years. Recall that when it started, there were no subreddits, it was all one feed. The niche subreddits branched off of more general ones after participation grew and critical mass developed, the subreddit topics driven by what users were talking about.
It doesn’t work the other way around. You can create a community to house a topic that people want to talk about; you can’t make people interested in a topic just by creating a community. I think we’ve suffered by premature fissioning into a thousand niche communities, each with 1 or 2 people talking to themselves.
It’s definitely a volume thing. With niche interest, you’ll bump into this limitation quite frequently.
give those a scroll and see if anything works for you.
also search for topics you enjoy, or things you would expect to find as a subreddit. i usually sub to the top couple matches by population. this can backfire when i see the same post multiple times in (for example) 4 different linux coms. not everything wil have a com, but thats ok. make one if you feel strongly enough about it.
when i first joined a few years ago there was a tool that would try to find matches for your subreddits. i cant remember what it was called or if it still exists, but give it a look
a combo between the two is to find the list of your subs on reddit, then search them all one by one in lemmy. it takes time, but it will set you up reasonably well
pay attentiin when things are crossposted, maybe you would like one of those communities too
that and just stick with it. youll find your place.
edit: my links at the top broke
I get that, it feels small and slow if you only follow the niche stuff. I hate insta but miss the creative and inspirational aspect. I mix in a little pinterest and pixelfed but it is still repetitive.
If you build it and interact with it, they will come (eventually). I think there’s a few crafts communities? I can’t remember. If not, create it, share with us your awesome creations!
I guarantee there are sewing and maker/hobbyist communities.
Yeah those posts probably never see the light of day because someone downvotes them while sorting by new
Another problem solved by using subscribed instead of new
Maybe you should try that
this place would be empty if I did that
Haha, yeah, pick your poison. Though we’re a diverse crowd. I really appreciate how there isn’t an endless stream of doomscrolling for me. My feed just ends at some point and reminds me to resume with other things 😅 (Also less noise, US politics and mainstream memes, which would be the real reason why I’d advise not to scroll All.)
I browse all but I have an extensive set of word filters that block stuff that I don’t want to see. I like seeing new communities come up and trying to make All work because of that. I did the same thing with Reddit like 20 years ago, though I switched to a subscribed feed there once they got big (before I left). This strategy works well for me.
Word filters is a great idea.


















