I get it. There’s some real jerks around here. Whether they’re constantly argumentative, donwright rude, always acting in bad faith, just plain trolls, overly opinionated on every subject, have the social skills of a Naussican, etc. The Fediverse is growing, and it’s bound to attract toxicity in one way or another.
This post is mostly a PSA for anyone who’s feeling like leaving because they’re tired of dealing with things like that. I’ve been there several times myself, and I know how you feel.
Just remember that blocking is a very powerful way to stay in control of your experience. Be it a set of users, me specifically, a community, or an entire instance: if it’s causing you nothing but stress, hit that block button and see if that improves your experience here. Unlike the alien site, there is no limit to the number of entities you can block; you’re in control.
Another thing to keep in mind is different instances have different vibes, and the experience can totally differ depending on the instance’s moderation and federation policy.
In conclusion, your experience here can be what you make of it; don’t be afraid to just block the parts that stress you out. You’re not “creating an echo chamber” as everyone likes to say (often in bad faith) – you’re just taking care of yourself.
I’ve yet to block anyone here and the only one I had blocked on Reddit was Gallowboob.
Well that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.
It’s very disappointing that Lemmy was only good for a brief period of time. RIP.
Yeah, why do considerate mods like OP have to wade in and tell others they can just block you? Wotta revoltin’ development. /s
The cool thing about Lemmy is that when the funko pop collecting morons start to pile on, it’s super easy to just create a new account like a snake sheds its skin. Block all you want buckaroo.
I use the block button like hideki kamiya uwu
What I read to do is to call them out, report them, then block them. They need to know they’re being mean.
I found that a total of like 5 people post basically all of the lemmynsfw stuff. Once I blocked them, it almost all went away. Pretty sure the internet is nothing but bots now.
Also, if you’re on the internet expecting all sunshine and rainbows – leave now. The internet is not a place for that. Everything now is rage-bait designed to get more clicks, and the internet has always been the wild west with major hostilities all the time. It’s not a good place to spend your time if you’re looking to relax.
Everything now is rage-bait designed to get more clicks
IMO the greatest strength of the Fediverse is the increased number of mods and admins looking at everything. Don’t want rage bait? Join an instance that has rules against it.
Nah fuck that. Mods are power hungry fat morons who exert the editorial discretion of a wet noodle. Almost every community in the fediverse is full of this crap. Things aren’t removed because they’re harmful, they’re removed because some mod disagrees.
There’s also the problem with every instance admin having access to deeper internals; I’m waiting for the day people start getting banned for upvoting the wrong thing.
Shoutout to [email protected]
Almost every community in the fediverse is full of this crap. Things aren’t removed because they’re harmful, they’re removed because some mod disagrees.
You should start your own instance it sounds like :P
Why? It’s too much bandwidth, too much upkeep, I already modded/ran communities larger than lemmy; I DON’T want to do it again, especially if I’m paying out of pocket for it. Having to deal with whiny cry-bitches when you DON’T ban something that they don’t like it almost as bad as having the stuff banned in the first place.
Isn’t lemmynsfw automatically blocked on LW? I don’t see any posts from lemmynsfw.
Nope. They’re federated, so no reason they wouldn’t show unless you turn all NSFW stuff off.
I just blocked the instance entirely. I’m not interested in seeing porn browsing lemmy, and I doubt the people who made an account on the porn community are posting the most enlightening non porn stuff.
I’m okay with seeing it from time to time - but when my /all would get flooded with PAGES, and PAGES of the stuff with no normal articles in between, I started muting those users.
I’d add “report” to that advice. If somebody is outright being jerks, that is probably against your instance’s rules — and if it isn’t, there are plenty others to choose from.
Blocking helps you, but reporting people (or instances) that are just here to troll will help others.
Agreed. I report bad behavior where I see it. I’ve only blocked one person, becausen they took a downvote as a personal attack and started DMing me.
I read all reports on my instance (i get reports on our users and from our users, too; so i see quite a lot) rest assured, all your reports actually do something.
True. If it’s report-worthy, absolutely. But there are certainly accounts that aren’t violating any rules but can still be a source of stress. Those are often the “rules lawyer” type who knows exactly how to stay right on the line without crossing it.
Counterpoint is that if that person is finally banned, they’re 9 times out of 10 just going to spin up a new alt and start back up with the same shtick. If everyone just blocks them, they’re just shouting into the wind wondering why no one’s taking their bait. I dislike how Reddit had “shadow bans”, but I can see how they would be effective when used surgically.
Temp bans (a couple of days), work too. If they’re actually trolling, they usually won’t come back. Then just temp ban the next alt if they do, repeat.
Good to know, and yeah, kind of matches what I’ve observed. I tend to permaban outright trolls, but yeah, they usually spin up a new account and never come back to that, so it’s probably overkill. I guess I just don’t like leaving the door open for them to come back…just in case lol.
For me, I temp ban because it makes it more easy to do. I don’t wrestle with whether or not I’m doing the right thing. Instead, I know it’s only temp so no one was harmed if I make a mistake. It’s more for me to take out the trolls early on.
You’re very right. Blocking when they are being an asshole is just putting your head in the sand. It might feel petty but remember that others are probably also impacted by their shitty behaviour.
I agree with this 100%. The mods can’t get rid of the bad guys if they don’t know about them. There are very few mods for relatively big communities, help them out if you see something going bad. They might not agree with you, but it’s still good practice if people aren’t following the rules.
Also, voyager lets you tag users which is a godsend.
If I notice someone who is unnecessarily rude, dodgy opinions, bigoted or something, I add a tag, and if I see it is constant repetitive behaviour, I’ll block them.
Thunder too, installed it specifically for user tags!
Boost has user tagging as well.
Only issue is the tag and report dialogs look exactly alike and multiple times I’ve unknowingly clicked report in error. I’m kinda surprised I never got criticised for abusing the report function when all I’ve written is “pro-russia” or “idiot”
I hope they bring that to Lemmy overall, it will make for a much better experience for everyone. Mobile is really hard to mod from.
Would be a great selling point over centralized alternatives too. “take control of your own experience” and all that. Reddit will never be able to achieve that level
Reddit Executive Suite (RES) was amazing for that. I’ve been gone so long that I’m not sure it works anymore.
Reddit Enhancement Suite does still work, they just had to break a few features from the api thingy.
It appears to be still working on old.reddit. I no longer have an account there, but occasionally check on communities I miss here and RES still seems to be chugging away.
There is a voyager frontend on web. But I think it’s only a mobile view https://vger.app/posts/lemm.ee/all
No it works on desktop as well.
I never realized that Thunder has something for it, because there is zero UI for it as far as i can see. There is just the list in the settings that you can manually add people to. This doesnt do anything however… I expected the label to show up next to the username or something but it just doesnt.
If you long press on a comment for actions and then hit “user”, you see the option to add a label at the bottom of that menu.
A bit hidden, I agree, but very useful.
Oooh okay it shows up only on comments of the tagged person. I was looking at posts and their profile. Thanks for the quick guide.
You can also track aggregate up and down votes per user! You’re a solid +13 for me, you’re cool.
I’m on Thunder and I just labeled you as “taught me that users can be labeled”
I recently had someone I already had tagged as “racist” replying to me with some misogyny, clicked on his profile and found him defending the R slur. Because instances are smaller, it’s actually feasible to message instance admins when there is someone like that too.
Okay I am gonna bite. What is the R slur?
thank you!
Cw r slur
spoiler
Retard
Why give people a second chance to hurt you? Just block away!
Because then I can’t downvote and report them for future harmful behavior.
I do tag them so I know not to engage.
One comment does not a whole commenter make! I’ve had a few cases where someone acts poorly on one post, but is usually a conscientious and interesting commenter. Personally, I want to see more conversation, so I’m hesitant to ban people, but if your math is different, that’s fine!
If you disagree with someone or someone tells you that you’re wrong you can just immediately block them with no effort.
People are so used to being able to instantly ignore anybody that they never develop the skills to deal with people disagreeing with them or having support an argument.
It’s a self-reinforcing cycle.
Yeah, adults should be able to tell the difference between someone disagreeing with them and someone being rude/trolling.
I don’t think I ever needed to block anyone, but I kinda stopped commenting as much nowadays cause I realized a lot of times people just don’t understand something and say things out of ignorance + pretentiousness, immediately attacking whoever correct what they’re saying. I don’t think there’s a way out of that in these kinds of open discussion threads, unfortunately, because it’s not exactly bad faith.
It’s not bad faith, it’s just a learned behavior that’s antisocial.
Outrageous comments are heavily rewarded in public social media where everyone is pseudo-anonymous. At the same time, almost nobody wants to be the person on the receiving end of outrageous takes.
We’re rewarding the wrong behaviours.
I think it’s also easy to misinterpret something on one post. A lot of times something that looked bigoted or dodgy opinion was just poorly done sarcasm or something.
it does? i don’t see that option anywhere.
edit: of course the second I comment I find the option lol
Huh? Could you kindly tell where the option is? I can’t find it?
you have to enable it first under settings-> User Tags and once it’s on you can long press a user name.
You’re the real MVP, thank you very much!!
How do you add a tag? I’m on voyager and can’t see the option. Sorry for my ignorance!
Edit. Ignore me - someone asked and answered further down the thread.
That’s one of the benefits of the smaller community here too, the block button actually feels like it does something. If you’re frustrated by comments that add nothing to anything or are fishing for drama etc, a short commitment to blocking repeat offenders really improves things quickly
Additional PSA to admins not running a “universal free speech” instance- if you see someone someone being obnoxious it’s probably annoying your users just as much as is is you. Don’t put the onus fully on users to curate their experience. The Fediverse needs our adults in the room!
Thank you! I try to exercise caution for myself of am I just off put by this or is this truly uncessary behavior, and I’m glad the option to judge for myself is available.
Yes and no.
I am a big fan of block buttons and use them quite liberally (if someone responds to me in a manner that makes it clear they have no intention of having a conversation? I never see them ever again).
But the problem is that it only blocks it for the user who blocks them. So harassment is still a thing and now even fewer people are likely to flag it for moderation (to the extent that works).
There is obviously room for abuse but I am a firm believer that any block feature must be bidirectional. If user A blocks user B then A and B can no longer see each other or interact. Which would be a fundamental lemmy feature which makes things difficult.
But “just block them” is good for people who are annoying. Not for people who are abusive. And while the latter isn’t SUPER common on lemmy, there are still a good number of people who respond to the simplest of things with “Fuck you you fucking moron and you should go kill yourself”
Block users and instances (although blocking instances just blocks the topic posts from that instance, not all the users from that instance).
Wish instance blocking actually blocked properly. But the main devs know everyone would block the tanky triad immediately and they’d have no one to troll.
Instance blocking works on:
- PieFed
- the Lemmy apps Sync and Connect
- instance admins who can choose to defederate
- someone willing to go deep and make a custom web browser filter (presumably like Ublock Origin I would guess)
Nothing else works.
I have blocked a few communities which I have really enjoyed. I think there is definitely a different but freeing experience to be in charge of curating your experience instead of algorithms doing it for you. It’s more work but the freedom is nice but making the constant choice feels hard.
I know for a fact I’m opinionated, and don’t have problems sharing them.
Please, by all means, block me if you think seeing my comments is adversely affecting you. I’d rather be ignored by someone than make their day worse (unless they’re actively trying to make others miserable, but that’s a separate discussion)
The fediverse has definitely gotten a little less hostile after blocking a few things.
And remember you can jump ship to another instance at any time! I’ve hopped a few times but for now my instance is filling my needs without much drama that I am aware of.
Same!
I think it’s less about having strong opinions and more with how those are expressed. But either way, you’re here with a good attitude, and that’s appreciated.
I quickly went over your comment history of the last 30 days and you have almost no downvotes. You are a wholesome person and I’m glad you are here!
Im a big believer in block. I think its better for people to peruse all and block communities they are uninterested in and you should totally block users you don’t like. To me it should be like real life. Don’t hang with folks you don’t like. My hope for the fediverse is instances that only remove things to stay out of legal trouble and communities that only block things that are unrelated. I want all the big tools to be at the user level. Bottom up.
