First of all, thank you so much Blaze for your relentless dedication to the Lemmy project. I continue to be impressed and grateful, both. ❤️
TBH, I’m also a combo of pissed-off and disappointed by how relatively few Redditors put their “fuck spez” energy in to trying to help Lemmy grow, instead seeming to expect it to be a ready-made substitute for Reddit, prone to tantrums / bitchiness when they encountered minor difficulties. And I’m also disappointed by the actual Lemmings dedicated enough to stay, yet still seem completely content to sit on their arses, not contribute much, and take casual pot-shots at stuff that wasn’t ‘up to standard.’ Take a recent post of mine, for example: (yes it’s my pity-party, and I’ll cry if I want to, lol)
As the founder of the community and main content creator, I must say the downvotes hurt on that one! I was also getting accused of going off-topic (I wasn’t) and just ‘pushing a button to create the content’ (it was more like the reverse).
So in some ways I’ve created a situation in which my users (kinda joking here, kinda not) are bloodsucking parasites who don’t care about my efforts if and only unless they happen to fancy it. Really, that’s perfectly fine with me up until they swarmed on the downvote button.
But whadya gonna do, right? I can’t just assume peoples’ reactions, and I’m not here to tell others what to do. So in the end, I wound up sulking for a week, then getting back to content creation, and I feel like that’s pretty reasonable in the end. Win-win, so to speak. I guess. Maybe…?
The real problem of course is that I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be around (significant health issues, and now just living in the USA during the coming administration), and I’d very much like to get our sublemmy running better with user-generated content before I check out.
Could also be people coming from All, so not members of your community
Yup, and on the flipside, I suspect this is also a ‘fortunate zone of discovery’ that we can enjoy these days across Lemmy.
For example, on Reddit, there’s barely a chance your sub will be randomly seen on ALL unless it’s fairly big and well-established. Which is why I tend to urge people to make the community they want to succeed right now and here on Lemmy. Don’t complain; do it!
Because in future, that opportunity may no longer be there to catch so many ALL viewers, assuming I’m right in that.
It sure would be nice to have a different upvote/downvote culture. Not sure how to foster that.
Upvote for helpful, funny, otherwise valuable contribution.
Downvote for incivility, spam, off-topic, incorrect.
Note I never said agree or disagree. I upvote a lot of things I disagree with that add to the conversation. Although I also admit I stay far, far away from any political or serious discussion. I think what I am proposing is literally just original Reddiquette (it still is that, it is just that a lot of people do not follow it).
I do not think I can add anything to the upvote/downvote conversation for your specific post that the users have not already said on it. But I do appreciate you clearly marking off AI-generated content as such, and you putting effort into the community.
It sure would be nice to have a different upvote/downvote culture. Not sure how to foster that.
Upvote for helpful, funny, otherwise valuable contribution.
Downvote for incivility, spam, off-topic, incorrect.
This will probably sound hilariously ironic, but maybe an agreed-upon AI model?
Nothing’s going to be perfect, and any weakness can be counter-exploited by other AI, but maybe just maybe it could be a start?
I upvote a lot of things I disagree with that add to the conversation.
Respect, and fist-bump. You seem a bit rarish with that. ^^
I do appreciate you clearly marking off AI-generated content as such, and you putting effort into the community.
Thank you! I’ve been very careful to do it only 3x so far (and every time marking it explicitly) across ~400 posts, which is why I was taken aback by the hostile reaction. Also, whether one likes it or not, AI is here to stay, and my experience with ChatGPT was amazingly positive and helpful. So let’s not shoot the messenger too much, okay?
Oh, and also-- IMO Lemmy badly, BADLY needs a tool like RES (Reddit Enhancement Suite) which allows one to make running notes on other users, short of completely blocking them or whatever. I mean, we may not have cumulative karma across Lemmy, but there’s gotta be some way to create a ‘kind-space’ for ourselves, no?
It’s impossible to recognise AI generated content already. If you know what you are doing when prompting. Just by the way. If you filter out AI you just filter out bad prompters
I’ll be honest, not sure why I specifically am being replied to with this. I don’t think I talked about how easy or hard it is to recognize AI content in the comment, or about whether it should be filtered out or not.
I do think you correctly assumed that I am very much not a fan of AI content when someone is trying to pass it as their own effort (I am guessing expressing appreciation for the user marking AI-generated content as such tipped you off?).
I tend to respond just because I want to talk about something sometimes because some comment reminded me of something and then try to loosely attach it to it. I guesssd it’s not the best habit
Someone told me I speak like I was talking to myself once
No worries! Discussions of AI feel like too serious a topic, too hot-button for me to feel great discussing online so I got wary. Thank you for clarifying
Lemmy was interesting in the first months but then the fundamentals won and it just looks like worse Reddit. Techies got their orange site, hobbyists never left Reddit, what we have here is anarchists mostly and politics which sucks. All servers feel too political because it was founded on politics. It was founded by commies and that probably will forever reflect in taste of its dramas and annoyances. It has monotonous flavour without this kind of spice of neurodivergency that produces very interesting content. It was there in first months but then those people just went away who knows where.
Also Reddit on its own as a social formula is kinda shit, it got big more against the chances than because it is somehow inherently good imo
I have managed to actively avoid politics during my time here, although on most servers it does require ignoring Local and always ignoring All—far too many communities to block. ani.social has a very safe Local to check for avoiding politics, it’s just anime and manga.
Because it’s not just explicitly political communities that are chock-full of politics, they are also in meme communities. Someone posts some depressing “relatable” meme and the comments will have people saying “yeah I hate [politician they believe caused the depressing thing in the meme]” or something like that. Whether they have a point or not, and even when I outright agree wholeheartedly it is exhausting. Certain communities post news about their specific topic which sometimes intersects with politics and so that attracts political comments too.
But I can say with the active political avoidance tactic I do pretty good. I will check out new communities via !newcommunities@lemmy.world and sometimes check an instance’s community list and browse random posts on a community that mildly interested me, that is how I still get content discovery.
Also, the problem is the number of users. Neurodivergence is, as far as I know, not the statistical majority. Finding 1 neurodivergent in 100 people is a lot easier than 1 neurodivergent people in 3. I’m neurodivergent, I also stick to the things I’m interested in here. So I am probably a lot harder to find unless you share my interests.
Maybe, I don’t usually have high hopes for things like this so I am not terribly sad or disappointed. I try to focus more on real life nowadays as I think internet is doomed and we are getting more stupid every year somehow. Or maybe I am just getting older. It’s not like I am going back to Reddit seriously in any way. I am trying to find some cozy corner and respite from society mayhem
For the record, I don’t think anything you said is wrong. Assuming you’re a generation younger than me (I’m Gen X), I’m kinda furious for my mine (and Boomers) generation screwing your gen like we’ve done. It’s godamn shameful.
Also, just the basic mechanisms of merciless capitalism… relentlessly putting short-term profit above all other concerns, screwing the younger gens like yours and others.
Haha, everyone thinks I’m weird when I say this, but I’ve always felt that our original state (tribalism) was much smarter, on the whole.
I can’t relate to whatever you said here. I am pretty well off actually, don’t even need to work if I don’t want to. But I sympathise with whatever finance strifes ppl face nowadays. My boomers worked for
my future really hard, can’t say I feel fucked over by my parents. On the contrary. They were great people
At this point almost daily I think to myself “what a stupid time to be alive” and the frequency only increases. From bizzare news to unbelievable slop we are fed that everyone seems to consume gladly and readily jumps to defend the multibillion dollar corporations that release it.
All I could ever want is to bring the spirit of moon landing era back. The ambition, the incredible humanity, nothing impossible. This is what powered my youth even though I was born 30 years later in another country. It sort of came delayed here with the arrival of first McDonald’s in early 90s.
It was incredible to be part of this energy, of this boundless optimism and chin pointed high up looking at the horizon of opportunity after decades of communism.
As internet was born and took hold people were awed by it, they looked at technology and it sparked their dreams. Now when you speak about technology people look suspicious at you, they think you are shady, they lost hope.
Without hope humanity has no future, we need hope, grand aspirations, ambition. The spark of fight against black void of the cosmos as it day by day tries to reclaim natural equilibrium. We aren’t made to lie down and give up.
We are made of stardust, we have been created from the stars. It’s about time to shine like we can.
Great comment! And just goes to show what happens when I assume too much. XD
That said, I might quibble a bit, given the time. For whatever reason, I’m super-depressed today just thinking about the recent election and how very much things are going to get worse for most people in the States in a mere month + change…
You look different from me therefore you BAD and EVIL. You acceptable target for hurting because my group said so. Even though you never hurt me.
I’ve never suffered from racism, misogyny, or queer bashing. I am very very lucky especially given I am a queer woman of color. I know just how bad other people have it. We can at least partially thank tribalism for those peoples’ suffering.
You look different from me therefore you BAD and EVIL. You acceptable target for hurting because my group said so. Even though you never hurt me.
No offense, but I’ve always thought that’s a terribly limited way of looking at tribalism, particularly as seen through the lens of civilisation. Yes, I don’t argue against that take, but tribalism from a different POV generally means people accepting (and needing) everyone in their tribe in order best survive. It also means a much closer relationship with the local land, flora and fauna, doesn’t included huge financial and religious institutions that routinely make most peoples’ lives miserable, and is a state of being that can pretty much survive endlessly. Compared for example to our modern, high-tech civ which is pretty much destroying itself before our eyes, with disastrous impending results for most living species left on earth. Yes, we live longer due to modern medicine and such, but it also seems to me that we’re likely more worried, stressed, and plain unhappier than when living in our natural state, on the whole.
So yeah, every human state of being has its cons, but tribalism on the whole seemed to work best, arguably existing for millions of years before the total clusterfluff we have now.
If it helps to share my perspective: I almost left the Fediverse entirely after Kbin.social fell apart and my only options were to either move to Lemmy, return to Reddit, or go literally nowhere (online I mean, so I would e.g. read books and play games irl, basically touch grass, but avoid social media entirely - it’s not nearly as difficult as people say, I’ve done it a good fraction of my life actually, bc I know I have an addictive personality and especially a corporate run one would feed into that).
So I decided to give Lemmy a try, despite knowing it was run by tankies. And while I suck at posting content that people enjoy, I tried in my own way to make people feel more welcomed by commenting on existing posts, to make them more lively.
Though when I commented in ChapoTrapHouse@hexbear.net that at least Biden had lowered gasoline prices, and while that was not everything it also was not nothing, and did help the poorest people who need that, I got replies for WEEKS and WEEKS afterwards. And then again for a similar comment made in lemmygrad.ml (my instances apparently at the time had defederated from neither). It was very toxic, and I don’t need that shit in my life. Literally nothing - as in no social media - would have been preferable.
But then I noticed that nearly all of the toxicity that I saw at the time was coming from the big 3 tankie instances. Since leaning that, my experiences on the Fediverse have greatly improved!
Note this has nothing to do with “politics” and everything to do with CONSENT to receive their bullshit, alternative-fact takes shoved down my throat (continuing for WEEKS and WEEKS at a time - who does that!? outside of those instances I mean). And to be fair, if that’s how they want to be then okay then, you do you, except: it would have been nice to have been warned?
A LARGE part of what is turning people away from the Fediverse is its toxicity. And the lack of features such as proper labeling of communities isn’t helping any. The desktop web UI shows the sidebar, which would have explained to me that ChapoTrapHouse is all about dunking onto liberals - OOOOHHHH, so maybe I don’t want to make a comment there that isn’t 100% trashing Biden? Good to know, thanks! - but the mobile web UI does not do that, e.g. for posts found via All, and neither does a good many apps such as Voyager.
It’s not ready for a mainstream audience yet, technologically speaking. Hence most hobbiests remain on Reddit, or else literally eschew social media altogether. That’s better than the alternative - apparently - i.e. coming here and getting “dunked on”, like the above commentor talking about being so heavily downvoted. We are not very welcoming here, hence people don’t want to come here. I know that 100% of the people I’ve recommended to try it have not liked it. It’s going to take some work to clean ourselves up if we want hobbiests to feel like Lemmy is worthwhile for them. (And frankly I expect it will never happen, but I am putting my hopes into PieFed, or Sublinks if it revives, bc PieFed already has features that make it welcoming, like showing the sidebar text below every single post - mind you its Notifications feature is barely functional so it is not ready for a mainstream audience either, but the fact that such welcoming features are already present is heartwarming! ❤️💕:-)
Most people, it would seem, are children. Or at least act like it, unable (or unwilling) to see past the nose on their own face.
Something like half of my posts have more downvotes than upvotes, and I have earned a distinction of having some of the most heavily-downvoted posts in some communities histories (oops, that’s no
longer true, um… yay?). Then I’ll frequently have the highest-upvoted comment (or even more often 2nd or maybe 3rd, among very large posts even) within very many posts. Go figure. Either way I’m just being me, seeing what I see and liking what I like, and sharing it occasionally if I have an inkling of a thought that others might enjoy it (often I’m wrong:-).
So people are fickle, especially en mass. I can’t say to ignore them bc you do as you please, but I can say do your art for YOU. People a decade from now may enjoy it, but that too will be irrelevant, if you are finding fulfillment in the doing.:-)
First of all, thank you so much Blaze for your relentless dedication to the Lemmy project. I continue to be impressed and grateful, both. ❤️
TBH, I’m also a combo of pissed-off and disappointed by how relatively few Redditors put their “fuck spez” energy in to trying to help Lemmy grow, instead seeming to expect it to be a ready-made substitute for Reddit, prone to tantrums / bitchiness when they encountered minor difficulties. And I’m also disappointed by the actual Lemmings dedicated enough to stay, yet still seem completely content to sit on their arses, not contribute much, and take casual pot-shots at stuff that wasn’t ‘up to standard.’ Take a recent post of mine, for example: (yes it’s my pity-party, and I’ll cry if I want to, lol)
https://lemm.ee/post/48617161
As the founder of the community and main content creator, I must say the downvotes hurt on that one! I was also getting accused of going off-topic (I wasn’t) and just ‘pushing a button to create the content’ (it was more like the reverse).
So in some ways I’ve created a situation in which my users (kinda joking here, kinda not) are bloodsucking parasites who don’t care about my efforts if and only unless they happen to fancy it. Really, that’s perfectly fine with me up until they swarmed on the downvote button.
But whadya gonna do, right? I can’t just assume peoples’ reactions, and I’m not here to tell others what to do. So in the end, I wound up sulking for a week, then getting back to content creation, and I feel like that’s pretty reasonable in the end. Win-win, so to speak. I guess. Maybe…?
The real problem of course is that I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be around (significant health issues, and now just living in the USA during the coming administration), and I’d very much like to get our sublemmy running better with user-generated content before I check out.
Hroom, hroom, hroom, as Treebeard might say…
Yes, I saw that post, the reception was quite hostile
Could also be people coming from All, so not members of your community
Yup, and on the flipside, I suspect this is also a ‘fortunate zone of discovery’ that we can enjoy these days across Lemmy.
For example, on Reddit, there’s barely a chance your sub will be randomly seen on ALL unless it’s fairly big and well-established. Which is why I tend to urge people to make the community they want to succeed right now and here on Lemmy. Don’t complain; do it!
Because in future, that opportunity may no longer be there to catch so many ALL viewers, assuming I’m right in that.
It sure would be nice to have a different upvote/downvote culture. Not sure how to foster that.
Upvote for helpful, funny, otherwise valuable contribution.
Downvote for incivility, spam, off-topic, incorrect.
Note I never said agree or disagree. I upvote a lot of things I disagree with that add to the conversation. Although I also admit I stay far, far away from any political or serious discussion. I think what I am proposing is literally just original Reddiquette (it still is that, it is just that a lot of people do not follow it).
I do not think I can add anything to the upvote/downvote conversation for your specific post that the users have not already said on it. But I do appreciate you clearly marking off AI-generated content as such, and you putting effort into the community.
This will probably sound hilariously ironic, but maybe an agreed-upon AI model?
Nothing’s going to be perfect, and any weakness can be counter-exploited by other AI, but maybe just maybe it could be a start?
Respect, and fist-bump. You seem a bit rarish with that. ^^
Thank you! I’ve been very careful to do it only 3x so far (and every time marking it explicitly) across ~400 posts, which is why I was taken aback by the hostile reaction. Also, whether one likes it or not, AI is here to stay, and my experience with ChatGPT was amazingly positive and helpful. So let’s not shoot the messenger too much, okay?
Oh, and also-- IMO Lemmy badly, BADLY needs a tool like RES (Reddit Enhancement Suite) which allows one to make running notes on other users, short of completely blocking them or whatever. I mean, we may not have cumulative karma across Lemmy, but there’s gotta be some way to create a ‘kind-space’ for ourselves, no?
It’s impossible to recognise AI generated content already. If you know what you are doing when prompting. Just by the way. If you filter out AI you just filter out bad prompters
I’ll be honest, not sure why I specifically am being replied to with this. I don’t think I talked about how easy or hard it is to recognize AI content in the comment, or about whether it should be filtered out or not.
I do think you correctly assumed that I am very much not a fan of AI content when someone is trying to pass it as their own effort (I am guessing expressing appreciation for the user marking AI-generated content as such tipped you off?).
I tend to respond just because I want to talk about something sometimes because some comment reminded me of something and then try to loosely attach it to it. I guesssd it’s not the best habit
Someone told me I speak like I was talking to myself once
No worries! Discussions of AI feel like too serious a topic, too hot-button for me to feel great discussing online so I got wary. Thank you for clarifying
Lemmy was interesting in the first months but then the fundamentals won and it just looks like worse Reddit. Techies got their orange site, hobbyists never left Reddit, what we have here is anarchists mostly and politics which sucks. All servers feel too political because it was founded on politics. It was founded by commies and that probably will forever reflect in taste of its dramas and annoyances. It has monotonous flavour without this kind of spice of neurodivergency that produces very interesting content. It was there in first months but then those people just went away who knows where.
Also Reddit on its own as a social formula is kinda shit, it got big more against the chances than because it is somehow inherently good imo
I have managed to actively avoid politics during my time here, although on most servers it does require ignoring Local and always ignoring All—far too many communities to block. ani.social has a very safe Local to check for avoiding politics, it’s just anime and manga.
Because it’s not just explicitly political communities that are chock-full of politics, they are also in meme communities. Someone posts some depressing “relatable” meme and the comments will have people saying “yeah I hate [politician they believe caused the depressing thing in the meme]” or something like that. Whether they have a point or not, and even when I outright agree wholeheartedly it is exhausting. Certain communities post news about their specific topic which sometimes intersects with politics and so that attracts political comments too.
But I can say with the active political avoidance tactic I do pretty good. I will check out new communities via !newcommunities@lemmy.world and sometimes check an instance’s community list and browse random posts on a community that mildly interested me, that is how I still get content discovery.
Also, the problem is the number of users. Neurodivergence is, as far as I know, not the statistical majority. Finding 1 neurodivergent in 100 people is a lot easier than 1 neurodivergent people in 3. I’m neurodivergent, I also stick to the things I’m interested in here. So I am probably a lot harder to find unless you share my interests.
Oof, I take it you’re pretty disenchanted upon all this shizzle…?
Maybe, I don’t usually have high hopes for things like this so I am not terribly sad or disappointed. I try to focus more on real life nowadays as I think internet is doomed and we are getting more stupid every year somehow. Or maybe I am just getting older. It’s not like I am going back to Reddit seriously in any way. I am trying to find some cozy corner and respite from society mayhem
For the record, I don’t think anything you said is wrong. Assuming you’re a generation younger than me (I’m Gen X), I’m kinda furious for my mine (and Boomers) generation screwing your gen like we’ve done. It’s godamn shameful.
Also, just the basic mechanisms of merciless capitalism… relentlessly putting short-term profit above all other concerns, screwing the younger gens like yours and others.
Haha, everyone thinks I’m weird when I say this, but I’ve always felt that our original state (tribalism) was much smarter, on the whole.
I can’t relate to whatever you said here. I am pretty well off actually, don’t even need to work if I don’t want to. But I sympathise with whatever finance strifes ppl face nowadays. My boomers worked for my future really hard, can’t say I feel fucked over by my parents. On the contrary. They were great people
At this point almost daily I think to myself “what a stupid time to be alive” and the frequency only increases. From bizzare news to unbelievable slop we are fed that everyone seems to consume gladly and readily jumps to defend the multibillion dollar corporations that release it.
All I could ever want is to bring the spirit of moon landing era back. The ambition, the incredible humanity, nothing impossible. This is what powered my youth even though I was born 30 years later in another country. It sort of came delayed here with the arrival of first McDonald’s in early 90s.
It was incredible to be part of this energy, of this boundless optimism and chin pointed high up looking at the horizon of opportunity after decades of communism.
As internet was born and took hold people were awed by it, they looked at technology and it sparked their dreams. Now when you speak about technology people look suspicious at you, they think you are shady, they lost hope.
Without hope humanity has no future, we need hope, grand aspirations, ambition. The spark of fight against black void of the cosmos as it day by day tries to reclaim natural equilibrium. We aren’t made to lie down and give up.
We are made of stardust, we have been created from the stars. It’s about time to shine like we can.
Great comment! And just goes to show what happens when I assume too much. XD
That said, I might quibble a bit, given the time. For whatever reason, I’m super-depressed today just thinking about the recent election and how very much things are going to get worse for most people in the States in a mere month + change…
I actually super don’t.
You look different from me therefore you BAD and EVIL. You acceptable target for hurting because my group said so. Even though you never hurt me.
I’ve never suffered from racism, misogyny, or queer bashing. I am very very lucky especially given I am a queer woman of color. I know just how bad other people have it. We can at least partially thank tribalism for those peoples’ suffering.
No offense, but I’ve always thought that’s a terribly limited way of looking at tribalism, particularly as seen through the lens of civilisation. Yes, I don’t argue against that take, but tribalism from a different POV generally means people accepting (and needing) everyone in their tribe in order best survive. It also means a much closer relationship with the local land, flora and fauna, doesn’t included huge financial and religious institutions that routinely make most peoples’ lives miserable, and is a state of being that can pretty much survive endlessly. Compared for example to our modern, high-tech civ which is pretty much destroying itself before our eyes, with disastrous impending results for most living species left on earth. Yes, we live longer due to modern medicine and such, but it also seems to me that we’re likely more worried, stressed, and plain unhappier than when living in our natural state, on the whole.
So yeah, every human state of being has its cons, but tribalism on the whole seemed to work best, arguably existing for millions of years before the total clusterfluff we have now.
deleted by creator
If it helps to share my perspective: I almost left the Fediverse entirely after Kbin.social fell apart and my only options were to either move to Lemmy, return to Reddit, or go literally nowhere (online I mean, so I would e.g. read books and play games irl, basically touch grass, but avoid social media entirely - it’s not nearly as difficult as people say, I’ve done it a good fraction of my life actually, bc I know I have an addictive personality and especially a corporate run one would feed into that).
So I decided to give Lemmy a try, despite knowing it was run by tankies. And while I suck at posting content that people enjoy, I tried in my own way to make people feel more welcomed by commenting on existing posts, to make them more lively.
Though when I commented in ChapoTrapHouse@hexbear.net that at least Biden had lowered gasoline prices, and while that was not everything it also was not nothing, and did help the poorest people who need that, I got replies for WEEKS and WEEKS afterwards. And then again for a similar comment made in lemmygrad.ml (my instances apparently at the time had defederated from neither). It was very toxic, and I don’t need that shit in my life. Literally nothing - as in no social media - would have been preferable.
But then I noticed that nearly all of the toxicity that I saw at the time was coming from the big 3 tankie instances. Since leaning that, my experiences on the Fediverse have greatly improved!
Note this has nothing to do with “politics” and everything to do with CONSENT to receive their bullshit, alternative-fact takes shoved down my throat (continuing for WEEKS and WEEKS at a time - who does that!? outside of those instances I mean). And to be fair, if that’s how they want to be then okay then, you do you, except: it would have been nice to have been warned?
A LARGE part of what is turning people away from the Fediverse is its toxicity. And the lack of features such as proper labeling of communities isn’t helping any. The desktop web UI shows the sidebar, which would have explained to me that ChapoTrapHouse is all about dunking onto liberals - OOOOHHHH, so maybe I don’t want to make a comment there that isn’t 100% trashing Biden? Good to know, thanks! - but the mobile web UI does not do that, e.g. for posts found via All, and neither does a good many apps such as Voyager.
It’s not ready for a mainstream audience yet, technologically speaking. Hence most hobbiests remain on Reddit, or else literally eschew social media altogether. That’s better than the alternative - apparently - i.e. coming here and getting “dunked on”, like the above commentor talking about being so heavily downvoted. We are not very welcoming here, hence people don’t want to come here. I know that 100% of the people I’ve recommended to try it have not liked it. It’s going to take some work to clean ourselves up if we want hobbiests to feel like Lemmy is worthwhile for them. (And frankly I expect it will never happen, but I am putting my hopes into PieFed, or Sublinks if it revives, bc PieFed already has features that make it welcoming, like showing the sidebar text below every single post - mind you its Notifications feature is barely functional so it is not ready for a mainstream audience either, but the fact that such welcoming features are already present is heartwarming! ❤️💕:-)
Most people, it would seem, are children. Or at least act like it, unable (or unwilling) to see past the nose on their own face.
Something like half of my posts have more downvotes than upvotes, and I have earned a distinction of having some of the most heavily-downvoted posts in some communities histories (oops, that’s no longer true, um… yay?). Then I’ll frequently have the highest-upvoted comment (or even more often 2nd or maybe 3rd, among very large posts even) within very many posts. Go figure. Either way I’m just being me, seeing what I see and liking what I like, and sharing it occasionally if I have an inkling of a thought that others might enjoy it (often I’m wrong:-).
So people are fickle, especially en mass. I can’t say to ignore them bc you do as you please, but I can say do your art for YOU. People a decade from now may enjoy it, but that too will be irrelevant, if you are finding fulfillment in the doing.:-)