First, I want to say how great it is to see success in a social media platform not owned by some giant cooperation. That said, right now we are at a turning point where we can still change the platform in major ways and I think we all have a shared interested in Lemmy becoming the best it could be.
Let’s face it, Reddit had many problems even before the API changes. The toxic herd mentality, over and under moderation at the same time, small posts getting drowned out by already big ones and so much more. As you probably are already aware of, social media can quickly end in filter bubbles, extremization and bringing out the worst of the human psyche. These are not problems simply fixed by better moderation. Rather, these are problems resulting from the engagement driven design of most platforms (Post controversial statement -> many comments -> Post gets delivered to more people -> even more engagement -> …) I want Lemmy to be a place that brings people together instead of dividing us apart.
Therefore, I wanna start a conversation on what design changes Lemmy should implement in the future to make sure the platform remains humane and everyone can engage in respectful conversations.
I think a good starting point are the recourses of the Center for Humane Technology, like their course on Foundations of Humane Technology
I’m looking forward to hearing your opinions and ideas on this :)
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It’s fun we are at a stage in which we can define what we want this community to be like not just technologically but as people. Also note this can be done on an instance by instance basis, too.
I think the human component is even more important than the technical. The inventor of the facebook like button kind of regrets his invention. He didn’t forsee all the bad consequences (people being excluded by getting few likes and people doing everything (even dangerous things) for likes and validation)