I get it. There’s some real jerks around here. Whether they’re constantly argumentative, downright rude, always acting in bad faith, just plain trolls, overly opinionated on every subject, have the social skills of a Nausicaan, or whatever - 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, I know exactly how you feel, and I’m tired of seeing good people harassed off the platform.
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 list of keywords, a whole 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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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?
https://www.specialolympics.org/stories/impact/why-the-r-word-is-the-r-slur
thank you!
Cw r slur
spoiler
Retard
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”
it does? i don’t see that option anywhere.
edit: of course the second I comment I find the option lol
second edit: hit the settings wheel at the bottom. its on that page.
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!!
Boost too
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.
Why give people a second chance to hurt you? Just block away!
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!
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.
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.
Because then I can’t downvote and report them for future harmful behavior.
I do tag them so I know not to engage.
Good point.