I’ve been using Lemmy for a couple years now, and unfortunately I’ve noticed a significant decline in the niche communities that were originally active. When I first joined I saw much more variety when browsing the All feed. But over time, the communities I liked have faded as shitposting and meme communities have come to dominate the platform.
I think this shift has changed the culture of Lemmy. There seems to be more of a herd mentality now, where people downvote reasonable opinions they disagree with. The discussions don’t feel as nuanced. Some people have even been attacked for innocuous comments that don’t align with the prevailing groupthink.
The niche communities that made Lemmy special are fading away, and the resulting monoculture makes me less inclined to participate. I want a platform that supports substantive discussions in my interests, not just memes and shitposting.
I don’t know what the solution is on a platform level, but a culture shift is needed if Lemmy wants to retain users like me who valued the diversity of opinions. I may have to move to a platform that allows better filtering and proportionality between niche interests and funny or stupid content. I want Lemmy to succeed, but right now I’m finding myself drawn back to Reddit because the niche communities there seem more active. I’ll keep checking in, but Lemmy needs to recapture its original spirit if I’m going to make it my main home.
I remember this system. I had to apply to do it after my account was old enough, then they’d give me a little bit to rate at first. Then IIRC they gave me more to rate after it was clear I wasn’t abusing it.
They had a guideline page I had to read before I started to rate comments and I don’t think those attributes were optional. So, comments got a primary attribute associated with their rating.
I wasn’t able to rate comments that I saw as I browsed but rather it was a collective rating system where volunteers were served comments (with expandable context) to curb the tendency to downvote just because you disagree with something.
At the height of Slashdot the discussions on there were incredibly educational and thoughtful and that rating system worked very well.