Since a lot of folks sort by “all” on Lemmy, popular posts get overwhelmed by people who don’t daily drive operating systems like iOS or MacOS.
I like outside perspectives and all, but when the majority of the “community” discussion is coming from people who aren’t even using these products, it is pretty hard to have informed conversations.
Moreover, I feel like this type of engagement creates a lot of threads that get pretty combative and catty. They’re often started by people who are trying to argue and convince iOS / MacOS users that they’ve picked the wrong side of the fence.
Anyone else feel me on this? I imagine this is a problem for other communities on Lemmy as well.
Some of Apple’s biggest fans are also sometimes Apple’s largest critics. I’m all for critical discussions, but the “herp derp finally getting what Android have for years” kind of comments are certainly getting old, and I wouldn’t mind seeing less of.
Agreed, but I will say that it’s pretty clear that a lot of these upvoted threads are from people who don’t use the operating systems very much, if at all.
For example, I frequently see highly upvoted threads with people complaining about something missing from iOS or MacOS, and in reality, that has actually been prominent in the OS for half a decade a more.
A lot of people literally don’t have very much familiarity with what they’re commenting or voting on. They’re just letting confirmation bias take the wheel.
They also love to reference the “cult of fanboys,” all the time. I honestly can’t say I have ever seen evidence of this cult, or have ever met anyone I would classify as a fanboy.
I’d argue that the “cult” was totally a thing back when Apple was a small player in certain markets, and people liked pulling for the underdog. The Apple evangelism was also pretty high back when a media player or phone with good experience and industrial design was actually a new concept. But now the bar has been raised, and everyone strives for good industrial and experience design.
IMHO, people aren’t really going around and preaching the gospel of Steve like they were 10 or 15 years ago. Those days are kind of gone.
The only cult I ever see IRL is the cult of Android and Linux users that feel like their unwarranted opinion is something anyone asked for. Lemmy tends to have more tech-savvy people in its communities so even Windows doesn’t escape the wrath of these people. For all the complaints of fanboyism, the worst fanboys are the anti-Apple ones.
On the contrary, I have had multiple conversations with Android users trying to convince me that iOS is bad/Android is better with nearly religious fervor.
Yeah, exactly. I find criticism of Apple products from people who are deeply familiar with their products to be quite entertaining, but that’s not even close to what’s happening here. Most of the comments in this community are one step above “DAE Macs can’t right click??”
The mods need to do something about this, it is so tiresome to even look in this sub sometimes.
Anyone else feel me on this? I imagine this is a problem for other communities on Lemmy as well.
nah mate. Would describe me as an enthusiast but still think that Apple shits the bed pretty often, is charging way too much and could do a lot better in hardware and software.
So as already mentioned, Apple’s biggest enthusiasts are also its biggest critics.
exactly, I’m not an apple enthusiast so I literally don’t care or even know enough to troll.
that’s actually a good point.
My wife recently started using an iPhone mini because she likes the size and on android there is nothing in that area, but she sometimes criticizes things that really make me believe she’s trolling me.
But then I realize that she’s just used to a, at least for her, better function or interaction done in her old android phone. And if she explains it to me I actually have to agree and wonder why apple’s solution is so strange.
What kinds of thing, as a matter of interest
What kinds of thing, as a matter of interest
Homescreen customization, volume controls, easy accessible settings, how to get rid of notifications and it’s stacking, the weather app, the whole keyboard and spell checker, which is really just awful on iOS and lot of other smaller things.
Thanks for a good answer. My opinion of the weather app is it’s pretty awesome, however
Does it show you the actual weather, because here in Germany it’s wrong most of the time.
Interesting. I’ve used it in UK, Australia and France and have found it by far the most accurate compared with BBC Weather or the Met Office app. If I’m camping and it tells me it’s going to rain in 10 minutes it’s worth listening to
Being unable to clear app data is a major pain daily. Requires uninstalling/reinstalling.
True. On the plus side, at least you can delete apps.
Unless it’s one you can’t, looking at you iCloud.
I think I’d argue that the iCloud app is an OS component, but yes I understand that’s debatable
But people like you aren’t the ones making the “Android had this years ago” posts. Those are the problem. Nothing wrong with real criticism, keep it coming, but I am tired of that same comment without any substance.
but I am tired of that same comment without any substance.
block or ignore them or make the mods aware of low quality posts, maybe we need some adjustments in the rules. I personally am not bothered by them but everybody is different…
You are right, but instead of blocking like half the user base I just unsubbed. I hope the mods will look in to this, it seems like a lot of people are bothered with this. Let the trolls and fanboys have this sub, there are better ways to follow tech news.
ok 👋
You guys have my sympathy. I’m a pretty strong critic of Apple and their products but I’d never go out of my way to interfere with communities of Apple users. That’s just kinda pathetic.
Unfortunately, I don’t see that there’s much you can do about this apart from strictly moderate the comments section and just try to ignore the up/downvote discrepancies.
Yeah, I think the real solution would be to require a subscription, or a subscription for at least n amount of days before you can comment. Reddit used to have options for that.
Anyone can still join in, but it cuts down on the noise from c/all.
Unfortunately, Lemmy’s community and mod tools are truly terrible.
Yea, with the lack of mod tools here you don’t have that many options really.
IMHO, the big unseen problem with Lemmy is the lack of mod tools. Communities don’t have the basics to self govern. Reports don’t get seen and communities almost become a glorified topic hashtag, because everyone is always coming in from all, not subscriptions.
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There’s no point in trying to build a community with a very hostile environment for anything that doesn’t align with the very odd hostile-against-everything-not-OSS zeitgeist.
Wait until they come to correct you by saying that’s not true, they’re actually hostile-against-everything-not-FOSS, how the F is very important, and why certain licensing standards are better than others. And any time anyone tries to call out deficiencies in their favorite FOSS, they’d be greeted with swarms of “you don’t understand FOSS” comments and have no room for any constructive discussion. Then, to top it off, they’d always default to the “why don’t you just go find your own instance instead” comment. It’s almost as if they don’t want a community for discussions, they want echo chambers, and they’ll be hostile and unwelcoming to everyone who’s not aligned with their believes.
Edit: oh, look, we have the go fund your own instance comment in this thread already! Called it.
Yeah, i used to think this wasn’t the case when i just joined here, but the longer i use the more frustrating it get. People downvote and brigade on seemingly harmless thing, from post that they don’t understand, to language they don’t speak, to technology they don’t use, to idea(that doesn’t involve extremism) they don’t agree. There’s been people telling me why they stop posting and developing the community in my instance, and all boils down to the random downvoting and brigading.
If the admin of the top 10 instance didn’t turn off downvoting, then you can be sure that this platform will slowly die off before Reddit even got its own just desert. It’s impossible to build a community and recommend friend for a place this hostile. This place used to be super wholesome when i join.
I think it would be probably a good idea to globally hide negative votes from the all feed until they reach a certain threshold. There are communities for topics that aren’t popular on the fediverse that definitely get drive by buried in the all feed.
The downvote definitely has its place as a way to penalize offtopic and spam discussion, but it also requires some thick skin because people use it as a disagree button for better or worse. The scores don’t really matter.
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I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but I feel strongly that downvoting itself is a problem.
Social media is powered by little bits of endorphins that come from clicking the response buttons, and a certain type of person seems to get a thrill out of the downvote in particular. That personality type does not seem to be conducive to building a strong community, but we give them quite a bit of engagement anyways to keep them coming back.
I don’t think anything of value would be lost by dropping that action all together.
I slightly disagree because it can be a good way to track people who only traffic in bad faith. If there were some other way to flag them, I’d be all for it but it’s almost completely bad options for ways to flag that sort of anti social behavior.
I would argue that the signal to noise ratio here makes this metric effectively worthless. Being unpopular doesn’t necessarily indicate bad faith, and downvotes come for many reasons that are not similar enough to group.
Downvotes also bring a unique kind of bad actor: the troll. I have many times seen accounts that go out of their way to farm for downvotes, and that kind of content brings everyone down with it.
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Ngl I laughed at this, everyone knows votes are public, but actually calling someone out? Pathetic. But since you’re not pulling any punches, I’ll tell you why your comment is useless fodder.
This is an endemic problem on Lemmy
This shows you have little experience in internet fora, small or poorly moderated communities are not a lemmy problem but on every corner of the internet. It also shows you are actively missing the point of lemmy, make your own corner, make it interesting and people will come. You don’t agree with the admins of a community? Others will too so actually put in the effort yourself. But you don’t want that, you want a large platform of your likeminded people. Then use that platform ffs. And meanwhile, slow and steady your niche will have better representation on lemmy as well.
There’s no point in trying to build a community with a very hostile environment for anything that doesn’t align with the very odd hostile-against-everything-not-OSS zeitgeist.
Curate your feed, you own an instance, use it and defederate from instances you don’t like. Don’t like any? Then get off lemmy instead of being so petty because you thought lemmy was an exact drop in replacement for reddit. So please, leave the door open on your way out, so people who have actual value to contribute can come in.
Edit: Ofcourse they delete their comment lmao
You like Discord?! Kill him!
This place is insufferable
What do you mean my lurking? You posted 5 times today and apart from a 2 week break you took (vacation?) you at least post daily and amassed 600+ comments in 10 Month.
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Yes you can. It’s a tradeoff/balance and not limited to just Apple (see neurodivergent, women, trans- oriented communities). If you gatekeep too hard then you lose out on vibrant discussion and it’s a ghost town. If it’s too popular on All then you get many of the same “popular” narratives being voted up, lots of arguing and so on.
I try to be aware of the community I’m on before commenting and follow in spirit. So I try to keep my opinions relatively brief in areas I’m not involved in.
Anyone else feel me on this? I imagine this is a problem for other communities on Lemmy as well.
Ok, I’ll bite … as always, it’s a problem with too little content on Lemmy. Certain other social media platforms have so much content that you have to stay in your lane if you’re going to follow it all. However Lemmy is still too small for many specialized communities. Of course many of us will just browse all. The answer, as always, is continued growth.
Circling back to the Community’s purpose, I dislike the frequent logouts in Lemmy. I don’t know if there’s something about browsing from iPad on Safari, but sometimes it’s just too annoying to keep logging in again, so I’m stuck browsing all until something warrants a reply.
I vaguely remember a privacy thing that IOS would periodically modify its appearance online to reduce tracking: could we be running afoul of that? Granted, it’s a pretty vague memory that I’m clutching at
Ok, I’ll bite … as always, it’s a problem with too little content on Lemmy. Certain other social media platforms have so much content that you have to stay in your lane if you’re going to follow it all. However Lemmy is still too small for many specialized communities. Of course many of us will just browse all.
Indeed, I also browse all. I don’t own any apple devices and will probably not own any in the future as I have a strong dislike against Apple, but yet here I am. We’ll get enough traffic some day, but not right now
Lemmy is full of Linux and Windows users that are very anti-Apple. While I can appreciate constructive criticism from Apple users, I find it pretty annoying when these other folks drop in on threads and just spew nonsense.
Lemmy is full of people that feel they are owed stuff for free. And, I mean, it’s working out for them so far, so I understand why they would consider Apple products waste of money.
100%
I’m fine with Apple getting criticism. It’s often deserved, but what really sets me off is the vitriol commenters direct at users instead of the company. F me for liking my working environment as much as you do yours.
Yeah, I’ve run into this before as well. I had a post I made in the standard notes community about a sale get down voted…
I made another post asking what happened and that’s how I found out it was down voted by a bunch of people that weren’t even part of the community because “it looked like an ad on their feed.”
I also had some user error on my part when I added the Zed RSS feed to Auto Post Bot without taking enough precautions to make sure it wasn’t going to post ancient stuff… Got some pretty heavy down votes presumably because it took about a page and a half of the “all” feed. I cleaned things up within 15 minutes, but it was definitely like “man, can I just not deal with people that aren’t even community members?”
Don’t get me wrong their frustration was valid, I screwed up, but also… I just don’t understand browsing all.
Anyone else feel me on this? I imagine this is a problem for other communities on Lemmy as well.
Yes. 100%. It’s always combative, condescending, and rarely, if ever, from actual enthusiasts. Just the other day, someone started a comment with “I have never liked Apple after the bullshit it pulled with iTunes” talking about the iPhone and suggesting that he was a counter-example to people switching to iPhone from Android. He’s openly admitting that he has a bias against Apple that existed before the iPhone was even released and yet, for some reason, felt the need to participate in an “Apple enthusiast” discussion.
Apple obviously doesn’t do everything right but the amount of engagement here from people who don’t use Apple products is far too high for an enthusiast community. It would be like someone going into a community for motorcycle enthusiasts and constantly talking about how cars are better and safer.
That is such a weird behaviour, and I see it in a lot of places. Especially in gameing where you have people go " I haven’t touched this game serie sense the second game in the 90’s, but this new thing in the latest game sucks. Just like the entire series has doen sense the third game was released " and this is even in a community for the LATEST game not the entire series.
It is so common to see and it is so weird.
I feel like you’re describing something that I regularly see as a fan of some of the Assassin’s Creed games. I’m a patient gamer and am just now getting to the newer ones having finished Black Flag recently. For every game so far, I’ve seen what you’re describing.
I own a ton of Apple products and I’m rooting for the DOJ
I’m rooting for the DOJ because even the underdogs need some supporter too. DOJ giving themselves a pat on the back about their Microsoft Antitrust case tells me all I need to know where this whole thing would go — and if it is not clear: no where.
Overall i think it increases engagement which in turn keeps people motivated to continue to post here. As long as I can keep getting timely news and advice, I’m all for it. I don’t use apple products because I want validation from fediversers; I use them because they are the best devices for my use cases.
Other people are free to disagree. It doesn’t cost me anything to just keep scrolling if I see Apple “hate mail”.
It’s annoying sometimes, but it’s also pretty easy to recognize and ignore. Usually some variation of “you can’t even XYZ in OSX and that’s been a feature of whatever-I-use forever.”
Vague? Check. Outdated Nomenclature? Check. Circlejerk Popular Opinion on Lemmy? Oh that’s a big check.
I’m getting good enough at it now that I usually don’t even need to read half the comment before knowing it’s going to be worthless, downvote it, and move on.
Here’s hoping for better mod tools and a more diverse set of users as time passes. I’d love to get back to arguing that making all the ports on the MacBook Pro Thunderbolt ports was a way better idea than kowtowing to photographers who can’t be arsed to update their habits is (spoiler, I lose and get downvoted but still think I’m right), but I can wait.
In my household we use only iPhones, Macs, Apple TV, AirPods, Apple Watch etc. I use their products because I find them better than the alternatives. I also contribute plenty of posts critical of Apple here. I want them to do better because they’re very hostile to consumers and developers.
Absolutely. I’ve come to realize that you just can’t have a positively minded, widely federated community on Lemmy about something the majority of active users across the system feel negatively about. It’s a shame, but I might just end up filtering the community and waiting for better times.
The problem is probably more that there’s so little content on Lemmy right now. That means most people are browsing /all, so you get more people that aren’t part of this community, and therefore more dissidents.
The c/Apple threads get seen by more people that aren’t necessarily interested in seeing it because they don’t get lost in the noise like they would on Reddit.
As much as this is the right thing to do — I’ve revoked my subscription on several world news communities myself, so I am no saint here — by withdrawing from communities on subjects we actually care about, we reduce the chance of steering content in the positive direction, thereby stifling growth and contributes to the downward spiral vicious cycle. This is also exacerbated by the very toxic “go find your own instance” mindset these people bear, which is what’s driving communities to their demise.
Sadly, the amount of activity on Lemmy reflects this decline. Only the active user count is showing any signs of positive movement due to it being masked from the change in stats counting in the new version, which makes it look like there are more active users than there actually is. The instances count and post count are all going downhill and less and less people will interact because of the toxic behaviours.
