So far Lemmy is vibing. Everyone here is excited and optimistic and willing to put up with a few rough spots to be part of something.

When the Eternal September comes, which it will, how does a Lemmy instance deal with bad actors?

  • andobando@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Why do people care about preserving their “identity” and posts so much? This was never a thing in the old internet.

    • ultimate_question@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The old internet didn’t have an all encompassing issue with bots and bad actors trying to gain your trust, a public post history is basically the closest thing a person can have to a trustable identity online, it’s not a perfect solution but it helps

      • andobando@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I am not sure I follow. I don’t see where trust comes in when you’re just reading random people’s posts. I guess if you wanted to do moderation or something. But I know a lot of people including myself purposely delete their reddit account and start over.

        • ultimate_question@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          if I’m unable to detect the tone or intentions of a comment I’ll check that user’s posts to get an idea, if someone has a history of not being an asshole I’m much more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt or want to engage with them. it also helps ID spam accounts

        • Ozymati@lemmy.nz
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          1 year ago

          Hey this person is talking about this subject I have just heard of. I will at some point need to go validate their information but as a shortcut I can go look at their profile and see that they are well respected in communities dedicated to that subject. Therefore I can trust their information.

          Alt

          This person is asking questions that sound reasonable on the surface - but when I look at their post history I see they are active in some much more extreme communities and I’m able to form the conclusion that their apparently reasonable post may not be in good faith.

        • [email protected]@lemmy.pt
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          1 year ago

          As for the moderation comment, I’m trying to mitigate this slightly by having an account with the same nick on 2-3 instances and modding myself on my communities on all of them. My hope is then if one of the identities goes away, I still have access from another one.

        • Whisipp@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          There are accounts which farm karma artificially in order to raise the price of the account and sell it to another user. Accounts with a lot can be used for branding/free marketing, as they have legitimatcy and can gain followers through having a backlog of activity. I’ve also heard that people can use this legitimacy for propagandistic and misinformation reasons, although I don’t think that can be confirmed.

      • andobando@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Really? I had my reddit account for 10 years, I dont think a single person remembers/recognizes my “identity”. With smaller communities people actually knew eachother. Your name actually meant something.

        • briongloid@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Sometimes when I am unsure about a post/comment I click on the user profile and if I see 10yrs / 100K karma, it helps forms my opinion and trust of the user.

              • RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                I blocked them on Reddit as soon as I learned you could block people and I guarantee if they come to Lemmy they’ll be the first people I block here.

                I’m using they/them not for gender reasons but because there’s no chance it was just one person running that account. Either multiple people or someone in tandem with a bot. And bots are people.

                • Space_Racer@lemm.ee
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                  1 year ago

                  Yeah blocking the superusers on Reddit is the only way I can use it. It’s insane how much a small amount of people will make up all the posts on /r/all

        • nictophilia@fedia.io
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          1 year ago

          I think what your_mind_aches is saying is that the mindset has changed. People who didn’t know the internet before social media are more emotionally attached to having one single identity online. Even if in the case of reddit it’s not necessarily linked to your real world identity.

    • solidstate@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      I don’t understand either. Not having any “social media features” like a profile site or “karma” is a big plus for me. I use my account for access and saving links, that’s all I expect.

      • andobando@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Really? I had my reddit account for 10 years, I dont think a single person remembers/recognizes my “identity”. With smaller communities people actually knew eachother

    • kursis@slrpnk.net
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      1 year ago

      Well it is not old internet anymore. It’s new generations and a lot more poeple here with lots more identies and wishes.

    • Ozymati@lemmy.nz
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      1 year ago

      Some of us have friends online and we’d like to be able to do things like continue conversations while still being identifiably the same individual.

      Also there’s consideration of privilege schemes where the access is based on karma, activity, or account age. That’s aside from the potential issues that could arise if someone with high privilege (supermod for example) has their identity vanish leaving a community minus whatever function they might have been performing (this user is allowed to send the bot commands, etc).

      On a personal note, not having to jump through a bunch of hoops intended to screen out bad actors just to access a community or group where you were already a member in good standing.

      Beyond that, there’s some people who really want to express their particular identity or brand online - for example I sometimes write using a particular name. If I could no longer use that name and not even access my account to tell people that, it would not help my audience find me or my back catalogue.

      Beyond all those things, having access to my post history means I can look back at things - have you never sat and looked at old diaries or photos from when your were a child? Or been reminded of some event you enjoyed? Or even just wanted to check something went down like you remembered it?