this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2023
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Relaxed section for discussion and debate that doesn't fit anywhere else. Whether it's advice, how your week is going, a link that's at the back of your mind, or something like that, it can likely go here.
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Hi! I guess you can call me a recurring reddit refugee, as this is like the third time I try to move away from that site to alternatives that feel friendlier and where it feels like you can have more genuine interactions with people. I guess you can still have that experience in smaller subreddits but reddit as a whole also feels increasingly like a site that tries to compete with other popular social media platforms. And that's really not for me.
So I've tried other reddit-like platforms like whoaverse, before it renamed itself to voat and became filled with nazis; Empeopled, which had a really nice community, but eventually folded; Tildes, which was pretty nice but the level of discourse felt a bit...too much, for lack of better wording. Every post read like a essay or something (and not very interesting ones, for the most part), and everyone wanted to discuss about everything under the sun. I have nothing against that, mind you, but I also don't have much free time or willpower to do that.
And last but not least, Lemmy. When I found out about it, there was only lemmy.ml, so I registered on that instance. Even though I do lean left on the political spectrum, some of the stuff I read on there felt a bit uncomfortable to read. But in general, the site was friendly to use, the community seemed cool, nonetheless, passionate about open-source and libre software, which I also am. Beehaw, so far, seems to have all the advantages I've mentioned before, without the caveats...that I've also mentioned before. I know nothing is perfect, and seems to be even more true with these kinds of platforms but so far so good :).
Anyway, I'm a 34 year old librarian, who is interested in computer science, Linux and open-source software. On the other hand, I also love games and have been getting into fighting games lately, which are decidedly not open-source but I'm no Richard Stallmann in that regard. Aside from that, love reading (especially about history), music, movies and tv shows, namely anime. Also love me some good manga.
I'll probably remain a lurker for the most part but will also try and participate as much as time allows.
Hello, fellow librarian!
Hi! Nice, there's at least 2 of us now!
The predominance of the leftist instances worried me too. Hopefully since this immigration wave isn't caused by an offcasting of undesirables, it won't suffer the same problems as voat.
I mean, there's nothing wrong with a reasonable instance that noticeably veers to the left on the political spectrum but, back then, my first impression of this platform was being very passionate about open-source and libre software, which was great, but when it came to politics, it felt like an echo chamber of "west bad, China good".
Hopefully, this influx of new users helps with that. One thing I also liked about the other platforms I mentioned was that, namely on Empeopled, we had a lot of community engagement. Like, we had book clubs and music clubs and there weren't a lot of us but most engaged actively with the site (as far as I can remember anyway). I hope people can replicate the same sense of community here.
"West bad, China good" is definitely not what I'd consider a leftist stance