OpenStars

Not just good, he's gooder than that, he's the goodest!

PieFed's categories of communities / Topic areas does this. When I used Lemmy I never found anything remotely close to that, but perhaps the best was to (1) visit each and every community that you want to check up on individually, and/or (2) use New rather than Hot or Top... and then be prepared to block hundreds of communities that you never want to see content from, like sports or individual locations (cities, towns, stateships, regions, countries, etc.).

PieFed also combines all comments across all cross-posts, reversing the fragmentation effect from having too many communities split across many instances.

You all on Lemmy need to catch up!:-P

Reddit did this with multi-reddits. PieFed does this with categories of communities, Topic areas that are user customizable and shareable. Lemmy does not do this readily, although Blaze managed it... by making 50 different accounts, one per instance.

I presumed too much, my apologies. I thought you were talking about the "echo chamber effect", which is a topic of much contention among people who discourse about social media platforms. If you were simply saying that people like what they like and do not like what they do not like, then yes, that much is true - although in that case I am not sure why it needed to be said? - although even there, PieFed allows for more options to moderate such than Lemmy does, while remaining the same in other ways. But I am not trying to push you into anything that you do not want to know about.

Okay then to get back to the core of the issue and summarize: if you don't want to use something - a feature, a piece of software, whatever, then do not use it? It really is as simple as that.

I was saying that PieFed offers additional capabilities beyond Lemmy. If you choose not to avail yourself of those, that is entirely your choice, and I support you doing whatever you like in that regard!:-) But so too should others have the identical freedom. I am not debating that places such as 4chan (where anything and everything goes) may have merit or not, just that the subject under discussion was whether "Didn't piefed came with built-in echo chamber features", to which I was saying yes sorta but mainly no not really.

Mods on PieFed have one additional option beyond what Lemmy mods have: the latter can only "remove content" vs. "not remove content", whereas PieFed mods have a more middle-of-the-road option where they can choose to not remove content far more often, trusting that the automated filters will remove the content only for those users who have indicated their preference to not see such, rather than force a choice that affects all users one way or the other. To me that sounds like the literal opposite of the "echo chamber effect", from the standpoint of the mods, even though yes users can surround themselves in such a bubble if they so choose.

As too they could under Lemmy as well, requiring a bit of effort to block many users but it can definitely be done, whereas PieFed provides the option to use community-based moderation to achieve the same end, and in the process affects each item of content individually, while allowing users to not have to block other users, and thereby all content from them, to achieve this effect. e.g. I could see an icon for a highly contentious user who receives 10x more downvotes than upvotes, and choose to ignore that fact and respond anyway, or else be more measured in my response, or just read it and continue scrolling.

Think about that last option: I would be able to read the content in this scenario, even if I chose not to respond, whereas if I block the entire user account then I will not even see it in the first place? Blocking is a heavy hammer, whereas user labels are the gentlest of informational resources. Lemmy provides ONLY the option to either block vs. not block, both to mods of communities as well as to individual end-users of one another, whereas PieFed provides many alternate forms of nuance via tools that the users can use, or yes abuse, as they so choose.

More choices = freedom. More exposure of content is the opposite of an echo chamber effect. PieFed provides more choices to allow for more exposure of content than Lemmy does, which only offers the removal/block features without the nuances that PieFed allows for.

I hope this thought makes someone's day:-).

Also, conversely but similarly perhaps helpful:

Narrowly, yes you are correct. The comment I was originally replying to was:

Didn't piefed came with built-in echo chamber features, hiding downvoted comments by default and marking people who get downvotes with special marks?

I think in that scenario bans because downvoting patterns would be far more aggressive

Which is how we got into whether those features create echo chambers (as Lemmy already provides for as well) rather than facilitate user choices. I was pointing out how PieFed mods have one additional option beyond what Lemmy mods have: the ability to not remove a comment or post even if it is controversial and thus highly downvoted, knowing that they can rely upon the end users (those that want to) using those filters to ignore the content. i.e. PieFed allows mods to be more lenient, if they so choose, the very polar opposite of an "echo chamber effect".

Any system still allows for abuses, of course, and PieFed's all the more relies upon detection of systemic abuses. Although so too have several apps - I am not sure which ones offered such automatic hiding and removal features (perhaps Sync and/or Connect?) but its offering by PieFed was not entirely novel.

Furthermore this is an age-old problem: how to detect and remove spam while preserving legitimate content, how to filter pornography while allowing proper e.g. medical uses, how to stop cancerous cells while allowing the body to heal using cell division normally? Nothing will ever be perfect. Anyway, PieFed provides some features, which people can choose to use or not, as they please. I have argued that no they are not actually "built-in echo chamber features"... even while yes they can be abused towards that end of the spectrum (hence my original answer, "Yes, and maybe, plus no." - which was not intended to be entirely comprehensive, even if it did delve a bit into some details).

I see it, but yeah I also see what you mean: the scale of it happening here is lesser.

Keep in mind though that the default of collapsing or even hiding controversial content is something like 10 downvotes per every upvote for the former and far more for the latter (2x? 5x? I don't want to create a new account just to find the current set of defaults but those are what I recall from many months ago when I created this one). Someone could in theory put ridiculous values in the boxes to hide every post with zero upvotes and one downvote, but that is extremely far from the intended use case scenario.

But sure I'll bite: so what if someone did that though - if that was their choice, then stupid as it might be, and regardless of how it may leave no content leftover after the downvote brigades got through with their efforts, but even so, if someone CHOSE that for themselves, then you have not explained why they should be prevented from screwing themselves over in that manner?

Yes it could encourage it more - granted - and if it became a large problem then all the more reason to remain vigilant. But... why not allow the end user the choice? This is "social media", we are just chatting here! And if someone knows themselves well enough to realize how easily they get triggered and want a different experience than those of us who would leave that feature turned off, why should they be prevented from such? The fact that this is an "option" provided for the end user to choose from is the crucial difference imho, rather than leave every decision to the admins and mods.

Unless you take the viewpoint that people are too stupid to make choices for themselves and need to be controlled so that they receive solely what is "best" for them - which might or might not be a valid topic we could argue but I was ignoring it here.

And yes, people who have such controversial content filtering will not see... controversial content, by design? That's not a bug though, it's a feature? Really! You can turn off that feature - I likewise already have (it was virtually literally the first thing I did upon making my PieFed account) - but if someone wants such content to be hidden/removed, then that is their choice, yeah?

there is no qualitative difference for you individually if you find a particular user annoying

There is a HUGE difference though - don't you see how blocking users blocks entire USERS, while blocking content (e.g. an individual comment underneath a post) blocks only each individual item of content? It's a rather ENORMOUS difference actually? What if a user posts both politics and also memes and you enjoy the latter though cannot stand the former? Also, blocking is permanent, no matter how many years pass between the decision and later content.

I really don't see how the things you describe for Piefed would change how Mods react to what they perceive as systematic downvoting.

Granted that it is up to the mods in question, but PieFed at least offers additional choices that can be made - just as in the example I have regarding Trump and Musk, controversial content could be left in, trusting that those that do not want to see it can choose to filter it out, rather than submit a complaint to the mods (or admins) that they would prefer that such filtering work be done for them (bc once you see something it really is too late to unsee it). Here, one community can have multiple types of users rather than have to make a separate community to serve all the variety of needs.

Which drastically reduces the burden of moderation, as well as increases choice, and encourages posting content that otherwise people may be too hesitant to post for wondering how the community will respond, positively or negatively or neutral. In PieFed it is no longer about the binary decision to "remove content" vs. "not remove content", but rather connecting users with the content that they most want to see - in part, yes, by filtering out content that the users do not want to see, since attention is a limited commodity.

It's almost like some people have a vested interest in wanting to downvote "anonymously" while preventing others from being able to do anything about the result? :-P

Not just no politics but the ability to both have far less of it while still reading up on it when you want! Tbf a true "no politics" would be nearly impossible - e.g. is an OC painting "political" if it depicts an image of Trump?

The best features of PieFed are going to be in the web UI for awhile until app devs catch up. In addition to Voyager as someone mentioned, there is also Interstellar and several others, as well as a Thunder fork (but not checked into the main code available on the App store yet).

I am not downvoting you but your reply here is not very well thought out. Perhaps it is just your presentation.

It reads like a "you should smile more, because I am such a nice man" Reddit-esque position, where you should have all the freedom to do whatever you want - e.g. downvote people - but then others should not have the freedoms to respond to your actions in whatever manner they decide is best for themselves?

Perhaps indeed you would be happier at an instance - such as reddthat.com - that disables downvotes, rather than the freedom-loving anarchist lemmy.dbzer0.com. But that would be YOUR choice, you do not get to make MY choices for me.

Also, you are factually incorrect: downvotes are in fact public information, despite how the web UI client and most apps do not provide an easy means to disclose them. e.g. your last downvote (that I can see) was on July 27 for https://lemmy.sdf.org/comment/21688252. Anyone at any time can see these, with a tool that discloses that info, and it has always been thus, from the very beginning of Lemmy?

Although I hope you choose to think that thought through more deeply: why should anonymous voting (as you seemed to think it was) be allowed, and also end-users prevented from being able to do anything in response to it? How is that in any way "more" (rather than less) free, when one under-class of users is subject to the nonconsensual recipient of e.g. voting barrages - i.e. you get what you want but neither the recipient nor any innocent third-party bystander is free to do the same? In a truly free society, people need to be able to make choices for themselves - which PieFed provides to end-users in that regard, whereas Lemmy provides that choice only to admins and mods.

Do not gloss over that latter point: there is an enormous distinction between an "institutional(-ized)" echo chamber, where the tools or locality themselves enforces it - an example being lemmy.ml that infamously site-wide bans people from communities that they have never even heard of for comments made in unrelated communities, if they are even slightly critical (or not support enough?) of Russia, China, or North Korea - and the choices of the end user. People should be allowed to dislike things, if that is what they desire, and they should not be forced into using 4chan, if they do not choose to, imho. I can see why authoritarians would want to literally force people into viewing content that they did not want to see, but why would freedom-loving people do so?

Again, do as you please, but I ask that you allow me to do the same (even if I only speak on behalf of those who may choose to use those tools, I am a HUGE fan of their existence, in offering that choice to people for them to make, as they please!:-). As an example, perhaps for 350 days of the year I choose to expose myself 100% to people's emotional vomiting, but then for a couple weeks I decide to take a break from (waves hands) all of this that is going on in the world - am I allowed to have desires, and to make that choice? PieFed says: ABSOLUTELY, here you are FREE! Lemmy: lol no bitch, you'll take what a mod decides to offer and like it.

Sorry if I came across too strong here - I recognize that you have been under the oppressive regime of Lemmy and Reddit for so very long, that your position of what "freedom" is (the ability to make choices) is likely very skewed, as mine was too, but the good news is that you do not have to remain under that yoke any longer than you want to: you too are free! Research how PieFed.(social|world|blahaj.zone|ca|zip|au|dk, etc.) works and you will surely stand in awe of it like me! But if not... then that's okay too, I support your right to do as you please - though I would hope that you would offer the same consideration to others too?