Comments and votes are content too.

I see OPs point - fucking Stamets replied to me! Good stuff. Love it!

It’s really a mix of both. More heavily the way the site has been for years because people love drama more than anything else. If you want the sweet serotonin of karma, you’ve gotta be simultaneously the funniest, meanest, and most jaded person in the room, and everyone is jockeying for that position.

It just breeds assholes by design. I’ve noticed my own behavior has changed, too, since leaving that place, although partially that’s because I just didn’t want to be like that anymore.

But it really has been noticeably affected since the protests. I was originally trying to stay for one single sub I was in, because they were the kindest, calmest community I’d met since back when forums were a thing.

Just the best group, for reasons none of us really understood and some of us kept trying to find psychological commonalities to explain. Truly 98% of them were people I’d chill with irl and I still know a few on discord. And also here. If you’re reading this, hello!

But the migration away was enough to completely alter the atmosphere imo. A lot of the more conscientious users left for other pastures, leaving behind those that were more neutral or even openly hostile about the protests.

There began to be fights and insults thrown where before this, any aggression had been unusual. The posts took a turn that reflected that feeling and I really stopped bothering with the place after a few months. I’m still a bit sad about it and there are things that I miss, but there just wasn’t enough to hold me anymore. It seemed to increasingly echo every other part of the site.

For the moment, this place is quieter but better. We still get dumb shit every now and then, but it’s not to the same degree and hopefully never will be. As above, I blame the demographic. We’ve grouped all the people with stubborn morals into a little room and it turns out they have things in common. I do miss a couple people I used to see everywhere all the time when kbin first ramped up, but we run in different circles and they’ve gotten lost in the crowd.

And yes, btw, I am also going to name you one of my favorite users to see around. You seem as kind as you are prolific.

They banned those of us who were challenging the bitterness and hate. Whenever I’d argue against bitterness, they’d call me a bootlicker, and within a couple of comments, a nazi.

Eventually, I got banned from reddit for being a nazi.

So now that their “hey maybe stop being so bitter and take responsibility” nazis are all gone, they’ve concentrated themselves into an echo chamber based on resentment.

I’ll go to YouTube to support kurzgesagt

That would be great

Here, have an apple my neighbour!

Downvotes should be reserved for trolls, bots, and fascists. Everyone else should be welcome.

Definitely. Downvotes can be monitored by admins now, hopefully this can help

Well the simple reason is you can get stuck in certain world views or ideas which are wrong and hurt others.

In most cases you’re fine, like talking about your favourite TV shows or whatever. But it’s also easy to get stuck in a view like visiting your country’s instance and it turns out it’s a bit radicalised against immigrants, or certain places where you end up blaming everything on women and the “woke movement”.

In a lesser way it can get you stuck in toxic ideas (e.g., PC/Playstation/Windows/Xbox/Linux is better than the other one and you are dumb if you disagree!).

Just depends on the community at end of day, but the more echoey chamber it is, the more likely you’ll end up with those sorts of us VS them world views that are a bit blind and horribly biased.

It could also intimidate other groups out.

agreed.