this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2025
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Asklemmy
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I browse exclusively on my phone, so deleting reddit apps and installing Lemmy apps was the biggest step for me.
I primarily browsed All, so setting my default sorting to All Top 12 Hours was key.
Finally, I made a point to comment and post more. This is where Lemmy beats Reddit hands down in my opinion. You can comment on posts that are hours old on All and still have meaningful discussions. Trying that on Reddit is like screaming into the void.
Edit: I also forgot to mention that I upvote almost everything. If you made a post that I read and it's not complete trash, you're getting an upvote. Same with comments. I upvote almost every comment I read - especially ones in response to my posts or comments. I feel like it let's people know they're being seen.
Your edit is a bit like that in the Fediverse in general. Since there's no algorithm, liking a post in Mastodon does nothing beyond letting op know you appreciate them. I like that.
I hate this phrase. There are several algorithms. There's new, hot, rising, etc. There's no company manipulating content discovery. That's the difference. Algorithms are great. For-profit companies with an incentive to control content is bad.
In the Lemmy word, sure. I was referring to Mastodon where there is no hot or rising. It's just based off of who you're following and when you check. Hence likes doing nothing but informing the poster of your appreciation.
I guess fair enough, though every other federated site I know of uses some other algorithm, and you seem to have been talking about the fediverse in general, not Mastodon, except for the example. Still, Mastodon's sort is still an algorithm. You can't display anything without an algorithm. That word just means a set of rules to complete a task. Mastodon uses one that only uses who you're following and time to decide what to display.
Algorithms aren't the issue. We can have sophisticated algorithms that help users find the content they want. That's great. It's when there is an incentive, and ability, to influence the algorithm by the platform controllers when there's an issue. The fediverse solves this not by ditching algorithms, but by having no singular controller.
Oh hell yeah, me too. I browse all a lot (sometimes sorted by scaled) and even if something isn't for me, if it seems like something others would like, it's getting an upvote.