I get it. There's some real jerks around here. Whether they're constantly argumentative, downright rude, always acting in bad faith, just plain trolls, overly opinionated on every subject, have the social skills of a Nausicaan, or whatever - the Fediverse is growing, and it's bound to attract toxicity in one way or another.

This post is mostly a PSA for anyone who's feeling like leaving because they're tired of dealing with things like that. I've been there several times myself, I know exactly how you feel, and I'm tired of seeing good people harassed off the platform.

Just remember that blocking is a very powerful way to stay in control of your experience. Be it a set of users, me specifically, a list of keywords, a whole community, or an entire instance: if it's causing you nothing but stress, hit that block button and see if that improves your experience here. Unlike the alien site, there is no limit to the number of entities you can block; you're in control.

Another thing to keep in mind is different instances have different vibes, and the experience can totally differ depending on the instance's moderation and federation policy.

In conclusion, your experience here can be what you make of it; don't be afraid to just block the parts that stress you out. You're not "creating an echo chamber" as everyone likes to say (often in bad faith) -- you're just taking care of yourself.

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[–] Draconic_NEO@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Make sure to also report the people you see being toxic, astroturfing, or downright attacking users. Many instances have policies against this and reporting them will increase the likelihood they'll be dealt with, in some cases permanently.

This is something that should be discussed more since blocking is not a moderation function that makes the platform better, it's a tool for people to pretend the problems don't exist. I'm not a fan of pretending issues don't exist, especially since I'm a mod and that would be insanely counter-productive.

[–] ptz@dubvee.org 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Oh, yeah, that goes without saying. Report anyone whose behavior warrants it. I'm just mainly reminding people that blocking can be a way to take control of your experience. It took me a while to fully appreciate the block button and get over my FOMO (in the earlier days of Lemmy, blocking even a few people would cut down the amount of content drastically; thankfully that's no longer the case).

Semi-specific (but still intentionally vague) example for "block" candidates are some accounts that even the mods are like "Look, I don't like them either, but they're not breaking any rules". But, in general, just don't be afraid to block what or whoever stresses you out.