General Discussion

It is very US politics heavy. And for many people, that is understandably tedious.

We also don't have a large enough user base to fill out the niche communities, which is creating a lot of little voids that feels like one big void.

IMO, a very noticeable percentage of our users are also arrogant jerks. The kind of users who only reply with snark or criticism, and never add anything positive. You look at their history, and its just comment after comment crapping on others. I have blocked several of these sniping assholes.

The jerks aren't surprising. Guessing many are jerks who got banned over on reddit, so they feel like Dennis Reynolds unleashed over here. A crowd like that can scare people off, though. Social media has a known problem of filtering assholes in instead of out.

Fortunately, there are enough decent people that I still have hope that Lemmy is not a lost cause. It's slowly growing, and some of the new people are pitching in and posting useful / interesting things. Reddit will continue to get worse with its unhinged greed and exploitation. So I hope for future influxes of more people.

I saw a post earlier today suggesting quite a lot of those political posts may be coming from bots or paid actors. And considering those post more often than not also carry stigmatization and faith-like views, even if it's made by actual users, I think it's still a good call to at least keep a lower tolerance, maybe avoiding the rage-click posts and communities and sticking to more informative posts instead.

Some apps have keyword filters that might also help :)

European here, I avoid most news, be it US or EU.

I created !yurop@lemm.ee to share light hearted and positive content about Europe.

So yeah, you are not the only one.

It is time to take refuge in the Subscribed tab of your Lemmy app or choice

I've been blocking channels and users left and right (no pun intended). Most of the time it's just bots arguing with bots anyways.

I come in here specifically to catch up on US election coverage. It's better than other news feeds I have. I totally understand why it's annoying but I also appreciate it for myself. People seem to be more real in the comments compared to other communities. The articles at the top aren't what I find elsewhere. Sorry you have to work so hard to curate your experience though.

I banned all mainstream communities because otherwise my "all" feed was essentially "trump bad". It's unbearable.

The problem, however, is, that once elections are over I'll have to figure out which communities to unblock. Otherwise I am going to miss out on pretty much all the content lemmy has to offer.

Communities should have tags or something that I can just filter out of my feed

I took a two week break from Lemmy and other engagement sources and it did wonders for my mental health. I'd recommend trying something similar.

block the words elon musk, donald trump, kamala harris, republicans, democrats.

i did it for the longest time.

Too much political content regardless. I came for the tech focussed discussions, not for reddit 2.0.

Luckily banning communities and choosing a homeserver that does not federate with instances I dont like gets me along. I enjoy the organicness and interaction and hope it never goes away. Also its getting a little crowded everywhere...

I did the same thing as you, blocked all political communities. My quality of life is much better now.

I filter out anything that makes me angry with voyager, still needs some added terms, but my feed barely has US politics in it, the odd one slips through, also ticking that box in the Lemmy website settings to block bots makes a difference.

I hope Lemmy continues to grow as other sites keep getting worse. That will probably help round out the content. I'm only too well aware of how widespread American politics is as I have dealt with it my whole American life. I don't blame you for avoiding it, and have only started recently engaging with it. Though, compared to other social media, I find Lemmy to be more mild in the intensity and range being pushed around the site. I expect it will increase over the next few months. As for advice, if it makes you angry/upset, then yeah, keep political instances blocked. I learned how to ignore it, but that took time. 196 is still pretty great tho. Hope you find your peace and enjoyment from the community. Ask more questions, and you'll probably find what you're looking for.

as someone kindly (not really kindly) informed me that I should curate my own experience here.

Delivery of the message notwithstanding, definitely do curate. It takes weeks whittle All down to only topics that interest you, but tackle it one community at a time and you'll get there. All is about the only thing I browse now - I've blocked a TON of communities that don't interest me, and the experience now if much, MUCH better.

I strongly recommend also using a key word filter - many of Lemmy's apps have this feature, and IIRC there's a "RES" of Lemmy floating around the web somewhere, but I neglected to bookmark it and don't remember what it's called -_- ...if you happen to know what I'm talking about, please drop a link!

Anywho, if you're tired of US politics in your Lemmy, chop it!

To bad there isn't an easier way to filter out posts without having to block entire communities. It seems the election has infiltrated all of them. I can understand how frustrating that must be for nonAmericans. An option to leave out posts that contain keywords would be useful. I use it a lot when doing a Google search.

As an American I block almost all political news content online except for my local news. I feel like that sort of content gets into everything online not just Lemmy, it's absolutely obnoxious.

Don't get your political coverage from social media. Look for reputable news sources. I block all the political communities.

Another poster suggested Piefed, tried it and even without an account much better. With an account, it's supposed to have keyword filters.

Lemmy made by people who don't wsnt filters.

I have the keywords politics, trump, Biden, Harris, Republican, Democrat, Israel, Palestine, and a bunch of other shit blocked, and I still see way more of it than I'd like. The amount of political content is fucking staggering, and you cannot block it all. I know, I've been trying for a year now.