I joined lemmy after reddit API changes, as many people did. At first, it was amazing. The community felt so alive, so friendly and welcoming. Obviously, the activity wasn’t exactly as large as it was on reddit, but I was patient, I knew more stuff was coming, and I was excited for it.
Unfortunately, this period would not last long. It would not last even a week until I got into my first argument with a tankie. I saw them and argued with them from time to time on reddit, but people there usually saw right through the bullshit and downvoted them to oblivion.
Here, it was so much different. They were all upvoted and supported by hordes more tankies. Constant genocide denial in China, support for Ruzzia, and somehow, for North Korea.
In retrospect, I should have left then, abandoned lemmy then and there, not really return to reddit, just leave both alone. I would have saved myself some sanity.
But I didn’t, which I regret. I wasted my time here, constantly seeing this bullshit, and sometimes, I didn’t even have the motivation or energy to argue with them.
The amount of genocide denial, dictatorship praising, and insane arguments I’ve seen in a month blew past the amount of this shit I’ve seen on reddit in a fucking decade.
I don’t see the future in this, none whatsoever. Lemmy will be here, but it will always stay a tankie hellhole unless you block thousands of people and whole instances. And if you do, the tankies will always just migrate to other instances to keep spreading hate.
You guys are awesome. Keep doing what you are doing, but I am tired of this bullshit and I am done.
Unfortunately it has been plagued by server issues - e.g. it hasn’t shown any picture previews for weeks now. I can’t view its internal community where this is being discussed, but that instance may not be the best to recommend anymore:-(.
There’s also dubvee.org but it’s regional, and there’s quokk.au but people say that the admin doesn’t respond when asking to make a new account (may have been temporary?). There’s PieFed which looks amazing, but many times I get a Notification but can’t view whatever it’s trying to point at for a variety of many reasons. Finally there’s the Sync and Connect apps for Lemmy, which can block all the users from an instance without needing admin approval (I have not tried either though so can’t speak to their functionality beyond that).
Though now I see calls for violence from all Lemmy instances so it’s no longer just the big 3.:-(
I guess we might have to convince another instance to block lemmy.ml if we want to have an alternative to lemmy.cafe