That user was literally banned from StarTrek.website instance for harassment of it's users, this is a textbook example of the problem with "call out" communities you are advocating for. They are more about creating drama than any kind of fact finding, let alone justice.
Calling out mods for what? Not allowing your brand of freeze peach? Personally I think Lemmy needs more strong moderators because right now most instance's "all" feeds are just another stale parade of "memes". There is a lot of junk filler, and very few unique communities that make the Lemmyverse something that stands apart from Reddit.
I would also encourage instance admins to de-federate instances that host your idea of a "community" purpose built to publicly "call out" users. It's toxic.
I have had similar thoughts, I think the answer ultimately lies in active mods that can really get to know a community and it's users and identify when users are pushing a narrative even if they can't confirm if they are a bot or not.
Also as @dessalines@lemmy.ml pointed out, user registrations. On startrek.website we have a question that is easy for a star trek fan to answer but not easy for a bot (although getting back to your concern, chatGPT probably would have no problem)
Some more popular games will have mods to make the Xbox buttons look like a DS4s buttons, buuuut if the game studio devs didn't create the assets then they didn't create them.
I'm with you. Tiktok is about as "healthy" as vaping. There are other just as bad (if not worse) apps out there, and the reasoning is stupid and has some first amendment concerns. But I won't die on the protecting Tiktok hill.
Oh, absolutely! I pay for startrek.website too. My point what that the Fediverse works just fine when people volunteer their time and money to keep it running. The only reason you would need a subscription is to generate a profit to pay the executives.
My point was that the Fediverse works just fine without a subscription, the people upset about a subscription are not upset about the cost, but about what it represents (or more specifically, what it doesn't).
I loved the constant pop-ups with offers for things I could purchase. If I don't purchase something frequently enough I get sad so it's nice to have an OS that cares about my well being.
Ah I got you, yes I totally agree. And I also do think gifs and shitposts etc can be shared and engaged with in an organic way that doesn't force out slower content, which is also partly why active moderation is so important.
Clickbait is a push-away factor for me. I’m not here for outrage.
I think most users here would agree with you (I certainly do). There are dozens of apps out there that scroll the same memes endlessly and trying to make Lemmy competitive in the marketplace for attention by imitating that format will fail. I think the best strategy for Lemmy-growers is to lean into the strengths of the Fediverse by hosting discussions and communities that the Reddit algorithm suppresses.
This is a good thought provoking post, but I think most of the methods you describe here actually work against the Fediverse, both in terms of desired outcomes and actual growth.
If a user comes to Lemmy (for example) and sees the same stale meme feed and engagement bait they see on Reddit, what's the incentive to switch? What makes Lemmy unique?
Of the users who are here and understand the reasons for not using commercial social media, most are probably trying to avoid the bulk of the sort of content made by the suggestions you give.
Growth-for-growth's-sake puts more burden on instance admins for reasons that don't involve growing a sense of community (presumably the reason they are investing time in the first place).
My point is that Lemmy can never compete with Reddit in terms of attention and distractability and trying to build "community" around that here will always fail. We should lean into Lemmy's strengths, focus on growing communities and discussions and the kind of thing the Reddit algorithm suppresses.
Maybe they just expect users to accidentally type in the name of a Lemmy instance into the URL bar? Is that organic enough?