I must say, there is a general feeling of positivity on this site not felt or seen on that other site. I don’t feel compelled to be snarky, or jump down someone’s throat, or “doom scroll” here. I’m genuinely excited to find new and interesting people to follow and get to know.

@hcmarks That’s it exactly! The kind, civil character/culture of this community has remained remarkably stable in the 4+ years I’ve been here. There’s been some choppy water, sure, but that’s only because humans tend to get messy from time to time.

@hcmarks It's all about the environment and what behavior is incentivized. No wonder I find myself acting differently on Twitter and do not like it.

@rnv oh I don't doubt that there's occasionally drama, but you can tell right away that the dynamic is so much different here. Maybe because we pay for it? Or because it's still so small in comparison? Or maybe because there isn't a constant deluge of news/clickbait to sift through? Some combination of all three?

@pratik hard same. I'm still using twitter as a news feed, but I don't enjoy being there anymore. This is far more productive and enjoyable.

@hcmarks Definitely a combination, I think; each thing alone is not quite enough. The paywall is certainly part of it, but not for anyone who brings an RSS feed to their user name. (The friction of setting up one’s own blog elsewhere then feeding it into the timeline is probably another part of it.)

Its relative smallness is probably part of it, too, but I believe that M.b could be far larger than it is now and it would still seem small, precisely because it lacks the viral qualities of hashtags/trends, etc.

It’s impossible to mindlessly propagate anything. In fact, it’s impossible to do anything mindlessly here.

It’s more like a network of neighborhoods than a vast echoing room. For instance, there was one very grave conflict a few years ago, which even led to several good people leaving the community. But it went almost unnoticed and its fossil remains are virtually undetectable now. There was almost no piling-on, side-taking, endless rehashing, or other toxic exacerbations which conflicts like this lead to on the attention-economy sites.

Not every local dispute is global news. But if you monetize rubbernecking, then local flame-wars will become global news — and the “news” will simply be a constant shrieking white noise.

@pratik @hcmarks Thank you! And I agree that M.b is working on addressing some of those underlying issues — it is, after all, better to learn from conflicts than profit from them. But of course, a significant part of the responsibility falls on all of us who participate in this community. Every one of us who witnessed that conflict learned from it and, one hopes, became more vigilant of our own behavior, more thoughtful, careful. (Also, we all know @jean is a very sweet person, but I wouldn’t want to piss her off. But more than that, I wouldn’t want to disappoint her!)

@hcmarks It's nice to have you here. Welcome.

@hcmarks Same here. This place seems nice.

@rnv @hcmarks @pratik 😅 I worried initially that I was not the right person to be in charge of enforcing community guidelines. But that ends up being a very tiny fraction of the job.

I love this:

It’s impossible to mindlessly propagate anything. In fact, it’s impossible to do anything mindlessly here.

@SamHawken @hcmarks I tend to think that it is a combination of the small scale of Micro.blog and the self-selecting nature of the folks here, neither of which is a bad thing.

@hcmarks I can’t possibly add anything to the other brilliant comments in the thread, other than to say I love it here for all the same reasons. Instead of feeling agitated looking at my old Twitter timeline, I open Micro.blog and feel excited to catch up on what’s new.

@hcmarks Absolutely, I find the atmosphere much more relaxing than pretty much any other social media site. I think the other commenters covered it pretty well, but I think the lack of virality really helps 😊 Welcome aboard!

@hcmarks hello 😁

@m hello there!