That’s a good point. Part of why reddit became what it did probably is just the nature of the system. Points-based threads with subthreads, are definitely, like, a specific strategy for generating a body of content. It’s atomizing. It leads to direct replies to a specific person, which seems to lead to more fighting, and it commodifies posts into rated point values.

Of course people are snarky on Reddit and Lemmy, it’s literally a system where you reply directly to someone and everyone rates everything you say.

Compare that with a forum system where it’s just a single chronological thread and I can kind of see how it’s more conflict-oriented and less community-oriented.

So if reddit-style social media is the social media of bickering for points, and Twitter-style social media is centered around cults of personality, what could preserve that community feeling and linearity of forums in a fediverse package?

How do you scale a linear community?