Ask Lemmy
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Content curation and discussions sounds like Wikipedia to me, and honestly most information sites. As basically everything on the Internet is community driven by a small vanguard of committed posters. I guess we can just call all websites with social interaction social media.
My issue is, to me, lemmy, 4chan, and old forums are completely different to Twitter, Facebook, bebo, Instagram, Snapchat, tiktok etc etc in look, form and function. But I think if we still are just calling them social media, and there is no consistent definition that also umbrellas most of the Internet, it seems silly at that point. Much easier to just not call lemmy social media.
I could also argue people calling lemmy social media are trying to be contrarian and get a rise out of people. Like calling cereal, soup.
This ain't Wikipedia. Nobody is just leaving their info and settling at that. Nobody is even trying to be objective (even if Wikipedia doesn't always manage it). Threads don't result in a single consensus reference page to be maintained indefinitely, but multiple discussions where everyone is making their opinions heard. As much as some opinions are highlighted over others, it's not collapsed into a final conclusion.
Be honest here. Look at Twitter and then look at Wikipedia. As far as similarity in function and behavior, which is Reddit/Lemmy more like? If anything, to me saying Lemmy is the same as Wikipedia is calling cereal, soup.
The difference between Reddit/Lemmy and Twitter is that it's based on subcommunities rather than personal feeds. Even then, Facebook has that too, in their groups.
It is social media. Some users just want to believe they are above that. It does get a rise out of them, because they refuse to believe it. It doesn't mean it's not correct, not only based on pedantic definitions but also how and why people use it.
Say, even in participating in this discussion, what is your goal here? It's not like this thread will ever serve as a reference material for the classification of websites. It's not even the main point of the thread (whether and how to join social media). Seems to me that you want to make your opinion known, and so do I. Whether or not you remember my username, this is social interaction. And by experience I can say the same sort of discussion happening here happens on Twitter/Mastodon near identically.
My purpose is to work out if Lemmy is social media, and solidify my position on it through debating (arguing) with people about it, I'm afraid I'm using you for my own ends 😉.
My point about calling lemmy Wikipedia is like calling cereal soup. I agree, because if we widen this definition to include Lemmy, we start having justifications for calling things that clearly aren't social media, social media.
My ideal is that we just have old style Internet platforms in their own box called forums. And social media can continue on its way with phone number verification, blue check marks, and whatever else goes on.
I suppose the actually productive thought process is to think why we need to differentiate sites from each other like this, and come up with a definition that has function without being confusing. I'd argue the endless debate and confusion around this topic, especially on Reddit, for years and years, indicates a poor definition.