More active hobby communities.

It's pretty good as it is. But the advantage with Reddit is that there are more niche communities, and those are the only reason I use big social media like Reddit. I'm subscribed to >50 subreddits and never comment. I have access to good information and expert opinion if I can be assed to look for it. Lemmy is more "stochastic" as in there are less people and less communities on here.

Not being able to downvote without responding, and unproductive comments (like pure ad hominems) being removed

Reddit had r/massivecock. The degenerate community here is suprisingly small.

If the shitpost community people learned how to meme, it would make me happier.

Let frustrated people comments happen without banning. Let us be ourselves, be legendary.

Without discussing food, digestion, or hunger: describe the process of eating a grape.

I struggle to remember the last time I considered any corner of the Internet to be a "joyous place". At least pre-2020.

Everything is political.

I guess the one thing I can think of is mods achieving nirvana and stopping preferential treatment.

Gotta have a requirement for people to upload an avatar when they make an account (and make the avatars a little bit bigger). Something about old forums seemed like a little village/community because you don't have to rely on "nametags" (i.e. reading people's username), but rather, you just know people by their avatars. I can still vividly remember people's usernames and avatars from an old forum I'd go on when I was a kid. (yes, I know I don't have an avatar. I'll do it eventually lol)

I do think lemmy, at least on my instance and the communities I have subscribed to, seems pretty joyous already. It's not fake-happy like instagram and it isn't doomer-posting ragebait like reddit. For years, I felt stuck in a social monoculture I didn't really feel comfortable inside of. There's a struggle here and some people put a LOT of effort into their messages to more clearly explain their side. I've probably "saved" more messages here than I ever did on reddit just so I can look things up when I get a chance or use for reference later. It's pretty amazing! It's the first time I've felt hopeful about a social forum in a long time.

[now's the part where I do the thing you said not to mention]

To make lemmy as a whole joyous instead of individually joyous servers that all despise each other, there must be a solution to the political conflicts between the servers. People who lived in the USSR would reminisce about how kind people were to each other back then and I think that probably would follow the same logic in online communities. To make lemmy truly joyous, we have to have a global revolution for the working class.

it already is

Copious amounts of drugs? No way to get all these divergent views to come to joy without chemical enforcement.

Hexbear.net is pretty joyous most of the time

The resolution of the left/liberal conflict. Anarchists and Marxist-Leninists have mostly ironed out our differences to the point of at least being cordial, but liberals and the left still butt heads. Considering Lemmy is never going to not have the left, it will require either the liberals leaving, defederating, or converting to the left. I know you said no politics, but that's really the basis of ending the toxicity that does exist here.

Everything is politics, especially the "absence" of politics. Would love to have a bit less of (USian) partisan politics though.

More non-tech niche hobbies, which need more non techie adoption in a way

slrpnk.net coming back oniline

More courtesy, listening, and empathy of the human. I have seen too many times users jump to conclusions, extremes and high levels of hatred in their words. Things that if done in person would also cause others to avoid the situations, but when done online we all give it a pass. I'm sure I'm guilty of this as well. 🫠

Niche craft, food, and game communities with lots of people posting/interacting

Far more AI generated image posts, AI written blogs, and comments from AI bots.

I kid. I kid!

A joyous place? That's a tall order. I don't think I can name any joyous places. Anywhere. Ever.

They probably exist, I just don't know of any. As a result, I don't know what would make this place like those unknown places.

Making it so when Mastodon users post here, they don't shit the place up with their @s and #s.

More people posting content that they enjoy to share with others

Boot the troublemakers out and mean it.

More happy memes, more people posting about their hobbies, more people solving problems together.

Maybe some kind of causal game.

Canvas is pretty fun, but it ought to be possible to come up with something else, something that other places don't have.

Could also attempt to do content competitions. Gamedev-jam, music composition, graphics, painting etc. Just use long deadline please. No shorter than a month.

Rocks and minerals! Collecting them, observing them, and learning about them.

Keeping bot posts at bay. Heed the bad example reddit set. It was once a good place until it was enshittified.

Imma go with "not mentioning tech or politics."

drugs