I run a few groups, like @fediversenews@venera.social, mostly on Friendica. It’s okay, but Friendica resembles Facebook Groups more than Reddit. I also like the moderation options that Lemmy has.
Currently, I’m testing jerboa, which is an Android client for Lemmy. It’s in alpha, has a few hiccups, but it’s coming along nicely.
Personally, I hope the #RedditMigration spurs adoption of more Fediverse server software. And I hope Mastodon users continue to interact with Lemmy and Kbin.
All that said, as a mod of a Reddit community (r/Sizz) I somewhat regret giving Reddit all that content. They have nerve charging so much for API access!
Hopefully, we can build a better version of social media that focuses on protocols, not platforms.
I like it and was able to adapt easily, but some of the UI is terrible (and I mean this in a constructive way), specifically:
- Page weight is too high, when I use back/forward or switch tabs on mobile my browser has to do a full refresh. Tildes and kbin are very lightweight by comparison, not sure what the JS code of Lemmy/Beehaw are doing to cause this issue.
- Adding new subs is confusing, but mostly because the “Subscribe” button is hidden by default when you visit a community on another instance.
- The process of subscribing is convoluted You 1. visit an instance, 2. find a community, 3. copy the url,4. go back to your community, 5. past it, 6. open the search link in your instance, then 7. click subscribe and wait a little. It feels like that can be streamlined or something.
- Loading “All” is slow, I understand why, but the UI should do something to explain it to me instead of popping in posts.
But, the discussion seems good, the actual UI is reminiscent of old reddit so I’m happy, and I’m surprised how easy it is to discuss things across instances.
As others have said, I need it to not act like a Twitter feed and constantly update, pushing stories down the page as new ones come in even while I’m trying to read the existing ones. I suspect that fixing this will also make returning to the page from a followed link not send me back to the top, because that is really annoying. Navigation is also a bit clunky at the moment, and it’s still hard to switch to a new community without going all the way back to the main page. I feel like the negatives are outweighed by the positives however, and I’m really starting to like this place…
I also wonder/hope if specialized Lemmy apps can paper over friction issues like these. For example i know that RedReader prefers viewing the cache of pages if recent
It’s looking great! I joined just 2 days ago and the communities I subscribed to are already looking much more lively today. Thanks, Reddit blackout!
Also written in Rust, btw :)
How do you know something is developed with Rust?
Don’t worry, the devs will tell you.
I’ve also found this to be true with Julia devs
Source: am Julia dev
Check the GitHub! It’s linked at the bottom of the web page (“Code”)
Weirdly enough the fact that it’s written in rust is why I am using it instead of kbin (PHP)
PHP!? They’re writing the shiny new thing in the joke language from r/ProgrammerHumor?
Exactly right?
To the average Redditor I guess its fine, but to me its unacceptable haha.
Repo link: https://github.com/ernestwisniewski/kbin
Welp, I guess I chose right after all.
There is:
- The right choice
- The other choice (PHP)
- The wrong choice (PHP)
What makes rust so special?
God damn! Okay now I’m fully behind it
Fast because it’s pointer-based like C/C++, but better because it’s memory safe, which means it won’t crash, leak or mysteriously overwrite it’s own data constantly.
I’d say that it’s fast because it’s compiled to machine code and doesn’t use garbage collection. But I see what you mean with “pointer-based”.
Rust is a very good language but is relatively new on the scene so it has to compete against other languages that fit the same niche(primarily C++) that have been around a lot longer.
Rust has been very popular for hobby projects for a while but it’s still pretty rare to see it for larger projects, and you still almost never see it for enterprise projects. So it’s cool seeing an app that uses it blow up.
It should be noted that while Rust is rarely used, some very big players are pushing it. E.g. last year Microsoft Azure’s CEO tweeted that “it’s time to halt starting any new projects in C/C++ and use Rust for those scenarios where a non-GC language is required”, Windows contains some Rust code now and the Linux kernel also supports Rust in addition to C since December.
I am enjoying actual discussions and not just hot takes or rants. I don’t care if the platform is “perfect”. It’s good enough for me. The admins aren’t some corporation just looking for pavlovian click labor (‘likes’ and upvotes) to power their algorithm run ad fest.
Same. The biggest difference here for me is the culture, and I’ll take good community over good tech any day of the week. Especially since the latter is so much easier to fix.
For wide spread adoption there are a lot of issues with the fediverse. The main one is the home pages of fediverse instances or join-X.org sites immediately turn people away with their language, jargon and content. Nobody cares about the open source licence, or how it’s “federated” or what the developers can do, or that you can run your own server or what languages and frameworks it’s built on etc. These all will turn people away. Literally the first sentence on join-lemmy is “Lemmy is a selfhosted social link aggregation and discussion platform”. Nobody wants to self host anything (well I do, but near to 100% of people don’t). Then there are screen shots of code diff’s and actual code, then a list of programming languages, then some Latin with hard to see ‘mod tools’, and then at the end back to self hosting “With Lemmy, you can easily host your own server, and all these servers are federated”. None of this is enticing people in. It’s turning people away.
These entrances to the fediverse should be about community, discussions, engagement etc. That’s what people want to sign up for and start participating. Just get them signed up. Once they’re in they can learn about the other benefits and that they can move the profile to different servers, or whathaveyou. Keep all the other bumf hidden away behind a “benefits” link.
Someone needs to come up with better terminology to fediverse and federated to avoid having to explain it all the time. It’s federated… You know… Like email. Well I’ve used email a long time and nobody has ever called it federated or used that term before when talking about any aspect of email - and I run my own email server.
Tl:dr: just cut the crap and make on-boarding easier. Dont let developers dictate the content of the homepage.
Dont let developers dictate the content of the homepage.
I get the sentiment, but who is going to do it? just as the developers are donating their time, there will need to be community minded folks doing the same.
Lemmy doesn’t have a marketing budget to spend on a community manager.
There are a couple issues open on join-lemmy’s github - https://github.com/LemmyNet/joinlemmy-site/issues, but not a lot in the way of contributing to fix it.
I mean, I get for a lot of people it’s not user friendly, but ultimately Lemmy is not some start up that has to grab a market share quick. If no one contributes better documentation, perhaps there won’t be a high enough adoption rate, but that’s ok for Lemmy.
“Lemmy is a selfhosted social link aggregation and discussion platform”
Okay seriously, this was my first issue. Someone on Reddit recommended Lemmy to me and I saw that and immediately went back to them and was like “WTF?”.
I do agree that for the average user, its not as easy as “lol funny cat gifs and memes are here, just make an account”
Reddit was much more easy for user adoption
Lemmy: Front pages of the internet
Finding a good analogy is hard. But at the risk of sounding like a snob, a little barrier to entry isn’t always a bad thing…
The thought of trying to explain this to one of our users (helpdesk monke). No thanks…
A barrier to entry might be a life and death issue for Lemmy.
Lemmy was not created last week, man. All you see here today already existed and was running when spez hit the fan.
In that sense, part of what attracts me to this is a bit of the barrier to entry. I find it enticing, it reminds me of the good old days, where you had to earn your way in, in a sense. Of course that’s silly old man talk, because honestly, all you have to do is select any random site and sign up.
Lemmy.world, Lemmy.ml, it all comes down to the same thing. This “barrier” to entry is almost fictitious, and I feel that’s the ideal type of barrier.
Dead links don’t help… join-X.org
I’m working on this, but getting onboard is very tough!
I agree for the most part and that the front page should be more focused on what the user will gain or be able to do if they join and in language that understand. However, the first sentence is “Follow communities anywhere in the world” not bad at least. It should elaborate on what that means.
Some people of course really do care about FOSS and letting people know that or even just having them see those words/ideas is important IMHO. It could, however, elaborate by saying “social media that is not corporate controlled” or whatever that may make the point about it more clear.
In theory, I agree with you! A 100%, but the problem is that currently Lemmy doesn’t support migrating your profile to a different server. So that already slightly complicates things. So from the get-go they are forced to make choice. A choice which isn’t clear, what potential consequences are and the fact they currently easily migrate to a different server, obviously doesn’t help.
“Like email” is basically the same description I’ve been using to explain it to non-tech people.
Long story short, onboarding needs to get better. But that also applies for other Fediverse projects (like Mastodon or Friendica).
I’m not sure the ‘like email’ thing helps.
Email is confusing and not what most people use to connect with others. I don’t know anyone who met via email.
Trying to get groups of people to connect meaningfully over email didn’t work. Messenger apps did work as they removed user freedom to top-reply and break everything.
I’m vaguely interested in IT, seflhost a little and compile a kernel from time to time but email still seems esoteric and confusing to me.
Join the fediverse! It’s as simple as setting up an email server!
I’m not sure the ‘like email’ thing helps. Email is confusing and not what most people use to connect with others. I don’t know anyone who met via email.
In my experience it at least helps in the sense that, when people ask “why are there more then 1 site?” ? And up to a certain degree you use that to explain the concept of federating.
I don’t know anyone who met via email.
Nearly every business contact I have I met via email.
I think a lot of developers tend to massively underestimate the value of product management and good copywriting. Granted it’s probably a lot harder to find people with those skills in open source communities but I think that having a clear idea of who your target audience is goes a long way.
Enjoying it, but wondering if I’m missing a way to work backwards to find communities.
I’ll give an example - Sleep Token, a band I like, released an album not too long ago. If I Google “reddit sleep token”, I can see a few communities like /r/metalcore and /r/progmetal discussing them, so I can guess I might want to join those communities.
If I Google for “lemmy sleep token”, I get a bunch of random websites with articles about sleep token with links and quotes about motorhead.
Whats the strategy for working backwards like that on Lemmy? Is there one?
Its pretty much the same as old reddit, so it is fine. I am sure that there will be addons and stuff to bring back any functionality that is missing.
In terms of the community, it is hard to say - the same subs that I spent so much time and enjoyed so much are either not here or nowhere near as big and developed. I used to spend a lot of time on Formula1, Battlebots, but my account was nearly 12 years old and I had many that I used to visit from time to time for fun. Many of those are just not there in any meaningful way.
It is just going to take time to rebuild, I think.
Not a huge fan of the UI (so much wasted space!) but it works for now. I’m subscribed to a few communities but the content is pretty stale. I’ve seen the same posts at the top for a few days now. The “Active” selection keeps the same things over. I tried a few of the other selections (Hot, Top Day, etc) but there is this weird thing where it randomly refreshes the feed and adds one or two new posts at the top and then pushes everything down. Again, UI/UX issues.
What I’m really impressed by is being able to follow Lemmy communities from within Mastodon… e.g. by searching @technology@beehaw.org I can see threads and posts without leaving my Mastodon app of choice (Tusky). It’s amazing how it just works.
Still getting the hang of things. There’s definitely a learning curve compared to reddit. Been using reddit for 10+ years and there has been a noticeable decline in the last few years. Things are quite fragmented at the moment and unfortunately the majority of my communities are still only active on reddit.
What exactly is the learning curve? There are posts and comments, votes, and links. The icons seem very clear to me. Even the markdown seems to be identical, so far, except for spoiler text. There is hardly any learning curve for me as a long-time redditor and first-time user of Lemmy.
Working between servers.
Just simple stuff like searching, adding, customizing feeds. Clicking an alert to take me to the content will take me to a server I’m not logged into and I need to go back and find the same post via my own server to comment. Not the end of the world for me but likely a big issue for many potential users if the are use to mainstream social media that ‘just works’.
Thankfully the lemmy developers are aware of those issues and are working on improvements.
Looks like soon, viewing content will always be done through your instance and links won’t take you to other instances. The clunky way to search for communities on other instances if your current instance doesn’t know about them yet will get fixed too.
Multireddit style aggregations of communities are also being worked on
Plus these days there is a massive influx of users, once this stabilizes a bit all major instances will be federated and know about communities on each other, so many problems of discovery will get mitigated.
The biggest for most people seem to be the federated aspect of it… That there’s communities on different servers. So now you need two pieces of information to find the correct community you were talking to a friend about. Other than that… it’s virtually the same as the old reddit from 2010.
I think the learning curve comes from the instances. People got used to centralized services so when you say Lemmy they expect one website. Here you got to choose the instance first and then if communities are in a different instance you need to account for that with the @instance…
Personally I am getting it pretty quickly but I can see why its confusing.
I’m a bit confoozled indeed. How can we check which other Lemmy instances are linked to this one?
I personally think that this framework is better than what reddit currently has.
For example, a single instance dedicated to programming with its own various communities within it is a lot easier to manage and moderate than having all those communities (aka, subreddits) on the main reddit page itself. The fact that all these individual instances can interact with other instances (or not, if desired) makes this more robust. The fear a lot of people have right now with reddit is that the reddit staff will just kick out all the mods of the popular subreddits, instill mods that will obey them, and essentially perform a corporate overtake of all those individual communities. That doesn’t seem like it would be a problem with lemmy.
I am excited to see how this all plays out long term.
I think that as communities organically grow and the tech gets better, the advantages of the federated structure for community forum content will really start to show.
Until the programming server that hosts all of that content goes kaput, then it’s all gone, plus all the user accounts on it. That’s the main issue I see with the distributed hosting system.
That’s what worries me about this whole thing, it’s not distributed in any way and even a decent sized lemmy server could be run on some random old pc with no hardware redundancy, no backups, no way to recover. I mean it’s not distributed as in there’s no redundancy on that node, so not only is the content on that node lost, you r account and hence all your subscriptions on other nodes is lost as well. Kind of feel like the safest way in that instance it to run your own server.
I bet it won’t take long for ways to emerge with which people can backup and migrate communities
Well of course that can happen, but on the other hand if it’s not a distributed system and that does down then all of it is gone, isn’t it?
it is really annoying to subscribe to communities on federated servers – there should be a link that will redirect you to your home server. As of now I seem to have to copy and paste the community address into the URL because the feddit.de community search doesn’t seem to be working for me
I’m loving it. It’s like the good old days of smaller forums, except they all link together to become a reddit-like conglomerate, best of both worlds.
I do miss having a high-quality iOS app most, but mlem is certainly off to a good start.
I love it it because i don’t feel like my comments on posts just get lost in a landslide of other comments. It’s a smaller community but we have access to so much content through the fediverse. It’s perfect
I love it so much that I started contributing to the project on GitHub
So far I have no problems with 99% of what everyone else seems to have. It’s not super intuitive to sign up and figure out all the instances/sites, but it wasn’t THAT hard and I’m not planning on signing up too often. Finding new subreddits (for lack of the terminology knowledge) really needs to be improved - it took me well over a day to figure it out (but admittedly I was only using jerboa).
The only things that bug me are some missing quality of life features my 3P Reddit app had, like automatically making as read when scrolling past and being able to quickly hide/dismiss seen content. I’m not used to seeing the same articles over and over. Also, and it’s pretty dumb, but being able to double tap for up vote and triple tap for down vote. Don’t need it, just drive myself crazy since it’s so ingrained.
The only other “complaint” I have is simply the amount of content. I was subscribed to quite a few niche subreddits that fit my interests/humor well, and those obviously haven’t migrated over. The YEARS of help in computer subreddits or whatever isn’t here. There’s no crazy specific subreddit to discover with tons of content.
With all of that being said, I currently have zero plans or desire to go back to Reddit, and it really hasn’t been all that hard so far. I swapped out my homescreen shortcut on my phone and I’ve been enjoying my time so far. I’m desperately hoping that this doesn’t die out in a couple days/weeks/months because it’s good to have competition, Reddit is effectively dead to what I need it to be, and I have zero desire to give Reddit any money after their views on us came out (to name a few reasons of many).
I also hope the toxicity stays away, but I’m not that naive. And I’m REALLY hoping that people with more time than I have bring over their comments/posts so I can search for them here. Reddit was one of the last places I knew that wasn’t stuffed full of ads and bot-generated, search-optimized posts that made little sense and didn’t help at all.
Yes i agree with the niche content, i think as the site grows it will slowly get there.
Im planning on doing a soft swtich to lemmy from reddit, where lemmy is for my phone and just using my pc to acess the smaller subreddits for advice etc… tho obviously will just switch to lemmy if sub-lemmys are made for them
