There was a scientific paper I read semi recently that showed that researchers who post on Mastodon get much higher quality interaction than on Twitter (and I think a few other social-media type places, but it was mainly Mastodon vs Twitter). There was overall less interaction on Mastodon (unsurprisingly), but also that this difference has been diminishing as Mastodon grows. My takeaway is that if you want engagement, go Mastodon.
Reddits quality main appeal also is its past threads whereas on Twitter is rarely about what was tweeted but rather what’s the latest thing that’s happening.
Lemmy will need time and it might never replace reddit. But I look forward to the quality interactions with everyone here!
Unpopular opinion? Mastodon is a better Twitter than Lemmy is a better Reddit.
That’s not unpopular, that’s just fact. I enjoy Lemmy but it’s fairly new. Mastodon has been around for a while longer and is a much more mature platform with more QOL features because of that. Comparing them on that basis doesn’t really prove or mean anything at this point. Of course the teenager is more developed than the toddler, that’s how it works. Lemmy will get to the same place with time.
Twitter’s value is/was that it was ubiquitous. Everyone (important) was there and it was the only Twitter-like thing that there was. Even the Pope tweets. I guarantee you the Pope will never be on Mastodon. Not that any of us necessarily care about updates from the Pope or Lebron James or whoever, but your favorite journalist was, and the developers of all your favorite indie iOS apps were, and if you live in a city, your local public transit authority was likely there as well. Twitter was really the only place for microblogging type of content.
On the other hand, Reddit is, by nature, just a centralized collection of forums, which I think is far more easily recreated in a decentralized way. You already have posts organized into communities, now with Lemmy we’re just adding another layer of organization on top of that. As another commenter said, much of Reddit’s value is that it was the place where someone asked the same question you now have and so you can read those answers, but Twitter’s value really is for real time communications.
The issue I see with both frankly is search. It can be kinda hard with either to find the community/discussions that are interesting and relevant to you, but hopefully that will improve.
I guarantee you the Pope will never be on Mastodon
Doubt that. Vatican uses Linux, if it gets popular enough they’re for sure going to have their own Mastodon instance. When you’re a big org like them, control matters more than dollar amounts. A recruiting and comms tool that they own end-to-end, except for the protocol (that they can block or mod anytime)? They’d love it. Having a Vatican.va Mastodon handle if you work for them would probably carry cachet with Catholics.
You’re insane if you actually believe that this will happen, but also I hope it does. I reckon they’re more likely to change their position on homosexuality.
It’s not anywhere as crazy as it seems. The Vatican already airs mass in Esperanto, for example, and has done so for quite a long time. Just installing a docker image with Masto in one of their VPSes and setting up and auth connected to some other central services they also already have is perfectly within the reaches of such a small indie dev.
I read somewhere this is an upcoming feature. Let’s say you subscribe “memes” then you got shown all communities named “memes” from federated servers combined.
How do you find good people to follow? There aren’t all too many meme or comedy accounts and that really all I’m looking for. It seems pretty serious on there unless I’m just being dumb. I’m on mastadon.social
I’m also seeing a bunch of posts not in English, sometimes nearly half so that gets annoying
You need to follow hashtags and groups related to your interest. Groups will boost the toots and make them visible. When you follow a group, it’s like following hundreds of people at once.
When tooting, you have to mention groups and not only hashtags. The groups will boost the toot for visibility.
You should try changing instance. I started on mastodon.social and had the same problem as you. Find an instance that meets your interests and sign in. Then you can transfer your followers (only your followers, that’s not really good 🫤)
It’s not the server on Mastodon but the hashtags. Put in an area of interest and you can follow that entire hash tag. For instance, put in #cars and see what comes up.
Yes, follow lots of hashtags of interest, and follow lots of people that post stuff you’re interested in. I’ve seen it said before that once you have about 200 accounts you’re following you will have a nice volume of interesting posts in your home feed.
I really enjoy Mastodon so much more than twitter
The quality of the discussion is miles away from Twitter. People are nice and a lot less of toxicity. Mastodon is amazing as Lemmy.
There was a scientific paper I read semi recently that showed that researchers who post on Mastodon get much higher quality interaction than on Twitter (and I think a few other social-media type places, but it was mainly Mastodon vs Twitter). There was overall less interaction on Mastodon (unsurprisingly), but also that this difference has been diminishing as Mastodon grows. My takeaway is that if you want engagement, go Mastodon.
I highly prefer quality to quantity. It’s better for then mental health.
Unpopular opinion? Mastodon is a better Twitter than Lemmy is a better Reddit.
So many duplicated communities in Lemmy makes managing subscription impossible.
Reddits quality main appeal also is its past threads whereas on Twitter is rarely about what was tweeted but rather what’s the latest thing that’s happening.
Lemmy will need time and it might never replace reddit. But I look forward to the quality interactions with everyone here!
That’s not unpopular, that’s just fact. I enjoy Lemmy but it’s fairly new. Mastodon has been around for a while longer and is a much more mature platform with more QOL features because of that. Comparing them on that basis doesn’t really prove or mean anything at this point. Of course the teenager is more developed than the toddler, that’s how it works. Lemmy will get to the same place with time.
From a product perspective, I really disagree.
Twitter’s value is/was that it was ubiquitous. Everyone (important) was there and it was the only Twitter-like thing that there was. Even the Pope tweets. I guarantee you the Pope will never be on Mastodon. Not that any of us necessarily care about updates from the Pope or Lebron James or whoever, but your favorite journalist was, and the developers of all your favorite indie iOS apps were, and if you live in a city, your local public transit authority was likely there as well. Twitter was really the only place for microblogging type of content.
On the other hand, Reddit is, by nature, just a centralized collection of forums, which I think is far more easily recreated in a decentralized way. You already have posts organized into communities, now with Lemmy we’re just adding another layer of organization on top of that. As another commenter said, much of Reddit’s value is that it was the place where someone asked the same question you now have and so you can read those answers, but Twitter’s value really is for real time communications.
The issue I see with both frankly is search. It can be kinda hard with either to find the community/discussions that are interesting and relevant to you, but hopefully that will improve.
Doubt that. Vatican uses Linux, if it gets popular enough they’re for sure going to have their own Mastodon instance. When you’re a big org like them, control matters more than dollar amounts. A recruiting and comms tool that they own end-to-end, except for the protocol (that they can block or mod anytime)? They’d love it. Having a Vatican.va Mastodon handle if you work for them would probably carry cachet with Catholics.
You’re insane if you actually believe that this will happen, but also I hope it does. I reckon they’re more likely to change their position on homosexuality.
It’s not anywhere as crazy as it seems. The Vatican already airs mass in Esperanto, for example, and has done so for quite a long time. Just installing a docker image with Masto in one of their VPSes and setting up and auth connected to some other central services they also already have is perfectly within the reaches of such a small indie dev.
They are not duplicated (just the same name) and it’s not impossible to subscribe to them all with a few clicks.
Use https://lemmyverse.net/communities and simply search for communities and subscribe to them.
I read somewhere this is an upcoming feature. Let’s say you subscribe “memes” then you got shown all communities named “memes” from federated servers combined.
How do you find good people to follow? There aren’t all too many meme or comedy accounts and that really all I’m looking for. It seems pretty serious on there unless I’m just being dumb. I’m on mastadon.social
I’m also seeing a bunch of posts not in English, sometimes nearly half so that gets annoying
You need to follow hashtags and groups related to your interest. Groups will boost the toots and make them visible. When you follow a group, it’s like following hundreds of people at once.
When tooting, you have to mention groups and not only hashtags. The groups will boost the toot for visibility.
It’s a vit of practice with groups and hashtags.
It requires a bit of work, since there isn’t an algorithm to do that for you.
I’ve been following hashtags for things I enjoy. #gaming, #videogames, #steamdeck, #android, etc.
You should try changing instance. I started on mastodon.social and had the same problem as you. Find an instance that meets your interests and sign in. Then you can transfer your followers (only your followers, that’s not really good 🫤)
I can look around, thanks for the advice. Luckily I don’t post or anything so I don’t care about transferring accounts. Haven’t used it all too much
What server would you recommend starting? I joined mastodon.world and I have trouble looking for things I’m interested in to follow.
It’s not the server on Mastodon but the hashtags. Put in an area of interest and you can follow that entire hash tag. For instance, put in #cars and see what comes up.
Yes, follow lots of hashtags of interest, and follow lots of people that post stuff you’re interested in. I’ve seen it said before that once you have about 200 accounts you’re following you will have a nice volume of interesting posts in your home feed.
Use hashtags and search across all instances. Follow people who interest you.