Im joining in on the reddit ditching thing, and was kinda worried at first that i wouldnt be able to like use it the way i did reddit as it feels like a whole new place, but after engaging with posts and people and actually being a part of lemmy rather than being lurk mode all the time i was pleasantly surprised with how easy it is to become a member of the community, theres a reasonable amount of subs (or whatever the other word for em is) that fit my interests, enough linux content and shitposting for my liking, and the overall random posts made by people equally fed up with Leddit. (also i admit i used reddit a little cus there was this post on the fedora sub showing how to fix a sound issue i been having after a recent update)
Pretty great tbh. The tricky thing with being an early adopter is you kind of have to be the change you want to see, but I’m old enough to feel no shame about just barging into places and starting new threads as needed.
So far started two accounts on two different instances (I like to keep different subjects somewhat separate) and had really cool interactions on both.
Obviously there are a few UX issues, trying to sub to remote communities is kind of a nightmare, but hopefully I’ve subbed to enough that other people on my instance will find it a bit easier to find them through search.
great, i’ve really liked lemmy so far. its really the first alt big tech platform like this that i’ve gotten into, was never big on mastodon or any of the others out there.
lemmy is honestly a breath of fresh air. really great platform so far, i think it has very strong potential.
i still use reddit for some things, but overall i’m starting to use lemmy a lot more. great work from the devs, can’t wait to see the future!
At least on my instance everything is running fast, snappy. I like the clean interface. Haven’t encountered any major bugs yet.
The only downside for me so far is that there is not a lot to see yet. The only active posts and communities are about lemmy itself. Which is understandable of course but I can’t wait to actually get to the phase where I actually get to experience real content lmao
Oh man it has been unironically great! First day I joined there was basically nothing but a meme sublemmy and a couple of tech subs too, but nowadays there are communities popping up left right and center, and I’m seeing so many familiar subs recreated on here, too
Overall my past week of using Lemmy have been phenomenal, and I’m happy to say that Lemmy has become my mindless scrolling app of choice now
Edit: correct number of weeks
I really like it. The platform itself is great. The main thing that needs improvement is the onboarding experience. It seems really confusing at first, but I think that’s mainly because it’s not explained well.
For example, the first step of the onboarding process is choosing which server to join, which I think is kind of a misleading decision. It seems like you’re choosing what community you’re going to interact with, but that’s not really the case. You’re mainly just choosing who’s going to foot the bill for your network traffic. The decision seems important but it’s really not IMO, at least not for someone who’s just trying to jump in and see what Lemmy is all about.
Also, community discoverability is a problem, but I think that could easily be solved with better UX on the community page. (For example I think there should be a message that says “Looking for more communities? Try doing {insert instructions here} to find them.”
I love it so far,only needs more people
While not every community is on Lemmy yet that I visit on Reddit, by people migrating from Reddit to here, hopefully that issue will be solved soon. The community here seems way more welcoming than the Reddit community is too
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LMAOOOO
Much nicer than StackExchange too:
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lol, first time I’ve been rickrolled in a long time.
dude helll yes i also just remembered theres that stupid barried of entry on many subs which ask u to meet really weird requirements to participate… the other day i prompted gpt to say smt funny and wholesome (it was praise towards the aur(arch user repository)) and tried to post it on some linux/arch sub but the first 3 that came to mind wouldnt allow it, one didnt accept memes, the other had a bot which took it down automatically and the third asked me to comment and participate in the sub before posting… like come on man.
The barrier for entry for some subreddits is too high but to be fair, ChatGPT “funny responses” are low-quality content and should be removed.
I’m excited for the possibilities, but daunted by the realities.
It’s going to be tough to get enough foot traffic to start populating smaller subs. It seems like the Reddit API drama is the big break needed to hit a critical mass of users, but how many will take the time to figure out something like Lemmy? And are the Lemmy instances ready? It’s strange to root for Reddit to go through with the API changes after using Reddit for so long. But if there was ever a time to pay a bit extra for additional hosting resources, June 11th (or now!) should be it. If a large influx of new users crash Lemmy instances, and no one can sign up, a golden opportunity will be lost.
Signing up was not a flawless process. You are asked to make a choice about servers with little guidance on what it all means.
Requiring a 10 character password with additional character conditions is going to turn a lot of possible new users OFF. It should be 6 characters, with no conditions. Yes, it’s not secure, but we need sign ups above everything else. Users can choose to get as complex as they want, but simplicity should also be an option. If people later grow to value their Lemmy accounts, they can secure them at a later time. But extremely easy sign up should be the default for now.
Asking people to write an extensive answer as to “why you want to join this particular server” should also be suspended temporarily. Again, it’s about ease of signing up. We should try to get as many signups in as quickly as possible, and weed out the problem people later. After the possible Reddit migration boom ends, you can go back to application essays as a requirement for entry.
The web interface is buggy. The site will often “reset” as you are reading a thread, and the whole thread will act if “refreshed”. If this causes users to lose a long post they are typing, they might quit Lemmy then and there.
The community structure needs to be more unified across instances. It’s confusing that there are local groups as well as “multiverse” groups across federations, often with the exact same name. It’s a bummer that the communities can be splintered, and will have people not realize what’s really available.
I think we’re might see some weaknesses of a distributed system like Lemmy in the next few weeks. It’s hard to organize and get everyone rowing in the same direction with no “CEO” or clear leader. It does feel like little fiefdoms doing their own things, and that makes it even harder to hit critical mass.
In terms of content and userbase, so far so good. It obviously leans heavily towards the technically competent. Lemmy sort of screens for the technology inclined since it’s only well known to those who are up to date with the latest in tech. So of course it’s easy to feel like everyone is like minded and cool for now. But we need to attract casuals if we want vibrant, non-tech groups to exist and flourish too.
I’ve only been exploring for 2 days though, so I can be very wrong.
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Well, I’m here !
I have removed my Reddit account after 10yrs + 100k + karma and more hours invested than I would like to admit.
This time, I’m legit done with the place. I don’t like where they are headed and decided to give Lemmy a go.
So far, so good :)
I got my account approved and I’m good to go. This is my first comment of many, many more to come.
Good to be here folks…
Hey I’m new here bc fuck spez. There’s definitely potential here. Would like it to be easier to find communities (sublemmies?) And the app needs work but I’m ready to go all in. Did I mention fuck spez yet
So far? Lemmy is filled with Russian shills. I hope we outnumber them soon.
Joining communities is very counter-intuitive. They are spread around and I ended up joining lemmy.ml communities exclusively, from another instance.
We could use much more space for the text, so far the text is way too concentrated in the middle of the screen in a narrow column.
Now on the content I’m rather satisfied. It’s still a bit low in volume and if you compare to reddit it’s really small, but we will catch up soon. We should lower our expectations and start building anew.
So, first day of Lemmy and so far I’m enjoying it. I’m looking through communities and seeing what I’d like to follow or not.
Criticism (hopefully constructive) that I do have:
- I miss the random niche subreddit side of things, but I’m not sure if that’s as a result of lack people on the platform, or the UI not promoting that style of thing much.
- I am missing a good iPadOS client. I’m currently using the Web UI, which works well enough, but it’d be great to have a more native app.
- It seems strange that I can’t have a One True Fediverse Identity where my mastodon identity is the same as my lemmy identity and vice versa. I note that Takahē has started refocusing into more of an identity broker for ActivityPub and less of an online experience, so maybe it will be the one true unifying identity.
On the plus side:
- There are a lot of fun general communities on here.
- People are really nice, in general, and this doesn’t seem to be changing, compared to the histories I’ve been browsing
- I really like markdown as a way to post, and it seems to work ok from my iPad
All in all, it’s been a positive 24hrs, I might give an update after a week or two.
I really don’t like the cringe tankie culture here, hope that gets diluted as more people come in
Especially the lemmy.ml part was kind of terrible, I got into some weird argument with Tiananmen Square massacre deniers and the mods started deleting my comments, so the whole discussion was meaningless and left me very worried for the future of this corner of the fediverse.
Yikes. Are there people like that in lemmy.ml? Ill need to keep an eye out then. Still not completely found my footing in all this yet. Might watch a video or read something to better understand all this soon.
The history is that Lemmy was originally created as an independent forum for communists. Later, the devs experimented with ActivityPub federation and created the first federated Reddit alternative. The software itself is neutral and can be used by anyone, but the original communist users of Lemmy before federation was implemented are still around. The politics of Lemmy’s original community scared off a lot of potential users from exploring federated Reddit, but bringing more users and awareness to Lemmy will also attract politically neutral developers who can maintain a good alternative.
An alternative is not even necessary if the devs are able to leave their ideologies out of the software’s design, which I believe they are doing well.
And from what I’ve seen, the core devs have always supported and encouraged more instances to be created so that there’s a diversity of communities … I don’t think want everyone to be just on here (lemmy.ml) and I’d guess they especially don’t want to conflicts to erupt over communism (where in the past some facist or neo-nazi brigading happened and that’s why sign-ups require approval).
The answer is for some people to get to work and put up new instances. That’s what happened at mastodon and it’s what allowed the platform to absorb the twitter migration. We really shouldn’t expect whole new open-source and free platforms to just be waiting for us to get tired of our corporate for-profit big-social-platforms. It takes a little bit of work from us … either understanding a little bit about how things work, helping others, engaging, and if we’re able, putting up instances, starting communities and contributing back to the source code.
Well, that’s just not the case. Lemmy’s devs have always been highly ideological. The case in point here is their handling of the slur filter.
The basic guiding principle of GPL software has always been freedom. Free software has always been explicitly political, but when you put out free code, you have to accept that it might be used by people you don’t like. Adding DRM, such as the slur filter, is against the freedom and openness of the free software, even if the DRM is so half-assed as a slur filter that any half-competent dev could easily remove.
They changed the compulsory filter to be optional and configurable by community admins. They haven’t implemented compulsory features after that either, so I see it as a mistake they made when they didn’t fully understand the principles of federation and still treated Lemmy as a centralized communist forum. We shouldn’t hold those mistakes over them if they learned from it and changed.
Didn’t know about this.
But, from the cited comment on GitHub:
I want to make it very difficult for racist trolls to use the most updated version of Lemmy.
Fuck yea! This is awesome. Even if not terribly efficacious (I didn’t look into that).
And just to be clear: I talk about principles of platform and instance diversity … and you counter with ”what about racial slurs”?!
I love when anticommunist concern-trolls step on rakes like that.
Yep. Like there’s a good point there from a software standpoint and whether this measure makes sense once the user base and spread of instances and cultures goes past a threshold (especially on the language barrier, but not as persuasively as they think I suspect given the grassroots origin of the software). It’s probably at, past or near that threshold now, but similarly with the point at which friendly forks make sense.
But, “lets just resist racism as much as possible even with weird software kludges” being a problematic “ideology” that undercuts any claim to fostering diversity? … LMFAO!
Maybe put the software freedom and free-speech flags down for a second, look around and touch some grass.
Yeah, since the only true diversity is which particular flavour of a tankie you are.
I write about principles of free software, and you interpret that as endorsing racist comments?
If you actually cared about diversity, you’d know that many English slurs happen to be the same as other non-offensive non-English words; your particular narrow linguistic and cultural viewpoint isn’t the only one that’s valid.
@Andreas right. all due to developers: no one fucking cares if your into a dead political system. frankly leave that shit at the door. and no one fucking cares about a fucking treatise about their happy shiny place like beehaw.world. just…be excellent to each other.
Yeah, lemmy part of fediverse is full of tankies. There is even a pretty active tankie instance over lemmygrad.ml.
While I’m subbed to a few lemmy.ml communities I didn’t wanna make an account over there for the same reasons. The general inclination is a bit out of my sphere.
I think it was on the basis of you being personally insulting to the users. The modlog is pretty usable, so you can check why they were deleted
There aren’t really as many leftist posts on lemmy.ml from what I can see, but it’s federated with lemmygrad.ml, so if your account is on lemmy.ml you see all the posts from there as well. And because they’re federated, lemmygrad users can comment on anything on lemmy.ml, so that’s where you will see viewpoints come in that you may not agree with in news/politics/economics related threads. I don’t know if kbin.social has its instances whitelist & blacklist published anywhere, but there’s a pretty good chance you’d know by now if it federated with lemmygrad. You’re likely still browsing posts and comment threads on lemmy.ml but aren’t seeing comments from the lemmygrad users in those threads.
And because they’re federated, lemmygrad users can comment on anything on lemmy.ml, so that’s where you will see viewpoints come in that you may not agree with in news/politics/economics related threads.
Oh boy, I didn’t think about that. I never thought that lemmy.ml would federate with a cesspool like grad. So yeah, this explains that. That’s why I’m seeing so many shills.
We have enough numbers to build a “de facto” second main instance which would be completely split from grad, should we focus on one instance? What if we tried to start an instance from scratch?
You’re certainly welcome to build your own instance and choose who and who not to federate with, but if lemmygrad folks specifically are who you’re trying to avoid, beehaw might be a good spot for you.
Oh, and even if they’re annoying, I understand how federation works and that users from lemmygrad could comment there etc. and I can handle the shills, what I was surprised about were the mods on lemmy.ml which started deleting my comments. Doing this, they make it impossible for me to even try to engage in a discussion and show a different point of view to the tankies.
As far as I understood, those were people who had accounts on lemmy.ml, not lemmygrad.ml