It completely replaced Reddit for me. I love the project. It is getting better and better.
same :)
For better or worse, me too.
People singing praises, but it needs to improve, i shouldnt need another website to find communities; also the state of fractured communities with same name that dilute content.
Which is great to do, we can like something and want it to improve at the same time.
Better blocking feels like a priority for me because it would quell most of the defederation issues.
- instance only defederates from illegal content / scams
- users block instances, communities, and users they don't want
- recommended block lists that users can import (from the instance, from somewhere else, etc.)
Im going to say it. I'm going to plug sync, again. Sync has this cool feature where it includes a list of instances and communities on them. It's a very cool and handy option.
Which website are you using to find communities?
I'm finding new communities just fine via the All feed
As others have said, it doesn't quite have the user base to reach critical mass. A lot of my old favorite subs aren't here.
Also...the user base isn't as diverse. I used to click through to see the comments on Reddit to find those comments that provided fresh perspective, gave more context, or explained nuance. You'd click on some thread about Trump's latest legal troubles and get some real information about why things are moving slowly or why the defense made a particular choice. Or go into a thread about some upcoming video game being cancelled, or Google plan being changed or whatever, and get an actual analysis about how the financials don't work, or maybe how the market changed, or how some users were abusing the system.
On Lemmy, I often find myself just skipping the comments. They seem much more uniform, all just repeating the popular line: variants of "Ha, fuck Trump!" "Lol, Russia sucks!" "Company X doing this should be against the law!" etc. I can usually predict what the comments are going to be without bothering to read them, and rarely do I come out with new information. It feels much more like an echo chamber.
Part of it is just that there's not as many users, I think, so there's just not as many posts and thus fewer 'gems'. Also, I think that the users who made the effort to migrate from Reddit probably skew younger, tend to be more uniformly left-leaning, and a larger share will be students or programmers as opposed to lawyers or carpenters or auto mechanics.
The especially annoying thing is that the same thing seems to have happened on Reddit. Yeah, I still moonlight there when I run out of content on Lemmy. And the number of comments seems to have dwindled, and the viewpoint diversity seems to have narrowed there, too. Maybe the normies just gave up and left.
A lot of us have tried out Mastodon and it seems like a pretty great alternative to both Reddit and Twitter, due to the user base.
I do wish it handled threads better though. It’s still as screwed up as Twitter when it comes to that.
Even the memes here, which accounts for like 90% of the everything feed, are the same 3-5 ideas recycled in different formats. I agree with most of the people here, but I miss that I didn't on Reddit.
To add to this: there is a not insignificant chance that the posts you see come from The_Picard_Maneuver, every time.
This might sound weird but there are a lot more assholes here than reddit.
On Reddit you can expect some percentage of the people to be assholes because some percentage of the population are assholes... but here, heaven forbid you go against the grain of the narrative.
As opposed to reddit, where most of the people are nice and some are assholes, here only some are nice and the majority are assholes.
People are a little too enthusiastic about their opinions here. It's kind of not great. I'm just here to enjoy myself and pass the time.
I envision a reddit clone with a "Live and let live" ethos where the only voting options you have are "Meh" and "That's just like your opinion man."
I think it's a numbers thing. The larger the user base, the more the average skews towards being mellow/nicer.
That is interesting.. I don't have the same experience, at all. Quite the opposite really.
For now, I find it kind of boring. On reddit, I used to spend more time in comment sections than regularly scrolling. Now I don't really do that, because there are either no comments or the comments are the same.
When I started using lemmy with the default sorting option ('active' i think?), I would see the same posts for days, now I use top 6 hours and that problem is fixed, but lemmy now feels like a news site with comments. Also I am European, but it feels like 50% of content is some local American politics. I don't care about my own town's politics, so I don't care about that guy from Minnesota either.
A post from asklemmy hasn't shown up in my feed in a long time and I kind of forgot it existed, but looking into it, looks like one of the only interesting places here, so I guess, I have visit it more often.
Curating a good subscribed feed and community blocklist has been my trick.
Linux/FOSS Bros are ruining it for me more and more every day.
Not even with my comments, but others. I'm so sick of seeing basic comments extremely downvoted because "ThaTs NoT OpeN sOurCe".
Like a post a was reading a few minutes ago about Microsoft Paint being updated, and someone said it was Windows 11 exclusive, and the other guy said Windows 11 isn't half bad. The comment is super downvoted, because Linux best, Windoze BAD!
You're going to drive away people who just want to have a conversation if you guys don't learn how to be normal, holy shit. I'm a tech bro and you're driving ME away.
I think it's inevitable that lemmy attracts these kinda people. At least for me, I got out of Reddit not just because of the API decisions, but because I just don't like the idea of having 0 control over my services. The API thing was just a wakeup call.
I'd say that I'm "part of the problem" in terms of shilling for FOSS software, but I was the same back on Reddit. So it's gonna be my type of people that come in here.
Either that or tankies
I think many people don't understand this is the entire point of being on Lemmy. They just want Reddit without ads, but without FOSS we would sooner or later become Reddit. So of course we are going to care about FOSS.
It's the same with people who use Linux but say they don't care about FOSS. Linux is Linux because it's FOSS. Otherwise it would just be Chrome OS or Android.
That last sentence is so true. I love FOSS and tech, but there are cases where proprietary software is better, and that’s okay. Let’s be objective, not an echo chamber.
Discussion is difficult. This place feels like a club sometimes, and if you don't subscribe to the exact same ideals, you just get shouted down. I'm here for discussion, and dissenting opinions, but it just isn't allowed to exist here.
To add on to this; Smugness is rampant. It reminds me of Linux user Groups in college. More than half the time was spent shitting on Windows (Reddit), and if you dared to ask a question you were ridiculed for not knowing it, or people who put more effort into telling you to look it up yourself than it would take to answer you in the first place. I can echo the same club mentality as I’ve on more than one occasion described why a particular political idea isn’t viable based on votes in Congress only to be dismissed without any counter argument as “I don’t understand _____”. So there really is no discussion, it’s essentially just shitposting and piling on, and if I liked that I would have stayed on Facebook.
We need more kind diverse people.
To be fair that was true on Reddit too. And is true on spaces such as twitter as well. I think it’s just a symptom to anonymity that people treat each harshly and consider others’ views less than their own. There are just trigger topics you have to avoid because there doesn’t exist an online platform where productive discourse is going to happen.
It was similar, but on reddit there was enough people to occasionally get someone interested in genuine discussion. This comment chain is the most productive conversation I've had on Lemmy. In fact it's the only one.
It's a solid meh.
I came for a reddit replacement and instead I found an interesting subset of what I got at Reddit. And it is not better content or engagement wise. It's useful but niche, and therefore less useful overall than Reddit was.
I wish some of the niche communities were more active but overall I like it very much. It's my go to diversion.
It's organic, and full of Internet weirdos, feels like reddit of decades ago, except everyone kinda knows each other here.
Sometimes the reddit circlejerks do flare up though.
Meh. Its slow, and the politics are more extreme. I've spent a good portion filtering most politics that I can out of my feed.
It's alright here. There's enough to keep me off reddit and not enough to keep me on my phone constantly.
I LOVE the idea of Lemmy and the decentralized web and people coming together to forge our own way. But there's a far too high ratio of elitism, smugness, arrogance and belittlement to people that just want to discuss the things we enjoy. It is just really unfortunate. I don't engage very much, or at all really so I understand part of that is on me, but every discussion I find I'd like to chime in on is already polluted by assholes. It's just disheartening.
It's really incredible how many savage assholes there are around here. My theory is they're bots designed to encourage engagement by enraging us. It's pretty effective.
As one of said assholes, the biggest problem I have with Lemmy is that it's stuck trying to be both the Old Internet in which directness was prized and encouraged no matter how acerbic, and Comfort Internet for nonpartisans.
When these two crowds mix there's going to be discomfort.
And freedom from participation in politics is hiding in privilege to some very real extent, so in some ways I don't know how to be sympathetic to your plight.
But all politics is ragebait, isn't it? I've come back to this general feeling that we need more rage, not less.
The doctrinal conflicts on the Internet are yet to be resolved. We still have the disaffected rightwing types who haven't really had it sink in yet that they failed and their loser is and was always a loser. We still have moderate idiots who think that 'both sides' need to curtail their extremists.
It's an irony that one of the Left's strengths is dogmatism, because I do think there's dogmatic leftists here that I find insufferable. I didn't used to dislike male feminists as much as I do now, but let women represent women's issues.
In the meanwhile, the leftist dogma of No Platforming Stupid Rightwing Shit needs to be more formidably advanced.
I'm getting very tired of the privacy nuts. I get that it's important, but I don't want to hear about it all the fucking time. I also miss my city subreddit, but I'd rather hear about how Google's fucking me over for bajillionth time than use the Reddit app.
Agreed. Foss, privacy, Linux. Topics that are too high a proportion of all Lemmy posts.
I find a lot of the people here to be extremely bitter resentful people. But I'm willing to give it a chance.
It's good but it doesn't feel like there are many vibrant communities with their own subculture. I know I'm part of the problem. I've heard people say 90% are lurkers, 9% are posters, and 1% are content creators. I'm clearly in that second category.
Better than me! I'm the 90%, but have found myself wishing more people posted, so.....
I like Lemmy, but I do have some problems with it. Based on my experience.
All the big Lemmy instances is biased for the Left wing, like Reddit is.
If you go against the popular opinion. You will get dogpiled. To be fair, this happens everywhere. But I was hoping Lemmy will be different. So it's mainly on me for hoping.
The niche communities are dead or dying. This a population problem, but it still sucks.
They need to give us (the users) the ability to block instances.
Outside that stuff, I like Lemmy.
When you say "left wing". I assume you use the US political reference, right?
Just so you know, in a lot of places, "US left wing" is further right than the most (non-fringe) right wing party there is.
And as such, the perception of politics in the US goes from "insane but maybe a step in the right direction" to "absolute evil and/or destructive/immoral"
My point, which I'm not trying to make to annoy or offend you, but you might want to reflect on: A lot of what is considered "political left wing" in the US, is "common sense" elsewhere.
So, you running into discussion forums is not necessarily that they are "left wing", but rather not deprived of morality, and share a different set of common sense values of creating a society that is fair, the vulnerable and sick are taken care of, no one is exploited, etc etc. That just happens to be "socialism" according to Americans, and otherwise the full political spectrum in my country as to the nuances on how to best achieve that.
This is a weird way to cope with the fact that this place is filled with unbearably smug leftists. There are also a lot of places that are way more right wing than america. I.e. a lot of the muslim world, India, etc... I think it's telling you pretend those places don't exist and I'd argue you have a eurocentric world view.
discussion forums is not necessarily that they are “left wing”, but rather not deprived of morality, and share a different set of common sense values of creating a society that is fair, the vulnerable and sick are taken care of, no one is exploited, etc etc
Give me a break and stop huffing your own farts please.
"We must eat the billionaires. This is all the fault of capitalism. No wonder that's how they make their profit."
This sort of thing is 'leftist' everywhere.
Yeah, the US version.
My point, which I’m not trying to make to annoy or offend you, but you might want to reflect on: A lot of what is considered “political left wing” in the US, is “common sense” elsewhere.
No problem, no foul. We good.
the 'right wing' believes climate change is a hoax. you're struggling with a failed conception of 'both sides' politics. please receive a plot update.
i wish there were more people on here, i feel like i'm talking to a wall
i'm pretty sure i'm basically the only poster on r/hongkong and i'm not even a mod there (which would be a valid reason for being the only poster)
Its kinda lacking a pulse and the people here are no different than on reddit.
There were two or three weeks were it felt pretty good but now it's just reddit with less upvotes/comments.
Also, some days ago, some mod just deleted one of my posts without any notification. I just had to notice it was gone 🤷♂️. At least on reddit I was always notified about that and got an explanation (even though it was stupid a lot of times).
Well, yes. People are people, on Reddit or elsewhere.
There are fantastic people on Lemmy, just like there are fantastic people still on Reddit.
I mean why would they be ? Lemmy litteraly grew from Reddit people coming here
Well no lemmy grew from reddit people who were tired of reddits bullshit. But when they found a lack of witty memes they got bored.
Way better the Reddit, just wish my city subreddit would move over.
I'm glad mine didn't. r/chicago is cesspool of casual racism.
You can encourage a parallel/sister community setup :)
Some of these communities won't move over completely, but over time you can grow the more open & accessible choice
Buggy and full of loud ignorant assholes. So pretty in-brand with my decades of experience online.
Good aside from all the repetitive content. One of the problems with federation, I suppose. Someone sees an article they like and they feel they have to post it on every community related to politics on every instance they can find, for example. Mostly a politics problem, but also memes and gaming and technology. Okay, not mostly a politics problem.
I think the same problem exists in reddit as well. There's a lot of sub with slight variation so the same content will show up again and again because i subbed to multiple of those sub. (eg: holdmybeer and holdmyredbull)
If you use the browser UI, the ui will group all those crosspost together.
I think a good client could solve the repetitive content problem. For example, if a link shows up in more than one community, have it posted once with a divider above it saying where it's been posted.
I've been finding the same and have just started using the filter option in my client lately. It's not ideal but the alternative is that I get bored of seeing it and stop using Lemmy altogether.
I do worry that the repetitive content will drive new users away
I'm on kbin, so no client yet, but it'll get there.
It’s alright. Doesn’t replace what I got from Reddit but I also use it less and it’s only form of social media so that’s a plus.
The political environment is rough. Lemmygrad and hexbear are toxic cesspools, which is unfortunate because I would genuinely like to engage with their political ideology more seriously but it’s inevitably drowned out by… well… them.
I’ve blocked most of the top posters over there and things are much more peaceful, if quiet.
There’s still a lack of content creators out there, which is an issue. Growth is going to be a problem because, to be blunt? Lemmy is dogshit before you block all the spam, political shitposting, and those fucking Reddit repost bots.
Until the new user experience is cleaned up I don’t expect Lemmy to gain users on average. I’ll probably spin up my own instance in AWS at some point to play with it, or self host on some inexpensive hardware.
Tl;Dr: I get what I want from it but don’t see it having healthy long term growth
I'm in the same boat. I like it but unlike Reddit, I feel like closing the app after 10 minutes of scrolling because I either keep seeing the same posts or the posts have no comments to interact with.
Seriously though, they act just like the T_D crowd from reddit, but at least there it was easier to avoid them (and they actually started banning them eventually). I am legitimately convinced that there is a huge overlap in members, they never cared about politics just about being hateful, they wore a right wing mask on reddit and they wear a left wing mask here.
It's ok. Lots of very young people talking a lot about things they don't understand like its a fact.
There however a lot of fun when they give relationship advice to people that has been married for longer that they have been alive and acting like it is the same as braking up with you maybe partner of less then a week.
Kinda tired of hearing about Linux tbh
There is a lot of it, probably because the people tempted to join Lemmy/the fediverse are more technologically literate. I'm more tired of the constant "I like Lemmy" and "Reddit bad" stuff. I've seen basically this exact thread probably a dozen times already.
Technically literate and anti-authority. Good mix for being pro Linux.
Only a dozen?
I like the idea of Linux, but am not computer literate enough to mess with operating systems. I finally blocked LinuxMemes and that was like 90% of the Linux material in my feed.
I don't mind hearing about Linux - I use it daily - but the constant low tier memes make me want to block those communities.
Join other different community and stay in your local feed!
You're on a FOSS platform, wtf do you expect.
The people here are my people. However, Lemmy needs a bigger user base, and at the same time I fear that Eternal September
It's boring enough so i don't get addicted. I got clean from Reddit and I don't need another endless scroller.
My exact thoughts
Same here. I am interested in stuff people talk here but it gets boring when everything is about FOSS, privacy and news. The comment threads on Reddit felt endless but here they are much shorter which I would guess is better for having an actual discussion. So Lemmy is interesting but I don't spend much time on it.
I feel like Lemmy is on its way and its main benefit is that it's not as cynical as Reddit to EACH OTHER.
So many people on reddit gripe about the smallest shit, especially the Steam Deck reddit, that conversations become either you're with my ideas or you're against my ideas. Like even though you're just trying to help others play a game, "I'm insulting you for free because of the way you said lowest fps is 33 with drops down to 29. I don't think it means what you think it means." (of course shoving a meme in there because that's their identity at this point)
I clearly meant average, but oh here comes -20 comment score when I explain that.
I see nicer comment chains from people on opposing political sides here even though I know a usual reaction these days would be to tear at each others' throats. Lemmy isn't devoid of it, but Jesus at least it isn't like how Reddit predictably uses a scalpel on your comments to find something to complain about.
But I think this might be the result of tailoring my experience over time with instances I want to see from and communities. That level of customization is awesome. But it does suck to see so many instance drama things happening in a much more rapid pace than reddit.
I actually experience the opposite. Others have posted about it in this thread as well. If your views deviate slightly on some topics it's way worse here than on reddit. The Tech Bros / Open Source Stan's here are insufferable. There was a post yesterday that said it should be illegal for video games to not distribute their source code... And the opinion that companies should be able to own the thing they made was heavily downvoted and ridiculed.
Great for daily mindless scrolling.
Still has a ways to go before it's as useful as reddit was for searching for specific information tho.I love it tbh. Even when people disagree with me it doesn't feel like I'm being attacked. On Reddit it feels like I'm being attacked even when someone agrees with me.
Always loved those replies where they say the exact same thing I said, but are "disagreeing" with me and being very angry and rude about it.
I disagree with you, but I still love you.
It needs more memes and less edgy teenagers screaming about politics (that they clearly don't understand and take way too seriously).
Seriously I come to websites like this to get a mix of news and humour, not get yelled at by children who advocate for totalitarian regimes to "own the libs", I am on the verge of changing instances because lemm.ee won't let me block all of the two offenders at once, and I have to constantly remove every bullshit new sub they create, not to mention them infesting the comments section of anything news related to scream about "libs".
Literally they are indistinguishable from reddits T_D crowd, they act just as hateful and use the same language, they seem more concerned with "the libs" than any other political group, and they worship mass murdering dictators while being holocaust deniers / apologists. They can call themselves leftists as much as they want, all I see from them is hatred so they might as well be Trump Qanon Cultists.
not nearly enough niche content like reddit because of the sheer lack of users, but browsing all is ok. except the content on all is lacking too its usually a linux post, an old meme, or biden in some capacity.
ahem and the porn sucks
i can only use the reddit app for like 5 minute intervals so u can extrapolate what i use it for
The only thing I miss from Reddit is the saved hentai posts I have.
I like it. No FREAKING ADS disguised as posts/comments. I was late to know third party apps exists for lots of things, so being aware of lemmy has changed my browsing habits on other platforms i.e looking for alternatives that work or have a model that I don’t feel too conflicted about (which honestly makes me happier). It’s the right amount of silent and busy for me. I’m just hoping for elephant-obsessed people (among other niche communities) to exist/gain a medium level of traction (frankly, even a basic amount would be okay). I also like that its name sounds like LET ME/ LEMME (lemme do what anything I want as long as it doesn’t harm the next person).
Overall I like Lemmy, but there's also a lot of doomers on here that do everything they can to make everyone feel miserable. I had to trim out a lot of communities that they tend to infest, so now I'm not getting as much interaction and have moved some of my traffic back to Reddit to have enough things to browse
cough cough Politics cough cough
I like it, it's just missing some niche communities.
But overall, I get more response in "populated" communities compared to popular subreddits which is neat.
It's definitely not a replacement for Reddit, and a lot of assholes have come over.
Absolutely! I've noticed some unprovoked snide remarks and mean comments. That's something that I do not miss from Reddit.
Cool. I just really wish there was more people on [email protected] . Currently there's just one more person it seems.
That looks like a cool community. I really wish there was some other means of discovering cool communities like this one.
I just subscribed to that one. I dont work the birds often, but they are fun to work.
It's alright. It could definitely use some more growth, and it's been a bumpy road with it being Beta software and with the federation issues, but I've enjoyed my experience overall.
Growth and deep conversations is what I miss most about Reddit.
The posts where you have thousands of comments to read through where you could easily spend an hour or more just reading through comments of a single post.. I really miss that aspect.
With sync, it was a pretty easy transition from reddit to here, though there are obviously differences in size and functionality. Overall, though, l'm happy to report that I can doomscroll and be just as miserable here as I could on reddit.
Hell yeah! I feel like a chill new pub opened up in my neighborhood. I found a new place where I belong
I like that it is a lot more independent but I also miss a lot of niche communities. Overall I still like it a lot .And there really is no going back since reddit has completely gone to shit. I now take more time off from social media.
I've read 4 books over the last couple of weeks. It's been great!
Yeah me too I just read now during my commute instead of scrolling social media.
Yeah, I've just been doing more productive shit. It's nice.
It great for me it’s better than Reddit it has that small internet feeling
Like the entire fediverse, I also feel like it's much easier to reach other people here. What you write actually gets read. On Reddit, you either piggy back off one of the top comments, comment on a thread within minutes from it being posted or you are basically shouting into the void
It's no Reddit.... And thank goodness!
It aiight. Too many assholes sometimes but these kinds of people run rampant on the internet so I don't blame it. I only wish that the UI got a little more love but it works just fine.
What are you using to run it? I'm on connect for lemmy and it feels pretty close to reddit is fun on android.
I'm on the native web UI and Jerboa. Funnily enough, I'm trying out the other apps, so I guess Connect is now top of the list lol Thanks
Oh wow, I greatly enjoy the standard web Lemmy UI, it's so beautiful and wonderfully simplistic!
Oh, I don't hate it at all, it's perfectly functional. I only have the feelings that it could look better if a UI/UX designer went for the polish. I wish I had those skills so I could give it a shot myself.
I love how both liked and dislikes are visiable. Feels less one sided than reddit.
It didn't use to be that way on reddit. People generally disliked that change when they rolled it out.
It's good so-far, & I hope it continues to grow & improve. I've seen some communities partially shift to Lemmy, which is good, & I hope more of them come over. There are/were some thriving niche communities on Reddit which might be better served on an open platform like Lemmy. We already have c/vexillology for instance, but it's still relatively small & inactive compared to the old r/vexillology. I've got some stuff I've been working on myself which I hope to help contribute to this project.
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: [email protected]
Noted. Good bot.
I like it. Sucks that the more niche communities are not very active but hopefully they will continue to grow.
They are there the more you participate in them the more they will grow.
It’s not bad and has improved rapidly. It still needs a lot of growth. It has most of the main topics covered like news and politics, but what’s really missing are all the niche interests. Reddit still has all the small topics. It’s going to take time to build that here. Although federation is cool, it doesn’t help that an interest might be split across several communities. For instance, there are several steam deck communities. It makes it hard to build the user base large enough to get good, consistent content.
Same shit different platform. Dumb that people keep bringing up Reddit though. I don't have an app though so I still use Reddit on my phone. Sometimes porn.
I love it.
I have accounts on a dozen or so instances, though I'm only really active on maybe half of them. That gives me a fair amount of variety (every instance is different, depending on who they're federated with and what communities the users have subscribed to), and makes it so that if one of them is having issues, all that means is that I won't be using that particular account.
The relative lack of users doesn't bother me in the long run - yeah, it's sort of unfortunate that there aren't enough people to maintain really narrow communities, but I much prefer a thread here, on which there might be only three responses but they're all trying to actually communicate ideas, as opposed to a thread on Reddit, where there's 100 responses and 99 of them are just regurgitating memes.
Really, my biggest problem with the threadiverse is all of the people who want to make it into something it's not - who want to centralize and streamline and homogenize it so it'll have more appeal to easily-confused, meme-regurgitating idiots. I like it pretty much the way it is (with minor improvements around the edges of course), and would much rather that it be left to just slowly and surely draw in people who actually appreciate it for what it is.
I like it. Left reddit a while ago and this fills that spot.
I like the format but I'm having a hard time finding the time to curate my own feed so I can see something other than the same rephrased headlines for a mile of scrolling.
I like it a lot, enough to stay through the tumult of figuring out issues like CSAM, spam, federation inconsistencies, and an inability to block instances at a user level. It’s small and doesn’t have many active niche communities, but Reddit had the same issue in the beginning. Honestly I like the small size of Lemmy, there’s enough content to keep me interested but isn’t so crowded that it feels like I’m shouting into the void.
It's a better setup being free of corporate ownership, and it's slowly growing, but I wish we could get the word out somehow.
I'm really loving it.
I enjoy all of Mötorhead, not just Mr. Killmister.
Oh wait, that's not the Lemmy you ment.
It lacks the critical mass of users needed to make even moderately niche communities feasible; basic examples are: City communities, State communities, communities based on car make/model - these are types of communities that Reddits excels at having and it's because of the size of the user base. The only point I'm making with this is that Lemmy is a very long way off from being a viable replacement for Reddit.
Next big problem is: Lemmy has a HORRIBLE new user experience...which I'm sure is significantly responsible for slowing Lemmy adoption. Single biggest issue is content discovery (which is just-ok if you got lucky and joined a super-massive Lemmy instance when you first joined, all the way to an atrocity if you got unlucky and joined a small instance when you first joined.
There's also a lot of complicated activities needed just to be a functional Lemmy user: like regularly backing up your user/instance preferences (including subscriptions) and replicating those preferences into another account/instance in case something happens to your current account/instance or your instance becomes temporarily or permanently inaccessible. This is asking too much of your common non-technical user, but it's still currently necessary just because of how often instances have problems. Think about all the user accounts on all the .ml instances that had to be re-created from scratch because there's no built-in way for users to do it. Users should be able to sync their user accounts similarly to how instances sync their content with each other.
For the record, the first instance I created an account on (when I was a brand new Lemmy user months ago) was a very small instance (but recommended on the very first page of the official join-lemmy.org site), and there just wasn't functional content discovery at all on that instance. It was a barren wasteland. The fact that servers aren't even aware of what content is out there on federated systems until some user on that system already happens to know about the content/community and subscribe to it is setting a lot of new users up for failure. Once I realized that it sucks being on a small instances, the second account I created was on Lemmy.world, but that instance suffers from it's popularity and is the frequent target of DDOS and was going down for me several hours a day. So, there's also a penalty for joining a big instance. I ultimately had to create numerous accounts on numerous instances and then try to keep the user preferences in sync across multiple accounts on multiple instances so that I can easily swap to a different account when an instance had problems.
Elitist user base: I swear, some lemmy users are worse than the old BSD forums and worse than stack exchange when it comes to taking criticism about the platform. Guaranteed, this comment will get downvoted, and I'll be mansplained about how content discovery is facilitated through having to have foreknowledge about some 3rd party websites that keep track of communities (which don't always work because not all instances can be indexed yet do to a laundry list of other problems), and what an idiot I am for not knowing this, etc, etc.
Having to go to this length just to use a reddit alternative - that's unacceptable to most non-technical users. Lemmy doesn't stand a chance of gaining momentum until these issues are solved.
I completely agree, especially on the account backup and migration. I know there is some Github program to help and while I would be able to use it as long as I finger out how to open/download it. It needs to be done on a computer and I never use Lemmy on my computer. So it suddenly becomes a much bigger step just because you need a 3th party program, especially as I just don't hang around on my computer, when I'm on it I have something in mind.
Its decent for me. As others have said it's still got a long way to go but it works for what I use it for. I'll likely be sticking around here unless something better pops up or lemmy goes the way of the dinosaurs.
It's okay. I'm certainly not going back to reddit, but Lemmy has its own share of problems. I feel we need better protections with defederating and banning. It is far too easy to get stuck on a dead-end server or have some aspect of Lemmy irrevocably ruined due to minor political squabbles between servers. We are still far too centralized, and lemmy.world/lemmy.ml/beehaw.org/etc control a lot of the Lemmy experience with their defederation posture.
Just today, a community had to do an impromptu shut-down because the lemmy.world admin decided to permaban the main mod for trivial/subjective/biased reasons (read the comments).
One of the larger instances recently defederated another smaller instance and now Lemmy is effectively ruined for those users. It's already annoying enough for normies to sign up for Lemmy and get the hang of it, and now they need to be worried about switching instances every 2 months when some admin decides to effectively wipe out a smaller server because of something out of the users' control. The smaller instance in question had NSFW communities that the larger instance got annoyed by, so the larger instance decided to defederate every community and user from that smaller instance.
I feel we need some sort of infrastructure to limit the effect of these types of things on different parts of Lemmy (users/communities/instances). Users shouldn't be lumped in with communities when defederating (at least not by default). Having an escape plan for communities also seems like it's very important. What if lemmy.world announced it was shutting down tomorrow? All those communities will be gone in the blink of an eye. Maybe we should be able to export communities to other servers somehow, so we can be more decentralized against failures of specific servers and admins.
Even a single community being inaccessible to a certain user can really destroy their experience - the problem isn't fully solved by breaking up "mega-servers" like lemmy.world. What if I couldn't access the main Linux community anymore? Guess I'm fucked? Make a new account somewhere else? Is that really the best solution we can come up with?
I think it's good for broad, serious/informative discussion but lacking for more niche or casual stuff. Niche is just because there's not enough users. Casual is probably partially that, but also because Lemmy just attracts a more serious crowd. Even the general gaming communities disproportionately trend towards serious discussion of industry problems. And a Lemmy that's better for casual stuff is probably worse for serious stuff.
I still see and experience blind down voting and people missing each other's points, but much less than on Reddit. Overall I'm more aligned with the viewpoints shared here, especially because the vibe on the other site has really changed a lot after over 10 years.
I definitely use lemmy a lot less for mindless scrolling, due to the lack of content, which is great to be honest.
I spend more time researching stuff through articles, forums, YouTube, and yes, also the other site still when it's through specific Google searches.
I still see way more US centric content than I'd like but there's definitely a good European presence, and it's also on me because I'm still browsing basically the whole unfiltered feed at this point.
I love it.
It replaces most of my Reddit time. I still find myself going to some subreddits that have activities wince several here that are more niche have zero activity.
The UI is nice, although seeing duplicate posts can be annoying. Pagination could use some improvement. When browsing by new, new items posted seem to push the list so you could see the same items over and over it enough new items are posted. Adding some kind of timestamp and better list filtering could improve the experience.
The people here tend to be nice. Conversations have been mostly pleasant.
Overall, I have enjoyed it.
The only thing missing is a large contingent of sports fans to populate game threads and it’s perfect
I agree. The sports communities have not really take off yet. But have you checked out the fanaticus.social instance? It is devoted entirely to sports, and there is at least some level of conversation there.
Oh I have and regularly comment there with a different account. It has the potential to be exactly what I am hoping for, but the comments are still pretty sparse in comparison to what I have grown accustomed to. It doesn’t have to rise to that level, and I think once Lemmy creates flairs it’ll take off a bit more
Lemmy has its own cuddly places
I kinda like it, it's a bit lonely here though. Lot of improvement needed still.
Honestly, I miss reddit. Lemmy is kinda good, but just doesn't do it for me.
Also the fucking leftists, I swear. Reddit has their share but you could block them without losing 90% of the site.
I feel the exact opposite. Reddit has turned into a MAGA hell hole. It’s totally unbearable and might as well be X now.
To add something that I haven't yet seen mentioned (didn't read the whole thing), porn. It hasn't taken off like it did on reddit, and I do miss that. I don't want my feed covered in porn, but I would like to have quality porn properly covered in an adult instance. Pornlemmy and lemmynsfw just doesn't cut it.
Im on infinity, and I don't love that there's little to no support for popup gifs and videos on the feed, I mostly have to go into a post whose title may catch my attention then wait for something to load (or not to load, redgifs has been incredibly hit or miss for me as of late, lots of forbidden requests and failed playbacks due to it). Idk, it's not the experience or the content that you'd expect on reddit using any reddit 3rd party app.
Other than that particular thing, it's been getting very us-centric, with political memes or stuff that only us people would care about. I might have to try other instances.
Other than that, I appreciate Lemmy, it made me mostly drop reddit except for Google searches, and I feel comfortable interacting with people here.
Me too! In the beginning, I wondered how I would fit in, but that's not a worry anymore.
ha
It's good enough to be part of my username.
good but mapping communities lacking alot
I like
Same for Kbin
I like it a lot. I check it every day, several times a day
I'm enjoying it. It has a "not yet critical mass" feel to it. There are a few features I'd like to see (Hide Thread, something like RES, etc) and there could be more traffic, but I genuinely don't miss Reddit.
I like it so far. I wish niche communities were more active in comments (I see plenty of upvotes). Beyond that I'd love to see less copy posts but I guess it hard to pick who wins unless it's just some first come first serve for "front page?"
I'm liking it. The one thing I think is missing is it is sorta difficult to get critical mass for a community. It would be nice if we could have "meta" communities which just combine every instances community with the same name. It would likely be very problematic moderation wise but it would help get critical mass in a lot of places.
I like it a lot and it's still early days.
Will done Devs.
Can't wait for the rest of the Reddit subs to come over.
I was told there would be baguettes, however I'm not sure what a baguette is so I don't know what I'm looking for and I think there may be a notable nudist commune or three around here.
he was a great musician🤘
Definitely room for improvement but has that old reddit feel, I like it!
I still use reddit for my city subreddit and some niche things but overall it's decent. We've come far from Facebook haven't we?
It seems just somewhat useful for tech news and discussion. For everything else I still use Reddit.
I think about it daily.
Nice though it has already gone off to political fringes to the point I avoid the comments for many news and political postings
Full of commie rats
But what about ponies?
Agreed. I'm a liberal and I wouldn't consider myself a "moderate liberal" in every respect either (I support universal healthcare and think public universities should be free), but lefties who think communism is actually a good idea mystify me. Every single country that's gone down that road has devolved into a dictatorship, and that's by design, not merely a flaw in execution. Communists are as bad as fascists; they both aim for authoritarian rule.
Don't confuse communism with the tankies, as much as the tankies would like you to.
A tankie once told me that "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" was problematic. That's when you know you aren't dealing with a real communist and are in fact dealing with a Red Fascist.
I don't like it. The meme communities are political, and not funny
I'm pretty left leaning, and I agree. It was already burning me the fuck out on reddit, and now the whole "USA politics everywhere" thing is picking up pace here. Even if it's not us politics, it can get tiresome after a while when politics bleeds through communities, or when us politics/news bleeds through world politics/news communities. We get it, America number 1, now let me look at some beans.
Become the change you wish to see?
I think the issue with trying to apply that logic is you have an echo chamber already forming/formed. If you don't agree with the majority or go with the flow you'll either be downvoted or ignored.
I like it. I'm glad most of the chaff that cluttered up Reddit stayed on Reddit.
It is great since there is not a lot of content , I've had a lot free time for me to learn new things.
How do you get not enough content? I can scroll for hours.
Not content that I care and I only use the subscribed and I am okay with it. I am not complaining.
I just joined yesterday after repeatedly getting permabanned from Reddit for reporting pedos, and I think I like it here. Compared to the amount of content on Reddit it's quite anemic here but that's to be expected given how long the platforms have been online, respectively.
Politics flow out everywhere. 'Republicans did that, (some other politic word) did that' etc. Compared to reddit, at least my feed was from things I enjoy, not some ass-ham complaining about his problems.
Everything is political. "Apolitics" is apathy, which accepts the status quo, which is a political position.
Way too much propaganda.
Meaningless vague blanket statement
I am suprised, this is so overran by communist scum. Not much different from reddit.
Lemmy is all about community, most people here are from middle or lower class family and they don't like riches bcz they have seen exploitation by them(mostly by big tech company), that's why they oppose capitalism and hate capitalists but saying them communist(in the bad sense like the gov in russia and china) i think is wrong.
You can say us communist if you want to show the good things from communism ideology like caring about labor(all the hard working people) and stopping few people from gathering all the money and power(this is where russia and china failed).
Look, if i said about what was happening in my country during socialism, which we had before 89, I have got downvoted by butthurts that are ignoring history and facts. That regime lived of oppression of other people and anyone who defend it is communist scum. If i say I am againist any kind of racism, and that includes any color of skin, black, yellow, red, white, hell, even green, I am for them one that is racist, without any further evidence, because "racism against white people isnt possible, because it lack systematic oppression". Hell no, they are again some neo marxist scum and therefore included in first category. I get they are usually just entitled ignorant american brats, but it is, what it is.
