this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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Fediverse

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A community to talk about the Fediverse and all it's related services using ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, KBin, etc).

If you wanted to get help with moderating your own community then head over to [email protected]!

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Learn more at these websites: Join The Fediverse Wiki, Fediverse.info, Wikipedia Page, The Federation Info (Stats), FediDB (Stats), Sub Rehab (Reddit Migration), Search Lemmy

founded 1 year ago
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Please indulge a few shower thoughts I had:

  1. I wouldn't worry about Lemmy having as many users as reddit in the short term. Success is not just a measure of userbase. A system just needs a critical mass, a minimum number of users, to be self-perpetuating. For a reddit post that has 10k comments, most normal people only read a few dozen comments anyways. You could have half the comments on that post, and frankly the quality might go up, not down. (That said, there are many communities below that minimum critical mass at the moment.)

  2. Lemmy is now a real alternative. When reddit imploded Lemmy wasn't fully set up to take advantage of the exodus, so a lot of users came over to the fediverse and gave up right away. There were no phone apps, the user interface was rudimentary, and communities weren't yet alive. Next time reddit screws up in a high profile way, and they will screw up, the fediverse will be ready.

  3. Lemmy has way more potential than reddit. Reddit's leadership has always been incompetent and slow at fixing problems. The fediverse has been very responsive to user feedback in comparison.

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[–] [email protected] 135 points 1 year ago (17 children)

My problem with Lemmy is the lack of activity in niche communities. You're right that there needs to be a critical mass and arguably Lemmy has it, but only for the most mainstream, generic type of content. It doesn't have the mass to sustain any sort of niche, outside of maybe tech related topics because of the way the userbase is slanted.

I find myself going back there often because of that, but I hope that the userbase for generic content enough to sustain and grow, from where more active niche communities can spring up.

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[–] [email protected] 77 points 1 year ago (10 children)

To me, the smaller userbase is actually a real problem. I'm willing to stick it out and hope it grows. But for over half of the subreddits I subscribe to, the corresponding lemmy communities have 0 posts this last week.

Yes, I don't need 10k comments on my posts. But memes or mainstream news was never the big value of reddit for me - I can get these anywhere. Instead it is about the niche communities with a few thousand subscribers. And for now, I still have to use reddit for them.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Yeah the very top post on hot right now has 9 comments lmao.

There is no one here. I mean I love the platform and the apps. I don’t go to Reddit anymore on my phone. But there’s no one here.

If I don’t go to Reddit at least once per day I’m going to miss news and events that are important to me.

[–] Sl00k 53 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just FYI hot is probably the worst way to browse for news and events, I've found top of 6h is far better if you check often, Active if you check every 24 hrs ish.

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I follow damn near every community on lemmy that I followed on reddit. I follow 97 communities on lemmy with all communities active and none with 0 posts. I left reddit immediately and haven't looked back. All the news, whether political or tech related, I get from lemmy. I think people just haven't found the right communities. You have to put in some time to find them since you may have 5 or 6 with the same name. But, once you do, you should be good to go.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Comparing the two communities, reddit nearly always has way more quality content and news for me though for the time being. Often even with big news it's just not here on Lemmy at all. Many posts also have 0 comments and you just wouldn't see that on Reddit. Once Sync can create posts I will probably start x-posting more from reddit to lemmy for communities I am most interested in.

For now I think I will start browsing Lemmy and then visit Reddit for anything I missed. Keeping my posting and commenting over here mostly because I'd like to see this place grow.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

for me, reddit nearly always has way more quality content and news for me though for the time being

It's not just you.

As constructively as I can put this, reddit has been building community and goodwill for many years. Lemmy has only recently become an option and it's done wonderfully in the short time it's had.

The challenge is the catch 22. People go where there is more content, they produce content there, and then there is more content there. There no vacuum, reddit didn't disappear. It became toxic and people apparently care less about avoiding toxicity than filling up on dank memes.

All I can say to that is we all need to be the change we want to see in the world. Adopt a Lemmy First mentality, and go to reddit only to pick up legacy slack. Continue the conversation from there over here. Link it up.

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Next time reddit screws up in a high profile way, and they will screw up, the fediverse will be ready.

And it doesn't seem entirely impossible that our Elon Musk fanboy Steve will screw up again.

I won't be surprised to read in the future:

  • Reddit Introduces Its Own Version of X's (Formerly Known as Twitter's) Blue Checkmark
  • Backlash After Reddit Strikes Exclusive Deal to Provide Trainingsdata to OpenAI
  • Reddit Introduces Paid Membership Options for Communities
  • Something Money Grabbing Reddit Related
[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

That will be when they remove old.reddit

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

Reddit charges a subscription for people to mod a subreddit.

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Reddit has always had changes that made people want to leave. Removing CSS was the first that comes to mind. Now that lemmy exists it could be seen as a new platform to jump to every time reddit does something dumb or anti user. I have high hopes for lemmy

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (2 children)

For me, getting rid of the old reddit design as default was pretty egregious. Usability tanked if I wasn't logged in.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Lemmy has enough user activity to fulfill my time-wasting needs.

There doesn't need to be one website that EVERYONE is at. The Web didn't used to be so damn consolidated.

I don't give one shit about "Lemmy vs. Reddit". I care about Lemmy having active communities to engage in, regardless of what is happening on some other website.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Honestly, I don't know if it's the fewer users, the lack of trolls, the newer apps I've been forced to use or the topics that I've been getting into since joining Lemmy. But I have been considerably more active here both commenting and posting, than I ever was on Reddit.

It may have started as a way to do my part for the growth of Lemmy, but it's not been about that for me for some time now.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

For me it's the smaller number of users. It is very likely that your comment will just end up at the bottom and nobody will see it if you comment on a reddit post with thousands of comments. If you comment on a Lemmy post with 25 comments or less it is way more likely to actually be seen by people.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (3 children)

"You could have half the comments on that post, and frankly the quality might go up, not down."

This is probably my favorite part of Lemmy. The comment section feels more meaningful, and not a landfill of garbage posts. Additionally, if I make a comment, there is a higher chance that it will be read and responded to, so it feels like I am actually engaging with a community, and not just chucking my thoughts into space and hoping they land on a planet.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

People actually talk here instead of racing to make an one-liner based on an in-joke to maximize karma usually. It's nice.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago (1 children)
  1. No surveillance capitalism. unlike reddit, lemmy isn't trying to monetize/track you.

  2. Freedom/openness. Already, someone can use a third party app to use lemmy. Moving forward, I think, people will come up with new ways to utilize lemmy/activity pub.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Reddit has now checkmark/verified or whatsoever they call like any other centralized social media. Extreme cringe

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (5 children)

twitter has transformed my view of people with verification checks to "most likely to be an idiot"

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To me there is no vs. My web browser has tabs and I can have multiple ones open at a time. It is cool to have more things, I don't need to commit to anything like an app or website.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (9 children)
  1. Lemmy is now a real alternative. When reddit imploded Lemmy wasn't fully set up to take advantage of the exodus, so a lot of users came over to the fediverse and gave up right away. There were no phone apps, the user interface was rudimentary, and communities weren't yet alive. Next time reddit screws up in a high profile way, and they will screw up, the fediverse will be ready.

I definitely think having mobile apps is an essential step. I was looking at alternative platforms such as Raddle.me but using a mobile browser was an extra hurdle (similar to using the official Reddit app) that kept me from regularly checking in.

  1. Lemmy has way more potential than reddit. Reddit's leadership has always been incompetent and slow at fixing problems. The fediverse has been very responsive to user feedback in comparison.

I could see this causing issues later. We've already seen issues arise with some instances using the .ml domain or not being updated immediately.

Defederation is another beast all together. Most of an instance might be fine but a few problematic communities could create problems leading to arguments and, as much as I hate the term, drama.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (17 children)

One problem I see:

You can google site:reddit.com whatever But if you google site:lemmy.world whatever then you're losing a significant amount of results. To get good results, you need to know which Lemmy instances is likely to have your answer, and with communities duplicated over different servers, that can be tough.

In the end I find I prefer this federation model, although I'm not sure although I'm a bit concerned about funding it if it scales up to the size of Reddit (same with Mastodon vs twitter).

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Google should be finding searches with "lemmy" keyword, but it isn't at the moment.

Lemmy needs some SEO people.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I hope Lemmy never gets to be the size of Reddit. We'll have some level of Eternal September eventually, but please not at that level. I really hope not. It's overwhelming unless you're in one of the niche subreddits.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There were no phone apps

Jerboa be like: image

(I realize I'm posting this with a very real risk of somebody replying "yes," but Jerboa was, in fact, usable on June 12.)

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It was fine on June 12. It didn't have the polish that decade-old Reddit apps had, however.

I'm guessing Jerboa development has kicked into overdrive and it will soon catch up.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

The main difference for me is that I feel like I'm part of a global project, not just a product in some big tech's ecosystem.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (18 children)

The future of Lemmy has nothing to do with R whatsoever.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I disagree. R messing up is how we get more users

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If that’s true, thrn Reddit’s explosion in popularity had nothing to do with Digg.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

Infiltration... As I've moved over from reddit the community feels much more open to discussion rather than comment section filled internal jokes.

We just need Lemmy users who are daywalkers to post links into reddit. Or recreate certain communities here, but bringing over the good and not the toxic. Ama, but maybe amapolitics bringing more hyper local awareness to the masses?

Quality over quantity any day

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A huge userbase like reddit's is both a pro and a con. The big advantages include diversity of content (especially niche/hobby stuff), more content, and higher frequency of new content overall.

But it comes with some pretty big disadvantages, too. Moderation is difficult so they are happy to let a small number of "power mods" run everything. Subs that were fun & interesting in the past....after they hit the front page and become popular they go downhill quickly. Divisive USA-centric politics.

And of course the "asshole filter" effect: where the assholes drive away the non-assholes, so the concentration of assholes is always going up.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (6 children)

The important catalyst is good third party clients working with Lemmy as Voyager and Sync and people learning about the fediverse.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The fact most surprises me is that lemmy became a real alternative to Reddit in a bit more than a month. Idk guys, I just love internet

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think one of the issues at Reddit was that if you said thanks to someone or thought they had a good idea, it was bad reddiquette. Here that culture isn't as prevalent and I it adds to the pleasantness. Maybe encourage meaningful thank yous or I agrees while adding on why you're saying thank you or I agree instead of "K" or "same." But don't shit on people that do that in the future.

edit: really bad grammar fix, still not sure. lol.

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