Lemmy is very new software currently only at v0.17.4
If you're here then you're getting the real Early Adopter experience. That isn't for everybody.
this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2023
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So they drove a bunch of people into a public beta software. Do developers need free beta testing?
While it is okay to not be a fan of being someone's unpaid tester, you have to recognize that the developers of Lemmy are giving it away for free under the GPL, and letting people run in on their own hardware. This is extremely generous, and there is no incentive to actually use the software beyond the demand and goodwill that people have for a place to talk on the internet that isn't actively hostile towards them.
They? Spez did xD
It just happened that quite a few redditors found that the experience using Lemmy was already good enough and started suggesting it.
And here we are :shrug:
Btw considering that Lemmy is open source, yes, they do need free beta testing. They even need more contributors to handle the development and bug fixing.
If you expected someone's fledgling project that's just getting started to be as polished and refined as something that's had thousands of dev hours over the last 5-10 years then that's just bad expectations management. It will get better.
I understand its early days, not faulting the devs here, I'm just expressing how I feel
You should give kbin.social a shot. It works better than lemmy currently. I made an account on lemmy.world and kbin.social and end up spending my time on kbin. Even on mobile with no app, I find the user experience better. I am sure it will get better for all instances with time.
kbin isn't bad, but it's been plagued with 500 errors - probably due to the massive influx of new users/instances.
Makes sense that kbin works better as kbin actually let me register I had trouble even trying to register on 3 different instances before someone recommended kbin because, and I quote, "it just works."
I guess I don't notice any of this because I'm on jerboa. Haven't had complaints with the app.
It's so close to the reddit apps It's throwing me a loop. But yeah. Other than the hot feed bug It's been 'good' for me
Jerboa has been very good for me.
I'm actually having the opposite peoblem. Jerboa sometimes refuses to load communities citing java exceptions, and loading up a thread takes a long time. Browsing on PC has been fantastic, on the other hand.
Most have been here less than a week. It will take time. The Fediverse was not created with the intention of toppling Reddit in one week. Many of the bugs that people have been complaining about are being fixed in the next release.
100% agree. I will deal with bugs today because I can see the benefits of decentralization. Yes it's buggy, but I know that we, the community, are fixing it. And that we are making the service better as users and not in some top-down decision making way.
Also maybe it's just me but I find people's lack of patience to deal with a few bugs really strange. Yes I've come across bugs and intermittent connection issues but it's not really the end of the world and knowing that the Devs and admins of each instance are working hard to keep things turning over is enough for me... I'll just do something else for a bit. It was the same when Reddit would go down or what ever.
Give it time, but don’t stop giving feedback. Every platform is buggy in the beginning.
It’s very early. There are a lot of great ideas here, but also a lot of details yet to be worked out. Also lots of bugs.
I wasn’t on Reddit in the early days, but I expect it had problems too. I know twitter did.
If you’re a developer or have any skill in that area, I’d encourage you to contribute. If not, I’d ask for 2 things:
- Have patience and a bit of grace with the devs, operators, and mods, especially in these early days.
- Get active and talk about what you want and what’s not working for you.
This is your chance to help make “Thing n+1” better than “Thing n”. Chances like that don’t come around very often.
I'm mostly just getting a few bugs on sh.itjust.works and I've got no idea where to get support from here. I'm sure it'll all get sorted in time.
Jerboa for Lemmy (the app) is pretty good though mostly. It's no RedditIsFun but it's functional enough.
I understand you but...
pls be patient, stay with us.
Many skilled (and less skilled) people are working hard and cooperating to make Lemmy better week are week.
(Pretty sure Aaron Swartz would have loved that)
Love the project 😎
I’m not sure if you will find much sympathy here. Many people (myself included) left Reddit because their policies and ethics now outweigh the benefits of a refined, smooth experience. Although, even that may be gone now if you’re switching from Apollo to the default Reddit app…
The communities here have made any occasional glitches worth it for me.
P.S. you can set your sorting preference under Settings.
Yup. It's buggy and the native apps are pretty rough. I'm trying to give it a chance. I suspect the original Reddit was pretty rough too.
The original Reddit was definitely rough. But it was also an open source project and grew with time, until the company closed-sourced it in 2017 and went with the new redesign (which remains controversial with older redditors even now).
Tbf the fediverse (and Lemmy & Kbin as Reddit alternatives) is in a very impressive state for something that has been fairly small scale up to now. It'll improve faster given the increased interest and as new devs decide to pitch in. Early reddit was exciting and chaotic; its a good time to be on a site like this.
Agreed, the original reddit was rough, definitely much worse than Lemmy currently is now. For the amount of growth Lemmy has seen its holding up well, I just wish it was better. Maybe I'm impatient..
in 2017 and went with the new redesign
Christ, was it that long ago? I am old.
FWIW most of the glitches are in the official web UI, so using another UI (e.g. Jerboa on Android) fixes most of the issues.
I was using the official reddit app (gasp) before this, using Jerboa now and it feels just as smooth if not smoother?
I'm on iOS so Jerboa isnt an option :(
Did you try Mlem?
lol you should have seen what reddit was like 15 years ago.
I'm extremely happy with Lemmy and I actually think the bugs give it charm. It make it feel more like home. No big corporations. I'm fine with limited content and problems for the time being. I'll take it over Reddit any day.
The sorting bug definitely needs fixed ASAP. Hot is stale, top posts somehow start sending new posts, and posts from other instances are often slow.
You can't really expect an amateur project led by 2 people (or 1 in case of kbin) to be comparable to a decade of reddit development. Even the Apollo app, that just built in top of other tech instead of having to reinvent the wheel, is at least 5 years old by now afaik.
If you just care about convenience then reddit is still your best bet. If you have other concerns then you need to weight which one matters more.
I mean, you know where the door is.
Jeez, i like the site but fair criticism is allowed
I think I'm going to Iog off now and don't expect to be back anytime soon.
This isnt yelp. Nobody needs or wants a 4 day old account expressing all their gripes with a service that is in its infancy, or that they won't be coming back anytime soon. Cool you don't like the coffee here. Go to someone else's coffee shop, don't stand there yelling about it to all the people enjoying their coffee.
The man is providing feedback, that's valuable data for devs. If nobody says anything, nothing will change for the better.
The same kind of valuable feedback a two year provides when he wants ice cream for dinner and doesn't want to go to bed yet.
Why so hostile? Can you explain exactly what makes you so angry?
There's nothing hostile about saying he's welcome to stop using the product if he's unhappy with said product. You're the one taking it defensively.