Why Kbin insead Lemmy?

For me:

Privacy reasons. When a comment is "deleted" on Lemmy, the comment is actually only hidden to all except instance administrators. The comment remains on the post and continues to display the poster's username. kbin is also not a beacon of privacy, but it at least removes deleted comments from threads. This is also why I try to interact more on kbin magazines than Lemmy communities.
kbin has a sweet community search tool that not only searches kbin magazines, but also Lemmy communities and even Mastodon groups. This means you can easily find communities all across the #Fediverse for any of your interests.
kbin has a much nicer/more modern UI. It's got some quirks, but it's easier to read and navigate than Lemmy by default.
Customization options! Lemmy has themes, which is cool, but kbin has themes and lots of fun toggles to change your experience.
Last but certainly not least, Lemmy devs have a pretty shit stance on human rights. (See here: https://mstdn.social/@feditips/106835057054633379). There are communities like #Beehaw, which are super friendly and non-problematic instances separate from the Lemmy devs, but it's worth noting that instances like Lemmy's flagship instance and Lemmygrad are run by folks with some grossly misguided views.

More info on Lemmy devs being tankies who deny human rights violations: https://kbin.social/m/lemmyworld@lemmy.world/t/47012/-/comment/196579
- This is what did it for me. After 3 days of finally getting the hang of Lemmy and figuring shit out I learned about the devs and their beliefs.
  I don't want to support humans like that and so I was very grateful to swap to kbin and continue to deepen my learnings of the Fediverse.
- what is a tankie?
- I find it extraordinarily difficult to identify with boycotting a product for its creator's beliefs, considering the majority of consumer products are directly produced through unethical practices. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, after all. It's about as ridiculous as boycotting Mars because they de-sexified their M&M mascott.
  It's just an untenable standard, and from what I can see there's nothing intrinsic about the way lemmy functions that can be tied to those beliefs/impacts your own ability to distance from them. I think this is just noise.
- Could you please clarify: are you tailking about a particular Lemmy instance, or the entire Lemmy software product?
@ADHDefy mostly #3 for me. I am looking forward to the "hide interacted with threads" functionality to come to kbin. I'm patient though.
Edited to note - i agree with the other points too.
@Facni
- How far does "interacted with" go for you?
  as in, does clicking already count as interaction or would you need to comment or vote?
  if it's just viewing the content, then this might be done using a simple userScript as Kbin already remembers which threads you've viewed on the homepage.
Although, by nature of the federation, anything add and then deleted may already be replicated to other instances.
Some of whom could instead show/retain a copy of it.
Basically assume that everything will be available and associated with you forever. Even more so than usual.
- Just made me realize that this causes a problem with GDPR. Will that cause issues in the future for the Fediverse?
Personally I haven't settled in on anything yet. I have accounts on several different KBin instances, a couple Lemmy instances, and Beehaw (which I guess is also a Lemmy instance)
Currently for me it's between Beehaw and Kbin. I like I can use either account to interact with either so at the end of the day it really doesn't matter. Kbin looks MUCH nicer on the phone, but I like Beehaw's moderation, broad-topic communities, etc. Alone, Beehaw would be too restrictive. Combined with Kbin and a couple Lemmy communities, eventually it's going to just be a matter of using your favorite username@whatever and deciding which front-end you prefer. Beehaw is a little better for people that want to avoid porn and stuff though.
If one platform begins developing much faster than the other, switch! Have a few accounts subscribed to all your favorite communities so they're all locked and loaded and ready to use.
kbin has a sweet community search tool that not only searches kbin magazines, but also Lemmy communities and even Mastodon groups. This means you can easily find communities all across the #Fediverse for any of your interests.
This convinced me to switch to kbin from lemmy. Looks like it has a better "sort-by-hot" functionality too far as I can tell.
The nice thing is, I can always switch back, no cost to me
- Just FYI, while I do not disagree with you, the sort-by-hot ordering is bugged in the current lemmy version, which causes threads not to "cool off". It will be fixed with the next update (fix is already done, just not shipped yet).
- So it's true, then, that lemmy doesn't have a community search tool? I still feel like I have to be misunderstanding somehow. It has to have a search function. How else is it supposed to federate to anything? I know people successfully search for kbin mags over there. How else would it even find its own communities? It can't just be a big ass list, it would be too long to be usable.
- Is there something wrong with choosing to avoid someone's software because the developers are tankies, in your opinion?
- I agree with you here.
  As a "product" I like how Lemmy works and would like to continue using it. That doesn't mean I support or defend the devs. A "hate the artist, not the art" situation I'm still wrestling with, personally.
  I would hope, in the event this whole debacle starts to impact the development and features of Lemmy, that my home instance will move to a fork. If not, I can delete the account and move to kbin.
I strongly disagree with reason 3 as finding the list of magazines that I'm subscribed to is hidden in settings, while on Reddit it's easy to access on the top bar. My home feed is doesn't default to the magazines I'm subscribed to, I have to manually set it on a bar that doesn't even seem like a sort button.
I'm adding your comment to @BestOf and/or https://kbin.social/m/BestOf! Thanks for explaining the benefits of kbin!

For me it simply came down to the fact that I prefer the layout, and it's also nice knowing I can block whole domains (looking at you, furry spammers). It also integrates with Mastodon if that's your thing (it's not my thing), and I have high hopes for the ability of Ernest (the founder and only dev, to my knowledge) to usher it in a good and healthy direction. I can see all content from Lemmy and interact with it though, so it really just comes down to personal preference.

Same here. I like the look, usability and layout of Kbin better. I do wish there were more users here at kbin.social, though, as the federated feed is more lively on the large Lemmy instances.
- I do wish there were more users here at kbin.social, though, as the federated feed is more lively on the large Lemmy instances.
  kbin.social has more MAU (Monthly Active Users) now, than all Lemmy combined! That is of course effect of the spike this month and shall fade only on July, but did you already see activity on kbin.social alone fading?
- Kbin.social is the largest single instance in the Threadiverse.
i'm a furry and out of the loop here, what's going on with "furry spammers"? i saw this mentioned twice now which can't be a coincidence
- There was a new domain and they were posting everywhere, my /new and /active were literally half full of furry stuff.
Is kbin supported with a mobile app. I've been on Jerboa for Lemmy and it's been pretty ok for beta.
- There's one on the way to a beta (Artemis) but I just used the Firefox feature to place a webapp on my phone so I click that and it immediately opens in Firefox.
- It's in progress. Scroll down to the bottom of this page:
  https://kbin.pub
- There's work being done on #Kmoon.
  You should be able to find it without too much effort.
TIL I can block domains!
How do you block a domain? It is like blocking a magazine (if that is possible).
- If you type https://kbin.social/d/insert domain here then (on kbin) scroll down you should see the same buttons that you see for users and magazines including a block button.
  Usually I'll just change the m in the url to d then delete upto the domain name.
Same. Without getting too "techie," I just like the feel of Kbin better.
Yeah I tried both Lemmy and Kbin when the reddit protest started and just really like the kbin UI/experience a lot more. It also comes up pretty nice on mobile too without an app.
Good God. On beehaw I had to block every furry community separately. Talk about annoying.
- Until I reached the fediverse I had no idea just how many furry-enthusiasts were out there. The heart wants what the heart wants, I guess.
- Oh God. About 6 years ago I was in Pittsburgh for work. I did get to see a Bruins/Penguins playoff game so that was nice, but I was at a Bridge conference (for people who design and build bridges, not the card game). Several hotel employees and taxi drivers warned me that a furry conference was coming the day our bridge conference ended. That was the first time I heard the term "furries". Then they descended upon the city while I was still there. To this day it's still the most intense culture shock I've ever had.

There is this post by fedi.tips that explicitly warns against using Lemmy because of developer concerns: https://mstdn.social/@feditips/110476830253102884

The lemmy devs tried denying it in an update, and then someone brought the receipts. I really do not want to support those devs.
They seem to be worried that the Lemmy developers' politics will influence how they design the software - for example, making moderation tools that favour certain powerful users. But rather than abandon Lemmy entirely, why not fork the code?

Lemmy is developed by tankies who deny and censor talk about human rights violations.

https://kbin.social/m/lemmyworld@lemmy.world/t/47012/-/comment/196579

Literally the only reason I chose kbin over lemmy.
- Same. I remember I viewed Lemmy first. I saw the sticky post saying to use different instances, so created an account on beehaw. Well, tried to. They only manually approved accounts, so I soon realized that wasn't going to cut it, as I wanted to use the site immediately (I think it took a week to get the email saying the account got created).
  When I went back to look up suggestions for instances, I saw people suggesting to use kbin for this tanky reason, and thought, "well, that seems like a win win".
  Kbin let me create an account and start posting right away. It hasn't so far shown any red flags. And in fact Ernest has shown nothing but green flags so far. One particular case that stood out was when he was informed that he didn't properly give attribution to some code he used (and was required by that code's license) and he immediately posted admitting his mistake and apologizing. I admire people being able to admit when they were wrong.
  I don't personally feel like the UI or features of kbin are any better than Lemmy (though not really any worse either -- both seem to have some different issues). I think I'm somewhat still waiting to see how the feature development of the two might go. One worry I admittedly have is that of how many active devs each will have. I don't think any major software can last long on a solo dev. And getting community contributions is vital for scaling.
Do you know kbin developers political views?
- No
  hopes to keep it that way

Lemmy devs are tankies.

I like the UI more
Not developed by tankies
Catchier name IMO (reminds me of GabeN, while Lemmy makes me think of Lemmings, which isn't the best)
Microblogs are neat

The main difference is the UI. A lot of people like the interface of Kbin over Lemmy, but really there's nothing from stopping you choosing one or the other. I'm replying to you now from Lemmy.

Kbin's software is much more impressive to me, despite being a lot newer it's far more robust. Having dual functionality for both threads and microblogs is really cool for the Fediverse.

And yeah, the tankie thing.

Is there a good Android app for Kbin?
- There's one in development, you should be able to find out more at @ArtemisApp

A friend told me to try Kbin when the owner of Reddit turned out to be so terrible.

I like it here.

I'm new to Lemmy and kbin, so these points may be more a me-thing than a Lemmy/kbin-thing, but from what I can see:

Accessing Lemmy content from kbin is pretty seamless, but it's difficult to access kbin from Lemmy.
- Ex) It's easy to access gaming@beehaw.org from kbin by going to https://kbin.social/m/gaming@beehaw.org, but I couldn't find a way to access https://kbin.social/m/Amsterdam from beehaw
kbin's integration with Mastodon/microblogging fediverses is neat.
kbin seems to have more magazines catering to more of my specific interests and hobbies, while Lemmy's communities are more generic.
This is specific to the instance I am on (beehaw.org), but I can't access the Lemmy instance when I'm using ProtonVPN.
I just read through the Mastodon thread on how the Lemmy developers are not consistent with their own policies of human rights. While that doesn't automatically mean that Lemmy is bad, I feel more comfortable using software by developers who are not known to be "tankies".

Lemmy developers support the CCP and Russia,
Kbin dev doesn't.

Better UI
the initial lemmy instance I had was error-filled
Microblogging built in

Kbin has access to lemmy stuff and mastodon stuff without needing multiple accounts/sites/apps.

Also I heard some rumors about tankies and that sounds like drama I'd like to avoid. I believe there are other instances not involving them but it's confusing about what instance to sign up on when you're new.

Wider layout, actually black text (compared to Lemmingish grey), and clearly distinguished boxes with comments. Plus several "skins", including solarized light and dark. Less eye strain.

I just signed up a few days ago and didn't realize there were different themes until this thread. Lol. Now I've got larger text, a solarized light theme, and rounded corners! Very exciting!

Maybe it's nostalgia from my vbulletin/phpbb days...

The community on kbin seems nicer… I know, it’s impossible to say in a few days, but I’ve had a better experience here and on beehaw than other instances…

Lemmy wouldn't let me create an account after several attempts.

Mainly better UI, less questionable dev, and better support with mastodon if I chose to browse mastodon.

When the blackout came, Lemmy had some dissent (people couldn’t fully recommend it). A community about Kbin got banned and I came and looked at it. I just liked the way it looked.

Took a bit to get used to it, but the layout makes sense and it made me look into Mastodon.

Once federation kicked in, I could easily see posts from everywhere here, and the local magazines had nice people. Didn’t see a reason to look elsewhere.

I can’t speak to “why not Lemmy”, but genuinely I like it here and don’t see a reason to go elsewhere

100% because the tankie thing.
A long-time believer of "you can't separate art from the artist".

Better layout, and it was showing me all the Lemmy threads anyway.

I feel like the Hot/Active short is vastly better on KBin than Lemmy. I know Lemmy has an open bug regarding the Hot sort, so maybe that will change. But as it stands, I feel like I am seeing much more meaningful content in KBin, even though it's all federated.

I like the looks and the features of kbin. I looked at lemmy a year ago but the whole communist vibe on the, then only, instances was too much for me. There are more "normal" instances now, but I still gravitated towards kbin more.

Involving microblogs is very interesting and I eager to see how it opens up more discussions after Kbin grows bigger.
Solarized light theme looks very nice!

The layout of Kbin is so much better Lemmy was just confusing as heck.

User interface
Microblog

I like the layout, and I really like the ability to microblog at a magazine for more casual posts that don't truly deserve a whole thread of their own.

If I'm going to post "new event x starting on y date with z rewards, discuss here" I'll make that a proper formal thread. If I'm going to post "I thought the new event was cute, though they could have done abc better" I'll make that a microblog.

Do you want to post events via /kbin? Yes, this is on a roadmap. Yes, Ernest plans to integrate with Mobilizon.
- Ah, I had in mind discussions of game events, not actual events that I'd be organizing. That's a nice feature in the works though, I'm sure it'll be useful to many.

Because I applied to 3 Lemmy instances and never got anything more that the spinning icon when trying to log in. I'm glad I ended up at kbin.social, though.

Because I'm dumb.

Not that "signing up for kbin was a dumb move"; more that I was too dumb to understand the front page full of technical bullshit on the Lemmy landing site.

I started to skim it and went "Wow, ok, this is complicated, I guess I'll have to figure it out later; I only have about thirty minutes right now."

Then I clicked on a link to kbin, and there was content, and a login button, and a sign up button, and a quick registration page, and bang! I'm on kbin commenting on cat pictures. The only adjustment I had to make to my browsing habits was using my middle mouse button to click links instead of my left button (to open them in a new tab, which I had set Reddit to do by default).

Beehaw was the same way, so I signed up there, too, but their web UI doesn't work great for me. Sorting by "local" and "active" only shows me stuff from yesterday through last week, but sorting by anything else floods my feed with a dozen new topics every five seconds that automatically scroll everything down. I don't even have enough time to read a longish thread title before it's rudely shoved off the bottom of my screen in favor of six posts from some random citrus-appreciation instance, or something. So I'm going to check back there in a month or two, because I like the on screen layout better.

i didnt look too deep into it, i just looked at both, and thought Kbins UI was nicer

Mostly I just think it looks better than lemmy hahaha.

I was able to subscribe to discussions on Beehaw using Kbin ; I wasn't able to do that using Lemmy, for whatever reason (probably me, but who knows for sure)
Anyway, Kbin works, so I'm using it.

Beehaw defederated from two major lemmy instances (lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works) due to multiple trolls and bad actors from those instances so if you were using one of those that's probably the reason.

Got tired of the Lemmy front page bugs (the one where new posts come flooding in, and the one where hot/active stops working until the server gets restarted). Kbin front page "just works."

(at least until today, when the entire front page became Sync is coming to Lemmy)

Mostly #3. It looks nicer and seems to work better. And it happily also means I don't have to deal with #5 because ick!

Frankly I have trust issues lol. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do the thing that most people seemed to be flocking to. And kbin seems to have more features and is already its own thing, already has an identity, isn't trying to replace an existing social media channel

Happy here so far

I started on Beehaw, but Lemmy had some automatic refresh thing that I could not turn off anywhere so I came to kbin.

The first time I went to make a Lemmy account, I found the "join lemmy" page and ended up confused and just decided to deal with it later. I then heard that the founders of lemmy were "genocide deniers" and "tankies" and whatever, then the same day I heard that reddit had just banned a community that existed to help people move to kbin.

So I immediately went to kbin, clicked "sign in with Google," and it was that easy.

I know I already posted it in the other thread, but here's another link to the list of evidence:

https://kbin.social/m/lemmy@lemmy.ml/t/45917/Update-from-Lemmy-after-the-Reddit-blackout#comments

tried them both out without an account and kbin was better. lemmy was unusable without an account. so I made a kbin account.

I liked KBin for including other fediverse posts in the feed, and slightly the UI. I went through the TOS and some Lemmy instances I couldn’t even find them.

Because no obvious Tankies.

I feel like the UI for Kbin is cleaner, though not without its problems. And I can access Lemmy communities from Kbin as well (this works a lot better than I expected it would), so I'm not really missing out if I choose it over Lemmy.

I'm also giving an answer to the other thread on Lemmy, since I think there are good reasons to use that one as well. They're both solid, and I'm using both regularly--often viewing posts from one service on the other. For me, it's "yes AND," not "no BUT."

I like the layout better all there really is to it.

I looked at Lemmy.world then Kbin.

I went with Kbin because Lemmy keeps pulling new threads onto the top of the home page feed. This pushes down content on the home page as you're trying to read it. And I just don't want it to be constantly pulling in new data, especially if I'm doing other stuff and my browser is just in the background.

I am not advocating Kbin or Lemmy. But it is interesting to me that the reason behind the inception of Kbin was related to Lemmy. See the full discussion here where the creator of Kbin, @ernest, stated:

The point is, I don’t want to create a lesser evil here. I want to create something truly good, which is why from the very beginning I’ve been striving to be transparent on all fronts. I’ll just say that before starting from scratch, I tried to create kbin as a fork of Lemmy. I like Rust, I respect them as architects and I’ve learned a lot about managing such a project. However, ultimately, I believe that I cannot remain indifferent to certain things. That’s why kbin is what it is now. Nevertheless, that collaboration with Lemmy’s developers can be beneficial for all of us at this stage. After all, Lemmy is not just one instance, and many amazing people are building the fediverse using this software.

What was those "certain things" we do not know. But the full discussion there revolves around the political views. Check it yourself. But at the end of the day, choose what suits you best since they are contribute to the same Threadiverse.

Honestly it was pretty arbitrary, I happened to pick Kbin over Lemmy on the day, and figured I might change my mind and move to Lemmy if I didn't like it. I feel like I've made the right choice though, I like it here!

Honestly atm I'm using lemmy for mobile and kbin for desktop. I might switch to kbin more permanently if the app gets finished and is a better user interface. I'm mostly on lemmy simply because I'm mostly on mobile.

The personal views of the lemmy devs are bad, but by the nature of FOSS idk if that should matter. I also know nothing about the veiws of the dev of kbin, and I don't think I wanna know tbh. I'm not sure how I should behave in regards to the problematic political views of the people making things I like. Lemmy could always be forked and worked on by different people but that would probably only really happen if the current devs ruined it or abandoned it.