PSA: Lemmy.ml is not Lemmy

Lemmy feels as a aplha/beta product that we ar all testing right now. Nothing wrong with that, in fact, I like Lemmy more then Reddit. But you cannot expect everyone to love it right now.

For Reddit its clear: you sign up, you search for a community and you subscribe.

Here, you sign up (if you don't get the spinning wheel). You search for a community. Oh, it is on another instance. What is a instance? Then you browse and see different Lemmy websites. You get confused, you heard something about Fediverse but what is it?

Also, there is no karma what important is for many users. Mod tools are extremly limited and all the apps you can use on mobile are in alpha/beta/in development.

There should be a easy to understand welcome page upon sign-up and I think this needs to be prioritized if we want to welcome (more) mainstream users. The post that explains how Lemmy works on c/lemmyworld doesn't cut it.

Karma is important? The only "use" for it is to do what? users farm it so adding karma or something similar would just make this place worse
- it can be used to differentiate troll accounts from people that make generally liked comments
  it gives users a rush and encourages participation
  it can help with ranking
  Now, that said, there are ways to game those things too, but that’s the concept and some of the bigger benefits.
- I'm not a karma whore, otherwise I would not post on Lemmy. But when you post something and you see that people agree with it is nice to see. I do not see the problem with karma.
- User engagement is important, and karma is one way of driving that engagement. Pretending something's not important from your high horse because you don't understand it just makes you look like a spez.
- In the r/CRSRacing2 sub (which I mod, kinda, until I can't anymore) the karma is used to stop new joiners to ask the standard questions that are answered in the 1st post the get to see... (pinned)
  But that's about the only use I can think of. (other then useless bragging rights)
To be fair Reddit felt like a beta product for it's entire lifespan too
- yeah I remember the reddit interface being uninuititve, confusing, and really hard to learn when I started out. I just got used to it
Lemmy feels as a aplha/beta product that we ar all testing right now.
It is an alpha product. That's why the version number starts with a 0.
I have never cared about reddit karma. According to someone in reply to my saying I'll be gone July 1, "You have over a million comment karma. You'll never go, you live here." Well, all it took was an easy link in Plumbing for me to find and join my fellow Lemmings. I agree it should be an easier and clearer process to join, though!
- Reading all this just made me realize there's no karma! I never even thought about it. Crazy. I definitely would prefer this system.
  But I do agree it may deter other people.
- I have accounts as far back as when Reddit became public and probably millions of karma across them. I eventually started cycling though new accounts every year to leave old baggage behind and get a fresh take on the place.
  Karma and accounts are meaningless and karma was a nice way to trick your mind into valuing them way more than you should.
I... have a guide in my instances sidebar explaining those concepts to people.
- You cant possibly expect people to take on the heavy onus of glancing slightly to the right. /s

where am I right now?

Lemmy.world. Which is ONE example of a Lemmy instance. Lemmy instances don't even need to have Lemmy in the name.
Lemmy is a system that allows anyone to create what is essentially their own Reddit. Each of those are called instances. Lemmy.world is one of those, Lemmy.ml, is another, Beehaw is a third. Each of those Lemmy instances are run by different people for different reasons. Each of them have their own communities. A community is like a subreddit. The post you commented on ("PSA: Lemmy.ml is not Lemmy") was posted to the "Fediverse" community on Lemmy.world. Lemmy.ml could (and possibly does) have it's own Fediverse community. That would be separately run with separate content to the Lemmy.world Fediverse community.
Where it gets a little confusing, is that users in each of those different instances, can access and participate in the communities in each other's instances. IE, if you set up your own Lemmy instance called TimeLighter.IsCool and created a community called "Timelighter appreciation society" I could potentially join that community using my Lemmy.world account (assuming you allowed it.) I wouldn't need to create an account specifically on the TimeLighter.IsCool Lemmy to access it. If I did though I'd still (in theory) be able to use it to participate in the communities here at Lemmy.world.
- Thanks, this is definitely helpful to newcomers I think
- This makes much more sense now. Thank you so much!
- Do posts in these other communities appear on the all page on lemmy.world?
why am I right now?
WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?!
- THAT'S MY PURSE
  I DON'T KNOW YOU

I actually haven't seen much mention of tankies on any Lemmy except as a joking reference here or there. I'm on lemmy.ml and the signup there said explicitly that it is a free software community. The signup had no particular reference to other politics, though I have no idea what is present in the admins' minds. There is also lemmygrad.ml which is explicitly socialist.

You are right. I'm on Lemmy.ml because it was advertised as a place to discuss Lemmy (the software) and FOSS in general, and for the most part that's exactly what I've seen here.
- I see that the signup page doesn't even say anything about free software any more.
If you haven't seen tankies denying genocide and/or saying the victims brought it on themselves, then, I suspect you haven't been looking very far in the comments of the news community there, to be fair. There are a lot of posters who will defend Russia, China, Syria etc all day long. All their crimes are apparently made up by "western media", (as if Jimmy Dore's basement isn't in the west.)
Fortunately, they're getting super buttmad lately at being downvoted so much.
- "leftists" nowadays who defend Russia seem extremely pathetic to me. The only thing Russia has in common with leftism is a general dislike for the activities of the United States. But there are many other groups who opposed the US, such as Nazi Germany, which doesn't necessarily make them your ally. As a Russian-american I can say that a lot of media and discourse on Russia in the west has incredibly poor overall quality, but it's not a CIA psyop, it's a combination of American exceptionalism, genuine issues, and zero cultural awareness.
- Are comments that criticize Russia, China, Syria, etc being taken down?
- Today I've seen a "meme" (It was more of a drawn image) where they laugh about Ukrains committing suicide and portrait it as the right thing to do. That was on Lemmygrad though
- I know what tankies are. I just haven't encountered them much and haven't seen them discussed much on lemmy.ml. They were a running joke in a certain part of reddit which is where I first heard of them. If by "there" you mean lemmygrad, then yeah, it wouldn't surprise me, but if you're over there at all, you're sort of asking for it. I haven't had occasion to look there much.
What's a tankie?
- https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tankie
I've seen a bunch on WorldNews (don't remember from which server) and 196@blajah, although they were quickly kicked out of the latter

I've said it before but I'll say it again, when account migration is delivered, it'll be easier for people to grasp.

Also I'll say this to anyone that stumbles across this post before joining Lemmy. Look for a small instance with room to grow as opposed to a massive instance. You'll find your user experience a lot nicer.

Unfortunately this might not be true. Instances need maintainance. If the one that spun it up doesn't dedicate time and resources to it your experience might just be worse than average.
In my case I was having all kinds of timeout issues and occasionaly instance went down. Moved to a bigger and more active one and never had issues since.
- Oh, you need a good admin for sure.
Is account migration on the roadmap?

It feels like this is more aimed at outing admins or mod teams that people will disagree with. I have no issue with any other Lemmy instance, because I'm not a member of their instance. The community will have some things to figure out as far as easily relating the nature of instances and the fediverse, which it looks like will take some trial and error.

There's things users will pick up on just fine, while the main complaint is "too many communities" where people desire a centralized system to replace Reddit with. It's my personal opinion that people only think they want a centralized system, and given the situation with Reddit, it highlights how beneficial of a concept the Fediverse and Lemmy itself is over a centralized system, but I digress.

Lemmy.ml's stances on Russia, China, and "tankies" is great....for them. I have no issue with how any other instance is run or what their community prefers for a style of moderation. They are free to run it as they see it. It's telling that it went from the largest instance to taking a backseat to many others though given the word got out prior to this post, and that's fine. I won't begrudge them over their instance's nature. It just makes me love Lemmy as a whole.

I couldn't have said it better.
I haven't seen that much of a problem on Lemmy.ml, so I think you really have to dig down into it to find the dirt. I think some people have a problem with the admins political views, so they try to smear them any chance they can. But those same admin made lemmygrad as a place to kinda keep all that stuff separate from the main instance.
Sure, it seeps over sometimes, but the bulk of the content on lemmy.ml is just standard shit. Reddit was no different. Most subreddits were normal and there were a few ones that were full of imbalanced idiots. That didn't make people leave the site completely. We just didn't sub to the subreddits we didn't like. In a similar vein, just block the communities here that you don't want to see.
As far as the "too many communities" discussion goes... we're never going to win that battle. The majority of people out there aren't willing to make the change to the fediverse because of this one issue. Most likely a true Reddit alternative will be made and most normies will move there in time.
It's great that Lemmy has gained some popularity, but there are too many issues here for it ever to become as big as something like Reddit.

Why, what’s wrong with lemmy.ml? Can someone eli5 me?

My account actually lives there but I also made a lemmy world one.

In the lead developer’s GitHub, he sympathizes with Marxism including those that committed atrocities.. He apparently censors lemmy.ml with this in mind. Since it is open source though, I can trust that other instances might be better maintained. There is no way I’ll use any personal information in my signup because this all probably is going to China.
- my signup because this all probably is going to China.
  China is sophisticated enough that it can vacuum up all the information it wants about without any involvement of a Lemmy.lm admin.
- In the lead developer’s GitHub, he sympathizes with Marxism
  Based
  There is no way I’ll use any personal information in my signup because this all probably is going to China.
  Typical liberalism red scare fearmongering, lemmy has no ties to China.
- Oh the ml in lemmy.ml is Marxist lenonist. That makes a lot of sense actually
- Based
- That's the beauty of the fediverse. Don't like the server? Go somewhere else.
- Leninist. Marxist Leninist is largely an oxymoron as Lenin just sort of ignored a lot of core things Marx discussed. Specifically going against many of them. There are many different Marxism derived ideologies that aren't ML and don't sympathize or apologize for the atrocities of ML or capitalist regimes. Please don't lump them all together.
  As far as Leninist go. I agree with you 💯% though.
Well, how do you feel about the Chinese government and the North Korean one? Good? Hopeful they expand? They do.
- Hi friend! I’m not sure how this is possibly related to my question. But thank you anyway.
- This is what happens when you get your world views from right wing basement dwellers.
OP is annoyed because lemmy.ml devs are left-leaning and don't encourage bombing muslim countries, killing gays or locking black people in areas abandoned by the government.
- They do support Communist China's repression and ethnic cleaning of Muslim regions.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide#:~:text=Beginning%20in%202014%2C%20the%20Chinese,legal%20process%20in%20internment%20camps.
It seems to me that community choice in Lemmy is far less important than community choice is in Mastodon. In Mastodon you subscribe to some people or maybe some lists but you're largely dependent upon what types of local traffic are happening. I couldn't reliably fill my feed with interesting people in Mastodon. With Lemmy, I'm filling my feed with interesting communities, while the content with a lot of these communities is still kind of light It's at least enough to keep me relatively interested. I don't have to rely on the local splarg to keep me entertained.
Maybe a third to a half of my lemmy subscriptions are remote I've only blocked a handful of idiots. The experience thus far as better than Reddit honestly.
- Follow hashtags. It's the easiest way to get a feed going in Mastodon. Now it's a feature I wish Twitter had.
  I followed #cat, #catsofmastodon, and #caturday, and now my Mastodon feed is full of cats!
- If you have not been on mastodon lately. I’d suggest a revisit.
  As part of my migration to Lemmy I did and found the experience much improved. It way easier to find channels to follow from all various instances.
  Now my main focus was on getting good news feed set up - which is pretty mainstream need. So if your needs are more niche it may still be a pain.
They prevent incoming traffic from kbin. Sp, only leach kbin's contents, but not sharing back.
Some users accused developers as being tankies. Not sure how true this is.
- Oh they're absolutely tankies, dessalines website is crystal clear on that. To me this is simply a test of the fediverse. If it works as intended, the devs political orientation shouldn't matter. We'll see.
- Oh that’s not good. That goes against the spirit of federation. I wonder what their reasons are.

I like the sh.itjust.works lemmy because of the name.

Also, apparently they're run with 99% renewable energy which is pretty cool.

in the past 10 minutes i have had so many mixed emotions towards you.
I have come across your comments about 7 times and each time I either feel like fking you up or giving you a hug.
It's interesting how opinions of different people may differ or align depending on the context. Wars don't really matter if you think about it this way..
I propose a truce
- I propose a truce
  meanwhile them, probably:
  I don’t even know who you are.
- Fuck war, it's hell on Earth.
- I feel you! Like seriously! I feel the need to add it as my primary link. I was planning on building my own, just because I can, but now... I don't know. I am so confused.
- I’ve seen his comments often too. Kind of wild lol
I actually hate it because of the name. I can't be the only one.
- The name is the reason I picked it. Just for the lulz. And apparently the name was picked by the community, which puts it in the same category as Boaty McBoatface, so I'm not too surprised it's rather silly.
- Yeah, it's the only issue I have with it. good thing federation means I don't have to actually go there to see the content haha

Just out of curiosity, what did the devs do that was stupid?

The devs hold extreme political views. They are on board with the Tiananmen Square massacre being necessary and shit like that. Like this post says though, there are plenty of instances that are totally run by normal people. Additionally, the Lemmy server code is open source, so that helps to ensure that it isn’t doing anything nefarious behind-the-scenes.
- Damn, so they're not only tankies, but the dumbest kind of tankies. If you're going to simp for authoritarian regimes with red flags, at least don't defend the ones that are actively privatizing public sectors of the economy and dismantling whatever nominal socialism there actually exists.
- Exactly. My instance is run by a normal guy. I mean, he’s a Chief Information Security Officer and none of those guys are REALLY normal, but still.
Yeah I'm out of the loop too. Though AFAIK lemmy.ml has always been awfully run instance full of tankies.
- The fuck is a tankie?
Source: https://kbin.social/m/lemmyworld@lemmy.world/t/47012/-/comment/196579
Text:
Here is one of the Lemmy devs denying that the Uyghur genocide in China is happening:
https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/xq49ct/deleted_by_user/iq954mu/
"The Uyghur genocide is as real as white genocide."
Here they are again denying it:
https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/xq49ct/deleted_by_user/iq951cv/
"The holocaust was a genocide that actually happened, with all the evidence that goes along with it. There is no Uyghur genocide."
"Do you believe in anything as soon as the word "genocide" gets attached to it? What about "white genocide"? Are you a white genocide denier?"
And just so nobody can deny that parentis_shotgun is a Lemmy dev: -
“I’m one of the devs of Lemmy” https://i.imgur.com/5kp9BP0.png
Direct links to the posts will not work but still exist on the user’s profile page: https://old.reddit.com/user/parentis_shotgun/ - hold PgDn until comments stop loading then Control+F. In fact feel free to peruse their history in general - it’s quite interesting.
One of my favorite posts is their defense of the government of North Korea in /r/AskTankies: https://old.reddit.com/r/asktankies/comments/tb1836/okay_but_dprk_seriously/i04d1wu/
Now ask yourself why would someone who is not a Red Fascist Tankie piece of shit be answering questions on behalf of Tankies in /r/AskTankies while defending a totalitarian regime? Is it… perhaps because they’re in support of such a regime because they are in fact a Tankie piece of shit?
https://lemmy.ml/post/1167199
More details in the link above, here is the introduction:
"My concern is that users are being banned and content is being removed on lemmy.ml citing a rule that is not publicly stated anywhere that I have seen.
Moderators of lemmy.ml are removing posts and comments which are critical of the Chinese government and are banning their authors."
- So, the dev is another /u/spez.
most of the drama has been around beehaw, people don't like the political affiliations of the main dev... but idk what you're gunna do about that besides move to kbin witch uses lemmy anyways.
- Kbin and Lemmy are both based on ActivityPub, but they don’t use each other.
  I don’t think the drama has been only around BeeHaw, the existence of Kbin itself is mostly because of the Lemmy devs being holocaust deniers, believing in “white genocide”, and stuff like that. I also wasn’t convinced at some point until I was pointed at the receipts, see the “Read right here” comment on this post: https://lemmy.world/comment/562635

I feel like for most people who aren't that into technology the concept of a decentralized network can seem a little overwhelming given most of them are used to social media that is controlled by one company.

I just had a look at Lemmy's GitHub. Of the web interface alone, the second biggest contributor only joined two weeks ago. And there are many others. Those are new developers. So in essence: lemmy.ml admins are some of the software developers and are actually now in the minority, unless I missed something very obvious.
- This might be a stupid question, so forgive me. Who controls what happens to the actual software? Like, if a hundred great ideas get added to the GitHub, who controls which ones make it into the next version of Lemmy?
At the same time though since it's all open source, if things on the software side get out of control the software can fork.
- Exactly my thoughts, similar though process, similar weird cartoon photos. Great minds as they say...
People like this are actually the best ones to have running such a project. For them it's not just a pet-project to pass time, or a small way to show their skills. It's a necessary step for them, to be able to keep their online presence.
You'd be surprised at how effective people can be, when they're doing something out of spite.
- Seriously, if you don't understand the politics of the lemmy devs, you're functionally not understanding the point of lemmy. I think people believe in more socialist ideas than they've been lead to believe, especially with the rampant conflating of "leftists" in media to mix it with liberals as a tactic from the right. Lemmy is inherently political, and that's a GOOD thing.
- Not everything here has to be misconstrued to be done out of spite.
  I could be mistaken, but I truly believe that a large part of these forks and communities are about providing an alternative platform where there is opportunity for dogma agnostic discussion and constructive criticism beyond name-calling.

If you really care that much about "Authoritarians" and "Tankies", maybe you should just move to exploding-heads.

I, for one, fully support the explicitly antifascist politics of the core maintainers
- Agreed. There is too much false equivalence of "Tankies" and fascists.
  Fascists want to enslave your sisters and daughters and stick your trans friends in psych wards until they "decide" to stop being trans. They're fine with Blacks wallowing in poverty as second-class citizens and having militarized police on every streetcorner.
  "Tankies" (Marxist-Leninists) believe in all the same progressive things other (so-called) Socialists do but have different views on historical figures and foreign policy, something that does not matter a bit in the here and now.
  Here is the difference between Fascists and "Tankies": if it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that China was trying to exterminate the Ughyr people through mass execution, 95% of the "Tankies" out there, myself included, would disown China and denounce the genocide (this will not happen, because it isn't a genocide except in the broadest and most meaningless of terms). If it was proven beyond a doubt that the Holocaust happened (which it more or less has), the majority of Neo-Nazis would still say it was good.
I joined Lemmy a while ago and I suddenly got exposed to many "tankie" debates going on. Is there a reason this group suddenly became relevant on Lemmy (I mean, from the view of a Reddit migrant)?
- Because thanks to the federated setup we get exposed to a wider range of ideas. There are people who are actually socialist or communist and support countries like Cuba and see what China is trying to do with communism there and offer different perspectives. Western media is flooded with anti China propaganda because the capitalists just can't compete with a state run economy. So the word 'tankie' is what capitalists or liberals use to shut down Marxist dialogue over these countries. It's basically used the way MAGA idiots use 'woke'. The meaning is ambiguous and the point is to stop 'bad ideas' from being discussed.

I don't think that's particularly confusing. It simply states that Lemmy.ml is just a part of Lemmy, they are not the same thing.
- For people who are not familiar of the concept, The title "Lemmy.ml is not Lemmy" sounds like "Electric cars are not cars".
  A less confusing title could be "Lemmy.ml does not represent all of Lemmy".
Noobs gotta research a little like they did back in the early 2010s, ever since that stopped happening the quality of discussions went down immensely. I do not oppose a little bit of attitude-based gatekeeping.

As someone of a certain age, this just reminds me of the BBS days. lol

Edit: Without the dial-up, thankfully. ;)