my thoughts on lemmy so far

It's really weird. There's so few people here, but the conversations are really good. Everyone is friendly and the place is growing. That's a really great vibe.

That is how it was at reddit during/before/relatively after the digg exodus.
- Yup. I mentioned this on Reddit as well. OG Reddit vibes.
I actually enjoy getting in on a platform at the early stages like this, because of the interesting conversations.
- Much more like talking to real people and less like screaming into the void
yea I fully agree! It seems quite nice so far

I just switched too, this is actually my first comment. Idk why everyone on reddit said lemme was too confusing

Every single time you offer an alternative to people, if it's not a perfect clone they complain that it's too confusing. What they're really saying is they didn't want to have to learn a single new thing at all.
Aside from the whole Fediverse concept (which as a current Matrix and Mastodon user I didn't have to relearn), the most confusing concept for new users I'd say would be that there can exist the same community on multiple servers (like, say, politics). But when you realize what this service is really doing, there's not really another way to do it and maintain moderation control on each server. It's actually a strength IMHO. I'm really impressed with what I'm seeing. More people coming onboard is going to make this place really fun. And if it ever becomes not fun, there'll probably be another server that would be more your idea of fun.
- Yeah, ive just been subbing to all of the ones for topics I like with the idea to whittle them down later once I see which ones are the best match. If anyone has a recommendation list that would be a great post
Flashbacks to the first hour using reddit as an former digg user...
It's fine. If people want to switch they will do so.
What separates the smart from the stupid is not the ability to adapt to something new, it's the ability to overcome obstacles they may encounter when trying the new thing.
- Oh I'm def. getting deja vu from the digg meltdown lol. I remember being hesitant to jump ship over to reddit but i did and never looked back. So sad to see reddit also go down that path but it's been trending that way for a while now.
I mean, trying to subscribe to a community that wasn't on my instance took my much longer than I would have liked. Most people are used to have their onboarding very streamlined so I get that it's a bit jarring
- From what I understand, beehaw has been struggling a little with their user count more or less tripling overnight. I think we're going to have to expect some growing pains like when Mastodon was overrun a few months back.
- Yeah, I was hoping the communities were more tightly federated. That is, the community name was simply the community name on all servers rather than having local vs All.
- I'm still not sure how to do it, to be honest. But at least commenting is easy!
  Edit: I agree with the people saying the onboarding is too complex. It's not because people are dumb. If a whole bunch of people all have the same problem with a system, it's because it's poorly designed for humans. Even though people who are used to the system or good at learning new systems in specific contexts can easily forget that the skills they have are learned skills, similar to how gamers forget that handling a controller is a learned skill and not just as automatic as walking for everybody out the gate.
Welcome! The biggest hurdle is right at the beginning. Choosing which server to register with.
After that it's got enough similar to Reddit, that it should be easy to post to your registered server and other federated servers as well.
- Am I going to regret signing up to lemmy.ml rather than a more specific instance? Still wrapping my head around all this. Could I sign up on another instance w/ the same username if that instance wasn't federated?
Welcome, glad to have you!
Yeah I'm not sure why people think this is so intimidating. Click signup, get signed up, then start commenting / posting / creating communities. No one has to understand the term fediverse to do any of that.
- Honestly if the current sign up process is too hard for some people, maybe it's a good user filter to have lol.
- Click signup. Research servers to try to find one that looks good, wonder if you can sign up for multiple, or change account to other server, or what all the implications of having tons of servers even are, encounter choice paralysis. Quit and go somewhere that hides the federation.
  Part of email's success is that for most people the federation has been hidden. You got your email through your university or employer (pre eternal September), then through your ISP (post eternal September), then later through gmail. There's no apparent meaningful choice to setting it up, you just use the default. The choice in the fediverse is just as meaningless, but it's a huge focus of the process for no good reason.
At least from what I've read, here's some of the confusion.
Most of it seems to revolve around the federation being rather loose. You have to pick a server to join first and your ID exists there. Probably easy enough as most are either joining lemmy.ml or beehaw.org, at least from what I'm seeing of new users.
The second problem is in some community confusion and local vs All. Communities are per server then propagated out. That is, you can have /c/hockey on lemmy.ml and a separate /c/hockey on beehaw.org. You then have to select the specific community you want to join, meaning some will see it as /c/hockey and others will see it via the federation name. The federation isn't simply hidden and behind the scenes more like IRC or usenet.

It's my opinion that nsfw content is what will make or break Lemmy, Beehaw, Kbin, or any other fediverse community.
Every single social media giant has some degree of nsfw content, it's a big draw that gets non-techies to join.
Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook; all of them have/had some amount of pornographic material. Of course it's incredibly difficult to moderate porn though, and in no way am I saying that it should be unmoderated, but I also think that 100% excluding it would be a huge factor in determining long-term success. There's even a song about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6eFNRKEROw

To paraphrase an oldie: if NSFW was not allowed, there'd be just one [lemmy] community called c/bringbacktheporn
- God. Is Scrubs considered old, now?
Is NSFW banned all together or just on this instance? Couldn't someone spin up a lemmy instance just for NSFW?
- I think someone could make their own instance with NSFW content, but other Lemmy instances could choose to block it.
- it's open source, it's impossible to ban all together, anyone can start an instance
Lemmy rule 34 when?
Lol that song is a throwback. I wouldn't be surprised if someone's already setting up a Lemmy instance for NSFW content.

I like it here. Its small but growing. I just wish the UI was bit better. Selecting text is weird :S

Just trying the jerboa android app and finding it 100% usable. Does all I need and easily replaced my RiF reddit app.
I'm not noticing anything weird. What do you mean selecting text is weird?
- If you look at a site like https://news.ycombinator.com/news , you can left click on your mouse and it will highlight and select any text. This is the standard for most websites. But on Lemmy, it doesn't highlight or allow me to select text.
  Edit: Okay it may be related to me having it in the sidebar on Edge. For some reason, Hacker News works perfect but Lemmy doesn't.

@MerrickGreen
That fediverse effect.
It helps when everyone isn't just hate reading comments, and want to engage in discussion rather than hoping on the toxic hate trains. I really like that one of the moderation goals here is to have a healthy discussion space. I feel like most subreddits have lost that over the years. I don't even want to comment most of the time on Reddit, especially to correct someone saying blatantly false shit, just because I know it will be a hail of downvotes and Ill thought out responses.
- It really feels like people here are actually engaging in more natural conversation, as opposed to reddit where it's often a) venting, b) preaching to the choir to nobody's benefit and creating an echo chamber, c) arguing really vehemently about whether person A should like X video game/book/whatever or not, d) pointing at xyz things you hate and talking about how you hate it with other people who hate it, and such. Commenting on reddit often felt like screaming into a void, and the void ignores you. Or it stares back and now you have 332 downvotes and a reddit cares message for liking an unpopular book or saying black lives matter or whatever.
  I don't quite trust Lemmy yet. I'm afraid it might just be the shiny new thing effect. But I'm hopeful.
I don't think we have bots here either.
- I think 50% of reddit comments are bots lol. It feels like a time loop sometimes seeing the same posts, memes, jokes, etc all the time. It doesn't feel very authentic

Wanders in, looks around, flops down into a comfy looking chair

Nice place you've got here. Very nice decor, not an advert or crappily disguised advert in sight.

Just wait until lemmy gold drops

I thought the same thing when Voat started as a mirror to Reddit. It was similar for a while but every time a troll or Nazi was ejected from Reddit they migrated to Voat. Eventually I was one of the last liberals there. Is there anyone maintaining order here or will it be the wild west ?

I think the lemmy structure really annoys trolls and right-wingers. They could register on a server, but they would have to play by the rules (be nice, don't be a nazi etc), which they really don't want. So they want their own server, but quickly realize that they'll be alone there with their miserable peers, which they also don't like.
- Dangit yer violatin' mah freeze peeches by not making people listen to me!!!!
- I'm new to this federated thing, what prevents the nazi from hosting his own Lemmy instance where being a nazi is ok, and the content from the nazi instance showing up in "all"?
- No fun being a bully when it's nothing but other bullies around I guess.
You can check the modlog, but we admins are pretty active, and developed our list of rules over a long period of trial and error, and staunchly enforce them, with temp or permabans. You can check them on the site main page, but we do not allow hate-speech trolls, or people who make everyone's experience unpleasant. We're much stricter than reddit in that regard, who have an extremely "libertarian" / lax policy about hate speech, letting communities like stormfront operate there for years.
Overall we want this to be a welcoming, pleasant, and healthy environment.
Use the report button if you see anyone breaking the rules, and we'll get to it as quickly as we can.
lemmy.ml, beehaw.org and feddit.de have in the last years proven to have pretty good moderation. Far-right people have been banned if they tried to set up shop here. There was a right-wing/nazi server called wolfballs.com for a year or so, they of course were blocked by all 3 servers and they never really took off. In the end their admin decided it wasn't worth it.
I'm with you - I was on Voat back when it was still Whoaverse. I bailed pretty early once I saw the direction it was heading in.
That said - the nice thing about the Fediverse is that there are multiple communities, with different moderation styles. Lemmy has a sizable communist community, for example, but you don't have to associate with them. In fact, some of the larger Lemmy instances (like Beehaw) don't even federate with them; you have to go out of your way to subscribe to them if your home instance is Beehaw.
So if what you're saying comes to pass, and the Alt-Right comes to Lemmy (I don't think they will, but let's imagine) - you can easily pack up shop and migrate to another Lemmy instance that has a better moderation style, or one that won't federate with those instances. It's just like Mastodon in that respect.
- We've had histories of right-wing trolls trying to set up shop here. They last about 5 minutes.
- Ironically (ironically only in the sense that Lemmygrad are leftist authoritarians I believe) Lemmy kind of embraces the philosophical underpinnings of leftist anarchist thought. I'm not well-read or anything but that's just my impression.
  Voluntary decentralized communities who can voluntarily associate with each other? People act like dicks? There's no way to enforce authority beyond exile. Exile instead of capital punishment is hard to do in real life because land is a thing that exists... but in the digital world of federated communities, it's literally the only thing to do! And if you don't like a certain instance you can just leave and find one that suits you better or create your own. Freedom of movement with stability dictated by the social contract and exile of those who are not adhering to the social contract.
  Honestly it really does seem pretty in line with general anarchist thought to me. And I think it will really help create a better internet in this age of media consolidation, profit-seeling, and extremism. I'm just reminded of the people begging for certain reddit subs to get banned and it not happening because the traffic was too lucrative. Now people can just exile each other in a decentralized way, no begging the admins required. I mean yeah on a smaller scale sure... But now the power to enforce the social contract is in the hands of way more people instead of just a few people per million users. Quarantining extremists will help stop the rage machine from spreading hate. I think it's truly it's hilarious that authoritarians over on Lemmygrad got defederated and thwarted by anarchist methods. In real life... Well, that's what the tanks were for.
"here" is relative in the Fediverse.
Here? sure, but there will be right-wing Lemmy instances. It's almost a rule of existence at this point.
- I don't totally understand the fediverse yet. So an instance is basically just a portion of a website on a certain server, right? And all the instances communicate with each other to create one website?
This is what I worry about, too. It's really the same story with pretty much any fediverse space I've joined. I come looking to get away from corporate fascists only to find the bigot individuals too fascist for the corporate spaces come there too when they get kicked off

Thrilled to be here at the start of something new! I remember saying the same thing about Voat years before, but I don't think this site will go that way being federated and all. I'm on Mastodon too and call me crazy but I think federated internet is the next age. Just made a woodworking page. Can't wait to find some like minded folks to share hobbies with! ohhhh you know what? I like gardening too....

I like gardening too...
Me too! Have you found any good gardening subs yet?
- oh the one on beehaw already exists! It's called !greenspace@beehaw.org
- I think they'll open one on beehaw tomorrow! !gardening@lemmy.ml and !gardening@mander.xyz already exist!
- I just made one! come post something there. idk how to link to it though... i guess it would be gardening@sopuli.xyz ?
Man, Voat sounded like a great idea. Then it just all went sideways, didn't it?
- What happened to voat?

I really hope lemmy is the one, the biggest plus is that it isnt one company, so no investors to fuck it up

It's still a bit confusing to me, but I'm already starting to like it here. Especially with the Jerboa app.

reddit also was confusing 13 years ago :)
I opened an account on lemmy, yesterday, and it looks nice, very promising. If we were 10 of thousands it would be even more great. I also installed Jerboa on my cellphone and it's good beginning, it does the job
- reddit also was confusing 13 years ago :)
  "That site which looks like a spreadsheet?? It's so fugly!"
  Edgelord Diggers (digg.com users)
If you find a way to collapse/expand comment threads with Jerboa, let me know! It's the main thing I'm struggling with right now, but should be a easy fix.
- You can hold the space between the username and the upvote / comment age, in the middle top of the comment.
- same here, hopefully the dev of the app reains active
- I'm really wishing for a way to disable not just the visibility of the score, but also the upvote/downvote buttons, and even the reply button, like I can on redreader for reddit. Sometimes I need that to get myself to stop spending too much time/mental effort on social media sites.

At the end of the day, everyone on lemmy is or was at some point a reddit user. The platform changed but the community is still the same. So enjoy!

Thanks, glad you're enjoying it so far!

Hrm, that name looks familiar ;)

Same, I exclusively used Reddit as an app. I now downloaded, and am using the Jerboa client and it works great so far. Had to figure out how to add an account but once working and in list mode its like I never left Reddit lol.

Much love to the devs and folks hosting servers.

Agreed. It seems promising and has that magic feeling of when I first encountered reddit for the first time post-Digg. That said, the federated aspects is neat but confusing... Still trying to work out how to view communities on different instances.

EDIT: Ok so apparently this post is actually on a different instance. Now I need to figure out how to subscribe to remote communities?

For now your best bet is to do the community search in the section at the top of the web ui. for example, choose "All" in the filter and search for "gaming" and it will find all gaming communities on all the intances.
The sub you're on right now also displays on the right hand side of the post, you can also press subscribe there.
- Thanks, now we're cooking with fire! I originally was trying to do it on the Android app, seems like the search isn't functioning as expected. Web UI works as expected, not a big deal anyways since I can just "app-ify" it with a home screen shortcut.

I'm liking the look of it so far.

One thing I miss is that I have reddit configured to hide any posts that I've voted on, in order to keep my feed fresh (using the Save button if I want to check a post again later). I'd love to see similar functionality here as well.

Yeah I'm using the Android app, it have a lot of functionnality but also miss some of them

Thanks!

My thoughts:

404: FetchError: request to http://lemmy:8536/api/v3/site

I think the server may be struggling a bit under everyone checking it out.

I've had this a few times too but it seems okay at the moment.
- Funny enough just had it again between seeing this and trying to press See Context. It immediately fixed itself tho.
Getting that on Beehaw.org right now.

Is there a way to make use of all the white space? I don't understand why the content is restricted to such a small portion of the page.

I agree with you about the whitespace, and your post made me realize that there is a dark mode. Thanks for that.
- I actually have an extension on my browser called Dark Reader that makes all websites dark for me. So I didn't even know there was a dark mode either.
- Could really use a pure black mode. For OLED and night. Seems like an easy and major improvement.
Put in a request on their github
Would be cool if Images I click could expand into that space
Yeah that side bar needs to be minimizable.
Agreed. I'd prefer far more density.
I originally asked this question because I'm new to Lemmy and wasn't sure if I was missing something about why the design was this way. I didn't know if there was some setting or other way to modify to get it to have a different design.
Having looked into it a bit more, just seems there isn't a way to do it ourselves, perhaps as the userbase expands there might be someone who eventually develops extensions.
What I have noticed is there's apparently other Lemmy instances that run a different UI, but maybe they aren't really federated with everyone else. Hexbear.net was one I just found out about. Basically I'm wondering if anyone knows of other instances that are part of the fediverse.
- I'm actually really curious about hexbear as well. It's a pretty different place over there...
  Do Lemmy servers publish their federation lists?
I understand why they might like to constrain the column, but it would be nice if there was an option to turn that off and let you just control the width yourself by sizing the browser window.

I agree! I’m actually kind of into the lower user count. I don’t really want an experience so intuitive that everyone with a Facebook account can join. I liked Reddit when it was a little less mainstream. It feels more like the old days over here!

Very much agreed. UI friendly, both on desktop and on mobile--even mobile browser. Instances are kinda confusing but I think im starting to understand it

Just joined as well. Looks pretty good here to me!

I’m on kbin and really liking it. I feel right at home and I actually love that I can see Mastodon content in a threaded, Reddit-like format. It’s great to be able to see Lemmy content too - it feels like there’s enough activity here with all that that I want to stick around and participate in the community.

It's nice, I'm on the main instance for now but at some point I'll host my own and move my account there

I'm still trying to figure out how to find things, but yep liking it here so far.

I'll keep my reddit account and will still search there for help as there are a lot of guides and information there...

Here since yesterday, but I like everything I've seen. The communities are welcoming, and users' profiles lack the useless vanity metrics but allow enough customization to feel personal. Jerboa works well on Android, and everything looks well thought out generally. I hope Lemmy is going up to a great future!

I’m surprised. I like it. Can’t wait to see where it will go. Apps and communities.

Welcome, glad to have you here! I hope Lemmy will continue to grow as a vibrant, diverse and friendly community.

Welcome! I just reactivated my lemmy account, happy to see more activity here.

Be very welcome!

Any reason I can't find Remmel in the iPhone App Store?

I’m brand new to Lemmy, having trouble getting around on iOS. I checked out the GitHub for Remmel, in one of the open issues a dev mentioned they’re trying to get the app up and running again for the new Lemmy version a few months from now.
In the meantime, how have you been getting around the Fediverse on iOS, if you don’t mind me asking?
- I'm a dirty Android user. But remember that Lemmy is ActivityPub.
  If you have a Mastodon account (like the one I'm using right now to send you this!), you can follow Lemmy communities. I just put the link to the community in the Mastodon search bar and a "profile" showed up for me to follow. Then I followed it and posts from users show up in my Mastodon client.
  It's not perfect - the Android Lemmy app actually does a better job, generally. But it's honestly a reasonable workflow and it makes my Mastodon feed more interesting too.
I was having the same issue. Can't remember where but someone said the app isn't actually available yet and that the dev only has it on github? I could be wrong though just passing along that info.

It does seem promising!

@nanashi Welcome to Fedi!