we need more users
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I've been one of the people saying "we don't need more users. we need quality over quantity" and i was wrong.
the way it's going, lemmy needs active users who post content sothat the network stays relevant. networks like the fediverse benefit from network effects and that means that if we have more users, that improves the value and quality of the fediverse overall.
So please, everyone, when you can, make advertisement for the fediverse in your personal area. Go talk to friends, make attractive stickers and put them everywhere, stuff like that. We would all benefit from it.
edit: source for the graph
The culture wars have reached the fediverse, and it's making me less happy to be here. I don't want to hang out in places where people use slurs and insults, even if they're not aimed at me. I'm seeing more casual misogyny/misandry, more casual use of the r**** slur, more perfectionist gatekeeping, more assumptions, and just less good-faith comments in general.
I'd advertise, but I'm starting to look for an alternative to lemmy.
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I don't like how broad Lemmy assumes default interests are, though then again showing everyone the average interests may statistically be the best initialization point.
Every time I'm shown a community I'm totally uninterested I make sure to go in and block it from my feed. Likewise with aggressive or otherwise pathological users. It gets better.
Lemmy doesn’t assume anything. Sorting is done by votes or activity from all communities; the intent is for the user to subscribe to communities to curate their feed. But blocking works too.
I don’t know precisely how Reddit works now, but it used to be like that as well. There was no interest algorithm, no suggestions, other than a bit of vote count nonlinearity. It just had the quirk of defaulting to a few select subs in “hot,” instead of “all” like most Lemmy/Piefed instances do.
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Right but you understand how this makes fragmentation worse right?
How? My server would be able to talk with any of the existing projects and talk native ActivityPub. It can even bridge to other protocols without forcing them to change anything on their side.
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Agreed lemme is probably one of the most negative places on the Internet. I joined because I was hoping this place would grow to be a proper alternative for Reddit, with fun niche content, and its own culture of obscure inside jokes. Instead even after several years it still feels like we are the angry trolls living under reddit's shadow.
One of the biggest things I've found that helped me avoid the politics was to leave lemme.world and fill my personal feed up with subscriptions to content that fits my interest. Politics has ways of working its way into content none the less, but at least I've got a fighting chance.
I really do believe lemme is going to struggle to find people who want to stick around unless it starts to embrace fun light hearted content. I'm not sure how we'd do that as a platform, but I do believe that's one of the big reasons people will struggle to adopt this corner of the Internet as their own.
I guess the problem are the users (you and me) or better or use of plattforms itself.
On reddit I tended to be lurker. And if most of us are the few which actually POST content are the those with strong (mostly political) views who are willing to commit to their cause by flooding the zone with political fights.
Coclusion:
If we want a cozy lemmy we need to join/start non-political, subject specific communities and actually CONTRIBUTE something instead of just consuming. Otherwise this cluster of plattforms will end up like all the other due to the same reasons. -
There are an absolute shit-ton of features that PieFed has that Lemmy lacks. To give just one example, PieFed offers "polls", which do not show up on Lemmy since the latter lacks the ability to properly receive them.
Even for the posts that do federate, many features cannot federate in Lemmy, since the latter lacks the entire concept of them - e.g. hashtags, user & post flairs, user labels, limitation of community voting to only subscribers, etc. To give an example there, if a Lemmy community wanted to see fewer posts about USA politics, a moderator only has one option: make a rule and ban users who try it. In contrast a PieFed community could make a community flair and have a much gentler rule that any post about USA politics must use that flair, so that users who did not want to see such could filter them out. PieFed also combines communities into cross-community topic areas, and combines all comments across all cross-posts (identical posts sent to different communities), with the ruleset of the one currently clicked on displayed at the bottom below a post, including the description and the entire set of rules that the mods are asking the members to follow (displayed on each and every single post). Therefore even the identical communities look different when on PieFed, with many enhanced features (caveat: 3rd party apps have not yet adapted to take advantage of most of these features).
https://join-lemmy.org/instances will send you to places like hexbear.net and lemmy.ml, whereas https://piefed.social/auth/instance_chooser literally never will.
Even federation works differently, allowing a hierarchy of level of "trustedness" beyond simply yes federate fully vs. no defederate entirely. Also PieFed instances more efficiently send out 25x less data per post, and new instances are significantly easier to install and maintain (see e.g. irl stories of https://jeena.net/lemmy-switch-to-piefed and https://slrpnk.net/post/29381524, and don't miss how in both stories there are long-standing issues/bugs that somehow never seem to get fixed...). Feel free to like or dislike whatever you choose but...
Different federation, different posts, slightly different users. Different software means everything is now up to be changed, especially as the software is written in a language that encourages more contributors, and the devs are also much more responsive to feedback.
If you dont like it, fork it. Stop bothering us about it
- source: Nutomic, one of the primary Lemmy devs
Even the very model of interaction on PieFed profoundly differs from Lemmy: e.g. if I wanted to block political posts then I could unsubscribe from all (or most) of them, so that they do not pollute my Subscribed feed on the main page, yet they would all still then be just a click away in the News & Politics Topic Feed, meaning that I can literally both have my cake (no politics) and eat it too (have politics whenever I want). Everything is different here. Check it out if you do not believe me - e.g. your very own instance has a PieFed version.
https://join-lemmy.org/instances will send you to places like hexbear.net and lemmy.ml, whereas https://piefed.social/auth/instance_chooser literally never will.
Honestly I think this is a problem. I don't think the instance picker should be so opinionated that it blocks (legal) instances. I want extremist to be directed away from the normie and moderate instances. I prefer to clearly characterize instances and let people pick their own, while also providing opinion for people who don't care or lack understanding.
Although this is clearly a point of preference, and I can see why some people would prefer the opposite to possibly prevent the radicalization of a moderate.
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Don't worry about it. Honestly. Just post a song and tell us what you like about it. That's good enough. Maybe later you can keep us updated on your guitar progress!
(Hmmm... I always suspected the "In-depth" in the group's name was maybe a little intimidating haha)
it was more a joke about the "free guitar lessons" - well, now i only need a guitar to begin
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It’s quality and quantity. The quality has held despite a drop in users. Just wait and let Reddit have another controversy and we’ll get another infusion of converts. Popularity may only threaten more bots and scams.
The quality has held despite a drop in users.
I feel like I'm going mental over here because this has not been my experience. The quality has always been spotty, but the last few months I've noticed more and more posts linking to awful "news" rags or no source at all. Worse, I rarely see people questioning the lack of quality information, simply gobbling it up because it aligns with their world view. Plus 70% of the comments on this platform could be generated by a classic r/subredditsimulator style bot and nothing would change; the same 5 points about AI, capitalism, and Linux are made in every thread in the exact same style every day.
And yes I'm mostly talking about news communities because Linux comms are usually fine but repetitive and while I'd love to interact with non-news content there just... isn't much being made.
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…I am drifting away from Lemmy myself.
Political communities are echo chambers like Reddit, in a different color. Discussing tech or helping others is better, but still feels like talking in circles.
Wholesome subs like /c/SuperBowl are sublime, but I mostly lurk there.
Information hygiene is awful. Big subs upvote tabloids and Tweets to the sky, as long as they align with their beliefs. I just saw a discussion on a not-obviously AI generated photo with the community sentiment of “misinformation? Who cares. It’s a pro-lefty meme, so spread it.”
Anyway, all this scrolling and impulse commenting eats time. I get the same feeling of shouting into a black hole that I get on corporate social media.
Much of this is my fault, though.
I have several niches I intend to make original posts for, but never do.
It’s somewhere in the giant pile of my IRL executive dysfunction :’(
the only way to not have an echo chamber where people vote with their emotions is to have an enlightened gnosticism user-base which is obviously very difficult to get and nurture but i'm trying
the best way to do this is to cultivate an atmosphere of discussion and in-depth thought regularly, which you can do by engaging with these discussions and seeking enlightenment yourself.
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Was on subs about gaming and the most upvoted post was some gay shit about lgbt.
As bluesky you are a brainwashed community that s unapproachable for the majority. On every political issue you are an enclave of opiniated ppl that dont even represent 5% of real opinion in the real world. I come here time to time just to laugh at the collective retardness. It s incredible how you can 't comprehend the issue isn't the software it s the user. And that s why nothing gonna change"How dare LGBT topics exist around me!"
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I am not sure whether "represent" is the right word here. What I mean is that all posts have a "recipient" (the audience).
For Mastodon, you have public posts where the recipient is literally a "special" audience, called
https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#Public. If you want to see a private message to alice, you just change the "audience" to contain only thehttps://example.com/aliceactor URI.To post to a community, it's the same logic: if you are posting on
fediverse@lemmy.world, then the message has "https://lemmy.world/c/fediverse" as the audience. This message is then sent to lemmy.world and processed.Ok, so from a user's perspective, where would Mastodon content appear in your Lemmy feed?
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I've always been more of a lurker/commenter than a poster, but posters are what Lemmy needs if we want more users to come. People need to want to come to Lemmy for content.
In my experience, the best poster on the platform is the person making the comics on /c/unix_surrealism, in that sometimes I find myself wanting to check the comm to see if there is anything new.
And this will be disagreed with heavily, but the second best posters are the memers at Hexbear. I just think they make the funniest leftist memes (so political content, sorry people who are tired of politics), and they're the only instance that actually has a site culture, with their own in-jokes and history/lore.
When Reddit was young, that was a big part of it: Posts that went viral among the community and became in-jokes/lore. Comment chains (as much as I grew to hate them). And original ideas for content (AMA, TIL, AITA, etc.). There was a kind of culture to the site (that's mostly been diluted now).
That said. I like Lemmy perfectly fine at the size it is, even if it doesn't fully replace Reddit. Though it's concerning to see it declining.
the startrek instance has the best culture IMO. Its just wholesome startrek posting and they always seem to dig up a relevant scene.
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…I am drifting away from Lemmy myself.
Political communities are echo chambers like Reddit, in a different color. Discussing tech or helping others is better, but still feels like talking in circles.
Wholesome subs like /c/SuperBowl are sublime, but I mostly lurk there.
Information hygiene is awful. Big subs upvote tabloids and Tweets to the sky, as long as they align with their beliefs. I just saw a discussion on a not-obviously AI generated photo with the community sentiment of “misinformation? Who cares. It’s a pro-lefty meme, so spread it.”
Anyway, all this scrolling and impulse commenting eats time. I get the same feeling of shouting into a black hole that I get on corporate social media.
Much of this is my fault, though.
I have several niches I intend to make original posts for, but never do.
It’s somewhere in the giant pile of my IRL executive dysfunction :’(
The info hygiene here is really bad. I thought people here would be better about finding well sourced informative articles to talk about but its the same news slop that dominates other platforms. This is a discussion forum so posts should have something worth discussing. Spamming the same trump action over and over doesnt create any discussion.
Scrolling through the news community is so depressing there is no comments because everyone is thinking "what do you want me to say its bad its awful"
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The culture wars have reached the fediverse, and it's making me less happy to be here. I don't want to hang out in places where people use slurs and insults, even if they're not aimed at me. I'm seeing more casual misogyny/misandry, more casual use of the r**** slur, more perfectionist gatekeeping, more assumptions, and just less good-faith comments in general.
I'd advertise, but I'm starting to look for an alternative to lemmy.
pretty much. i have been here for over two years. in the past few months it's become more and more frustrating and i'm getting harassed/attacked/banned, always from bad faith actors that whose grade school reasoning is 'i know you are but what am i?!' type justifications. they only reply to call you names and tell you how wrong you are and how right they are.
it's the same idiots who ruined reddit who can't tolerate anyone who thinks differently than them and then screech about how tolerate and open minded they are and if anyone disagrees with them the are a stupid facist bigot.
people forget, but redditque was a think people actaully practiced and made reddit a really cool place. people would argue, but they generally didn't ban/block/harass each other. nobody in first decade of reddit went around downvoting/reporting all my posts. but that's just how shit is now on the internet too many unwell nutjobs who want to punish people who type words they don't like.
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…I am drifting away from Lemmy myself.
Political communities are echo chambers like Reddit, in a different color. Discussing tech or helping others is better, but still feels like talking in circles.
Wholesome subs like /c/SuperBowl are sublime, but I mostly lurk there.
Information hygiene is awful. Big subs upvote tabloids and Tweets to the sky, as long as they align with their beliefs. I just saw a discussion on a not-obviously AI generated photo with the community sentiment of “misinformation? Who cares. It’s a pro-lefty meme, so spread it.”
Anyway, all this scrolling and impulse commenting eats time. I get the same feeling of shouting into a black hole that I get on corporate social media.
Much of this is my fault, though.
I have several niches I intend to make original posts for, but never do.
It’s somewhere in the giant pile of my IRL executive dysfunction :’(
why beat yourself up. you know good content won't be rewarded or seen.
only the ragebait. the internet is not information driven anymore, it's dopmine driven.
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I think part of the issue is new users not understanding or feeling comfortable with the fediverse (myself included a while ago). Even after searching for a bit and looking it up I can barely get how it works, but there's really no guide with the common terms anywhere, how to get started, the difference between platforms and what they have in common etc.
The benefits are the first thing you hear about, but they seem more like jargon terms than actually anything functional.Reddit has better accessibility and user retainment, alongside with a library of old posts that are good for searching some niche stuff up.
For example, if I were to get a friend into lemmy, I'm not really sure how I can explain it to them, or where to start other than the copy paste "decentralized" "federated" stuff. It doesn't really answer stuff like who moderates it, develops it, owns it, or what's the difference between lemmy, piefed mbin, how do they interact with each other.
I believe that an introductory "oficial" post on the front of each platform in layman's terms would be great to get new users to stay.just tell them it's like when people had their won websites.
except now they their own reddits.
but i guess if they are under 30 they may not understand what any of that means, since people haveing websites stopped being a thing 10+ years ago.
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Ok, so from a user's perspective, where would Mastodon content appear in your Lemmy feed?
You do understand that I am describing a whole different client, right?
There is no "Lemmy Feed", just "posts sent from individuals to a group" vs "posts sent from individuals that are broadcasting without any specific audience"
How this presentation layer would work would be entirely up to the developer/user. I can envision people that might prefer to have a separate threaded-view for group posts like we have in most forum sites, but I can also envision people that will prefer each post appearing in a "feed", like what Facebook does for groups. I can also envison such an application providing a "image gallery" for people tthat want to see only pictures, like Vernissage does.
My point is, it would be completely up to the user how to see the data.
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I’m feeling very burnt out. Lemmy is kinda an endless stream of political doom and gloom. For context, I’m in the US and already stressed out by our political situation. But I don’t come here to see more doom and gloom. It’s getting to the point where I think I need to get off for my mental health.
Then there are all the people who if you don’t agree exactly with their opinion they downvote you to hell. You have left leaning politics but not my flavor of left? Downvote! You hate enshitification and big tech privacy practices, but you use a single piece of software that isn’t FOSS? Downvote!
It’s so exhausting. I absolutely hate Reddit but I miss going on there and just laughing at how someone’s TV is too high. I miss laughing at how some restaurant serves food of shovels instead of plates.
And that’s not even getting into the lack of content. That part I understand requires users like myself to be as active as possible. But it’s hard being active when I feel so burnt out from the other stuff here.
Tbh, idk if these issues are specific to Lemmy or just the internet as a whole. I can only speak to the slice of the internet I find myself in. But I just wanna see people that are excited about things: photography, 3d printing, weird keyboards, etc. And that exists here, but it’s drowned out by all the doom and gloom.
i'm sick of how awful and ignorant the vast majority of comments here are. and how they have to conflated outlandish beliefs with being morally correct.
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why beat yourself up. you know good content won't be rewarded or seen.
only the ragebait. the internet is not information driven anymore, it's dopmine driven.
I have some posts/interests that I think would get some visibility. In my case, it really is executive dysfunction, heh.
Not that you're wrong. And, unfortunately, its a ludicrously profitable highway outside of the Fediverse.
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I have some posts/interests that I think would get some visibility. In my case, it really is executive dysfunction, heh.
Not that you're wrong. And, unfortunately, its a ludicrously profitable highway outside of the Fediverse.
i've seen a huge uptick in the rage/hate activity on lemmy... and it drives tons of upvotes and comments.
smart thoughtful interesting stuff... gets maybe 1/10 the activity.
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The info hygiene here is really bad. I thought people here would be better about finding well sourced informative articles to talk about but its the same news slop that dominates other platforms. This is a discussion forum so posts should have something worth discussing. Spamming the same trump action over and over doesnt create any discussion.
Scrolling through the news community is so depressing there is no comments because everyone is thinking "what do you want me to say its bad its awful"
On the contrary, I've made a few (not a ton) of what I thought were interesting news posts, but they don't seem to gain traction.
I think the deeper issue is ragebait works, very well. The community seems to be content with that, and Lemmy/Piefed devs aren't structuring the site the counter it.
