There is a huge emphasis I see on just growing community size and creating an alternative to reddit.
Back in the day we used to hang out in irc chats with 5-10 active users or forums with few thousand users max. I made friends there I visted across countries. Years after Id log in and people would ask how you’ve been.
I had a reddit account for over 10 years and I dont think a single person would recognize my username. Its always felt like people aren’t talking to you but trying to appeal to the whole audience for points. Reddit exploits our psychology for attention but nothing humane is gained there. The super massive “community” ends up as a void where 99% of posts go completely unseen and any discussions suffer heavily from mod mentalities.
If this a place where even just ten people call home but feel good doing so, that is more good than a million being miserable. Maybe the best alternative is not to be reddit altogether.
Besides, good things have a natural tendency to spread, we don’t need to focus on it.
Hey! This post is not specifically related to the lemmy.world instance. From now on, posts such as these will be removed, in order for the community to stay on topic. However, as this is a highly upvoted post, I’ll just lock it for now.
A concern that I haven’t seen mentioned is Eternal September. Right now, Redditors are the school kids who are barging into someone else’s space and trying to make it their own, without first knowing what the community is like.
The same thing happened on Reddit. I’ve always seen the Obama AMA as triggering Reddit’s Eternal September, though it can be argued that it was happening before that. The influx of users killed the Alot Monster, and forget about anyone helping with grammar; they’d be ridiculed and downvoted into the negative. Then, Reddit got rid of the up/down counter altogether, so nobody coming from Facebook would end up with hurt feelings.
Anyhow, there’s a risk that Redditors are going to ruin the fediverse. I’m new here and can already see it happening. Fingers crossed though, I’m staying optimistic!
Thank you for bringing up Eternal September. I feel like it’s one particularly relevant to the situation right now. I’m new here and I’m just jumping in and seeing what happens, but I’m aware that I should probably read more than I write.
I should probably read more than I write
maybe, this is definitely a respectful way to enter a community. but i think no matter what, people are going to feel like any community was at its peak right when they joined and they’ll impose the eternal september flag upon whatever next the influx after they joined happens to be.
In general, I prefer quality over quantity. I never joined Reddit, and only visited under duress (i.e. troubleshooting Linux install & Reddit was the only place w/the info I needed).
For some reason, using Lemmy feels like I’m using old-school forums like EZBoard (I know…dating myself). I don’t think that it needs to “become the next Reddit” to be an effective community platform.
Kind of a weird analogy, but it’s like Mallrats…practically NOBODY saw it in theaters, but over time, it found its audience.
Just focus on quality community interactions, and the user base numbers will find the right level.
Denial is the most predictable of all human responses. But, rest assured, this will be the sixth time we have destroyed it, and we have become exceedingly efficient at it.
While a part of me doesn’t think this will last forever, it’s nice to be a part of a growing community in which you were a part from the relatively beginning (of an exodus, if we’ll be more specific about it). It makes people feel more involved and closer to each other, and see each other beyond just being a random name or a number or a statistic. Honestly, the fact that there isn’t a million eyes looking right now and scrutinizing every word I say gives me more confidence to simply… comment. Put myself out there. Like what I’m doing now. I’ve probably commented more in the past two days than I have from years on Reddit.
And I feel like even if it does get bigger (maybe not exponentially; I honestly doubt Reddit will lose a lot of people as some people just don’t care for change. Look at Twitter :/ ), I feel like the fact I’ve been here from when it was in its infancy to whatever point it may become in the future would give me the courage to keep expressing myself.
Just my two cents!
I feel that. This platform doesn’t feel like it will necessarily be one to make it big. Or be mainstream. Or get all of reddit to move over.
I think what the platform does feel like is something I’ll remember fondly. When I think of my time on reddit, I mostly just think of arguments, power hungry mods, and spam. This feels like a community and I wouldn’t be happy to lose it to growth.
It can be the forum to rule them all
Im old enough to miss chat rooms on aol. Anything like that still exist?
@dreamsindigital01 @andobando Remember yahoo chat rooms? :P Me and my Ex would use them all the time to stay in communication when she was alive. Many years ago
I feel like discord is the closest thing I’ve seen, minus the bots flooding chat and IMing you to warn your account. Ah, the good ol days
I still post on Web forums.
I like getting to know the people I’m chatting with.
Yes, on Matrix/Element there are chat rooms.
Totally agree. We should worry less about coaxing redditors or about how many users joined etc etc. Interact with people. Post and comment. Create good content and share it. That’s what drives engagement, and all of the other concerns depend on engagement.
Somewhere some old Lemmy User was annoyed about the new members posting junk content. There seemed to be the opinion that if something has been said by someone else, there is no need to say it again.
I disagree, i feel that with every comment i enrich this community
I’ve read somewhere that Lemmy veterans are already fearing another eternal september. As a r/efugee myself I already love it here and will at least try to actually behave
Yup! It’s not a wiki with a 1:1 correspondence of topic:discussion. It’s a forum. 100 people can say 100 different things on the same topic. That’s the beauty of it.
the real treasure is the lovely human beings all around us
You can even say…the real treasure is the friends we made along the way?
/c/AngryUpvote
Ooh I have a sense this will all be very good here.
Indeed, my friend.
The longer ive stayed off reddit, the more I have grown the love the benifits of Lemmy. Discussions are civil, the vibe is a lot more chill and if anything, it invites users to participate. I wasn’t sure if I would manage to avoid reddit given how addicted I was to it. Suddenly, I feel like I’ve found a better place…
Honestly, both sides of the coin have merits. A quiet place where people recognise each other is perfect for making friends, but bigger communities collect more information and participation. It’ll be significantly less personal, but it has its upsides.
Lemmy does deel a lot better than Reddit though, I have to agree :D
I was just going to say this! I follow a few subreddits that involve a lot of theories and sharing of video game information. Those would be absolutely gutted/non-existent with a small community because discoveries would be too slow to maintain interest for most.
The gaming instance on beehaw is picking up steam! But yeah it will take some time before it’s able to compete with r/gaming but I am here for it!
Don’t get me wrong, reddit was amazing until it’s CEO wanted to cash in on the hard work done by its community. I don’t have an issue with being profitable, the means used simply isn’t acceptable.
To me, the real benefit of growth is the ability to have active communities focused on niche topics, like discussion of a single book series rather than a genre or books in general.
I don’t know if it’s possible get there without creating an Eternal September situation in the broader communities, but it would be nice if we could.
I probably posted and commented a combined total of five times a year on Reddit. Maybe I’m just a lurker by trait, but I definitely feel like the vibe here is much more inviting and I feel like I may participate in more discussions.
I feel the same, I don’t know if it’s just me but Reddit feels somewhat hostile at times when people misinterpret a small detail in my comment and proceed to rip me to shreds and it ain’t fun!
One of the major flaws of R*ddit was the upvote/karma feature, which turned posting into a performance and a popularity contes, as you’ve mentioned. I hope as Lenny and the fediverse develops, we can shed those features in favor of a more simple and equitable system.
In the end, we will always need a way to sort content. that could be from engagement, comments, or some kind of Karma system.
Its just unfortunate that that was then tied back into your account.
Using upvotes to sort content is one thing. That doesn’t mean the score has to be visible to everyone.
In principle I agree with karma turned posts into people gaming the system.
However, I’ve heard one of the struggles for Lemmy Communities is to keep people from lurking.
Karma might be a stupid feature but it is/was a cheap way of driving participation - it could help Lemmy (especially at this early stage). Even if karma encouraged people to just up voted, it still raised visibility on the more interesting topics.
I read this the other day and thought it could be a cool idea: https://phys.org/news/2023-06-social-media-distrust-buttons-misinformation.html
Sounds very cool. I haven’t read the study, but I think a key part of this is how the post is promoted. If more “trusted” posts are promoted, could the button effectively become the new like button? Can bots abuse this system? “Distrusting” a post demotes it? All those things have to be taken into consideration specially when accounting for bots and brigading. Nonetheless, looks promising
Agree completely. I was thinking about keeping the upvote/downvote but just using them for content ranking, but hide the actual scores in the UI. Then its up the instances to decide if they want to show it or not.
I think the beauty of a community-of-communites platform like Reddit/Lemmy is that we can have both in a way. Sub-communities should be encouraged; where high-level communities can grow for the increased engagement and content while sub-communities can remain small and connected.
That’s a good point. Smaller niche communities with more personal connections will inevitably sprout when the ‘main thing’ hits a high user count.
I think you’re pretty much right. Communities need to be big enough, not necessarily the biggest.
I am not interested in irc chats. Reddit was home to many interesting niche communities that are not replicated here.
On one hand, yes, it will be nice to not have posts or comments go unseen because they are lost amongst the masses. But without those masses, there is not enough to cover specific topics that have only a small community associated. This is even a larger problem due to to nature of the fediverse, were similar communities are being founded on different instances rather than a single community on the topic.
Completely agree… I see so many posts with “I would like this feature from Reddit etc.” But honestly, it’s quite refreshing to have something different.
The API changes were just the straw that broke the camel for me as after 13 years plus on the platform, it didn’t even resemble what I initially signed up for.
I legit hope Lemmy doesn’t turn in to a Reddit 2.0 where every reply to question is someone trying to be a smart ass and where not conforming to the ideology of the masses gets you nuked.
I too remember the days of IRC and I remember sitting in certain channels where we would all take turns in staying silent and allowing someone on the chat to hit the record voice and play a Jazz song they loved. I would sit there all night listening to and sharing music with people from all over the world drinking beers and chatting among ourselves.
Man, the early days of work arounds and early internet I miss. Every night of surfing was seriously exciting as you never knew what you would stumble on or find. Now it’s the same dozen websites over and over rinse and repeat.
Anyhow, nostalgia and gripe over… I agree 100%.
I’m really enjoying Lemmy as is and don’t want to be wishing it away any time soon !
Better, not bigger.
