• andrew@lemmy.caEnglish
    4·
    3 years ago

    This seems like as good a thread as any to make my first post in as a Lemmy user. I’ve been on Reddit since '09, and was on slashdot back in the 90’s. I really am hoping that these new, federated services take off. Onboarding still seems like the biggest hurdle.

    • constantokra@lemmy.oneEnglish
      2·
      3 years ago

      After onboarding the interface is kind of rough to figure out. Mostly because the mobile web version isn’t that great, and jerboa also isn’t that great, and they’re different enough that switching back and forth gets you confused. With reddit’s problems, I imagine we’ll see some more client apps and ui improvements show up in the next couple months with the added attention, and that’ll be the end of that. Honestly, I thought it’d be rougher. I do wish I got more replies to my comments though, so i’m trying to make a point to post a bit more than I ordinarily would.

      • Laplacian@lemmy.mlEnglish
        21·
        3 years ago

        The desktop web interface seems pretty similar to old reddit/rif so I haven’t had that much difficulty with browsing. The fact that I’ll be losing my niche subs is the hardest part of moving entirely to Lemmy though.

        • StringTheory@beehaw.orgEnglish
          0·
          3 years ago

          I’m finding a lot of my favorites are appearing on the Fediverse, popping up hour by hour. Sometimes just searching by the sub name is enough to find them, let alone searching by the subject.

        • constantokra@lemmy.oneEnglish
          0·
          3 years ago

          Agreed. I’m quite the nerd, so i’m holding out hope some of my favorite subs will move over.

          • BaroqueInMind@lemmy.mlEnglish
            0·
            3 years ago

            If that’s really a problem, why not start the communities here yourselves? Literally nothing and no one is stopping you.

            • constantokra@lemmy.oneEnglish
              0·
              3 years ago

              Lack of time, autism, and anxiety. Not exactly good traits for starting and maintaining a community. And to be honest, interacting at my own pace is OK, but feeling like I had to would be way too socially taxing.

              It’s really not for everyone. I’m not cut out for that. I’m the kind of person who comes along with a weirdly detailed answer to an incredibly niche question. It takes all kinds to have a vibrant community.

      • Alec@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        3 years ago

        I don’t have much to say, but here’s a reply anyway! Hope it seems a little less quiet in here.

      • mykl@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        3 years ago

        Absolutely agree. I first tried Lemmy on my phone and found it really difficult to like. As soon as I logged on from my iPad it all “just worked”. Hopefully some of the apps under development will solve that problem.

    • nysflyboy@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      3 years ago

      Woo hoo, me too. Was there for the rise and fall of each (and Digg). Also - I think its up to us to go back and encourage users from all our niche communities to come on board to these other places. I know a lot of them won’t at least not right away. But we can encourage it.

    • Weerdo@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      3 years ago

      Its an issue, but Its at least barebones and information dense. Feels like going back 20 years on internet design, with some new things. Its old school and a bit of whiplash even for me. Some younger users are going to have a task getting around at first.

      Not that I would say change it, just an observation and barrier to entry.

      • xyon@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        0·
        3 years ago

        Bare bones and information dense are things I like about it, honestly; crammed with popups about cookies and privacy policies and newsletters and adverts is the nominal experience.

      • Rhabuko@feddit.deEnglish
        0·
        3 years ago

        I’m not a tech savvy person and I had no problem to adapt to this platform. It’s very similar to Reddit and after 15 minutes playing around I also understood how everything works out. Even the federation concept is pretty easy.

    • eric3a@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      3 years ago

      I am with you, part of the Reddit exodus after about a decade. First post too, and I hope this place turns out to be my next all in one stop for interesting stuff. Since its up to us, users, to make it happen I’m going to be optimistic.

    • Sauce@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      3 years ago

      Similar story, but I still poke at /. - it’s still going! The most refreshing thing about using Lemmy to me is not having ads everywhere, I used a pihole and other browser extensions but you still have to deal with the inline ads mimicking user posts on reddit.

    • newbiejones@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      3 years ago

      Just jumped over from Reddit and if I hadn’t read the comment about sh.itjust.works I probably would have no idea how to get started with Lemmy. Hopefully with more publicity there will be a more streamlined signup process a la new mobile apps or certain servers trending when you search for it.

      Didn’t see some of my old communities from Reddit on here yet but I guess it’s time to make them!

      Also - does anyone have any good alternatives to Youtube on the Fediverse? Is Odysee popular?

      • Undearius@lemmy.caEnglish
        0·
        3 years ago

        does anyone have any good alternatives to Youtube on the Fediverse?

        Peertube would be the most popular. It works the same as Lemmy that there isn’t just one single server/instance that hosts all the videos. A popular one is tilvids.com but there are others

        • Dessalines@lemmy.mlEnglish
          0·
          3 years ago

          I’m unique in this, but I firmly believe video creators should just make torrents, and post links to them from whatever site / forum they choose.

          Torrents have already solved the big static data problem, we only need a place (like here), where people can post links.

          • Klaymore@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            0·
            3 years ago

            I believe Peertube has support for webtorrent streaming so viewers upload the video to other viewers as well.

            • Dessalines@lemmy.mlEnglish
              0·
              3 years ago

              Ya, but unfortunately only a tiny minority of seeders use webtorrents, and peertube still has to store every video locally. Because of that, peertube instances find that they can’t last long, because of the huge disk space required.

          • Undearius@lemmy.caEnglish
            0·
            3 years ago

            I was just thinking about this. The content creators already have the original quality copy stored on their machines.

        • down daemon@lemmy.mlEnglish
          0·
          3 years ago

          tilvids doesn’t federate for some reason, it’s annoying, they have the best vids. it’s like they want to force people to use their site

          • Undearius@lemmy.caEnglish
            0·
            3 years ago

            Hmm, that is annoying. Hopefully it’s not deliberate.

            I only saw a link to that peertube instance earlier and had a tricky time discovering other instances. Although, I admittedly didn’t spend too long trying.

    • captainjetski@lemmy.oneEnglish
      0·
      3 years ago

      I agree.

      I love the idea of a decentralized network like this, but I can’t help but feel like it lacks some level of transparency to how it works?

      After being around here for a bit I get the idea of federation and all that, but its incredibly overwhelming when trying to create an account (Hell I still don’t know if I created my Mastodon or Lemmy accounts in the right place)

      • Landrin201@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        3 years ago

        I can’t help but feel like it lacks some level of transparency to how it works?

        I agree, which is actually kinda funny since it’s open source. The documentation helps some, but it’s a LOT of reading to do, and it still leaves a new user like me with questions- and I’m a software developer, with more technical knowledge than most. I have a feeling that someone without that technical background would find this VERY confusing to understand at a fundamental level.

        The big question that I still have, that should be readily apparent but isn’t: if I subscribe to a community that’s hosted on another instance, can I still post/like/comment there? I just tested it- you can. I notice now that the guide says:

        Lemmy will then fetch the community from its original instance, and allow you to interact with it.

        I think they could make it a lot clearer for a casual user if they reworded the “following communities” section to name it something like “joining communities,” and re-worded the first paragraph to something like this:

        After logging in to your new account, its time to follow communities that you are interested in. For this you can click on the communities link at the top of the page (on mobile, you need to click the menu icon on the top right first). You will see a list of communities which can be filtered by subscribed, local or all. Local communities are those which are hosted on the same site where you are signed in, while all also contains federated communities from other instances. You can also find more communities by going to the Lemmy Community Browser. You can join communities from any instance, regardless of which instance you created your account in, and once you’ve joined you can like, comment, and post in those communities.

    • pinwurm@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      3 years ago

      Yeah, the front page was a little intimidating and it took a little time for my to get the account confirmation email. But otherwise, this space feels and acts very similar to old.reddit and some customization (like night mode) … which is a good thing!

      • ButterBiscuits@beehaw.orgEnglish
        0·
        3 years ago

        Having to write a cover letter explaining why I’m a good fit for the instance.

        It’s not a difficult ask, but it’s going to turn a vast majority of potential users away from the service.

        I understand the need for it, but a typical user is going to be confused by:

        • Having to “sell” yourselves to some unknown individual, or group of individuals
        • Choosing an “instance”, when most users have never heard of such a thing, and don’t understand how a federated system operates
        • For the above: Understanding different instances and which one allows cross-instance posting
        • Simplicity. None of this is “simple” in terms of making a new account for a social media platform. This is unlike any mainstream platform out there.

        Again, I understand the need for all this. But your average user, which Lemmy desperately needs more of if it wants to become the safe haven for Reddit refugees, is going to be incredibly frustrated and dissuaded by the whole process.

        • heartlessevil@lemmy.oneEnglish
          0·
          3 years ago

          All I put in my “cover letter” was “reddit refugee” and I got accepted on lemmy.ml, lemmy.one and beehaw.org, 2/3 with no email verification either. I don’t think that it’s hard to sign up here, it might just be unfamiliar to some people, who will hopefully grasp the simple concepts quickly.

        • grabyourmotherskeys@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          3 years ago

          I’m pretty sure this is just a “human test” to make it harder for people to register a lot of accounts or to programmatically register them.

      • mykl@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        3 years ago

        Someone just reminded me of Slashdot yesterday and my account is still active, and the posts are still pretty good. Why did I ever leave?

    • sweeny@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      3 years ago

      Hell yeah, just got here and am ready boost some engagement! I already like it here, I forgot that being able to see the amount of down votes used to be a thing

      *Looks like I’m the 69th comment here, what a start!

      • MJBrune@beehaw.orgEnglish
        2·
        3 years ago

        One of the things I love about Lemmy is that I’m literally over here in a different instance. I can willingly see other content but I also have this local group I can be close with. It brings me back to the old Internet with the benefits and reach of the new Internet.

        • makingStuffForFun@lemmy.mlEnglish
          3·
          3 years ago

          Excellent point. A small community, that can easily interact with the larger community. This is what the internet always should have been.

      • Mike@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        3 years ago

        I saw admin here say ‘not on this instance’ because it was too difficult to moderate.

        • Puls3@lemmy.mlEnglish
          2·
          3 years ago

          I think separate instances are actually perfect for porn, there can be an entire instance dedicated entirely to people’s specific tastes - making that their problem and not ours.

            • Manticore@beehaw.orgEnglish
              0·
              3 years ago

              That’s fair tbh, it may be wise to do that. Even if other instances still allow NSFW or suggestive content in general (such as art, medicine, gore, etc), explicit porn in particular has high legislative expectations.

              Legislators don’t even understand the internet - they’re definitely not going to accept that beehaw.org or lemmy.ml loading ifuck.butts content isn’t actually beehaw.org’s responsibility if that’s where the users are registered, where ifuck.butts content is frequently displayed.

              I suspect that porn subs may end up federated with each other though, and it just means Lemmy users shouldn’t be horny on main (ie have separate Lemmy acc for this fed and that one). Otherwise they’d struggle to be discoverable and would each require their own login.

              (also, funny joke if somebody creates ifuck.butts so my comment becomes a discovery portal for them lol)

              • kopper [they/them]@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
                0·
                3 years ago

                (also, funny joke if somebody creates ifuck.butts so my comment becomes a discovery portal for them lol)

                unfortunately .butts isn’t a real gTLD

                well, unless someone here has ~ 6.5k$ annually (i think) & can get icann on board

            • Hagarashi8@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              0·
              3 years ago

              They could, but it will only mean that you’ll need separate account for porn, and most redditors do exactly this.

            • Puls3@lemmy.mlEnglish
              0·
              3 years ago

              I think that’d be best, basically an entire porn federation completely isolated, we can name it horny jail!

  • Windshear@lemmy.caEnglish
    2·
    3 years ago

    Funny how even the small wave is enough to take down the city 🤣. I hope Lemmy can grow to be my primary time waster. There’ll be downtime and hiccups, but I’m a patient man.

    • Puls3@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      3 years ago

      Here’s hoping the place will polish up a little more over time.

        • Pisck@lemmy.mlEnglish
          0·
          3 years ago

          There’s no accumulated karma score though. People should be less sensitive about downvotes and I’m hoping it will mitigate low effort karma-seeking content, at least somewhat.

          • SanguinePar@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            3 years ago

            Actually, that raises a point - do upvotes and downvotes here affect post visibility? Much as Reddit has a lot of karma-whoring, it was still useful that a lot of the best content was surfaced on the front page. Is Lemmy the same, or does it just put the newest stuff up top?

            • Pisck@lemmy.mlEnglish
              0·
              3 years ago

              There are sorts by hot and top, yes. I don’t know the details of voting and/or replies that score comment order.

        • 56!@lemmy.mlEnglish
          0·
          3 years ago

          Due to the live updating of vote counts, I just watched someone downvote, then remove their downvote a few times to test it.

  • BackOnMyBS@kbin.social
    1·
    3 years ago

    Judging from my experience trying to sign up for a Lemmy instance for the past 2 days, it’s going to be hard. Unless I was doing something wrong, I can see a lot of people having difficulty signing up and eventually giving up. kbin was much easier to sign up for.

    • nathan@kbin.social
      0·
      3 years ago

      Yeah, I tried Mastodon when that first became more known. Even as a pretty literate techie (I’ve developed programs professionally at a fortune 500), I couldn’t figure it out. Went to kbin today after reading the news about apollo and it was just like signing up anywhere else.

      Lemmy may currently have larger spread by word of mouth, but if anything is going to hit mainstream it will be kbin in its current state.

      • Puls3@lemmy.ml
        0·
        3 years ago

        Yeah, I’ve been a software engineer for years and I too had to have a sit down to ‘figure it all out’ with mastodon. Though Lemmy seems far more my style, so hopefully this gets some power behind it.

  • drcabbage@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    3 years ago

    We still need a good mobile app for Lemmy. I tried using the Jebora one, and its scrolling speed is abysmal.

    Silver lining, I am looking forward to all the new things getting developed for lemmy and the like when they can’t make things for Reddit anymore. Their loss is our gain.

    • BR0QM@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      3 years ago

      I’m using jerboa right now, agreeded. It’s not the worst experience but there’s definitely improvements to be made.

      There’s a real opportunity in transitioning existing reddit clients to access Lemmy instead. Keep the user base, change the platform.

    • suborbital@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      3 years ago

      Interesting. I’m using Jerboa right now and while I have a few complaints, scrolling speed isn’t one of them. I wonder if it’s a phone specific issue.

      • naeap@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        0·
        3 years ago

        the only shrinking issue I have is, when there are images in the comments - then it flickers all the time

      • casey@lemmy.wiuf.netEnglish
        0·
        3 years ago

        Right now I’m just using the web interface on mobile - selfhosted though so I got to change the theme to dark.

          • Celediel@slrpnk.netEnglish
            0·
            3 years ago

            Dark Reader made Firefox on Android so unbelievably slow for me that I disabled it out of frustration, and have just been blinding myself rather than waiting 10+ seconds for Firefox to load sites that Chrome loaded near instantly.

            • God@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              0·
              3 years ago

              ehhh I don’t use firefox tho I use Kiwi Browser with dark reader extension. It works very very fast.

              I would use firefox but firefox is kinda slow on my phone and I dislike slow.

              • Celediel@slrpnk.netEnglish
                0·
                3 years ago

                TIL about Kiwi Browser, thanks for this, I think I could like this a lot. Firefox’s mobile extension support is extremely limited, so this is a breath of fresh air.

                • God@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                  1·
                  3 years ago

                  The only warning I can give you cuz it bothers some people around me is that it’s centralized and closed source. It’s also not privacy oriented. Other than that I like it more than Firefox in all respects.

    • DudePluto@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      3 years ago

      Tbh I prefer just good old firefox browser over jerboa. The site is optimized pretty well for mobile

    • Drew Got No Clue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      3 years ago

      Mlem for iOS is a beta still in early development but it’s buttery smooth on my phone. If the dev sees this, I appreciate your work a lot!

      • CollinTG@beehaw.orgEnglish
        0·
        3 years ago

        Seconding Mlem! I’m still getting used to how this app works, but I like it so far!

  • its4am@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    3 years ago

    I apologize in advance as I’m one of the many reddit refugees seeking alternatives. I can’t believe how fast reddit is unraveling and you’d think with u/spez’s recent AMA he would try to placate the community instead of inciting the situation even further. Anyway, Lemmy’s pretty cool so far.

    • Barbarian@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      3 years ago

      Don’t apologize. All refugees are welcome here. Although… there is one small thing you could do to help. Maybe make an account on a less crowded instance? Too many people see “dev-run” and think “main instance”. We do need to spread out a bit to make this sustainable.

      • kofe@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        3 years ago

        I’m new here, too. How do I switch instances from the mobile app? Edit: I’m using androids jerboa

        • mrmanager@lemmy.todayEnglish
          1·
          3 years ago

          You just add another account under the arrow on the top left side. Then you can switch between the accounts on different instances if you like. But I prefer having one account only on a small instance.

    • kinther@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      3 years ago

      They have people astroturfing hard right now arguing that reddit is not wrong for anything they are doing

    • Kcvis@beehaw.orgEnglish
      0·
      3 years ago

      It’s open source I think its gonna get a lot more development just from Redditors