People need to realize you can use alternatives

  • Menachem@midwest.social
    6·
    2 years ago

    tbf people just wanna sign up and click on funny links, not browse through 100 rando instances to find the one that lines up with their exact interests and wait for approval and worry about uptime and whether their instance will still exist in a year

    • Sinnoh@feddit.deEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      Let me see if I underatand this correctly:

      If I create an account on a random, small instance. And then go to the “all communities” feed. I can automatically see all communities that are in my instance. In addition to that, I can see all communities of other Lemmy instances, that are “federated”. But I cannot see other communities from other nstances, unless I go on there, find the communitis and manually subscribe to them (I believe there are other ways to get them to show up, like using the search etc.?)

      So, as a normal user. Who’s just looking for a replacement for /r/all, wouldn’t joining the largest lemmy instance that is fedarated to many others (Just by how many users it has, because it’s the users who link instances by their actions?) make perfect sense?

    • lemillionsocks@beehaw.org
      1·
      2 years ago

      I feel that, while lemmy is still a work in progress, it is already pretty adequate for solving this need. If you want to subscribe to other instances you can do it from within your insance by going up to communities and searching. You can also click the all tab and see a bunch of instances from around lemmy that your instance is federated with.

      I think mastadon struggled with this because the twitter model is to follow people and depending how far removed the servers are this can be trickier. Compared to lemmy where people interested in a single subject will likely target and find the subject theyre interested in and bring themselves together naturally.

      Furthermore I think some people are splitting up and dividing into sub instances and tiny subjects a little prematurely. Reddit didnt get super esoteric with it’s subs until it got big and the larger subs either declined or got too noisy to talk about certain things. Like for example how beehaw has an operatingsystems instance instead of a linux, ubuntu, macos, windows, fedora, archinux, opensuse, openbsd, etc. Right now there arent enough of us that we dont need to subdivide.

      • thegiddystitcher@beehaw.org
        2·
        2 years ago

        I’ve seen people literally signing up here just to make like 50 empty communities and not post or comment on anything at all. Definitely a lot of folks just trying to stake some territory that they think will be valuable in the future.

  • Ghostalmedia@beehaw.org
    3·
    2 years ago

    Problem is that a) new users don’t know that they can join communities across servers, and b) it is intuitive use start with the servers that a lot of people like.

    Instance browsing and onboarding is probably the biggest challenge to Lemmy’s growth. The current experience either scares new people away, or encourages them to congregate on a limited set of instances.

    • CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml
      0·
      2 years ago

      You could always create an account for your username on multiple popular servers if you wanted to. Can’t stop it on small servers but having multiple accounts in the Fediverse is not a crime.

  • WalterzarBoBalterzar@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 years ago

    I tried to make an account on lemmy.ml and it looks like their servers are (understandably) overloaded

    I ended up choosing lemmy.world instead

    My understanding is I’m not missing out on anything by chosing a less-popular instance. Did I get that right?

      • NekoRogue@beehaw.org
        0·
        2 years ago

        Oof, I can see why some of those instances are blocked, though. Since I’m on Beehaw, I checked their block list and…wow. Scrolled through each one for a few minutes and now I’m hoping I’m not on some kind FBI list for it. A few highlights from my research expedition:

        • A meme featuring various characters (MLP, Vaporeon, Peter Griffin, etc) unironically mourning Ted Kaczynski
        • NSFL gore
        • People calling for the execution of cops who stopped rioters on Jan 6
        • SO. MUCH. LOLICON.
        • “Hahaha look at this WOKE LIB 🤣🤣🤣”
        • QANON. QANON EVERYWHERE.

        I was only on each one for a minute or so. I don’t think I’m missing out on anything except maybe being put on some kind of list.

        • voxel@sopuli.xyz
          0·
          2 years ago

          same, I’m on Sopuli and their Blocklist is pretty short but has the worst ones.

          they are really, really bad and some are straight up illegal in some countries.

          Mostly far-right ones, straight up terrorism (seriously there are people with RAF and other terrorist organization’s logos on their profile pics there), nsfl gore videos (like people dying and being tortured type of stuff), and nsfw ones full of underage anime girls in suggestive poses…

          lemmygrad is probably the worst one out of all of them, just because of it’s size (tankie terrorist group)

        • amki@feddit.de
          0·
          2 years ago

          Even if you wouldn’t like it, the cool thing here is you can decide for yourself. If… you feel the need to do so.

  • zouhair@lemmy.ml
    1·
    2 years ago

    The documentation explaining how fediverse works is so bad. It’s so long and convoluted anyone new just can’t be bothered reading it.

    • sylver_dragon@lemmy.world
      1·
      2 years ago

      Docu-what now?

      Seriously, if the average user needs to understand distributed systems to play in the fediverse pool, they are going to land back at Reddit. Just get people in the door (any door) and fight the technical debt that creates later.

      Sure, it’s a shit plan. But, it’s the only way to really capitalise on the current moment. With both Twitter and Reddit blasting away at their own feet, there is a real opportunity for something better to step up. The fediverse can be that thing. But, not if people end up gatekeeping it. Less Stallman style, “RTFM!” And more, “hey, welcome. Let’s get you set up.”

      • kofe@lemmy.world
        1·
        2 years ago

        Idk what’s going on, I just know I’m ready for open source options. I’m signed up here and mastodon now and plan to use the duration of the reddit strike to learn more about these platforms, delete my activity on others, and slowly build communities so I’m not reliant on others for news and learning.

        I don’t think it’s too difficult to figure out. Seems more like a matter of shifting activity to keep people engaged. I’m far from tech literate, though.

  • KazuyaDarklight@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 years ago

    Hello from lemmy.world! Don’t come here, I think it’s starting to get overloaded too. Lemmy.one looks like it may be in a good “growing but not snowballing yet” position, go over there and get that ball rolling.

  • adamantris@feddit.de
    1·
    2 years ago

    Well, hello from feddit.de! Since I’m a german user I thought it’d be only logical to register on a german instance. While new registrations are semi-locked, the criteria for being let in are quite easy to pass and they are mostly in place to filter out spam. Got my account approved right on the next day