1y ago

Do you find that you're on the fed more than you were on r/ just because you're really really excited to watch your favorite communities become more active?

I do, but as more people join I'm also feeling a little republican - i got my spot and this is good; everyone on the outside can go fuck off now. I don't want it to get so big that it's what we left. No intended disrespect or lack of acknowledgment to those who were here before.

116 comments

Honestly no, I was mostly subscribed to smaller subs, and only the general communities here really have a critical mass. I’m definitely interacting more with general communities, but I really miss communities around niche interests.
I have hope that they will be here with time, but for now there’s a bunch of empty communities with no posts and a mod who has never posted anything anywhere, just made a few dozen communities with the names of popular subreddits, and even many the communities that aren’t in that situation have 3-4 posts and a couple dozen subscribers
- Yeah everything feels so raw still. But I don't mind it yet. I pretty much learn something new every 6 hours or so because of all the content that's getting added to the big instances. It's been an exciting honeymoon period.
- What are your niche communities you are looking for? I got lucky that a bunch of mine are semi migrated (3dprinting, houseplants, ergomechboards, etc)
  
  Cosplay is one example. There's a handful of NSFW 'cosplay' communities, one not-very-active one on blahaj, and one squatted on .world by a user who is also squatting a whole bunch of clearly NSFW communities and has never posted or commented anything anywhere, and named themselves "@Moderator." Laser cutting, Inkscape, some book fandoms are examples I was (and to some extent am) actively engaged with on Reddit where communities exist, but are far from a critical mass.
- This is exactly my main gripe with Lemmy. I mostly spent my time on reddit browsing subs about quite specific hobbies, didn’t care for r/funny or r/pics which is what Lemmy currently feels like to me
- I don’t know how we fix the absentee mod problem either. Sure you can create the community on a C new instance, but then it’s even less likely to be successful. I Lemmy is on and I’ll never go back to Reddit, but I don’t see anything replacing it 1:1 the way Lemmy is trying to. It took Reddit a decade to mature in regards to niche communities. Lemmy has a ton of barriers already such as the roadblocks put up by absentee mods and the difficulty in finding communities at all. Lemmy’s All feed seems to bury new communities even worse than Reddit does, but that’s just an unscientific impression.
  
  One suggestion I saw was auto-deleting communities that are still empty after a week, incentivizing new mods to upload something, not just squat names that were popular subs in hopes of I guess having some sort of power if they pick up?
  
  Presumably worth reaching out to the instance admin if a mod is squatting on a community name on that instance.
  Might even be worth just messaging that mod too - they might have taken a 'build it and they will come' stance and would welcome another hand to mod and post.
  
  question: can instance admins remove/change mods of a community?
- Lemmy.ml has c/Community_Requests and I think it's about time we had that on .world too.
  
  That's one alternative that would allow people to request a community exists without just making an empty community, and leave it to people who want to participate and actively moderate to create them
- Same here and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I was definitely on Reddit an unhealthy amount so I’m hoping I can cut down my online time and use something that’s a better alternative. And we don’t need to act like everything here is instantly better. We’re here for a reason and there are definitely things that are better but we’ve also lost over a decade of material and rhythm that will take time to build up and make the place even close to as vibrant as Reddit was in its heyday.
- Also no for me. I spent most of my time reading the comment threads, and liked the arguments and "discussion". It was probably more an addiction than enjoyment though. I spent most of my time on bestofupdates and relationship_advice, and the comment section of politics and news
- I miss my old forums from the wild west days of the internet before facebook reddit and the rest took over.
  Besides the novelty accounts like shittymorph and the rest, can you name a single user you interacted with regularly on reddit? I used to be friends, real actual honest to god friends, with a bunch of people I met on forums. We'd interact on the forums, AIM, games, and meet up now and then. True digital community. Reddit was too anonymous and wasn't conducive to repeated interaction with each other.
  
  I miss AIM and forums, bygone era

I like it because my posts and comments dont get downvoted to nothing here and i feel i can actually contribute.

I understand of course that Lemmy was around for a long time before me, but I still feel like an OG for some reason.
- Lemmy had 1-2k people. Now it has 240k monthly active users. In a sense, you are exactly that. Most lemmy instances were created in the last few weeks.
  
  Where are you getting the monthly active stats by the way?
- What about me?
  
  You're an OG for sure lmfao that's nuts
  
  Pff, get off my lawn

For sure. I'm trying to post a lot more too for communities I enjoy.
- I've been posting and commenting specifically to keep interactions alive in hopes people will see a bustling community and try it out!

I’m on lemmy less than I used to be on Reddit because the communities I liked on Reddit are dead here. I know I don’t want to go back to Reddit, but I don’t have the time to try to build the communities from Reddit here either. So I spend less time on social media and that’s ok too.

I've found that I'm checking Kbin a lot less than I checked the other place, but I'm participating more because there's a lot less toxicity and hostility here (at least for the time being).
- Aww, I can be toxic for you if you want 😊 that way you'll have to leave social media, exercise, see the world and be healthier. 😎
  
  Your mom is toxic! Oooooooh!

I’m excited for all the new apps. It’s like the Wild West of app development lol.

Honestly I like this place more than reddit. Feels much more genuine and much less toxic. Also it runs better than reddit's tracker-bloated website.

I've noticed that I use Lemmy much more than I use reddit. I think there is loads of things to improve but i like it.

I really enjoy the content on lemmy compared to r/. I think the loss of moderation tools over there has made a bunch of crap float to the top. Here it feels more authentic, I guess?
- Lemmy had much fewer moderation tools. It's not the lack of mod tools. In fact, mod tools are still alive because reddit delayed their death for a week or so. The problem, more than mod tools, is behavior and demographic changes.

Not necessarily to boycot reddit but since rif is gone I simply have no options to see reddit on my phone which is where i spend my most of my time.
As a result of that I also notice I'm not on Reddit on my pc as much. I usually scroll 2 pages of ALL and kinda lose interest. I even slowly stopped going to my regular subs.
Actually I'm slowly less on my phone or endlessly scrolling reddit!
- I still use RIF with ReVanced patch for RIF 😎
  
  I know you still can, but for how long? And to be honest, im quite happy im less on reddit. I wasnt doing much there anyway other than my local subs which i browse for 5 to 10 minutes a day on the pc.

Im visiting a friend for the week and only have my iPhone so this has been a godsend. will be interesting to see how my usage shifts once back home…..but this place is nice.
- Remember that you also have a real life friend there. 🙃 😉
  
  I didn’t mean to downplay them! Been watching lots of stargate sg-1 and just hanging out more or less. The show ranges from being so great to just straight up bad so presents plenty of conversation

Honestly not really. I just want to shitpost and chew the cud about current events and silly stuff. Really don't care which platform I use for this, and it's annoying having to jump around when one goes to shit as they inevitably do. Reddit had a good run. Maybe Lenny will too before it goes to the great server in the sky like all the rest. Maybe I'm getting old but it doesn't feel new and exciting, it's just like, great here we go again..

Yes very very much; there's so much new stuff and this is a good opportunity to expand my interests and not end up having half my subs be drama subs and read AITA until I lose my soul. But also because I'm trying to make a determined effort to be a responsible community member and post actual sentences and engage with others so it becomes a habit. Will any of those sentences make sense? No, and stop pressuring me. Being coherent is an entirely separate goal and many steps from here so back the hell off, okay?
Hello fellow humans, I am normal, friendly, and sane!
- Hello, fellow normal human-type person. It is pleasant to engage in average human behavior with other humans. Imagine that I am petting a dog because I have a dog in my lap and am petting him.
  
  Do you have shoes? I do. They are for when I walk outside on ~~floor but it's outdoors?~~ ~~grass~~ pavement. Then I touch ~~pavement~~ grass. With my ~~feet~~ hands. It is very nice and the ~~lights~~ sunshine is warm. Being a normal human is a lot of fun!
- Hello fellow humans, I am normal, friendly, and sane! Well, 1 out of 3 ain't bad. (<3 you Sep)

I am always way more active on the fediverse alternative than on the original. Fuck corporate social media. I have been burned so many times. I constantly have to fight off ads and high battery and storage usage.

I think if I'm honest, I've replaced one source of procrastination with another (though I'm proud of everyone here for voting with their feet and rejecting what reddit has become).
But it is definitely a nice thing to see day by day the sub count for each community growing so rapidly... though I do fear for Ruud's sanity! I cannot suggest strongly enough that we all donate where possible. He's doing this in his spare time from what I gather.
I think we need to get used to the idea that social media can't be free anymore, because when it's free, that means WE are the product

For me its a definitely the excitement of messing with a new toy while also making me think "how the hell does this work" and "the general population has no chance with this".
I've only been trying out Lemmy/Mastodon for the past few days, slowly building up the communities I subscribe to. I was mostly a lurker on reddit and rarely made my own posts, so the smaller userbase is both good and bad. Good because I spend less time scrolling and I feel like I can contribute more. Bad because there is just less traffic.
Smaller communities tend to be more polite overall and are more welcoming to longer form writing and discussion which I am very down with. I am both intrigued and slightly bewildered how up front the platform is about blocking out content you don't want to see. Again, good and bad.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on being a new user this week.

Definitely not haha! But that's not a bad thing. Lemmy feels less addicting.
- I procrastinated work for 2 straight weeks when lemmy came out. Deadline is now past and I'm still deep into the task and being threatened with retaliation for not finishing on time. 🤔 That had never happened to me with reddit at all, not even close.

I've been on a lot recently because it's a shiny new thing and I want to figure out how it works, but I also want new people to join so it get bigger and has better and more varied content.
- Make lemmy QR codes and put them on the street, throw them at people, rent a billboard, hire marketers, build a multinational marketing enterprise dedicated to the promotion of Lemmy. Make astroturfing gpt bots.

I’m using Lemmy about the same as I did Reddit but the difference is my level of interaction.

Yeah, I'm also kind of just using it to generate more content to get it to becoming more popular.
- And I’m here more because the content is actually funny instead of the garbage dump Reddit became.
- Me too. I seldom posted on Reddit the last few years as I felt it got lost.

I don’t think we’re close to the point where the content is becoming watery because of oversaturation. I’m excited about exploring/watching our fediverse grow.
However, though I understand the point of having the same c/cats or whatever communities across different instances, while everything is still beginning it’s hard to gain momentum in any because they’re so spread thin. I realize this diversification is one of the entire points of the fediverse, but when you search and see 4 duplicates it makes it hard to know which to join. Especially for niche communities in the future. I’ve ended up just subbing to all of them in those situations which I’m not sure is what I’m supposed to be doing (or maybe that’s the answer?.
- I love cats, but I'm pretty happy with the ones i followed on r/ being here - cats with jobs, standard issue cat, and all orange cats share one brain cell. I do wish we had a few more cannabis communities. I'm missing r/treedibles even though it was kind of a shit show of stupidity.

Ya, but I don't know if I'm figuring this place out or just holding water here.... Like, I don't think the app i'm using (liftoff) and the site i'm using (lemm.ee) sync or have replies from one show up in the other? Also, what's this about adding instances? Do I need to add so I can interact with others?
- On liftoff, you'll have a bar at the top that probably says subscribed. If you click that, you can choose local or all. In your subscribed communities, you will automatically see posts and replies from all federated instances. If you click local, you can sort by active, hot, new, etc. You will see posts from your instance. If you click all, you will see posts from all instances. I usually scroll my subscribed by new. Then I hit subscribed by active. Then I hit all by new and scroll forever.
  
  Thanks for the feedback. When you say 'instance' are those independent community's then? I'm a football fan... if I follow the NFL community, is it possible that there's another community in an alternate universe (or instance) that might be more active or have better engagement? If so, is there a way to couple them together or am I looking at this from an incorrect viewpoint?
- I too still don't understand this whole lemmiverse thing but I got more comfortable over time. I subscribed a few channels and have enough content to keep busy so I guess it's good enough. Overall my opinion is that if you need a phd in this federation stuff then you're just not going to attract and keep many users.

Yes, it has been fun adding and contributing to the small and bigger communities on here alike. Not to mention that there have been more constructive conversations as well.
I differ with your view in that I’m looking forward to having more people join and seeing these communities grow. As of now, the platform is still pretty niche (which is nice) but the fediverse can be built in a flexible way to give users the power in what they want to see and block.

I posted as much in 5 days of Lemmy as in 5 years of Reddit 😆

I'm excited to be here since it feels like the old reddit community, which I missed over time. I'm just kind of tired of what reddit become as a platform and as a community. It was so nice early on, but as it gained popularity just became more toxic in various ways.

Yep, way more. Much to the detriment of my work.

In a way. Feels like watching some plant slowly grow bigger and bigger. Fingers crossed it all works out 🤞
- This! It's like watching a baby bird grow up and learn to fly, hoping he doesn't crash in the driveway.

Not really. I was the first two weeks of the Reddit blackout, but not I just use lemmy on my lunch break, exactly like I did when I still went to Reddit.

I feel like I'm contributing way more to Lemmy than I was on Reddit. I spent almost 15 years on that goddamn website and it felt like trying to piss in the ocean when posting or contributing to anything.

I like the fediverse. It reminds me of the old school Internet days - IRC, usenet, etc., before all the corporate tech bros muscled in. I'd prefer for it to stick, but I have some fears about it. I hope everything will be ok.
I do feel a little lost looking for my old Reddit communities, but I keep hoping we'll just cross paths again. For now, I'm just sitting back and enjoying the firehose.
- I don't know what the fire hose is. Do you know what the Mexican fireman named his sons?

Nope. This website has a very specific demographic and a ton of more “casual”, non-tech/internet topics see zero activity in here, for the simple reason that there’s virtually no interest or demand for them amongst the Fediverse users.
Deleting my Reddit account made me look for already stablished forums on certain topics tho.
- For example, I tried to recreate the Powerlifting community here and it's completely dead lol. It's just me posting a couple times per week hoping someone else joins me. There are around 50 subscribers but they only upvote my posts.
  
  Kind of makes me want to subscribe to the powerlifting community just to cheer you on.
  
  I'm mostly a lurker wherever I go, but I'll think about posting something there. 🙂
- Doesn't matter what the base user group is; the cats are always there!
  
  If cats grew thumbs, we would be fucked, lemme tell ya.

I used to be lot more active in my early days on r/ then as more it started to attract a crowd I started to be less active. Last few years I was just browsing and answering dms I received on my old threads for info.
Now that I am fediverse I feel myself at home. No more rage arguments and peaceful exchanges.
I would say, yes I am more active here. And I like feeling at home.

Not sure if more or less, but I definitely love to check in during the day. feelslikehome.jpg

Yes. I think it's because I'm a monthly supporter though. It seems to have a big psychological effect in that I want my money's worth, and I want Lemmy to succeed. So I comment and post quite a bit to help keep communities active.

Yes, and I think I've been too enthusiastic posting content because I'm starting to see people shit on me for specific comments, however I deserve it since people are actually actively policing people here in kbin and Lemmy and it's refreshing to see people care about the communities that are being built here.
- You do you! If you have stuff to say, say it! If other people don't think it's a valid contribution, they can skip over it.

I'm more active here because the UX is better.

About the same amount, just a way to kill time and find out about topics I enjoy as well as something to make me laugh. So happy there’s finally an iOS app Memmy now!
- There are actually way more, but you need testflight to use them.
  There's one exception: wefwef.app which you can just add as a webapp.

Speaking of little republicans, r/tinytrumps can stay on reddit. It was funny at first but got very repetitive.
- kind of hope the political discussions stay in their respective communities. I agreed with most or really almost all of reddit's hivemind, but was so tired of seeing some comparison to politics in every single subreddit, even some of my more niche ones.
  
  Me too, but I doubt it. I'm a mod for u/news, and I'm already seeing a lot of useless discussions where two people get more and more angry with each other without changing anyone's opinion.

I think I do, but only because, after using reddit, I know, or at least I have enough knowledge how these kind of forums work and can "work off" my initial excitement productively.
shit, I remember when first saw reddit, and the default frontpage, I had absolutely zero idea what's going on. it was legit scary... had a bit of lerning curve, so most of the time I was just (trying to) lurk around.

Feeling republican! I'm freaking dying!!

I‘ve been trying to get Bassment more active, but I‘m not extensively investing hours. With a few comments every other day it’s much less of a problem.
- Is that a community about bass guitars? I'll send a link to a couple of people.
  
  Yes, that‘s correct! Much appreciated!

I’m actually just enjoying watching things here grow, come to life. I’m loving the energy of that. It’s so positive.

Now that you mention it, I'm watching and scrolling Lemmy/Kbin since I wake up until I go to bed. I only enjoy some relax to cook, to eat and to play video games.

I am excited to see the community become more active as someone who periodically lurked on .ml for a few years. But also I'm much more active here because I just don't scroll r/ anymore unless I follow a link to a specific post. I'm all in here now, I feel like it's crossed the threshold to be sustainable and interesting to daily users even if it doesn't immediately take over.

Yep. Not as busy as r/, but that also means a lot less noise. Really enjoying seeing the old communities reappear in their original or new, fresh forms along with some crazy new stuff that we’ll just have to see if it sticks. Sure, this ‘verse has some frustrations like needing multiple accounts for instances and some minor browsing issues, but otherwise it’s great.

I'm on less as there's less content of interest to me and I'm not a zealot. This is just another social media platform.

I tend to doomscroll more often…

116 comments