Does anybody here still wish the Fediverse just had more people?
Does anybody here still wish the Fediverse just had more people?
I know and can accept the response that say I should register to X site if I want more activity. I do plan to, least with Reddit, just biding some time before I make yet the 20th disposable e-mail and probably the 100th account before it gets banned again if I cross a glass person. Glass person being someone who's so fragile on opinions and things that they'll scream 'BAN THEM BAN THEM!'.
I've been on KBin Social, Lemmy World (least 2 dedicated accounts), KBin Run, Mastodon, Blue Sky .etc
And I'd stay for a good while but I also found myself bored immediately. I check for questions to answer, it's the same questions I've seen days and weeks prior. I check around for things that are reported and they'll be hours old and some of them can be years old.
I love the idea of the Fediverse, I like some of the features that are implemented. Especially when you do ask questions on here and you're allowed to expand on it. Unlike AskReddit for example, they don't really like that and will remove your post because explaining what your question is about and backing it with an example is just unacceptable to them.
I don't know. 43,000+ people sounds a lot on paper, but in practice, it feels like you're dealing with 50 people at any given day.
For more diverse content I indeed wish, but you can't build a healthy social network with an explosion of members without the moderation and toolings required to handle such a wave.
I'd rather be there while the Fediverse grows organically and gather my info from multiple sources the old fashioned way.
Yeah. I feel like Lemmy doesn't have the tools needed to moderate a larger community outside of defederation.
No.
I have actual internet friends here. People who, based solely on their efforts and words and interactions, align with my own beliefs and ideals and help me temper and adjust accordingly as time goes on. Adults. I'd happily stay like this or with more, similar people, growing slowly and legitimately.
Agreed. The past year has been a great change from other social media personally. I was Reddit only for the prior 7 or so years and Lemmy feels like a time hop back to pre-dystopic Internet days. I approach it more like my favorite forums from the 90's-00's.
Less content and users are ok when it leads to more civil engagement's.
Same here. I find lemmy very relaxing. Multiple times a day I’ll see people admit they misunderstood and upvoting each other. It’s quite refreshing. Sure people still be people but. It feels like we care and aren’t throwing trash on the floor. Whereas Reddit everyone will wipe their ass on your nose.
For me the biggest problem is not volume in general but volume of niche content. The best thing about Reddit was all the active, engaging communities that would sprawl around any niche subject you could imagine.
You know, you actually hit the nail on the head in the context I had failed to articulate. Like yes the Fediverse does have some interesting communities, but they're communities we expect of the fediverse to have that everyone else has. But, it does not have a dedicated Nostalgia community, it does not have AbruptChaos or anything else. Just the basics.
And I think if more people took on tasks like running the communities while educating people the benefits of the fediverse, then we can see a bit more growth. Because the point of the matter is if people are desperate for a Reddit alternative, they're going to want to feel like they're home. If there's nothing here that's going to help make them feel that, then they're going to just stick to Reddit for better or worse.
But, it does not have a dedicated Nostalgia community, it does not have AbruptChaos or anything else. Just the basics.
There's only so many communities you can maintain active with 45k monthly active users
And I think if more people took on tasks like running the communities while educating people the benefits of the fediverse, then we can see a bit more growth.
Why do you think we don't?
I think if more people took on tasks like running the communities while educating people the benefits of the fediverse, then we can see a bit more growth.
This is the way - be the change you want to see in the world.
Lemmy isn't the size of Reddit, so it isn't at a place where the vast majority of users can just passively consume content.
If there's a niche for a community then start it. If you want more Mods, keep an eye out for active posters and ask if they want to help. If you are unsure about starting a community or want help from the start (as it might be popular) then start a thread on !fedigrow@lemm.ee. The more active communities, the more likely it is for the next wave of users to stick around and some of them might start new communities.
If you build it they will indeed come and stay.
Yeah, well said
That’s why people use reddit
What niches are you in?
!newcommunities@lemmy.world has a lot of active communities on different topics
1000% agree. But to Lemmy's credit, I found a greate niche community of linux and programming enthusiasts, plus I've noticed I run into Europeans more in the wild on here.
I think the fediverse has it's benefits. Still not a full replacement. Truthfully I don't think it will ever be, those niche communities will always end up being hosted where it suits them best.
I just wish it had more diversity.
Everyone's a white 40-year-old born male Linux admin in here.Hey! I'm a white 30-year-old born female Linux user, clearly Lemmy is burgeoning with diversity!
I'm a 40-year-old white man? I had no idea
Sorry you had to find out this way
Welcome! Here's your complimentary Thinkpad and cat.
Congratulations. But being in your 20s is better. At least you get to be white I guess.
There's plenty of diversity if you join boards focused on them, like LGBTQ communities. I think the defaults just lean excessively into the demographic you described.
Yep, Hexbear is generally more diverse, even if it still leans towards the general Lemmy demographics. The presence of communities like Traa and strong pro-LGBTQ moderation helps that greatly, same with anti-zionism.
Who tf is born 40 years old???
Hey! I'm 32.
I’m a 25 year old Asian American
I only know the sex of one person on Lemmy, and she's not a man.
It does. You aren't looking. I always feel a sense that I am talking to people from other parts of the world. Moreso than anywhere's else.
I wish I was that young!
im actually a 30 y/o social sciences graduate il have you know
I personally love the smaller userbase. Less spam, more quality, less screentime, no doomscrolling. Its a win-win in my book.
Plus you get to see the same accounts, the entirety of Lemmy feels like a community
Same. The only thing being niche subs on local stuff. But I remember early Reddit, and that had the same feel. Maybe with a bit more generalized memes because the hivemind was so much more exciting.
But the lack of automated astroturf and shorter comment sections makes it easy more pleasant.
I would say I miss some specific people or groups, both on Lemmy and on Mastodon, rather than generally "more" people. Friends of mine, certain people I used to follow on Twitter that haven't made the jump, some communities about specific hobbies, that sort of thing.
Overall, I enjoy the fact that I can get a rough idea about who is who instead of interacting with a mass of faceless strangers.
Yes there needs to be more people. There's barely any active discussion here. If you don't want to shit on Israel, there's just shit posts and Linux. We need more people to get active sports discussion, movies, TV, or anything else.
I moved to lemmy hoping it would be like classic Reddit, which it is to some extent. Unfortunately, my experience has been more like browsing Imgur – just endless memes and shitposts.
I tried blocking all the meme-focused communities I could find, but now my feed feels like a ghost town.
Did you have a look at !newcommunities@lemmy.world and https://lemmyverse.net/communities ?
What are your interests?
movies
TV
sport
!football@lemmy.world (not sure what you like)
Did you have a look at !newcommunities@lemmy.world and https://lemmyverse.net/communities ?
I'd love a more active sports area. I comment semi regularly in a few. There is small engagement, but would love even 10-15% more.
Yes, I wish there would be more. But I am okay with the state it's in. The engagement is good enough, and I discover interesting things every other day. You can't force it anyway.
When I used to have Reddit on my phone, I'd look at it as soon as I woke up. There was new content constantly throughout the day so I kept coming back.
Lemmy doesn't have the content churn, so I can genuinely just look once a day and spend an hour or so catching up. No FOMO! I much prefer it.
However I do miss some of the niche subreddits that got reasonable activity on Reddit and absolutely zero activity here. They were my favourite part of Reddit.
I'd take more activity in those niche places, but I don't miss the addiction I had.
Spez let me go cold turkey for a while. Thanks (fuck) Spez.
Same here
I used reddit for two things: news, and niche subcommunities around small hobbies and fandoms.
We've got the former here, but I don’t know if we'd ever have enough of a critical mass to sustain the latter. And that sucks for me, because I no longer have a good space for that stuff, but I still don't ever want to go back to reddit now.
We do, people just have to put in the work. I run two niche communities. Satisfactory and Taylor Swift. Both take time to run and manage, I had to be the sole poster in both for a good long time before other people started jumping in and posting with me. Someone has to be willing to put themselves out there.
Thank you for your service. 🫡
Thank you for your service. 🫡
☝️ 👏 👏
Thank you for your service. 🫡
Same here
Since the vast majority of website users are minimally engaged, I would love for a few more active posters for stability of content and discussion, but not a massive influx of users just to have users.
I also don't want a plethora of users who get banned repeatedly for not being self aware that their behavior is the problem. The occasional crossed wires ban, no biggie, but thinking there are so many glass people that creating dozens of alts is necessary is not a good look.
...if someone's been banned on the order of twenty times, it may behoove them to contemplate whether they're the problem rather than the communities which keep banning them...
Maybe less content is good? Infinitely scrolling is not great, and we all know that. Having limited content on Lemmy allows me to at least move onto something else.
Yeah but also the content is quite repetitive imo
Yeah and it depends. The fact that there is no easy way to search the fedi for similar posts right now is a bit cumbersome for sure.
I see a lot of new users post something that has already been answered a 10000x times (What's the best Linux distro? It depends !) And luckily there's always someone to give a mature and comprehensive answer to a new comer without scaring him or down voting him to oblivion. This shows that there are a lot of people who believe in Lemmy and are ready to repeat themselves to keep Lemmy alive and give new comers a warmly welcome ! However I have only seen that kind of interaction in the Linux/self-hosted communities... Most memes/ask Lemmy/political views/... Communities seems rather hostile on their own opinions and quickly become a cesspool of anger and hate :/.
Also a lot of people think because some communities have a lower user base they won't get any answer or interaction I was quite surprised to get a comprehensive answer and help in the bash@lemmy.ml community which has only 50 users/month !
Use the site less frequently and you will discover more content each time you come. I kind of like how it moves slower.
Of course, I want the fediverse to grow to. If it ever moves to fast I can always block lemmy.world and be crazy with my fellow dorks on lemmy.ml
I do, yes, especially for niche communities. But other social networks aren't the answer. Go look at what Reddit has become, or Twitter, or Facebook. It's all junk. Half of it is AIs talking to AIs. There's almost no meaningful conversation taking place. At least here we occasionally get some good conversations, although those are rare outside of politics and Linux.
I worry sometimes that the reddit exodus brought mostly bellyachers.
The sheer boringness of these repeated questions about the size, growth, health of the fediverse.
Fuck metrics. Jesus, do you mot get it at all?
Agreed! Seriously people this is not reddit. It does not have a bajillion users. Stop asking for it to have a billion users! This question has been asked So. Many. Times. I'm content with the amount of users here, of people want to invite more than invite more, but what is this post? "I have noticed that there are fewer users". Correct! Next question.
If you think this question is being asked too much, go and sit at AskReddit sometime. Count the many, many times you will see questions like 'Why are you single?' or "What would you do if someone gave you a million dollars?' or similarly worded questions. They are posted by the hour, almost nonstop.
You get a question like mine like once in a few weeks or a month maybe. But you hadn't seen anything until you check out AskReddit.
You lot. (Orbital)
The largest Lemmy instance is the most boring, full of unfunny memes and the worst Redditor culture. What you want is high quality postrs, not simply more people!
As Lenin said: better fewer, but better.
At this point I've blocked so many .world communities that I don't see that as much. There are some users who I notice bring the reddit antagonism and I tend to block them too. If I come across a post that is full of reddit quips I just block the whole community. I guess I've blocked fewer .ml communities overall.
Good on you! I bet that is actually working out great. I should try something similar with another account.
I don't know. I do understand the preference of quality over quantity, but there is a limit. There's a difference between reddit anime discussion, where each episode discussion has hundreds of diverse opinions - most being shitty - sure, but while the voting system is flawed, the interesting comments do tend to rise. and between lemmy's anime discussions, where an episode has...let me check: between 0 to two comments: https://lemmy.world/c/anime or https://ani.social/c/anime. That is really sad. Not to mention that reddit has so much niche subreddits
Be the change you seek! Most anime communities will let you post episode discussions, and if your instance is active enough you'll draw viewers sorting by new.
Having enough users for a community is important, I agree! I think that with the current size of Lemmy userbases, communities are often more like topic flags than self-sustaining niches.
Though to pick on Reddit, every time mods crack down on bots their subreddits decrease in posts and comments around tenfold. A lot of the engagement is fake. Mostly to boost numbers for financial reasons but they can also serve as a means of controlling behaviors and narratives.
It just takes time. More passionate posters will come. Reddit is mostly ai-generated at this point.
I wish more technically focused communities had a real home here. I'll google something, and see that the project I'm working on has a dedicated subreddit where someone asked my question. Wish I could see lemmy in my search results.
Even when I left reddit a year ago, most accounts on the front page were reposts bots. If you spent more than a year or two on reddit, you realize everything on the front page is recycled content.
There is no guarantee that there will be more posters. This place might very well disappear in a few years.
Doubtful. Individual instances, yes, but lemmy overall? No.
Personally I don't find a huge difference with reddit and threadiverse, at least for larger subs. Sure, on paper there are hundreds of comments, but most are the same tired decade old memes. You can predict what the comment sections are gonna be like from the title alone. At worst you get similar comments here, but you don't have to dig through hundreds of comments before finding something worthwhile.
Idk man, in actually seen here and not drowned out
Little a comment I make that doesn't have any interactions, I like that
Ya it's not bad. In the popular areas it seems like I can get away with just commenting on things but smaller communities I need to make a post to make it feel not-dead in there.
I kinda like the lack of content. I don't feel like I'm missing anything here. Mastodon is too busy.
Same, I come back every few days and don't feel like I've missed some big meme or event. Reddit you had to log on literally everyday or you could miss some joke and now it's memed all over every sub and you have no clue what's going on.
Post something then. Go to whatever your niche sub is and post on it. People will see it and you might get some engagements. I recently posted in !knives@sopuli.xyz and !geocaching@lemmy.world and got engagement.
I'd like to not to.
I would much prefer seeing other people build as well, see what they bring up and whatnot. I've tried before on creating communities to moderate and all I'd feel like is being some of those Reddit moderators who moderate an absurd amount of subreddits.
That's not what I want.
Lemmy seems to have quite a lot of people to be fair. Apparently Lemmy.world has nearly 7,000 users a day, which is quite a lot when you think about it.
One thing I think about is that maybe there are drawbacks to the Reddit-style format of Lemmy. A cool thing about old internet forums is that posts were show in chronological order with no upvotes, which is more similar to a real world conversation. You'd read the most recent posts, rather than the most upvoted posts. This means somebody new to the conversation can have their opinion seen.
The upvoting system means that a small number of posts get nearly all the upvotes and attention, and people who post later have their posts largely ignored.
Maybe I'm wrong but it's just something I thought about.
"New comments" allows to see the latest comments in conversations. Which is why I'm replying to you, while there are already 97 other comments here.
Lemmy's frontend default sort (Hot) is weighted heavily by time. Your comment is currently at the top, being the most recent. The second most recent is the second to top comment.
register on X site
No, not that one.
I wish there was more people on not-so-general communities.
If this means less meme or political posts, it would be for the best. However, more specific communities that are not part of a themed instance have very little activity. If I want to learn about ecology and its science, I know I can find many active communities on slrpnk.net, if I want content that matter to Germans, I can go it feddit.org, jlai.lu the same for Frenchs. But if I want people posting picture of nice looking sticks or find !foraging stories or connect with people doing !origami@feddit.org I know that I have to be patient and that's to bad 'cause if people spend less time commenting US election or some shower thoughts, some people will find time and fun interacting in these communities and many others.Yes and no.
Yes, I wish the fediverse would become more adopted by the general public because it will continues to improve.
No, because people are stupid assholes
Same here
.world is no different than reddit so you shouldn't expect any improvement there.
for me the lemmyverse is better so far than reddit, x, or facebook but that's because i spend most of my time away from the diet reddit lemmyverse instances; maybe that'll work for you too.
What do you mean by ".world" is no different? How come?
it a moderate playground that suppresses leftists views like reddit does and when it comes to moderates, Martin Luther King Jr said it best:
First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."
Yes, but also no.
More users would be great for the fediverse, in theory. Right now Lemmy (and Mastodon) can attribute a lot of their users to people unhappy with Reddit Inc. (or X) in some way. Throwing more unhappy people into the user base would probably not lead to good outcomes.
Personally I think Lemmy and Mastodon will never get the critical mass of users needed to maintain healthy communities because the only thing they have to offer is a less bad clone of an existing network.
X is bad because a malignant political demagogue is actively destroying what most people liked about Twitter. Reddit is bad because reddit inc. cares more about profit more than the needs of the user base. But the platforms they created and/or operate aren't designed with a federated model in mind.
If the fediverse is ever going to move out of the technically savvy, early adopter nerds phase I think it's only going to do that through something new and better than what already exists.
I literally do not care about getting more members. It is not on my radar at all as a goal or desirable thing or objective.
I've been on KBin Social, Lemmy World (least 2 dedicated accounts), KBin Run, Mastodon, Blue Sky .etc
Blue sky is not on the fediverse. They've decided to come up with their own federating system from the ground up, which I think kind of squandered what could have been a pivotal opportunity to help facilitate a mass exodus from Twitter, contributing to fragmentation and confusion.
But anyway. I think they intend to have their own version of federating soon but I don't think it's up and running yet.
They are not really allowing federation.
Details here: https://lemmy.ml/post/20064488
Thank you for that read. Seems to completely miss the point of federation. The core motivations related to improving choices about how user names and federation structure works, and forcing their domain to be the mandatory user facing side of the whole network could not possibly miss the point more except by being actually centralized. Mandatory firehose relays of the entire networds data that can't be federated or defederated that could be prohibitively costly to host?
And the complexities under the hood that attempt to square this circle are infinitely more confusing than explaining Mastodon instances.
Yes, I still moderate a subreddit which is a support group for a particular surgery. There isn't such a community on the fediverse and the group of people who need this surgery seem to be few in number here too. (Won't be any more specific about the nature of the subreddit or surgery for privacy reasons, before anyone asks)
I think the Fediverse is the perfect platform for things like what you run. I also think at times how great the fediverse could be for those who're mentally struggling. Just imagine, a decentralized platform where not only is it separated from the general network, but it's an instance/server where people can feel safe and private. Also secure too.
You don't get that feeling on Reddit. People are telling sensitive stories out there for all to see on Reddit and anywhere else. They're unfortunately setting themselves up for the chance of anybody stumbling upon those tellings and could give them hell for it. Making them worse off than they already were.
I like it. There is good engagement. 10 to 20 comments on a post is enough for me to move on to the next post
I got my first reddit ban today!! I told a gamer advocating for bikini armor or something that he should just get a second screen and watch porn while he plays if he's so fucking horny all the time and it was flagged as "harassment". It's only for 7 days so I guess I need to work harder to get a permaban lol.
It is stupid easy to get banned on that platform. There might as well be no rules posted there anymore.
Because all that you have to do is simply express an opinion that'll hurt someone's feel-feels and that's just grounds enough to ban you over.
They'll only have one rule and it's "DON'T HURT MUH FEELINGS!".
Absolutely. There's just fuck all to do here. I used reddit for fan communities a lot, and most of them stayed behind. (Unless you're a trekkie I guess. Then you're set.)
Nearly every niche community I've joined has essentially died due to not having the critical mass of users to support that community. Hell, even look at the large states like California or Texas: they're communities with only a few hundred active users and maybe a couple thousand joined. Feels like the lemmy is mostly us politics, star trek, Germans, and memes.
Which niches were they?
Some like !homebrewing@sopuli.xyz and !homeimprovement@lemmy.world are quite active
!newcommunities@lemmy.world has several threads with different active communities on different topics
You know a platform is big when like nearly all states of a country have their own subreddit and their own userbase. It's like, that's impact there.
It's the same here, I check the front page and what do I see? Politics, politics, politics, a couple memes and maybe a news report that isn't politics.
I mean, you are on a site built and maintained by Communists along Communist principles, there are going to be Communists.
Reddit already exists for liberals.
I didn't say anything about communists. I said I missed being able to interact with people who shared my hobbies. I just want to
grilltalk about cartoons and video games.Also, I was sold on Lemmy because they told me it was an user owned alternative to reddit, which was going tits up at the time. "It's a communist website." Is not what they told me to get me over here.
!newcommunities@lemmy.world has several threads with different active communities on different topics
I personally think maybe it's also in need of quality posts or engagement, but in larger quantities.
That said I know my post may not be quality input, but this is how I feel.
Feel free to have a look at !newcommunities@lemmy.world to discover other active communities
Thanks! I will use that one.
No.
People are the worst.
Speaking personally, while I am here, my participation in Lemmy is lacklustre at best; same with Mastodon. I got burnt out from social media and the years from 2016 - 2024 have really ruined my enthusiasm. I think maybe a lot are in the same boat. Maybe we'll see more people come out of the "shields up, dark times overload" in a year or so... and maybe it will take longer.
The "threadiverse" (i.e. lemmy-compatible communities), yeah. There are still many topics that I would find interesting to discuss, but that nobody talks about here; to the extent that there are communities for them, they get very little activity.
The microblogging fediverse (mastodon-compatible), I think, is popular enough by now, I have no real desire to see even more activity there, can hardly keep up with what I'm currently following there and currently tend to unfollow more accounts than I start following.
i looked through mastodon and it seemed like everyone was just talking at each other instead if discussions. its worse than linkedin.
Mastodon is mainly a way to get updates from news sites, blogs, etc.
There are still many topics that I would find interesting to discuss, but that nobody talks about here;
Which ones are those?
I wish there were more people in the fediverse, but not necessarily heaps more on Lemmy. I don't want Reddit numbers on Lemmy. But I wish there were more platforms and more people engaging with them, and no, if the answer is shit like Threads then I don't want any of it.
Yes.
I've been using this account for over a year since the Rexodus. Haven't had this disinterest problem. Do I wish there were more users, sure, but it takes time. Work on making this place great and they will continue to move here. Create, mod, or just post to a niche community.
Yep
Do you guys feel like the federation hurts Lemmy?
Like I see its benefits, but for an average user, the feel of Lemmy as an app is less intuitive than reddit
Lemmy currently has 45k monthly active users: https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/dailystats
Centralized alternatives:
- Discuit has less than 250: https://discuit.net/DiscuitMeta/post/9JPo3q0m
- Tildes doesn't have numbers, but based on activity, it seems similar to Discuit
- Blue Dwarf has 50
There was a thread yesterday on /r/RedditAlternatives talking about "how do you attract users to a new alternatives", most of the comments where about how difficult it is: https://old.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/1g4zcdi/for_those_of_you_who_started_your_own_alternative/
Based on this, I would say that Lemmy allowing everyone to open a server helps in that regard. Instance admins are more confident in the platform as they have control on this. Users trust admins.
Ya I definitely don’t wanna take away from what Lemmy has accomplished
It’s definitely the best alternative to Reddit that I have seen. But the federation does add another way of complexity that I wasn’t used to coming from Reddit. Whenever I join a new community now, they may be across different federations and it seems like the popularity of these communities almost compete with each other, which detracts from having a big user-based community to ask questions to
I do, but only because the UX around federated entities isn't great at the moment. There's no doubt that it could be made way more intuitive and streamlined for the average user, and that more effort could be put into migration between federated entities so that it doesn't feel like as much of a chore to jump between instances. The average user won't care about federation, and they just want to quickly get some content.
migration between federated entities so that it doesn’t feel like as much of a chore to jump between instances.
Migration takes two clicks from the account settings, are you referring to something else?
Yes. Same old faces every time gets old
It happen to me, pixelfed, dedicated networks about history... And nothing happen... And I'm about of 3 years active in fediverse
dedicated networks about history
What are those?
historians.social
Find a good instance, it's nice that way. Hexbear is really nice to browse locally, I'm sure there are other instances with active communities like that with good local feeds. The issue isn't with magnitude of people, but the activity levels of people, otherwise you get instances dominated by a few people similar to Reddit.
So You Thought You Were Lying Low in a Space Forged by an Exodus from Society to Bury your Shoebox of Fake IDs but Nuance Defied Expectation, a Stone's Tale
ok