Fediverse

@spaduf@slrpnk.net

Honestly, there needs to be a setting for lemmy admins to specify the default comms displayed to not-logged and new users. Just the firehose of the /all or local is not particularly attractive to most people.

EDIT: Went ahead and opened a feature request

Some personal thoughts:

about the content when you first open lemmy: I joined reddit some time around 2015 and it was not exactly the most welcoming experience with the type of content you see by default either. Still, I had seen smaller communities with cool content and I joined anyway and just learned to use it enough to tailor my feed. Lemmy becomes much nicer after awhile of hanging out and discovering new and cool communities!

In my personal opinion the "Link to specific instances and apps rather than just saying Lemmy" part is the most important. Fediverse IS confusing when you check it out the first time. It took me awhile to make an account because people kept telling to choose an instance that fits you. I know it sounds stupid but it really kept me away from making an account for awhile.

I instance-hopped a couple of times because I joined smaller instances (the recommendation everyone gives you) that then disappeared / were abandoned by the admin. That was not a very nice experience. I know lemmy.world is too big, but honestly it is a very easy and nice starting point to lemmyverse (so is sopuli!).

Also: really appreciate the effort you are putting into growing lemmy, Blaze!

Thought process about discuss.online and sopuli as recommendations

There is no ideal generalist instance. If you open the top 20 instances (https://fedidb.org/software/lemmy/)

• Lemmy.world is too big
• Lemm.ee is federated with hexbear and lemmygrad, something that is not very welcoming to new users (see this thread: https://sh.itjust.works/post/28798607/15305964 )
• sh.itjust.works names contains "shit", which can deter users: https://feddit.org/post/4255611/2825351
• lemmy.ca is Canadian-centric
• feddit.org, is German-centric (sidebar in German first, Matrix chat is in German, meta community is in German)
• dbzer0 federates hexbear
• programming.dev is topic-centric
• blahaj is queer-focused
• discuss.tchncs.de has a difficult name
• lemmy.sdf.org does not defederate anyone
• lemmy.zip is federated with hexbear and lemmygrad
• beehaw is way outdated
• infosec.pub is topic-centric
• aussie.zone is country-centric
• midwest.social is region-centric

I ended up with discuss.online and sopuli.xyz as they have

• neutral names
• long running history
• good downtime
• active admins
• defederate hexbear and lemmygrad

If people have other suggestions, feel free

I've noticed that people forgot how long ago the Reddit blackout was (about 19 months ago?), and Lemmy has improved a lot since then. Back then Lemmy was like pre-alpha, super buggy, and servers were very unstable. And we have way more 3rd party apps/frontends now.

https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1i7gufa/hundreds_of_subreddits_are_considering_banning/m8ktmgh/?context=9

Single topic forums are still doing ok out there on the wider Internet. Create more well moderated, single-topic, federated forums, and then promote those specifically to users who care about those topics.

Don't sell Lemmy to end users. Lemmy is a solution for admins. Sell the specific websites to end users.

"Reddit but you can block the part that annoys you"

Sounds like we're filtering out the exact type of people I would never want to come from Reddit. Dunno why y'all want them.

Just a thought I’m having, but rather than just spamming Reddit with Lemmy links maybe we should promote it more on Linux type areas, at least people coming from there will find their niche content here.

To be fair, you can’t say they’re wrong. Open https://discuss.online , by default you’ll be set on All - Active. Out of the first 9 posts you see, 8 are about T or M, the last one being a meme.

The fact that they (or you) complain about the "All" timeline having the same stuff in all servers shows they have no idea what they're talking about: that's the entire point of an All feed! (plusminus stuff like defederation). It would make more sense to compare the Local feed of instances, IMO.

Besides, the default sorts are active and popularity nowadays, so it only makes sense that stuff that we care about and have to have words with, takes the forefront. If you want to solve that the solution is not "let's ignore what's going on around the world", it's "post more cats" and "post more ich_iel". Or just use the Scaled sort, I don't understand why is that not the default for guests / visitors.

And that's right there with the complaint about the 42k users too. The people who came first came for very specific reasons and have particulars to talk about. Complaining that for the next people to come in "I'm going to be called a westerner imperialist" is delicious hypocrisy on not noticing how indoctrinated they are.

Shoutout to lemmy.zip, y'all are a great instance!

I’m for the sink or swim mentality. Point them here and if they come up with an excuse to not be here then they probably weren’t going to be a good contributor anyway.

I’m fine with being selective. There is no reason we need 1M+ MAU for the sake of the network, we aren’t trying to turn a profit

This is the best platform for constant live updates about what the people you don't like are up to. Then there's articles about everything that's wrong in the world and also some memes - mostly political.

A thought that just hit me in the shower.

I don't feel like lemmy is too small. It quite comfortably fills all my lazing on aggregator time without getting stale. The thing is, like many here, I'm a libertarian leftist politics nerd that's into linux and self hosting.

That description describes a sizeable chunk of this project's userbase so enough content is being posted enough to saturate the feed.

If you want the project to expand into other niches, you will have to post into the void about whatever you're into. Seed forums with TV shows or photography or hiking or warhammer or whatever you're into and encourage others to do the same.

All forums are dead at first but if you want people to come and talk about pottery, you're going to have to make that forum cozy before it gets enough interaction to become self sustaining.

I think one of the biggest barriers of the fediverse is decision paralysis.

So stop looking around! Go to https://lemmy.world/ and join :)

If you want to expend extra time, there are more servers and you can join a different one, if you are undecisive join the one above :)

An official Android and iOS app called "Lemmy". If you wanna go big, you need the mobile platform.

Content is King. You can have a good chunk of people that manage to go through the UX issues, they will still leave if they don't find what they want. The mirror bots (alien.top, lemmit.online) were meant to help with that, but the people here would rather complain about the post volume instead of learning how to follow only the subscribed communities.

Painless onboarding is second. Fediverser is meant to help with that, but no other admin has shown interest in adopting it.

A clear way to find-what-goes-where is third. My proposal to separate user/local instances from topic-based instances has been rejected here, even after I offered to put them under the governance of a wider admin group.

Now, I'm tired of this culture and small thinking. Fine if you want to be proselytizing and convincing people "at retail", but this will not be nearly as impactful if we had a dozen people who had the courage to setup a Lemmy instance with Fediverser.