this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2023
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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.
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.
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.
Agreed. I'm quite the nerd, so i'm holding out hope some of my favorite subs will move over.
If that's really a problem, why not start the communities here yourselves? Literally nothing and no one is stopping you.
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.
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.
I don't have much to say, but here's a reply anyway! Hope it seems a little less quiet in here.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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?
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
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.
I believe Peertube has support for webtorrent streaming so viewers upload the video to other viewers as well.
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.
I was just thinking about this. The content creators already have the original quality copy stored on their machines.
Yep, and they could share those high res versions too.
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
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.
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.
Same here, this feels a bit more like the newsgroup days, except less porn spam.
Ooh, I forgot all about slashdot!
honestly, its best if you continue forgetting about it.
I was also on slashdot back in the 90s. Still am too.
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?
What did you find complicated about the onboarding?
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:
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.
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.
That's exactly my point. I know it's not difficult for the people already here, that's why we did it.
What other social media platform requires you to answer open-ended questions about "why" you're joining? I can't really think of any. It's an unfamiliar concept to the majority of people.
Combine that with the concept of "federation" that may make many users feel as if they're signing up for some silo within the community, and it's a recipe for low adoption.
Like I said, I don't disagree with the concept or the process. I'm fully aware of the reasons, and I generally agree. I'm just explaining how this will be a major adoption roadblock for the vast majority of users.
I don't really have a good solution either; I wish I did. I don't think everyone and their bot needs to flood Lemmy, but I also don't want people too dissuaded from joining if the sign up process appears arduous, even when it's not.
There's many Facebook groups that have you answer some basics questions before letting you join. I'm thinking it's not as big of a hurdle as you think. One of the positives is that it will weed out those who don't plan to participate.
I tried one other instance of lemy to join and there were no questions to answer. That server was way too overloaded. It made me think the questions might also be there to slow down the registrations. The servers could then keep up.
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.
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)
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:
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: