A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
I'm still on IRC! There's a raw simplicity to it that I appreciate. You don't have to use a bloated Electron app to connect to a proprietary service, you can just go straight text on the protocol-level in terminal (if you're nuts), and the protocol is open and simple enough to understand that you can easily make your own client even if you're a lazy or mediocre dev.
So IRC, Lemmy, and I guess Instagram (if that counts)
What IRC servers still exist that allow random people like me to just join but have interesting people and channels and not just trolls and spam?
I second this question! I'd like to know some good servers with healthy communities.
Probably should not post those publicly, even on Lemmy.
Alternate question: how can we find interesting discussions on IRC?
Yeah it's feels really nice. I'm not on it now but I remember loving the feeling of it because it's not fucking big tech shit.
Ever since Reddit killed itself, the only places I really lurk are Kbin (and therefore Lemmy by proxy) and Discord. That's pretty much it.
I have ignored Discord for years until recently. It just seems like IRC with a lot of flashiness and emojis. Is there more to this experience? I don't intend to be disparaging, but I looked for some specific topic servers and just found the quality of discussion to be low and the experience to be chaotic.
I'm willing to be told I'm doing it wrong though - is there a "here's the right way to get into discord" approach I'm missing?
I think some of us are intentionally avoiding big tech now and try to find places online that doesn't feel completely dead soul wise.
Lemmy feels good for me, but I'm also looking for web sites where I feel connected to people.
I’ve found that small blogs are excellent for this. I started my own and reached out to a few smaller blogs from some really interesting people. I instantly felt at home in the community.
Thanks, yes, I guess it's time to go back to following blogs and interacting with real people again on the web. Before big tech, that's what the entire internet was. Just lots of original web sites from individuals wanting to show their web design skills or talking about random topics.
It just feels like it's harder to find those now, and also a bit inconvenient to remember to go to each site every now and then. We got lazy with centralized services, with everything under one centralized controlled roof owned by an insane billionaire with mommy issues.
An RSS reader is the ideal tool for that. No need to remember to go to every site when all of them are in one place. And most blogs have an RSS feed as well.
Primarily mastodon. Really enjoying that.
Facebook for relatives & friends from the real world.
I find the Mastodon/Threads/Twitter medium to be kind of hard to love sometimes. You must have found a great community! Where/who do you interact with on Mastodon?
Retrocomputing, film & art crowds.
I've been posting a lot of silent film stuff recently.
98% YouTube and 2% Lemmy
If rest of the internet dissapeared it would take a while for me to notice.
Honestly, I read more, do more gardening, play more videogames. Kinda a weird benefit, but I joined two book clubs and a walking group. Started going to a parenting group on Sundays so my kiddo and I are making more friends. I guess reddit just pissed me off enough to go out and be more in my community. It's kinda nice.
XMPP MUCs, IRC, some Matrix Spaces. Lobsters, Mastodon.
I refuse Discord. I really wish I could refuse Microsoft GitHub—source code doesn’t need to be a proprietary social media plaform.
if it isn't for work related stuff, there are some self hosted github alternatives like gitlab, gitea and gogs
they might have less features tho
Reddit (only subs related to living in Japan since those didn't migrate here), kbin/lemmy, fark (though I almost never comment anymore), and an old-fashioned forum/bulletin board (more stuff related to living in Japan).
Edit: and I guess YouTube? 99% of the time, I'm watching from my TV which doesn't have comments or anything.
Hacker News, mainly.
Sometimes I log on to Reddit to help travelers to my country or hobbyists trying to learn engineering. I try to avoid discussion on Reddit as the quality is often not high, e.g. lots of tourists asking how to commit crimes in my country -- better to just not answer.
For discussion I go here, it's much more interesting.
IRC has always been pretty cool. I might go back to that one day. For now this is just the part of my life where I try to make money and don't have much time to socialize.
Which IRC servers are worth some time?
Oh that's ancient history. I don't think they are around anymore. Used to be on the one for the local hackerspace before they moved to Mattermost.
Then a few for technical assistance with various tools.
YouTube has kicked the wasp nest by blocking Adblockers. Lots of drama over there
What's weird is that you can still use ad blockers just fine while you're logged out. So I just open the videos in a private browsing tab to watch them, but in a regular tab to rate or comment.
Since leaving reddit with the migration, I'm now on Kbin, tumblr, Tildes, and playing somewhat more regularly on Subeta and Dappervolk.
I only hang out here, been spending way less time browsing online, which I'd say is a good thing. Been playing more video games, and even reading.
Also I'm curious about Discord, when people say they hang out there, do they just find a channel they like and keep up with the chat all day?
as someone who was heavily addicted to discord: yes, morning routine was basically reading messages from the night, mostly fear of missing out
I still use Instagram to keep up and chat with friends and Facebook only because my kid's school only posts there
The obligation to stay on Facebook for things like this is so frustrating at times. It feels like LinkedIn, where I have it because it's the only place to get some information.
Forums. Those of interests that interest me, specific games forums, OS forums, comic book forums, forums.
Lemmy is just a weird poorly-designed forum I also read.
TV Tropes is absolutely packed if you ever want to join.
Reddit for niche topics, Imgur for weird and funny.
Obligatory “fuck Reddit”
My routine is, in this order, Lemmy, Mastodon, Tumblr
Discord
Discord and the osrs grand exchange w390 or dustbowl tf2
Well...
IRC, assorted mailing lists and forums, Matrix, Mastodon and occasionally Reddit (blasphemy, I know)
Twitter and BlueSky. Shifting more so to the latter the worse the former gets.
No Mastodon? I always assume all of us lemmy people use Mastodon (if they are into the twitter kind of thing).
I prefer bluesky
I keep wondering if BlueSky is going to eat mastodons lunch when/if they open up next year.
I’m not on there myself, but from all the things I hear it’s got the vibe of doing the federated Twitter alternative “right” rather than, let’s say “idealistically”.
Matrix, lemmy, mastodon, mumble, im not a fan of irc I have an xmpp, i dont use it often tho I also have signal for irls
Why not IRC? I mean, if you want private conversation, then that's not your place. But for a community? Not sure I see a huge problem with it. I love the idea of XMPP as a better IRC, but I never found a place to hang out there. What do you think?
The only other forum I participate in is Arstecknica.