I am not enjoying kbin.social right now. The latency is beyond atrocious, at 10+ seconds to load each page. The UI reminds me of 2004 forums that don’t know how users work. The mobile UI is just the worst.
Some pain points:
I’m a software engineer so I can figure this shit out, but how the hell do I subscribe to a magazine? If I go to it, there should be a “subscribe” or context menu at the top to subscribe/favorite/mute
Why is the comment box all the way at the bottom? Where’s the “add comment” button on a post?
Why are comments paginated like a forum? Why not just a “load more” like Reddit? What’s the point?
Selecting the comment box should NOT zoom slightly into the page. The mobile web UI needs a lot of work from people who know how to do mobile UIs.
Is there no “homepage” button? Clicking the Kbin logo at the top just brings up a menu, which requires another click on the homepage button to get back.
Edit: And you can't collapse comment threads? What even...
I really want a Reddit replacement, but this is not it with this terrible UI. It’s unusable, literally–if I can’t subscribe to a magazine then it’s not working.
I can definitely see how that’s all frustrating, and I’m sure we all have our experiences with lag or with that goddamn Cloudflare verification or whatever, but I hope you and everyone else will stick around so we can help shape this space the way we want it. You’re already doing that with your comment above. Imagine the almost impossible chances of making suggestions to Reddit and having changes made. At least here that’s a possibility. I hope to see you around.
With any new tech, patience is key. My many years of struggles trying to crowbar encrypted chat alternatives into my various social groups has taught me that almost everyone wants things to go smoothly all the time, especially on a platform that is new to them and unheard of to most.
There's an infinite scroll option in the setting that seems to work for threads, but it doesn't seem to work for the comment section. Not sure if that is intentional or not?
I'd be keen for an infinite scroll setting for comments. I'd argue the best content on these sites are seeing the range of opinions from people. Having to click through pagination feels like a relic of the past at this point
Even Reddit doesn't have this. It's just a "load more" button, which should be a thing. Pagination makes 0 sense with comment sorting, since by the time you select another page, the sort could have changed for the comments.
If infinite scrolling is forced on for posts or comments I'll be so distressed. It really is a plague even if you're not doomscrolling. It makes sinking infinite time into the app too easy.
As this is basically a new website I'm personally fine with the design for now, but I'm more annoyed that you can't minimize a post and its replies than any of the things you've outlined.
There’s a grease monkey script for this. I have it installed on my PC and I’m mobile at the moment. But you should be able to search through the /m/kbinMeta thread on people’s frustrations and find it.
Oh, of course magazines are case sensitive. I tried looking for this with different caps, and it gives a 404. Another thing that makes 0 sense.... Great.
Also, comments don't even link to mags automatically...
Oh, of course magazines are case sensitive. I tried looking for this with different caps, and it gives a 404. Another thing that makes 0 sense.... Great.
Agreed with all of the above except I'm staying off of Reddit indefinitely until there's word on something changing. Perhaps a majority of the issues will be alleviated when an app is released for kbin.
Likewise, I cannot imagine being second in line to Reddit as a software dev at all. One day you go from hosting 10-50k users and then suddenly 100k+ users flood your site. It would be a nightmare for anyone and as a result I'm excusing the load times. I'm also giving kbin a chance to grow because I know community based things take time.
Anyways, Some smaller things I've found confusing on mobile:
The menu button in the top left has no animations on how it appears and is not swipe-away-able.
Finding magazines outside of the kbin instance feels very disjoint (I understand federation was down earlier, so that may be the case)
Agreed with all of the above except I'm staying off of Reddit indefinitely until there's word on something changing.
Nothing will change. Huffman is a turd, was a turd, and will be a turd. The fact that he's CEO says everything about what the company wants: They want a turd.
I for one am really enjoying kbin. That being said I agree with all points you made they would improve the UX. constructive criticism like this is what we need.
We all want kbin to flourish and while you may not agree with all of, or any of @Flames5123 suggestions it’s hard to argue that they should not at least be made options.
Since kbin is in it’s infancy and still needs a lot of work, there’s some decent solutions that might help with aesthetics.If you look at my profile I posted a link to an edited css script (the user blobcat built it) that pushes the comment box to the top and gives you a nice dark mode similar to Reddit. I also posted a link to the same script but edited to It would work on mobile, at least on iOS safari as that’s the only one I tested but I believe the blobcat said it worked on android.
Also there’s another link that gives you collapsible comments like Reddit. And that one as well works on mobile if your interested.
I didn't even realize that kbin wasn't in dark mode normally, because I was using the Firefox Dark Reader plugin. IMHO, turning it off, Dark Reader does a slightly better job than the native interface (e.g. the yellow note on the sidebar about kbin being a prototype is a dark yellow rather than light yellow).
yeah dark reader is the shit. kbin does have a dark mode but it's more grey. if you click this jog wheel you can set it to different colors. would be great if they added more later down the line but for now the one I edited tries to emulate reddits dark vibe.
Great news: You and I are software engineers, and this place is open source.
Let’s help Ernest out and make PRs that provide fixes to the ones that are definitely outright problems, and UI settings for users who might see some of these as something they like (paged vs read more)
This software doesn't need fixes, it needs to be finished. I've been looking at the code for a few days and it's clearly barely past the mock-up phase. When Ernest calls it a prototype, he really means it. Even the commit messages are barely useful.
It's also written in PHP/Symfony. I don't know about everyone else, but I quit writing PHP 15+ years ago and haven't looked back. Trying to wrap my head around this monolith feels like stepping back in time. The lack of comments or documentation — while expected for something of this maturity — makes it very difficult to just jump in and start writing code.
But in general, I agree: let's help rather than just complain!
PHP has come a long way compared to 15 years ago, it might be better to familiarize yourself with recent versions before disparaging it by implying it's an ancient language that should be left to the pages of history.
Laravel itself is a perfectly reasonable framework that'll allow this dev to scale the project as it grows.
I don't judge the language for its age or quality, but rather its relevance or popularity. I asked around and only one of the software engineers I know has even touched PHP in the last 10 years, and online polling agrees that it is not very commonly used. I know there are still PHP developers out there.
The reason I am taking about this is that there are going to be very few people able to work on this in a meaningful way. Sure, I could catch up on 15 years of changes and relearn the language. Unfortunately that means that I and many others will be approaching this from that perspective (i.e., the perspective of a relative novice) rather than as subject matter experts. Progress will be slow and many are not going to want to invest the time. The best bet for making an impact is to find passionate PHP developers that are also passionate about social media and decentralization. I imagine that venn diagram has a very small overlapping area, and conversations and DMs I've had with others on these platforms seem to point to the same conclusion.
Scale is also a concern (and already a real problem), but this has more to do with the architecture of the application than the language itself.
I’m a software engineer so I can figure this shit out, but how the hell do I subscribe to a magazine? If I go to it, there should be a “subscribe” or context menu at the top to subscribe/favorite/mute
There's a subscribe button for me, so I'm not sure what the deal is with your experience.
Why is the comment box all the way at the bottom? Where’s the “add comment” button on a post?
I have this same complaint.
Why are comments paginated like a forum? Why not just a “load more” like Reddit? What’s the point?
Probably in order to prevent loading more than necessary at once. Fewer calls and less bandwidth. We have to remember, these federated FOSS social nodes aren't run on large scale data centers like Reddit. These are VPSes and spare hardware in homelabs and such. So resource management and efficiency is paramount.
Selecting the comment box should NOT zoom slightly into the page. The mobile web UI needs a lot of work from people who know how to do mobile UIs.
This does not happen for me using Brave Browser version 1.52.122 on Android version 13 build TQ2A.230505.002, so I'm not sure about that behavior for you.
Is there no “homepage” button? Clicking the Kbin logo at the top just brings up a menu, which requires another click on the homepage button to get back.
Yeah it would be nice if the logo was a link back to the homepage and then the actual menu icon next to it was the menu.
I am not enjoying kbin.social right now. The latency is beyond atrocious, at 10+ seconds to load each page. The UI reminds me of 2004 forums that don’t know how users work. The mobile UI is just the worst.
I signed up for both Kbin as well as Lemmy.one and, so far at least, I think I prefer Lemmy. The communities don't seem to be growing as quickly, but the whole federated sites thing seems to work well enough. I've found communities on Lemmy.world as well as behaw and can seem to interact with everything on Lemmy.one and it runs nice and smooth.
But, the good news is, I guess with how this stuff works it really doesn't matter which site(s) we choose. In theory, once everything stabilizes (and Cloudlfare is disabled here), everything should work together, right?
@JoeyAnthony I signed up for Lemmy.one, but the "invite only" currently is off putting and requires a lot of waiting. Even the whole "explain your username" is super weird. I know it's because they can't handle the traffic right now, and it's in early early beta, but still.
Reddit was absolute garbage when it first launched too. It took over a decade to get what is old reddit became before they screwed that all up. Reddit just isn't good anymore and is dated content. It's going to die. Better to be on board the future rather than ride out the slow death of Reddit.
Though I have to say that I was pretty happy with the old reddit interface.
I guess I could think of a few changes. It wasn't terribly mobile-friendly. And the fact that the default search was a global Reddit search rather than a subreddit search was pretty obnoxious.
It’s clunky here, that’s for sure. When Spez decided to bite the hand that feeds him, he lost me. So I’ll deal with the growing pains as the Fediverse catches up to our Paradise Lost
I am not enjoying kbin.social right now.
The UI reminds me of 2004 forums that don’t know how users work.
The mobile UI is just the worst.
I’m a software engineer
Despite your nonconstructive feedback, you claim to have the skillset to improve things, go submit issues or make a pull request to improve things: https://codeberg.org/Kbin/kbin-core
You're using prototype software. It's literally v0.10.1. As a software engineer, you might know what that means.
be me, software engineer
go onto new forum website
can't figure out how to click the big-ass "Subscribe" button in order to subscribe to subre- I mean magazines
clearly must be something wrong with the website and not user error
You’re not wrong about many of your complaints but nothing is going to replace Reddit right now. Its going to take time to create something that will fully replace Reddit. I think Kbin is a good start. I see promise in Lemmy as well.
For me, I’m going to enjoy my time away from Reddit. I have been very productive the last few days because these sites don’t consume as much of my time. To me that’s not such a bad thing considering a large portion of Reddit posts were crap anyway. I am very excited to see where this community is in a year from now.
One last note. If the creator of the Apollo app decides to build something around one of these platforms like Kbin or Lemmy then that is where I will end up. That app was a joy to use.
I agree with every single one of these issues you noted - and yet I have a polar opposite overall opinion of kbin.
Somehow, with every issue you just stated, I have enjoyed all of my “wasted” time that I would have spent scrolling Reddit, instead I was here. And in all of that time I found my time was more enriched, more valuable, and more rewarding.
I’m a passionate NYJets fan (if you know, you know) so I probably just have it built into me to be able to deal with annoying and frustrating situations and still somehow love a “team.” To me, the best part about being in a community (sports or otherwise) is being there even when it was a fraction of its potential. Intuition is the only guide to know when shit is ‘trash’ or shit is fertilizer.
I can understand the frustration, but reddit has 15 years of development and kbin has had a month with one person. So even an insane 400hr month vs x people times 15 years, it's gonna be behind. It's on a server system that costs about 60€ a month? It's amazing it works at all with 120000 users I think on Saturday it there we're <20000.. Users Is it reddit 2.0? Uh more like 0.2. It's something new but if you want a multi million dollar polished website this isn't it.
While I know it'd be nice for us to just have a breezy experience where all our expectations played out before us with a snap of the fingers, please try and remember this site has been here like one single month, and the dude who's running things managed to accommodate like 120000! new members signing in yesterday. It's slow because it's new and we're all donating money to get this ramped up as quickly as possible.
Just have some grace, and some sympathy, and maybe even some patience.
Personally I'm not here for a slick interface and lightning fast performance. Those things can be fixed. I'm here for the community -- that's something Reddit doesn't have, and can never be fixed.
I’m a software engineer so I can figure this shit out
I'm also a software engineer, and I love it when other software engineers act like being a software engineer means that they are smart and if they can't figure it out, then it must be someone else's fault.
I've met other software engineers like this, and sometimes they actually are worse than others at figuring things out.
I use this on the side of "I've used a LOT of software and seen a LOT of UIs and navigation menus and can figure out how to click all the options to figure it out" kinda thing. It's like how most polyglots just know the basics of a lot of languages and can figure out other languages because they have a lot of exposure.
Lol. Nice try. Nothing like insulting people with no knowledge of their life or what they meant to build a good community!
I've been in this field for 6 years. Lots of UI, web, and backend work, so I know what the hell I'm doing. Sure, it takes a lot of money to build something that a lot of users like, and that takes time and input, but with the whole "Reddit replacement" push, I would hope it would have some kind of parity.
I just meant that I'm a software engineer, so I've seen a whole lot of different UI layouts and navigation styles and can figure it out because it can't be too different from anything I've used.
•They want to encourage people reading before posting first, but there are style sheets you can apply to move the comment box. Really, kbin just needs a service like RES so people can adjust things to their tastes
•Because it's not Reddit?
•Yeah, some fixing needs to be done
The great thing about it being federated though is that you can find a community that better fits your needs, and still get the content from here
Yeah, that's one of the few things that I agree may need to be reworked. It's REALLY easy to miss because who would expect it to be near the bottom?
Same with Home. It's a little picture of a house on mobile, but it's so small and unassuming and I'm so used to a website's logo automatically taking me there that I missed noticing it for hours
All basic things, though. It's not like they don't work, they're just placed an inconvenient scroll down the screen atm. They feel like minor annoyances to me even not comparing them with elsewhere.
I can speak for nobody but myself. I love it here. I'm an amateur developer, I'm a lover of old computers, and I've experienced a couple different flavors of internet interaction over the years. This has been a cool experience, and even if most of the major content went back to Reddit, I won't return with them.
I feel like kbin and others are here to stay. Will Redditors come here? Maybe, maybe not. If so, it's just a new community. Once federation kicks in, it'll be an even bigger community. It'll smooth out ^^
I was on Reddit more than a decade, since before the Digg migration and used it probably daily. I won't be going back save to delete my accounts.
Is kbin and the fediverse perfect? No. Will be a Reddit killer? I actually don't care. A lot of people seem to have this idea that Mastodon failed after Twitter started imploding because [insert reason]. I argue it was a resounding success, and kbin/Lemmy very might well be too. The fediverse isn't backed by VCs and has no need to scale immeasurably in order to corner the market or whatever capitalist speak they use. It's its own thing, and as long as it's being used and growing, it's a success.
The fediverse is a lot like how the web used to be in the days before we handed control of it over to like five companies. What we're building here is amazing and wresting control away from corporate interests. So whether or not it is the link aggregation site or just something a percentage of people use, is really irrelevant as long as it's being used.
So for that reason, I'm sticking it out with the fediverse.
That's an attitude I'm starting to adopt. Very well said.
The internet was very spread out, and unique. I was on one forum for Doom, and there were like 3 more out there. Each had its own feel and experience. After awhile, that experience got homogenized, sanitized... I don't mind a little rough around the edges.
This + Mastodon will be my home on the internet for now. I'm excited.
Honestly, I like it being smaller and more fragmented. I hardly comment on Reddit because any thoughts I have are usually already there by the time it comes through my feed. Lurking felt more natural to me there. Here, I have an actual reason to engage.
kbin has been clonky from the giant hug but i imagine it'll adapt. i'm willing to stick it out and be a part of things here. reddit communities were toxic and trashy and it's become super clear that it's only going to get worse. they deserve to disappear for that. so do FB and insta and twitter. corporate owned social media is a failure. for all its quirks and shortcomings, lots of which will be worked on over time, this is a better space, even in its infancy
It's tempting to stick with the platforms that we know because of the communities we've built upon them. And a social platform's worth lies in its communities. But communities don't just appear out of thin air; it takes the work of many hands. With every betrayal by these monolithic social media organizations that sends us further and further from the foundations that once offered such a great thing for people, and every attempt at mass migration that falls flat when we realize that what we had can't be found anywhere else, I think that picture becomes clearer and clearer. The fediverse is inevitably going to be very difficult to adjust to, and the groundwork isn't going to do itself.
This is far from the first time that social media organizations have betrayed us, and it won't be the last. The sooner we put in the effort to establish communities elsewhere and make the fediverse more approachable for everyone, the easier it will be for the next group of refugees when a corporation inevitably gets out of line, and the sooner we'll all be ready to eviscerate the dark patterns perpetuated by these predatory corporations. I think this is one of the fediverse's greatest strengths. In similar fashion to how many Reddit communities unified to rally against Reddit with a common goal of supporting the tireless work of moderators, 3rd-party app devs, and the many Redditors that have made these communities what they are, ActivityPub and the fediverse provide powerful foundational tools for people across all of social media and many walks of life to unify in disestablishing these dark patterns, and their perversion of the internet and how we connect with one another, all for the next quarter's profits.
I think the fediverse is the only way to truly move forward.
I've been enjoying kbin for the past couple of days, and once we get through the lag issues I think it will be great!
I only accessed Reddit through sync on mobile and there's no way I'm going back to using the mobile browser. Not much point returning for a week or two before leaving again.
I'm here to stay. Even if Reddit reverse their API decision, they've made it abundantly clear their first priority is pleasing their shareholders. I don't want to use a platform that so blatantly ignores the wills of the community that caused it's popularity in the first place. It's a shame they've decided to die on the hill of temporarily pumping their potential IPO value via the API at the cost of what made Reddit special in the first place. They've already disintegrated the trust of a lot of hardcore Reddit users like myself overnight. It'll never be the same now they've shown how they really value their users.
At the same time, I'm really excited to see how the various alternative platforms develop. Spending time away from Reddit has made me realise its sheer size can be quite overwhelming and there were a lot of subreddits I followed that were more doom scrolling wastes of time. Going to these other, smaller platforms is taking me back to earlier Internet days in a good way where it feels like you're part of an engaged community rather than a nameless voice among hundreds of thousands. I've been finding the quality of discussion here refreshingly high and respectful so far.
It's honestly exciting being at the start of what feels like a new social media wave. I can't remember the last time a major social media platform went the way of the dodo and people had to start migrating to replacements. I'm finding it really enjoyable being on ground zero. Whatever platform ends up being the most popular, it's a pleasure to be talking with you all whilst we figure it out. :)
I too am here to stay and agree about the feeling that I've gone back in time to a happier era on the internet.
I hadn't realized how creepy and icky the EXTREME commercialization of the internet has made me feel. The engagement is so poor quality. The people are so jaded and nasty. The content is so simplistic and superficial. It's just an endless circle-jerk of "me too-ism."
I'm a big believer that if you want change you have to be willing to make sacrifices. Until people start leaving the big commercial sites in protest, no alternatives can arise. And if that's what I expect others to do then I have to start by doing it myself.
I agree. Even if Reddit booted out spez tomorrow and canceled the whole API plan I wouldn't believe their sincerity. The problem is no longer just that the API price is insulting and that they want to hamstring 3rd party apps, it's that Reddit as a company believes it doesn't have to respect the users that are solely responsible for generating the value of their website. Its why the Apollo dev has stated that even a complete course reversal on Reddit's part wouldn't bring Apollo back at this point; Reddit has proven that they are not a reliable business partner.
It's honestly exciting being at the start of what feels like a new social media wave.
It really is. Giving up Twitter for Mastodon was easy for me because I never used Twitter, but Reddit has been a staple of my life for over ten years now. It feels a lot more real this time around. Thankfully a federated link aggregator like /kbin suits my preferences much more than a microblog like Mastodon does, and I'm excited that this will still let me peruse that microblog content when it suits me.
I plan to stay here if the site can scale up so that performance doesn't suck (although I know there will be growing pains given the sudden new traffic).
I LIKE the federated approach, and spez has become a total turn-off over at /r making that a future wasteland.
This ^ There has been incredible work done to make kbin feel like Reddit, and I very much appreciate it, but the reality is it will be hard to keep using if it doesn’t get faster.
Man I feel old. Yeah I'm used to the snappiness of Reddit and the third party apps, but I also remember being on the Nintendo Nsider forums and being able to grab a snack while waiting for your post to go through. This is still way better than back then.
I'm definitely of a mind with op. Once my Reddit is fun dies I probably won't be going to Reddit at all. Right now I check all every couple hours or so to see if there's any new information about the blackout but other than that I'm here.
Excuse me, this is off topic but you appear to have an Isaac avatar. If I could wipe my whole recollection of any one thing, it would be Golden Sun so I could play it again and this is the first time I've ever seen it in the wild <3
Yeah I love the series. I've worn the shirt they made for AGDQ so many times the vinyl is starting to peel and it's going to be one of the bigger parts of my gaming sleeve. I started the Golden Sun magazine if you wanted to join. I'm hoping we can attract some of the small Reddit community that we had built up before all this happened.
Ooooh, I absolutely do wanna join. You're honor-bound to post pics of said sleeve when it's done, though. I can't believe people are even still talking about it these days, it's as old as some of us here
Oh yeah, the reddit community was amazing, there was an amazing artist named General fang who posted incredible watercolor fanart of all the characters. I might have to try messaging him to see if it's okay if I share it here if he doesn't want to join.
I'll definitely Be posting parts of it as it happens.
Apollo WAS Reddit for me. Saying goodbye to both was bittersweet and like losing a dear friend, but life goes on, and the only thing constant is change.
Time to move on. There is no drop in replacement for Reddit and there never will be, IMO, and whatever springs up will have many rough edges for a good long time.
I'm hoping to stick around kbin as I'm enjoying exploring this place but a big part of me sticking around depends on whether some of the communities I followed on Reddit come to kbin.
Subeta / Neopets [thru the McDonald's merger] -> Tumblr [through the female presenting ban] -> Twitter [til 🇺🇦 news stopped showing up in Top] -> reddit [til Spez's ego trip AMA].
I'm used to seeing the moment my internet reveals itself to be profit driven and deaf to its userbase; I'm bored with the changes that come from commercial interest superceding usability.
Yet, also: the internet I loved is well and truly dead. Randomcore is cringe and everything wants my main audio channel or to serve video content. I'm not interested in creating low effort memes or writing long form internet-personality posts; I prefer simping irl. I'm desperately hoping the Fediverse is the vessel I'm comfortable in because I feel like I'm jumping ships without a destination in mind.
I don't think I will go back. I've moved on from reddit for good. Even if they take back the API change, they are still a corporate company and will still try to make money off us.
Whether I'll stick to Kbin or not, I don't know. But I'm definitely sticking with the fediverse. I've already replaced Twitter with it and other, better sites outside of fedi (e.g. Itaku for artists). I'll replace Reddit too.
Nope.
I’m liking it here and I also discover Mastodon which I enjoy too.
I don’t see the point of using Reddit anymore considering the stance of the CEO.
It’s never gonna be better, we are at the enshitification phase of Reddit.
I am a Reddit addict, but i think kbin is growing on me. If they still don't reverse their decision about API pricing it looks like I will be doing less browsing on mobile. that being said I been wanting to scale down the time I spend on reddit, so using kbin helps as it works best on desktop
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