I don’t understand people who say they can’t figure out Lemmy or KBin

Does federation have a bit of a learning curve? No doubt.

Is Lemmy buggy as heck? Absolutely.

But I don’t think that really justifies a lot of the comments I’m seeing in Reddit alternatives threads that it’s hard to figure out. The front page feed and sort options are very similar to Reddit. Searching for same-instance communities is not too difficult. Posting, commenting, and voting are all quite intuitive. What’s the problem?

Edit: I do think terminology is a bit of an issue. I can tell a lot of people don’t understand “instance” vs. “community” at first. “Magazine” is the biggest offender here. That’s a very unintuitive term.

LanternEverywhere,

It makes no sense to me that there are separate forums for the same topic that have the same names other than "@instance". IMO there should be a single place that is /politics which has the same posts and comments regardless of which instance you're logged into. If these instances are "federated" with each other then they should act like a single shared space. Or at least that's how it seems like it should work to me.

Fizz,
@Fizz@lemmy.nz avatar

There is no problem with similar communities. It wasn’t a problem on reddit and it won’t be a problem here.

Kichae,

Well, instances are all different, independent websites. As an admin, if I can't name a community whatever I want on my own website, I'm probably not participating in this ecosystem.

Plus, 1000 times more posts get posted to r/bigsub than you or anyone ever reads, and 10,000 times as many comments. It creates an environment where no one is actually discussing anything, and are just jockeying for attention.

You won't actually miss anything except for big vanity numbers by just choosing the community you like best for a topic and just... Ignoring the others.

BaroqueInMind,
BaroqueInMind avatar

Hell no, I do not want this to happen because then you have lemmy tankies and exploding-head fascists all dog piling into normal discussions, saying preposterously stupid shit to spoil what you read as you scroll through the comments.

hardypart,

That's a matter of moderation, not the technology behind the platform.

LanternEverywhere, (edited )

Then as a user you would be free to click to filter out comments from lemmy, and the top mod of /politics could choose to "defederate" from lemmy for that forum, and users at lemmie would be free to create /politics_tankies or whatever.

Zouden,

Wait so do communities not have mods?

LanternEverywhere,

I don't know about other places, but at kbin each forum has mods.

Zednix,

Yes, the instance you signed up in has mods. You can be banned without any recompense. The only message you see is a red banner that says "user was banned" or something to that effect. No explanation or clarification for the reason for a ban. It is ripe for abuse since Lemmy itself has a bunch of rules and instances add their own on top. Some of the rules are pretty pathetic.

Chozo,
Chozo avatar

I'm not sure how federation does anything to prevent that from happening, though. They can still do that on your instance, from their instance.

At most, I suppose an instance could defederate from a troublesome instance that's doing this, but the more that happens, the more fragmented the Fediverse becomes, and it starts to defeat the purpose of federation in the first place.

EnglishMobster, (edited )
EnglishMobster avatar

Reddit was the same way.

You have /r/gaming. /r/games. /r/truegaming. /r/videogames. /r/videogame. Etc.

Each community was slightly different in subtle ways, but some people were subscribed to multiple (basically identical) communities. Others self-sorted into different communities based on moderation style and community vibes.

Not to mention that your idea of how federation should work kind of ignores moderation and community preferences. Communities hosted on Beehaw are tightly moderated. There may be other communities that want something less strict. How do these two reconcile with one another? What happens if a conversation is removed on one instance but kept around on another?

If local mods only have local power, they can get quickly overwhelmed as you effectively need a mod team on every single instance. Smaller instances wouldn't necessarily have the manpower to have their own dedicated mods for literally everything.

static,
static avatar

Anything new is scary
Reddit is complicated, they just forgot.

The digg users said reddit was ugly and they would never use such an ugly site.
I tried explaining reddit to a diehard forum user, why are all the replies out of order? why are upvotes changing the posting order? this is so complicated!

Don't explain, tell them where to start and how to start. then it explains itself.

Grimlo9ic,
Grimlo9ic avatar

As a forum user, it was absolutely crazy to me when I first signed up on Reddit a decade ago that the replies would be out of order and sorted by popularity. But I grew to understand that it was a crowdsourcing effort in most ways and that the cream rises to the top. It was really quite good to get the information you needed out of the thread.

Anything new is scary

Agreed. Most people just want to settle into something comfortable.

static,
static avatar

I feel it, and if I had another chance to explain it would have just told her(forum user): make an account, go to /r/horses, start commenting.

HandsHurtLoL,

I can't help but think that people who describe the Fediverse as complicated joined reddit after the redesign...

Kbin is exactly like an old, stripped down version of old.reddit.

Jon-H558,

I think this is also the cause of the squabbles.io Vs kbin/Lemmy split. Squabbles is like new Reddit, kbin is like old Reddit. And people like what they know

Bristlerock,
Bristlerock avatar

This last sentence is the crux of the matter. People don't like change, but quickly forget that they spent time learning the site that they're so familiar with.

e-ratic,
e-ratic avatar

This is 100% it. Also some people have only ever used iOS with the Reddit app and Twitter and Tiktok which are so easy to use a literal 3 year old can use it

AnonymousLlama,
AnonymousLlama avatar

In kbins case you actually have a responsive admin and can actually find devs on here working on new features and tweaks (hey there!)

Super happy with how kbin has been going so far

Beefalo,

People also forget that Reddit wasn’t built in a day and digg didn’t die in a day

sota2077,
@sota2077@lemmy.world avatar

It isn't hard to sign up for. No one is saying that is the case. It gets confusing when people start talking about adding subscriptions from other instances and how you can copy and paste the link and subscribe. That right there is where 95% of the people on the internet stop caring.

If the developers of Lemmy and the wider Fediverse ever get that fleshed out in an intuitive way I think popularity will go pretty fast.

That and long term if there is a way for information to be collectively backed up so that if some owner shuts down an instance everything isn't gone.

metic,
@metic@lemmy.world avatar

This can be alleviated a bit. If one person searches for an other-instance community by URL, it will become available for all other users through a normal search. So over time this becomes less of an issue, particularly if someone takes out some time to seed a bunch of these for their instance.

Zarxrax,

What is this about having to copy and paste a link to find subscriptions from other instances? I literally just pull up the community browser and set it to "all" and then search.

LollerCorleone,
LollerCorleone avatar

Yes, that will show you all the communities/magazines that your instance has already discovered and have started federating with. But if it is a community that hasn't been discovered by your instance yet, you will need to search with the link for it to start federating. And once even a single user from an instance does that, the community will be visible to everyone else as well.

Kichae,

Yeah. Really, new admins should understand that they should be seeding their new instance, but the last couple of weeks have been... Kinda nuts? So, this won't really be an issue for most users long term. It'll be a thing for admins on small or niche sites that want to ensure they're discoverable and that their users can access the best communities.

themadcodger,
themadcodger avatar

Just be careful. That only works because your instance already knows about those other instances because someone already interacted with them. If you ever want to join a community on a non-popular instance, you might have to be the first person to search for it by copying and pasting.

MiddleWeigh,
@MiddleWeigh@lemmy.world avatar

That's cause over time people have added communities to your instances repitoire over time. Network effect, essentially, making it easier for each new user. Tbh, if new users are on a bigger instance this should be a non issue.

EnglishMobster,
EnglishMobster avatar

On Lemmy, if nobody is subscribed to a community on your instance, it doesn't appear in that view.

In order for it to appear, someone with an account has to go to the search bar at the top right of the page and type in the URL to the community manually. Then it'll appear after an initial search.

On large instances like Lemmy.world, you can almost guarantee someone has already done this for most popular communities - but newer/smaller communities may not appear because nobody on your instance has searched for them yet.

For smaller instances, there are likely multiple communities missing and you'd have no idea until you went to look for them.

bobs_monkey,

Agreed. It still is a pain to follow subs on other instances, especially within Jeroba. I know you're supposed to copy the !sub into the search field, but it never comes up.

tal,
tal avatar

Kbin doesn't presently auto-hyperlink the !sub text.

I expect that it will in the future.

EnglishMobster,
EnglishMobster avatar

It will in the next update. See https://codeberg.org/Kbin/kbin-core/pulls/317

LollerCorleone,
LollerCorleone avatar

You don't need to do that if that community is already federating with your instance. If its not, it might take a little while for the federation to actually start after you make the search (based on the server infrastructure of your instance and the remaining queue). Try searching again after a bit and it should be there. These quriks should be solved as instances become more stable, and Lemmy/kbin gets further developed.

EnglishMobster,
EnglishMobster avatar

For Lemmy, if nobody is subscribed to that community on your instance you have to copy the entire URL. E.g. you need to search for https://instance.social/c/sub in order to find !sub.

Once one person on your instance searches for it, then you can find it by searching !sub.

I don't know why Lemmy works like that. Kbin doesn't have the problem; you can find things by searching @sub@instance.social no matter what.

jake_eric,

Aha, so when people say the whole URL they really mean the whole URL. That solved the problem I was having!

I feel like that could be improved upon.

ExcessivelySalty,
ExcessivelySalty avatar

@sota2077 When I first came over to Kbin that's the thing I got hung up on, everything else I got used to quickly. There's plenty of smart people in the Fediverse, I'm sure someone will come up with a solution.

@metic

sota2077,
@sota2077@lemmy.world avatar

Oh I have all the faith in the world that someone will come up with a solution eventually. I just assume it was never a major priority because of the userbase. With an explosion of users I'm sure they have a 100 things they want to improve and it is just a matter of time.

moon_matter, (edited )
moon_matter avatar

The question everyone was really asking was if will they will be able to make these quality of life changes before the Reddit API changes come into effect. The answer seems to be "no" unfortunately. It's a huge missed opportunity that may never come again.

WhiteTiger,
WhiteTiger avatar

The first step is completely different from anything else you've ever done

"Pick an instance to sign up for"

This does not compute. What is an instance? Why do I have to pick? Which one should I pick? Compared to

"Create an account at reddit.com" makes sense and is something everyone has done before.

It doesn't matter how simple the answers to those questions are, the fact that the very first step requires multiple explanations is huge, and will always be a barrier to entry.

RoboRay,
RoboRay avatar

Even a low barrier to entry tends to significantly improve the signal-to-noise ratio in discussions.

So, I'm fine with people that can't get past making a simple, almost irrelevant, decision as step 1 of gaining access... not gaining access.

Pamasich,
Pamasich avatar

The first step is completely different from anything else you've ever done

This isn't really true, you already had to do this for email. Never heard of that being a barrier of entry.

My parents prefer to opt for local privacy/security focused email providers, while I go with gmail for the feature set and design. But I used to try out a few different ones to figure out which one works best for me. Still use a hotmail email for my Windows account.

I fail to see how this is different to the situation with lemmy/kbin instances.

WhiteTiger,
WhiteTiger avatar

99.9% of people just use gmail, and before that 99.9% used hotmail, etc. There's always been 'the one' that effectively everyone is on.

!deleted233369,

deleted_by_author

    •
    WhiteTiger,
    WhiteTiger avatar

    You're describing an internet that doesn't exist anymore and hasn't for decades.

    UserNotFound,
    @UserNotFound@lemmy.world avatar

    I used Joey for Reddit, it has better UI than Reddit. Yes, I have problem with UI on Lemmy, terminology is confusing. It will work out, somehow

    Truaxe,

    I also used Joey, and this is the first time during this whole debacle that I've seen someone else mention Joey in the wild. I was starting to think I was the only one not using Apollo or Sync or RiF.

    ewe,
    @ewe@lemmy.world avatar

    Not sure why, but I found Joey the best after trying a bunch of apps over the years. Pretty bummed about this whole thing.

    required,

    Infinity❤️❤️

    UserNotFound,
    @UserNotFound@lemmy.world avatar

    Sorry for late reply. Joey got small base, I feel like most of users used Apollo, RiF, or Boost. I tried some other clients for Reddit, but I always came back to Joey.

    Manticore,

    A greater percentage of reddit is younger than some of them realise. So many redditors are going to be used to new reddit, and plug-and-play services in general. Kbin and Lemmy look like old.reddit, and they require them to understand the concept of what a 'server' is to even get started. This is knowledge they've never needed before to use the services they want to use.

    Imagine spending all your life eating McDonald's and then somebody told you homemade burgers are way better quality, taste better, cheaper, etc; then when you ask how to get a taste of those bad boys they start with informing you that you'd need to grill them. It's not hard, it's just new.

    Packopus,
    Packopus avatar

    @Manticore

    they require them to understand the concept of what a 'server' is to even get started.

    I've known 5 year olds start minecraft servers. And understand that each "world" is an "instance". But that's aside the point, as you're right that even Help-Desk IT people struggle to understand the difference between computer and server.

    It's not hard, it's just new.

    The "new" part is what gets people. All of this is new. Even the implementation of all of this "fediverse" is new. It will come with time! People probably didn't understand email vs snailmail, and probably had an even harder time with SMS/IM vs email when all of that came about just over 20-30 years ago. Most of these "complications" are from people that grew up knowing that the "internet" is basically 5 or 6 social media sites for very specific uses, and those 5 or 6 sites are older than most of the people using them, so that's all they know. Even for a dude in IT, the fediverse was a new concept to understand, and even difficult to understand how it could best be implemented for the masses.

    @metic

    kembik,

    As someone who designs software you are vastly overestimating users, they wake up with their shoes tied together and spill hot coffee on their lap before they even get to the website.

    detwaft,

    Kbin was trivial to figure out. Mastodon I still struggle with a bit.

    themadcodger,
    themadcodger avatar

    What part of Mastodon do you struggle with, if you don't mind me asking?

    Kushia,
    @Kushia@lemmy.ml avatar

    People want to have one account and one website for all of the things and can’t mentally handle that seperate communities and even servers exist for given subjects. They also expect to be bombarded with ragebait constantly by some algorithm and it seems weird to them that they have to go to effort here to get that.

    To be kinda fair it is a bit clunky still to fully interact cross instance in some aspects.

    Edit: ugh Lemmy is currently randomly showing me 30d old stuff mixed in with newer posts. +1 to the bugs I guess.

    AdamBomb,

    I can’t either, but I’m also on the border of don’t care and actively glad. Maybe there won’t be such an Eternal September here. That would be a win.

    RandallFlagg,

    Another thing to note is that Reddit was slow and buggy in it's early days. There's gonna be some growing pains but not really a big deal to me.

    Fizz,
    @Fizz@lemmy.nz avatar

    People forget how hard reddit was to figure out. You had to lurk for so long just to post a comment.

    IceSea,
    @IceSea@lemmy.world avatar

    yeah this. I just a talked today with a Gen Z guy who was still confused of what reddit actually is... now put on top all that federation, foss, kbin<->lemmy etc stuff...

    Fizz,
    @Fizz@lemmy.nz avatar

    I also tried explaining it and I was like “it’s kind of like email” and he had no idea what email was.

    Rhabuko,

    Those people actually don't want to switch to a different platform. And there's a lot of bad faith actors that simply dislike lemmy and kbin, because they hated the blackout protest in the first place and tell now lies about those platforms.

    Deron,

    I can't put aside my sneaking suspicion that can't figure out any of these tools: kbin, lemmy, mastodon, etc.... Is more or less code for, "I have reach and influence on platform x, and I need can't figure out how to be that person here."

    Can they setup an account? Can they read? Can they write? These seem to all be achievable. Can they influence? Well... should that be the goal?

    argentcorvid,
    @argentcorvid@midwest.social avatar

    When twitter was starting to fuck up and people were moving to mastodon someone asked how to find followers. I replied with the standard “hang out on the federated feed for a while and add people”. He replied outright asking how to buy followers/influence.

    So yeah.

    BarbecueCowboy,

    I think some of the problem too is not realizing that... it's kind of broken in a lot of ways and a lot of the times it's not super apparent why.

    There's a lot of things that work in one instance and just don't in another, and I think the user frequently thinks it's because they're doing something wrong when in reality, whatever you're trying to do just isn't working right now.

    Starfish,

    when you are used to reddit its not easy to make yourself feel at home in fediverse. The Lemmy themes dont look to good on widescreens.
    I can recommend kbin with rounded corners + Stylus add-on with "kbin-it theme" activated.

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