Very cool! I installed it but it looks like custom instances are disabled for a bit. I don't feel like setting up an account on the Artemis instance so I'll wait. Exciting to see progress though
but it looks like custom instances are disabled for a bit
I think its because the API the app uses isnt officially in the kbin code yet, so only the developers server supports it. Thats another great thing that only the fediverse can offer, spinning up your own server for your own versions.
When the explosion of new users happened, kbin.social was the only instance and it wasn’t ready for the growth. It was completely offline or disfuncional frequently and Ernest had to both disable federation and put up a CloudFlare captcha to slow down traffic to the site. So after all that lemmy.ml had to also temporarily block kbin.social because bei g unresponsive to lemmy.ml trying to federate was slowing down lemmy.ml. so people who were looking at both went to Lemmy.
Cloudflare protection also completely messed up federation, so in those days kbin was more or less completely cut off from Lemmy. And back then there weren't really alternative kbin instances to choose from.
Kbin is still much more bleeding edge - kbin had just recently reached a level of basic usability at the time of the first wave of Reddit migrants, whereas Lemmy has been around for years with a development team of twice the size (two people).
Where kbin is lagging behind the most is probably in how easy it is to set up an instance, and administer it once it's out there. This means that niche sites are more likely to use Lemmy at the moment. Then there's also, of course, still no API/apps (could change any moment now).
That said, I am incredibly happy with kbin myself, and I also don't mind at all most of the people out there being on Lemmy. As far as I'm concerned having two strong platforms from the beginning makes the Threadiverse stronger.
Having multiple clients is a great way to ensure that the underlying protocol remains open, nobody can "get away" with extending it simply because they happen to have the only actual implementation of it.
I have no idea how easy it'd be, but maybe having a way to convert a Lemmy instance into a kbin instance would be a good idea.
(public beta requires you to sign up for https://artemis.camp and access the app via this instance, as soon as the kbin API is fully released as opposed to dev branch only, all instances will be supported!)
I was about to say "how did I miss that?"... lol
Unfortunately the thumbnails in compact mode are microscopic. Probably the worst size I've yet to see, and most apps are already pretty bad at using the available space for that.
(public beta requires you to sign up for https://artemis.camp and access the app via this instance
*if you want to use it for more than lurking at this point.
Unfortunately the thumbnails in compact mode are microscopic. Probably the worst size I've yet to see, and most apps are already pretty bad at using the available space for that.
I've made a ticket about this. Just because it's low priority doesn't mean it won't happen - it just means Hariette goes through tickets FAST and there's a bunch of higher-prio things to do~
Feel free to add a comment if you have anything additional to add, or to upvote it to show your support
*if you want to use it for more than lurking at this point.
Ah good clarification! You can view it logged out without any new account,
I can see that opinion, but as the person who is currently prioritizing tickets for Artemis, I can tell you that the issue tracker is being paid attention to haha
Kbin is about 3 months old whereas Lemmy is about 3 years old. Kbin simply wasn't ready for growth, and still has a few major feature shortfalls. Lack of API access is a big one.
Because Lemmy is older and already has a lot of established communities. Kbin saw the larger growth rates though (in the context of the recent Reddit drama). Kbin also currently lacks native mobile apps, and a lot of people browse this type of media form their phones.
And those who were stubborn enough to keep looking at all options despite what could easily feel overwhelming to a non-tech user.
I am not very tech-inclined, so trying to understand the fediverse as a whole felt like very deep water, and lemmy really didn't do any job at all at explaining what it was I was committing to by choosing an instance when I didn't even know what instances were and had trouble finding out.
Since Lemmy was and is by far the most mentioned alternative and I found it too anxiety-inducing, it's mostly stubborn desperation that brought me to kbin. Which says nothing to how much I'm genuinely enjoying it here, to be clear, I was just relieved to have a simple option at that point.
Being made anxious by a new platform isn't great and I would guess that most people who didn't like the experience they had with Lemmy didn't bother clicking other links that would take them to the same fediverse. They're likely to assume they won't enjoy that one either, and resign themselves elsewhere.
So kbin naturally got fewer users just by word of mouth, and then the necessary brief isolation didn't help either when people were still getting comfortable and testing out different accounts. I don't particularly mind it other than those rare times I'm accidentally excluded, either by a question addressed only to Lemmy or their recent version of r/place disappointingly being incompatible with kbin.
I was initially put off by the UI of Lemmy that I encountered when I first went to the Lemmy site. I was a little confused as to which instance to join. That's when I stumbled upon kbin.social and that's where I landed my new account. Overall I am most comfortable here.
Since joining, I've encountered Lemmy posts that take me to their instances proper, and the formatting looked different, more like here just with a different colored background. Overall, Lemmy instances seem okay, I just like it here better.
Maybe it's the overall familiarity with the instance, calling main topic pages "magazines," the microblogging option, etc. Lemmy's resemblance is a little closer to Reddit, so that might account for why people decided to go there instead of a kbin instance.
Regarding the articles: tech journalists all use microblogging sites like Mastodon, so for them Kbin’s microblogging integration is a major advantage. Also, IIRC Kbin made it easier to follow certain people, like industry leaders, while Lemmy is more focused on communities.
Personally, I really dislike microblogging, so for me it was a major reason not to use Kbin. I think there may be a large silent group that feels the same way, but I haven’t seen any statistics on this.
a big attraction of Reddit—that its main page is a kind of greatest hits of an enormous community.
No, r/all was the lowest common denominator, full of karmafarming, ragebait, and reposts. Every time I looked at r/all I regretted it, so I mostly stuck to subreddits.
It wasn't too bad when you started to filter out some specific subreddits. But I feel since they applied a lot more content moderation to /r/all, causing a lot of potentially interesting things to not even show up there, it's been kind of garbage for a while now. Something similar can be said about kbins "all" page at the moment too though. I rather wish they'd give the users the tools to tailor their feeds according to their own preferences instead of interfering themselves. "All" should be all, excluding whatever my personal filters & settings get rid of.
Something similar can be said about kbins "all" page at the moment too though. I rather wish they'd give the users the tools to tailor their feeds according to their own preferences instead of interfering themselves. "All" should be all, excluding whatever my personal filters & settings get rid of.
Is it....not that? Am I misunderstanding or mistaken. My experience has been a very "All" experience, I thought, only playing an endless whack-a-mole with porn, sports, and whatever really good sub is sadly dominating the rest of the feed.
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