just so this doesn't overwhelm our front page too much, i think now's a good time to start consolidating discussions. existing threads will be kept up, but unless a big update comes let's try to keep what's happening in this thread instead of across 10....
I'm going to say that Big Tech hasn't devalued online services. They've always been devalued. In the days of BBSes, most had both paid and free options. The free users might get bumped when the board was busy but that was it. You were often still able to dial in at all times and do everything on the board.
Honestly, that concept just carried forward. Usenet access was simply part of your internet access payment to your ISP. Free to join. You just needed a free NTP app. Many web forums were the same - completely free to use and maybe there were some ads, donations, or whatnot to help fund the site. Some even used forums as loss leaders - Harmony Central had their main page along with forums. Ditto other sites like Something Awful and Bodybuilding.com.
Right now the short-term is a mix. The reality is that the major jumps have been to Discord, not other forums, or so it seems. Subreddits already have their own Discord servers in many cases and there's a load of them on top of that. Beyond that, it seems a mixed bag of people trying to find a new home. Talks have varied outside of the Lemmy / Tildes mentions; Fark, Hacker News, City-Data, and various smaller forums.
Seems we'll be split on to at least a few if not many disparate forums and sites to fill various needs.
As someone else said, Reddit will die a death of a thousand cuts. The big hits will be the 3rd party apps loss followed by the expected old.reddit.com loss. That said, the majority of users don't use either of those. I'm seeing some general large site / social media fatigue combined with a lot of mentions of Discord. Given they've even got forum channels now, it seems Discord may be one of a few new smaller web forum options like we had in the late early 2000s with the start of software like vBulletin and phpBB. It's not looking like the Digg to Reddit migration. It's more the Usenet to web forums migration. Reddit is the Usenet 2.0. We're now scattering and waiting for the Usenet 3.0 contenders before a new champion is crowned.
It depends on the subreddit as well. There are some where discussion is expected. /r/nbadiscussion versus /r/nba, for example. The former will get into some good discussions if there's a player looking to be traded. On /r/nba, you'll get a bit of that but you'll also get a few dozen, "He gone," comments.
I appreciate both at various times. I go into /r/nba specifically for the funny takes and will go to /r/nbadiscussion when I'm feeling like reading something more. That said, even /r/nba can get into some pretty impressive posts with stats, diagrams, and excellent breakdowns. It just depends on the day.
I think the funnier times are where you expect one thing and get another. I can go into /r/guitarcirclejerk expecting some light hearted shitposting and end up with a great discussion on one thing or another.
I think changing the default view for content and communities would help. Branching off is one thing and there may be a valid reason for the split. However, I wonder how many current duplicates are accidental. The current setup for Lemmy is to view Local communities by default. An intentional creation of a separate community for a reason is one thing.
Fragmentation of the communities will probably end up happening with time but I don't know that it's best to have things fragment early on when communities and those identities are still, in some cases, in the early stages of development.
People to go Reddit for the consolidated forums while also being able to browse a bunch of other entertainment and memes all in one shot. Or at least I do. The breadth of offerings of Reddit is a selling point.
Yup, I've ended up having better luck searching for a product with "site:reddit.com" as well. It's also been the home for memes for quite some time. Even when I don't feel like delving into discussions on things, it's still the best / easiest place to scroll silly pictures and laugh for a bit when I'm lifting at the gym and between sets.
I won't be quitting though I'll be trying to dwindle my use a bit. I'm not much of a doom scroller but I will run through a list of subreddits on a regular basis.
I see there's a /c/technology on lemmy.ml, but also a /c/technology on beehaw.org. As far as I can tell, they're completely independent and unrelated. This feels like it will create fractured communities, especially as more servers come online. Is there any plan for avoiding fragmentation? Is the expectation that the community...
From what i can gather, it could be beneficial to, for example, have an instance which would become the main place to get videogame content on Lemmy. Most communities would be for specific games or AAA companies, but it could also have c/general for asking questions or topics which are non specific to any community, or c/meta,...
This site is currently struggling to handle the amount of new users. I have already upgraded the server, but it will go down regardless if half of Reddit tries to join....
While it might not be too late for that update, it would require some reconciliation to happen. There's the potential for multiple users and communities of the same name across servers that would need to be considered.
I've seen lots of discussion on reddit of users trying to get others to join Lemmy and the prevailing reply is that it is too difficult to navigate and comprehend. Having to answer multiple questions and wait for manual verification is combersome and is limiting growth at a time when nothing should be standing in Lemmy's way....
I'd like to see singular communities rather than community-per-server in the federation. If /c/NHL exists, it simply exists. Right now, each server has their own communities that other servers can also join in but you always know they're separated.
Right now one of the problems is that, at least on lemmy.ml and beehaw.org, the default view for the front page as well as the community list is Local. You have to switch to All to see everything. The main Lemmy page touts the federation but it's less prominent once you're actually looking at content.
I'd like to treat it like usenet. rec.roller-coasters is the same across usenet servers. Right now, each server might have its own. I can access all of them all, sure, but it feels fractured and splintered with, potentially, most users simply accessing their servers local community.
The fall of Rome lead to the middle ages. That meant a fracturing of the former Roman empire, then various factions trying to recreate the former Roman empire or at least the western portion of it. Seems like some are just dropping off Reddit and moving to other smaller forums and link aggregation sites; some even mentioned visiting Slashdot and Fark. Like I said, some new sites may come along and we'll have a renaissance.
I'm genuinely so excited to see some of the more focussed communities blossom on this platform as they have on Reddit over the years. Which are your favourites and which do you think could succeed here?
Well, at least I've subbed to add one more to the list. I'll go comment in the 'favorite team' thread to at least kick things off in that thread as well.
Just joined, and well, I'm thinking ill stay. Ive been looking for a good reddit alternative for a while now. devs, you've done quite some good work here.
At least from what I've read, here's some of the confusion.
Most of it seems to revolve around the federation being rather loose. You have to pick a server to join first and your ID exists there. Probably easy enough as most are either joining lemmy.ml or beehaw.org, at least from what I'm seeing of new users.
The second problem is in some community confusion and local vs All. Communities are per server then propagated out. That is, you can have /c/hockey on lemmy.ml and a separate /c/hockey on beehaw.org. You then have to select the specific community you want to join, meaning some will see it as /c/hockey and others will see it via the federation name. The federation isn't simply hidden and behind the scenes more like IRC or usenet.
Yeah, I was hoping the communities were more tightly federated. That is, the community name was simply the community name on all servers rather than having local vs All.
You'd end up with having to go to a different community regardless. It would just mean using a new community name rather than the server+community federated name.
Currently if something like /c/technology goes rogue, you'd end up either joining c/technology@beehaw.org or someone creates /c/tech.. or both. In tighter federation, /c/technology is toast so you move to /c/tech or something like that instead but there's no option for a /c/technology@some-other-server. In some ways more limiting but it ends up easier for the end user.
OpenRCT2. Finished the last of Wacky Worlds scenarios and the first Time Twister scenario last night. Continuing on the Time Twister scenarios tonight. Not quite speed running them but OpenRCT2's speed-up feature is pretty helpful when I'm just waiting for research or to earn enough money to build something.
I have a question about communities. Are communities server-specific, for example, is the "Gaming" community on lemmy.ml different from the one on, say, beehaw.org and will I need to join both?
It's a loose federation of communities. Each server has its own communities that are pushed out. Meaning you can end up with 20 different gaming communities as each one will list the server they're part of. It's not like usenet where the newsgroup name is the same regardless of what server you're on.
That or what happens is that everyone goes with their local server's version and the federation isn't as heavily user. At present on lemmy.ml, you're presented with Local by default and you have to actively switch to All to go outside the server. It seems a bit as if they're selling the idea of federation while also not promoting the idea of federation once you're logged in by having 'All' be the default view.
We are happy to see that many of you are exploring Lemmy after Reddit announced changes to its API policy. I maintain this project alongside @dessalines....
There were some people in the Apollo discussion mentioning it. It's also in a stickied thread on various alternatives in /r/RedditAlternatives. That's where I found Lemmy and started browsing before joining up.
a megathread for developments on Reddit and with third-party Reddit apps
just so this doesn't overwhelm our front page too much, i think now's a good time to start consolidating discussions. existing threads will be kept up, but unless a big update comes let's try to keep what's happening in this thread instead of across 10....
How do we deal with similar communities on different Lemmy instances?
Say what you will about reddit, at least an established subreddit was the place to gather on the topic, ie r/technology etc....
Preparing for the hug of death (feddit.de)
Communities on multiple servers?
I see there's a /c/technology on lemmy.ml, but also a /c/technology on beehaw.org. As far as I can tell, they're completely independent and unrelated. This feels like it will create fractured communities, especially as more servers come online. Is there any plan for avoiding fragmentation? Is the expectation that the community...
Shower thought: Would it make sense to popularize having Instances dedicated to single topics?
From what i can gather, it could be beneficial to, for example, have an instance which would become the main place to get videogame content on Lemmy. Most communities would be for specific games or AAA companies, but it could also have c/general for asking questions or topics which are non specific to any community, or c/meta,...
lemmy.ml is overloaded, use other instances instead
This site is currently struggling to handle the amount of new users. I have already upgraded the server, but it will go down regardless if half of Reddit tries to join....
The time to streamline Lemmy onboaring is now. Let's do it like mastodon did. (blog.joinmastodon.org)
I've seen lots of discussion on reddit of users trying to get others to join Lemmy and the prevailing reply is that it is too difficult to navigate and comprehend. Having to answer multiple questions and wait for manual verification is combersome and is limiting growth at a time when nothing should be standing in Lemmy's way....
There Will Never Be Another Twitter (randulo.substack.com)
Twitter wasn’t just software or visible leadership (for better or worse) but an entire important slice of Internet history.
Which subreddits would you most like to see on Lemmy?
I'm genuinely so excited to see some of the more focussed communities blossom on this platform as they have on Reddit over the years. Which are your favourites and which do you think could succeed here?
my thoughts on lemmy so far
Just joined, and well, I'm thinking ill stay. Ive been looking for a good reddit alternative for a while now. devs, you've done quite some good work here.
What are you playing this week?
Anything good?...
Are communities server-specific? i.e, is the "Gaming" community on lemmy.ml different from the one on, say, beehaw.org?
I have a question about communities. Are communities server-specific, for example, is the "Gaming" community on lemmy.ml different from the one on, say, beehaw.org and will I need to join both?
Do you use reddit mostly through the app or web?
Because I only use web, on mobile and desktop. I can't live without adblock.
Welcome Reddit refugees!
We are happy to see that many of you are exploring Lemmy after Reddit announced changes to its API policy. I maintain this project alongside @dessalines....