Lemmy is so good right now for no particular reason
It's not the kids, not the lurkers, not the mods... y'all just nice people. Lemmy's got a good vibe going... or at least enough windows that we can close if the vibe gets shit.
I'm going to leave mine up as a sort of testament to eleven years of my life. My last comment is, and will continue to be unless something drastic changes, some argument I was having with somebody about how to fix housing shortages, like the one in California.
I deleted every single comment and post on the seven or so accounts I was able to remember passwords for, and then deleted the accounts. That also meant I got to see about ten years worth of comments and posts. There are some phases of life I'd rather not be preserved for posterity's sake.
In Italy we call it "mountain path behavior": just like in our mountain paths, as long as it is few people you meet you behave cordially and in a friendly manner, but it changes when the number of people goes up.
I think it's just survivorship bias, kinda like mastodon. The people inclined to come here are probably anti-corporate, and sick of current social media's bullshit.
I think the barrier to entry also helps a bit. The folks willing to put up with the rough edges that Lemmy has are also likely willing to participate with the intent of making Lemmy a success rather than just "hangers on" as it were. With a 1600% growth in "active" user population, there are definitely a ton of lurkers, yet. Once it becomes more approachable, we'll see if the community feeling that Lemmy has begins to tarnish and fade as the volume of interaction and content rises.
The barrier isnt that high in my opinion at least. Its just signing up to any instance in lemmy and thats it. I choose shitjustworks cuz they seemed level headed and i heard some nasty rumors about some of the other bigger lemmy instances so that was another factor on it i guess.
I'll admit I like having a pretty interface to interact with so I hesitated to make my account until I found Connect for Lemmy. Looks nice and easy to get used to
I was thinking the same, especially after seeing several posts "demanding" Lemmy to change this and change that.
I mean, that's not to say there's no room for improvements, but if the first thing some people do when going to a new platform is wanting changes to meet their personal way of doing things, instead to try and adapt first to how the platform works and learn from it, in my opinion it means those people are not really interested in being here and make lemmy succeed, they're just following the "flavor of the month" and won't last long here anyway.
I think the fediverse being not so intuitive might be a very good thing actually, it can act as a sort of filter so it doesn't succumb to the masses ruining everything, hopefully.
Totally agree, it's amazing how many people can be discouraged by a small bump over the road. Kinda like how free mobile games have millions of downloads but games that are like, a dollar, are lucky if hit a thousand (and the gap in quality is astounding most of the time).
I have been thinking this over the past week on reddit every time I see a "Lemmy/Kbin needs to sort out X, Y and Z otherwise it's going to fail massively." or "Lemmy/Kbin is impossibly hard to use/sign up for". Usually with CAPITAL LETTERS and emojis.
Like... ok. I don't think you'll be missed with that attitude. At least for the time being.
It reminds me of internet forums of the days of yore that are long gone. People answering each other's questions. No need for moderators to have rules like, "don't call each other names" blah blah blah. It's kind of funny, but you know, the Internet had a dark age when everyone was nicer to each other. Lemmy brings that kind of social interaction back to the fore. In another stream, someone disagreed with me and did it nicely and I learned something. Give me more of THIS. And give me less of people replying with "this"
Thank god I found Lemmy, because if I didn’t it probably would have only been a matter of hours before I caved and reinstalled Reddit on my phone at work.
It feels rough around the edges still, kind of like the early internet. Like your part of something that's still a work in progress. It also feels a little smaller, like if you say something you're more likely to be heard, instead of your voice being drowned in a sea of comments.
Lemmy reminds me of how Reddit felt between 2008 ~ 2013ish.
There seems to be a disproportionate number of longtime Reddit users defecting to Lemmy and I think that the self-selecting nature of Lemmites(?) is why there are such great vibes here.
All I can picture for lemmy users right now is an excited dog at a dog park that is just loving life and wants to say high to every other dog and is wagging his tail so hard that his whole ass is wagging.
I asked the people there some stuff and I got downvoted for everything I said and then I said something and they said unironically: whats wrong with being selfish? That made me a bit angry
Theres a feeling of relief when you find the people (or bots) you once interacted with on reddit.
I mean, its not actually the same people, but when I saw the patientgamers community yesterday, I remember the feeling when I transferred schools expecting I'm going to be alone but theres that familiar face that welcomed me.
The grasp I’m trying to get ahold of is where to locate where everyone jumped ship to? Is there a master list or do you just gotta hunt and hope for the best?
The instance you make your account on doesn't matter, as they're federated you can see and interact with posts from anywhere else.
You can check out the Lemmy community browser to see a list of the most visited communities, then search for them in https://lemmy.world/search to subscribe/post/comment. (note: beehaw.org communities arent accessible from lemmy.world, so ignore those)
Definitely a better vibe than reddit, and I really hope it stays this way!
The community seems to be a lot more willing to have discussions, and comments don't just devolve into the same lame jokes that get repeated over and over.
I was on reddit about 12 years. Had zero problems. Last year and a half or so started getting banned from communities. It accelerated. Got banned from communities I’d never heard of or visited.
One day I got the old heave-ho from reddit itself, and that was that.
It helps that it's a fairly small community, which gives it an old school internet forum vibe. Hopefully it retains this vibe as the site continues to grow.
Reddit is too popular and has too much group think, too many of the same types of comments that will get a lot karma, and too many comments that will just be ignored.
NEW is a garbage dump or a pile of duplicates. So why comment on a new post? It will never go anywhere. HOT is already full of comments, so your comment will just be lost.
Personally, and I am bias, I think everyone here is nice and chill because everyone who actually dropped Reddit are principled enough to not just say they hate a change and then do nothing about it.
Platforms are fun in the beginning because everybody has a voice. This nurtures a lot of creativity and energy. However, as ad revenue starts to flow, advertisers demand that the platform banish fringe opinions and undesirable voices (the magic keyword is brand safety). As a result moderation ramps up, and kills the creativity and energy that made it fun and interesting.
That's one of the things I've been most excited about so far - it sorta feels like I'm back on an old ~2005 forum again, it's weirdly nostalgic and nice!
I can't speak for everyone. I've been lurking for the past couple weeks and just signed up yesterday. The prevailing attitude I've noticed is that people realize just how much of a toxic hog lagoon reddit has become, and are glad to participate in a community that isn't. It's nice to be somewhere that isn't full of bots and doesn't coddle nazis.
I also think it helps that most of the onboarding literature is frontloaded with "this is how federation works" instead of jumping right in to "here's how you sign up and use lemmy." Effectively scares off the reading-averse.
If considering that to be a plus makes me an elitist, I'm ok with that.
Haven't really seen nearly as much toxic content on Lemmy as of yet. Might actually start interacting instead of rolling my eyes at every other comment lmao