And to those that have been here for a while, how has your experience changed over the year(s)?
What has worked for you?
What do you see needs improvement in your chosen platform?
I’ve been on Mastodon for almost a month, I enjoy it. I started in the mastodon.social instance then moved to mstdn.plus. I’m still trying to get a hold of Piefed, but it has been good.
I switched from Reddit a few years ago to give Facebook another try. Not with pride but Reddit just got too political without an account and all I needed was to scroll for a few minutes to see cats and other nonesense and only some news once in a while. Then some guy threatened the EU with war if we don’t hand over Greenland or Iceland and that was it for me after years of trying to not mind the bad guys.
The biggest problem with lemmy was and still is the hideous UI/UX. It sucks on desktop but even more on mobile (try looking for new communities, only usable in horizontal). I tried to look into “the” code to find a way to add another theme or whatever goes into that direction (Mastodon seems to have a custom CSS field for users, and it looks bad aswell) but since I’m not yet into Rust and because of parallel personal issues I chose to accept it.
But the problems remain: not having an account means you see Trump in 70% of the threads. The other 30% are usually technological subjects that are driven my Musk and/or the Slop. Getting an account means to solve a damn complicated Captcha. And even though I try to cross out the politics I see them for like 20% in technology or shitposts if I remembered to switch once again to the subscibed feed. And that’s okay in my view, noone should post less. Quite the opposite to get things going here (shame on me tough, I’ll probably stay a lurker). But I’d appreciate something more diverting from the daily doom news.
A few weeks passed now only going to lemmy when I fancied a scroll and it was quite okay. Then I found something I wanted to share with my online friends I rarely talk to and alas, there are none in the Fediverse. Pixelfed could be the right thing for it but I’m just not into the Instagram stuff and there wouldn’t be anyone I know anyway. Perhaps I’ll give it a try later but not for now.
So it’s not a total replacement for leisure time. There is still the occasional need to buy stuff on Amazon. I still need to increasingly use Microsoft for work. And for events and news of a wider friends circle there is the need to go to ol’ Facebook. But my account is no longer in the daily users statistics. It’s a marathon… so thanks for being here :)
I gave Lemmy a dedicated year. A few notes:
Very few people click through.
Lots of rage bait.
Communities split over instances make it pretty hard to know where to post things, what with defederation and such.
I didn’t miss much “news”; lemmy was functional for reporting what people were talking about.
No notification of moderation actions taken against you is a choice.
Those who post small websites that do cool things: thank you! I did discover several other cool places and tools.
I found that about 1/10 of the top lemmy posts (after filtering out jokes and sports) are links to AI slop that nobody bothered to check, comments just take the headline as real if they affirm. Pointing this out in the comments did not reduce engagement or drop the posts.
Cutting it out of my routine, at last for awhile.
One thing I really hoped for from the social Internet was access to people and data that could correct me/fill in gaps. But lemmy doesn’t do this, as people see what is upvoted and upvotes are used for affirmations to the reader.
I found that about 1/10 of the top lemmy posts (after filtering out jokes and sports) are links to AI slop that nobody bothered to check, comments just take the headline as real if they affirm. Pointing this out in the comments did not reduce engagement or drop the posts.
Can I see where/how you found this out?
The ratio is a vibe, and I kinda regret posting a precise one. The case I checked carefully is this one: everything this guy posts
which I noted in November, and blocked very shortly thereafter. I vaguely recall finding a handful more examples of ‘too good to be true’ headlines, which were in fact not true, but I did not save links.
What made me sad is that even bereft of the algorithm and bad incentives in system, if the headline is ‘directionally correct’ still seems like the most important thing. Very interested in a social media where correct is ranked over good feels.
(and then there’s the regular examples like this, which are not slop but are heavily disputed/recontextualized by the top comment. Correction highly upvoted, yet the OP itself is still doing well))
It’s the same as reddit. platforms don’t make a different. people make a difference
It’s all the same people, with the same arrogance and same entitlement and egotism, who take themselves way too seriously and think that justifies their to harass, insult, and report/ban anyone who says stuff they don’t like. to the point they will go into other communities to take your commentary out of context to prove how ‘evil’ you are over a different of opinion or perspective, even if it’s a more complex or nuanced take on what they already agree with.
It’s just got a lot of extremist weirdos who think their extremists beliefs are some deep profound truth that they must use to browbeat other into submission. A lot of them with superiority complexes that cannot tolerate any admission of limitation or flaw in the glass house from which they throw stones all day.
And the userbase and voting systems generally rewards short, shrill, outlandish, and hyperbolic headlines, commentary, and personalities more than it does thoughtful commentary. Thoughtful commentary with nuance and acknowledging the limits of your understanding… will get you harassed and banned.
It’s not an open forum for diverse discussion among a respectful group of people that it wishes it was. It’s just tiktok with text.
It’s not an open forum for diverse discussion among a respectful group of people that it wishes it was. It’s just tiktok with text.
I felt similarly, until I found the “block” feature. Then I discovered that most of what I consider bullshit is brought by a few bad eggs who I have long since blocked. Now I watch people argue uselessly with them, without having to read the stupid/vitrol that spawned the responses.
I’m glad that works for you. TBF i have been using fediverse for over 2.5 years now, and it was not so bad until about half a year ago, when all the sudden like every other comment I make here gets me insulted and harassed by trolls who accuse me of trolling and being a conspiracy theorist for citing well-known information from reputable sources, while meanwhile counter posted their conspiracy left-wing crap as ‘truth’. The election of Trump and the murder of Kirk seemed to coincide with a big influx of bad faith actors here who were probably banned from reddit for their pro-violence viewpoints. They also tend to be very stupid people IMO, and constantly harass and accuse others of the things they are doing rather and seem to think their hostility towards others is good and correct but anyone’s hostility is wrong and bad.
Not to mention all the weird sentimentalists who just berate and report you if you don’t take highly simplified stances on issues that equate to kindergarten level communication. Even suggestion that a social or political issue is complex and nuanced is grounds for getting you banned in a lot of communities now. That wasn’t the case a year or two ago.
I’ve also repeated been lectured that piefed is some miraculous place that is ‘different’ but I’ve been on it for several months and it seems no different other than a lot of the users on piefed instances huffing their own farts on how superior they are for being on piefed. Which is precisely the type of immature nonsense that crappy people believe, that their arbitrary choices of social media platforms make them morally superior to anyone who isn’t also using those same platforms.
I use social media a lot less which I like. I like that it’s a smaller area that seems to grow organically. I like that there are different ways to engage and it’s interoperable.
The concept is still confusing at times but I think it’s better for me than non-federated options.
Good! I’m a long time lurker, new user.
If you dedicate a day to figuring out how lemmy works then imo it’s quite straightforward. I appreciate the expansion of free speech (i got banned from reddit for telling an AFD member to kill himself) and generally most people here seem ok. it’s still rather niche but oh well. We can fix that by inviting friends! It’s also much more authentic. A lot fewer covert advertisements and more actual people.
how has your experience been?
Posts and comments cannot be easily deleted, for one.
Otherwise, the general experience is like being at an anarchists’ beer hall.
came last april ish after a reddit purge, was on another instance before it was shutdown forever. there has been less content though. and i dont like the tankie, or anything related to “tankie politics”
and i dont like the tankie, or anything related to “tankie politics”
Some of us see how long we can go without blocking those servers, to convince ourselves we’re open minded.
But then we realize that what really matters is how well an instance does moderation.
I found the process self reflective and enriching.
Overall, I’ve learned the “block” buttons are a great part of the experience, here.
Even while using “block” liberally, I still encounter some new ideas here.
I stayed permanently since middle of last year thanks to piefed.social. it has a great onboarding system for anyone that might not have the gumption or will to self curate raw lemmy, mbin and now piefed outputs. A.k.a being lazy like myself.
Although for my close online friends I’m likely to suggest other piefed based instance just because tobspread the load around.
It feels like reddit back when it was smaller and before the abhorrent new UI and their aggressive algorithm. Well we all know the fediverse is practically without algorithm for good and bad.
So with this view it semi forced me to be more active in the communities I’m in. I mostly comment though rather than making posts but hey any little thing helps.
And besides I just love piefed has topics i.e. multireddit a.k.a a group feed of multiple communites, where I either I can subscribe to premade topics by the instance admin or make my own grouping of topics/communities.
I still to my chagrin dip back to reddit for some communities or topics but it’s none of the big ones. Things like psychotic people that has way too many x (bags, retro games handheld devices, headphones, fountain oens, paper notebooks, ereaders, knives, pocket trash, etc) and spending way too much money on them.
In my opinion this platform is great. Most people here are friendly, and smart. Although there are a few exceptions.
I’ve been here since a year, i think. And its the first contact i made with “the fediverse”.
All in all i would say that, apart from power tripping mods, and a few weird users, its a great platform i would definitely recommend.
There’s one problem tho, where no android lemmy client, that is compatible with android 7 has avif support
Got tired of the tankies on lemmy, was about to go to piefed, heard about the censorship of piefed, went back to lemmy. So idk
round and round we go. i feel the same way. tired of weirdos with superiority complexes who feel it’s appropriate to harass, intimate, and try to silence anyone who is different than them.
i just block tankie instances, and any single accounts that uses the same language.
I joined two years ago after the Reddit API thing, full of hope and with bright eyes. I even got a couple of doggos in my PMs, which was nice. It got even better after I finally blocked enough weird porn communities so I stopped bumping into them all the time.
Now I only open Lemmy when I’m having trouble sleeping at night. I browse All/Active, and 90% of what I see are bot news reposts about Trump doing something stupid or scary, or some “are .ml tankies” shitstorms.
Also, I got banned on the Linux community at .ml and I have no idea why or even when it happened, which I actually find kind of funny.
after I finally blocked enough weird porn communities so I stopped bumping into them all the time.
That does take awhile. We might need to start adding that to our “Welcome” pages.
Welcome user. Due to the federated nature of Lemmy, there’s going to be a great deal of weird porn. You can block it. Let’s practice now…
lemmy is a mess since the same community can be found on a different server. same news have 2 comments, but 62 on the other. this thing is just gonna stay as an underground social media until someone solves this.
This has also been a thing on Reddit since subreddits were introduced so I don’t really think it’s a major obstacle to user retention compared to the amount (or lack) of quality original content and discourse
I am wondering if this is presented better in different UIs. I’m regularly using the Summit Android app and there’s at least a button to see cross-posted communities with a comment counter to see if there’s more action traction somewhere else. It might be nice if it had some indicator that there’s a more active thread than the one I am currently on. I am not sure how other front ends handle it.
Or maybe the issue is dual posted content that isn’t cross-linked because it was submitted independently. Not sure of a solution to that that isn’t a lot of work.
We make a lot of effort to consolidate communities by closing on one instance, and opening it on another.
But sometimes multiple communities for the same topic make sense depending on different local moderation methods and instance rules.
I don’t feel good about being on mainstream social media any more. Any time I spend on Reddit or YouTube is minimal and with a sense of distrust.
I’ve been on lemmy for a few months now and it’s grown since I joined and grows more every day as people hear about it.
Never looking back.
What pine-person meant was:
Welcome! Many of us here are capable of greeting new peers without going on a pedantic tangient.
So anyway.
Welcome!
It does feel much better to participate here. Particularly after blocking a few specific users.
You do realize Reddit always was and has been a forum right? Understanding the difference between social media and forums is an “early use”learning moment.
Kinda shit, actually. It’s mostly just reddit reposts, nazi bot reposts, and furry porn.
There’s much more here than that, but it doesn’t propagate perfectly between servers.
What one sees is determined by what others on the same server have subscribed to.
One can work around this, searching for and manually subscribing - being that first user.
But it can be worth switching servers if the feed is really different than what you’re looking for. It can save a bunch of steps.
The internet is like that, yes.
At least there are no advertising here.
