this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2023
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Reading criticisms of Lemmy from Reddit and other platforms like HackerNews reminds me of reading criticisms of Reddit from Digg back in 2007-2010, except they're more based on architecture instead of "it looks ugly".
Now there are things that will turn away users. There's obviously a strong leftist culture here, there are less users so less content, and obviously federation is a stumbling block for many people.
But I really think that's ok similar to what people are saying in that Hacker News thread. I wouldn't want all of Reddit to come over, and I think it's better for the culture and growth here to get a self selected trickle/stream of users instead of a deluge.
I don't think Lemmy will necessarily have the same issues as Mastodon because Twitter/Mastodon requires you to know people or know accounts to follow to be useful. Lemmy just requires communities you're interested in and a critical mass of users to drive posting and engagement. We're already seeing greater activity as more users arrive
That second comment by goplayoutside says it well: "Maybe the modest technical hurdles are a feature, not a bug."
I think it is a feature, and the same is true for Mastodon and the Fediverse as a whole, imho.
I also see it as a feature. If instances have a natural active user cap, then server-based communities can't get so big as to outpace moderation. And admins have the ability to moderate local users' behaviour on off-site sublemmies by enforcing their own codes of conduct.
The internet used to be small, but expansive. It became big, but concentrated.
I liked the former. I know many people like the latter. Those people are welcome to their corporate slums.
You've worded it well. I think the technical nature of it is to its benefit, and many server may not want to make the signup process easier, for the reasons you mentioned.
@humanetech @thoro I like it because it weeds out the type of people who would end up being low-effort posters, trolls, and spammers.
Very much so. It shares the load, both from a technical point of view but also from moderation and maintenance point of view.
It's actually pretty great, all of this.
While it keeps the willfully ignorant out, it can also keep people with learning disabilities out. Accessibility should always be worked on. That being said, Lemmy is certainly easy to access, Even more so than Mastodon IMHO because Mastodon you have to know people whereas lemmy all you have to do is sign up for a community
Problem: organizations pushing a political or commercial agenda will train their agents to overcome modest technical hurdles. Spammers, in particular, will go to extreme lengths to overcome technical hurdles, including hiring people to solve CAPTCHAs.
Agreed, I remember being shocked about a decade ago learning that there were services run in developing countries where you pay about $1 for 1000 CATPCHA solves for your spam bot to pass along and a person solving it.
That depends on what instance you create an user on. For example, Lemmygrad.ml and Lemmy.ml are not the same thing, despite both belonging to Lemmy. The issues I see are having a tankie culture, and not having more points of view.
That's something we can help with, although it's not so easy. I mean, the users that are already here, we can create more content and interact more with each other, so eventually more users will come. It can be boring and tiring, but it's not impossible.
That's something absolutely new for the vast majority of people. I felt myself confused the first time I joined the fediverse too. But after some time, I felt myself less confused. Some clarifications, tutorials and support can do the real trick.
I have to hope that main instances will stop federating Lemmygrad at some point. There's no place, IMO, for genocide denial/affirmation and authoritarian extremism on platforms like these. Or any platforms.
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I don't think lemmy.one is deferated from Beehaw; I'm subscribed to one community there.
1st edit: I forgot this community isn't on Beehaw.
2nd edit: Here's a link of all the instances that Beehaw is federated with, and lemmy.one is one of them. sopuli.xyz and feddit.de too.
3rd edit: Apparently, I'm Jared, 19, and I cannot read. Sorry about that!
I think the person above meant both beehaw and lemmy.one have defederated from lemmygrad.
Oh... the wording confused me. Whoops!
I'm new here so I don't know much about lemmy.one, but as far as I understand it's lemmygrad, that people have a problem with (being tankie and all that). Maybe you got confused with the names?
No, I just got confused with the wording OTL
Who has reportedly been banning people for calling out said genocide denial and authoritarianism.
And they removed my comments among others, for calling the Chinese state a colonial and imperialist state.
What will the next social media trend be? Seems like the centralized options are done for (FB, TW, Reddit), but they’re not being replaced by any single solutions. Tiktok took mainly genZ. Professionals have been wanting a twitter replacement to move to since musk and have yet to figure it out (bluesky, tribel, post social, takes, mastodon, etc has no apparent frontrunner). Political apps segmented some off like parler and the right stuff. Decentralized and foss apps have all kinds of solutions but won’t likely ever attract a huge crowd. So are we seeing the end of of an era of massive centralized social media?
God, I hope so.
You can actually follow hashtags on mastadon, which is a lot easier then knowing users. :)
Yeah, but none of the Twitter people were using hashtags, and a lot of them where hyper-fixated on finding their Twitter mutuals. They were just trying pretend Mastodon was a drop-in replacement for Twitter.
They didn't want to create their own space in the new place, and they didn't want to integrate with those who were already there. They just kind of wanted to ignore the fact that anything was happening, while still, I guess, engaging in slacktivism.
It's not like there's not a strong leftist culture on reddit either so I don't really see that as a problem unique to Lemmy. If Lemmy can provide a centralized-like decentralized platform, I think it can succeed.
There isn't at all. Reddit is liberal at the very best and even then it's mostly Obama liberal, which is center right outside the most conservative parts of the world.
The leftist communities are much smaller, easily ignored, and often ridiculed in the mainstream subreddits. The gaming spaces complain about "wokeness" and criticisms of female representations among others. Thinly veiled racism and explicit transphobia abounds.
In contrast, Lemmy is full of anarchists, communists, socialists, and other anti capitalist. It has been and remains a dominantly leftist community.
UX is whatever. Would like to see more decentralization of large hosts to avoid it inevitably being 1 or 2 big lemmy hosts with everything.
Also cross federation logins. I was so confused why my logins weren't working on other servers.
The strong leftist culture is a plus. I know I'm not going to get flooded with nazi shit like so many of the prior iterations of the reddit exodus (e.g. voat).
Only one section of the political spectrum has consistently been combating nazifascist initiatives throughout history, including present history.
And that's not liberals.