A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy π
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
Having tried all three, its a stark difference in how much more social Lemmy is comparatively. Its not even close. Almost all posts I've encountered on lemmy have interaction; whereas, more often than not, posts on the other two platforms have no interaction. Wonder what the driving factor is behind this difference?
shit posters keeping lemmy/mbin alive.
Doesn't mbin federate with Mastodon? I've been thinking about moving to an mbin server for that reason...
it can but that depends on your server but I can tell you that implementation is rough, but the bones are there.
shop around mbin servers!
The fuck is Nostr? I can't keep up.
Nostr is another fediverse like social media platform that the founder of bluesky created after he realized he had made another mistake like he did in creating twitter.
I know, right? It was very hard for me to grasp the Fediverse when i first heard about it. Now, it seems the protocol is being tapped into from a few different directions, so these new platforms may just be starting to make an appearance.
I've never heard of Nostr but Mastodon is a twitter clone and I don't find that style of website suits discussion well since you subscribe to accounts rather than communities.
It's an interesting dynamic!
I find myself talking more on lemmy as others say because it's easier/made for talking about topics. Mastodon and other fedi services center around following the account that made a thing rather than the thing(s) themselves. And that's fine, both have their place.
I think the other aspect is the easy to follow discussion threads. IMO it's the cleanest way to show and follow branching discussions.
I do like how it "looks" the most on topics. I wish mastodon had something similar revolving around their posts/hashtags.
You follow hashtags. It's what I do and it's been a good experience so far.
It's about the same as on Lemmy engagement-wise.
I assume because people follow topics on lemmy, unlike microblogging where people have to follow each other to interact (one-to-many vs one-to-one). So itβs easier to interact with many people that you donβt necessarily had to be following prior, which increases the chances of interacting with more people.
you can follow hashtags. I follow #opensource and a few other interests and I've found some interesting stuff you don't generally see in other places. but yes, the format is completely different and I find lemmy allows for better discussion than Mastodon.
you can follow hashtags.
Interesting. Perhaps I should give mastodon another go.
Yeah Mastodon seems way less about discussion and way more about surfacing cool shit you wouldn't otherwise see.
Well Mastadon is good for screaming into the void and hope someone shouts back. Lemmy is kind of like a forum type community where you already know someone is going to like your topic if it's in the right sub.
Itβs probably that Lemmy is communities but mastodon is individuals
Honestly, I think is the whole βFirst Postβ mindset.
When you post a reply on Mastodon, it is more intimate, the only people who see it are the original tooter and anyone who actively seeks more commentary. It is a dialogue between two people, or multiple dialogues between one person and many others.
Lemmy is more like a forum, where everyone can see all comments, right underneath the original post. It is more like an open-table discussion.
It is not that Lemmy is more social, it is just less personal.
I left reddit for lemmy on the big migration but I though it wouldn't last. Here I am years after. I enjoy lemmy a lot more than I ever did Reddit.
One thing I've found on lemmy that was almost impossible to see on reddit...
People apologizing for being incorrect. Also, people having actual conversations, without the immediate influx of "No, YOURE WORNG!" people.
I came here in the Reddit migration too, right after the API thing. I like that this place is still small - it has the community feeling that you only saw in Reddit in small, focused subs
Lemmy is discussion focused, the bulk of content is the comments guided by posts. Mastadon/nostr are about microblogging, the posts are the focus of content, not the comments.
Mastodon is so boring for me. Some people boost me because I discuss my research or Linux but rarely any engagement
Why are you comparing apples to glass bowls?
Lemmy is a reddit clone, where you create communities.
Mastodon is a Twitter clone, where you share what you ate last night or what political meme you like today while sharing photos of moss and/or windows.
Nostr is its own thing.
You can't really compare them with each other.
So what is Nostr?
Yeah, I get your point. But the question still remains. Lemmy objectively has more engagement/interaction regardless of the category of social media of each medium.
If you compare X to Lemmy, X has more engagement/interaction... And they are separate social media platforms categorically. Yet, Mastodon trumps Lemmy's user count by nearly 10 fold...
It stands to question that with a fraction of the users on Lemmy, why is the interaction/engagement considerably higher?
An average post on Mastodon/X/Bluesky/Threads is "this is what I encounter" or "this is what I believe". Those kinds of posts don't specifically ask for a response. You can respond to it, but it doesn't require one.
That's not how you communicate on Lemmy or Reddit.
That's the difference.
Each platform has its own usages.
So to compare and say "well platform Y is more social, because there's more interaction than on platform 2" is a bit weird.
You wouldn't compare a letter with a message board on a town plaza either. Both can be used to communicate, but they're not comparable to each other.
Or in another way:
On Mastodon or Nostr, when you post something only a small subsection of the userbase actually sees it (only those who follow you, those that follow any of the hashtags that you used, or those that check the full firehose).
On Lemmy the entire community you posted it to can see your post.
Obviously you can get more response on Lemmy! More people get to see it.
Twitter have big interaction because user count is extremely high. For a microblogging platform maybe it requires that it needs lots of users and some "creators" who are followed by thousands of people, unlike communities which anyone can post and everyone joined the community can see.
I also think upvotes and downvotes plays a role too since mastodon does not have them(only boosts but boost actually shares with your own followers which might be very low)
It stands to question that with a fraction of the users on Lemmy, why is the interaction/engagement considerably higher?
I think the answer is fairly clear. Lemmy's topics & votes system funnels condenses the user-base to focus on particular things at particular times. The total number of users may be smaller than Mastodon, but basically everyone on lemmy is looking at the top posts on the front page first, and then exploring to other stuff later; whereas on Mastodon everyone is just doing their own thing.
Focusing people on one topic means that there will be discussion at that topic at that time; and discussion leads to people checking back to read and reply to responses...
I routinely use both Mastodon and Lemmy. I see a lot more varied content on Mastodon, but it is more fleeting. i.e. very little discussion, and fairly short window of interaction with posts. Lemmy has a lot less 'stuff', but a lot more conversation.
I think the difference is interesting, but it definitely isn't something we should use to say which platform is doing better or anything like that.
It stands to question that with a fraction of the users on Lemmy, why is the interaction/engagement considerably higher?
mastodon is another "general interest" social media hub along the same vein of reddit or bluesky or .world or .ee, which means that (excluding its founding group) it takes many forms of long term investments to gain sufficient traction enough to establish a core group of active users (assuming that it ever succeeds at doing so at all) and that core group is a small fraction of its user base (presuming that a reddit post i saw years ago showing that a tiny fraction of users on social media are responsible for a vastly disproportionate amount of content on all platforms is true).
lemmy's political origins pre-included the identities and accompanying pre-built core groups that had already start coalescing in other social media platforms like reddit & tiktok. by the time of the reddit blackout protests those groups already had new online safe spaces in various lemmy instances and their ranks swelled at the same time other reddit users started to fill the ranks of other "general interest" instances like .world and later .ee
that link you posted on lemmy user counts reflects the "general interest" instance's difficulties of retaining a core group of active users that disproportionately create the most content. it's around this content is where you will find the interaction/engagement that characterizes lemmy's considerably higher engagement; instead of the news & link sharing lower interaction/engagement that characterizes the "general interest" instances.
right now; the "general interest" instances have a relatively handful of VERY prolific users expending a clearly excessive amount of time and effort at creating a sea of inactive communities & instances in the hopes that it might eventually serve as a basis for a "general interest" core group and i hope that they succeed; i think that the lemmyverse would be better with politically moderate points of view and i'm sure that the "general interest" instances won't lose all of their users to bluesky, threads, nostr, etc. by then.
I find microblogging format isn't really great for having any sort of meaningful discussion. Mastodon is good for posting news or memes, but that's about it. Lemmy format allows having an actual dialogue, and that makes it a lot more engaging.
Mastodon & others are microblogging (aka shitposting) platforms, while lemmy lets you ask questions in posts that will persist (not get flooded under a megaton of shitpost, hentai) and get answers.
On mastodon what's important is who you are (who you know, who you can interact with), on lemmy your post's content is more important.
Microblog.... I just don't care about other people that much. Specific topics are more engaging and interesting.
Mastodon right now is essentially macroblog and/or microblog. Entirely designer for different purpose than Lemmy.
Any group-based social media will have higher possibility of interaction due to easier way to find similar interest, whether Lemmy, Reddit, Facebook Group, Misskey Group, even traditional self-host forum.
The format is certainly more conducive to discussion. On the flip side though since communities reside in spaces and are moderated by individuals here, compared to the more 'broadcast' nature of using tags on Mastodon, you end up with some really bad echo chambers on Lemmy. Just a quick look at a basic news community between instances will show a massive slant depending who runs it. With Mastodon people talk more globally and the obnoxious ones just get blocked en-masse rather than so much being at a mod's whim.
mastodon is like an oasis in a sea of noise.
Concentrate on the signal, not the noise.
Build relationships with people you care about.
The problem with mastodon might turn out to be having a heart lacking in empathy. Need to be able to care enough to want to be associated with someone you admire.
We live amongst rock stars. How can anyone completely miss that?! The problem is neither the platform nor the rock stars.
Don't need a sea of people. Need 10 or 5 or 3. As long as they are rock stars. I count my blessings daily.
It's clearly how approach to using mastodon. Small tweak to your mindset and you can get alot out of the platform.
Dial up a super hero and tell them they are awesome.
Go to pypi
Find packages you like and their maintainers.
Hook up with them and tell them they are awesome, but found a few things that doesn't make sense in the docs. Whatever the approach. You are in!
Do it now.
It'll take all of 5 mins.
Hey, I don't come into your house and insult you by calling you social media! /s
I think, much like HN or early web forums, we're below the population level where personal attacks get unmanageable. On Reddit voicing a dissenting opinion would always get you dog piled and that makes people defensive and boring as shit.
People here are generally (some exceptions being pro life/choice which is a deeply toxic topic at this point and Gaza which has emotions extremely high) arguing in good faith and even if they're rough initially a lot of times I've appreciated back and forth threads since, even if there's still a disagreement, most people will genuinely work to remove stupid misunderstandings and try and understand who they're talking to.
Additionally, the mods on most communities are awesome and focus specifically on removing things like personal attacks without getting heavy handed in interventions.
The blog style format (post + threaded comments) is a lot more inviting to a conversational style than microblogging. Some Masto instances have very open post character counts but some are much more limiting - as are Bluesky and Xitter. If you're not able to explain your point clearly it hampers the ability to have a decent conversation about it.