Lemmy needs to mature on a technical basis. The Lemmy service itself is still lacking significantly. But it it progressing.
Outside of technical limitations, focus on communities. A few good ones are better than many mediocre ones.
this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2024
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They allegedly remove posts/comments about lemmy? And even if they don't, I feel like it could have the opposite effect. People would see those posts just like ads/promotion/spam. Which would give lemmy a bad rep. Unless something big happens, like some big community switching to lemmy, or someone with a big following promotes lemmy, it will hardly see a big spike in user count.
The only way is to passively "advertise" it. Maybe add the link to your lemmy account in your reddits about you section, if you are making OC add your lemmy handle there as well...
And the last way, which is most likely the best way to do it, is to post good content on lemmy, keep communities alive. And people will eventually join.
We don't. We just continue to stay here and grow and flourish naturally. I see no need to rush.
Yup, I say it in every thread of this sort I see pop up, you definitionally can't force organic engagement.
I'm just sick of Reddit.
How can we convince the people over there to move away?
I see things like this all the time on the fediverse. There's this sentiment that reddit sucks and it's nothing but bots and shithousery, but for some people they still want that crowd to migrate here.
I think Lemmy needs to let go of the idea of the "good" parts of reddit transferring here and everyone miraculously behaving differently, because it just isn't going to happen. The people left on reddit are there because that's the experience they want. Trying to import them en masse to Lemmy again is just going to bring more irritation and frustration IMO.
I think Lemmy would be better served working to improve and develop the communities they already have through users that are already here. Find ways to make your interests appealing to others. Be active in ways and places you usually wouldn't, and Lemmy will grow up around us organically. None of these social media giants have anything of substance to offer their huge user bases besides the niche communities you guys are missing, and that's why people spend so much time doomscrolling.
What we are missing is that someone on Reddit took the time to get these communities going too. Reddit wasn't an instant success, it took the efforts of the early membership to drive engagement and user growth. Lemmy is obsessed with the idea of short cutting this step to steal members from other networks, and that's silly.
No one is going to leave a well designed botnet social media for a black hole called the fediverse. In order to gain more meaningful membership we must first prove that Lemmy is worth overcoming the barriers to enter and engage with the people that are already here. Once the rest of the internet finds out we're cool, they'll show up.
"Reddit is awful. How do we move that here?"
We simply don't need Reddit users. We need Lemmy users who desire to start communities. Lemmy is Reddit 10 years ago, and that's just fine.
Lemmy is Reddit 10 years ago
I mean it's not THAT good, but it's sure better than Reddit today.
@fmstrat @FrostyTrichs My problem with both Reddit and Lemmy is that they don't let people delete their posts entirely. I liked Reddit until I learned this. It's a basic feature that I don't understand not including.
For me - and i am new - the whole point of lemmy is less people, less content to scroll, and more quality. If lemmy was reddit, i would leave lemmy too
There's nothing wrong with this approach either but I'd remind you and anyone else seeking this experience that Lemmy is infinitely more customizable for this than reddit ever was. The ability to block users, communities, instances, etc can be invaluable. Some instances also don't federate with everyone so it's fairly easy to find a smaller space that isn't so busy if the larger instances are too much.
Lemmy gets a lot of shit, and deservedly so at times, but there are already some very handy tools in the kit for curating your feed to your liking.
But some features don't make sense or seem half-assed, like blocking instances at user level, it should also block every user from that instance, but for some weird reason it doesn't, you don't see the post from that instance, but posts on other instances made by those users and comments from users of that instance are still visible... So we are still forced into instance jumping until we find one that aligns with what we deem acceptable... And that could take a while.
Or the fact that Lemmy users talk a lot about privacy but the delete function doesn't really delete the content as it can be easily restored at any moment.
Reddit took the time to get these communities going...
Sure! But, in this case Lemmy is literally a federated copypasta of Reddit, like Madtodon is of X.
Therefore, I think Lemmy is already a few steps ahead, due to the existing familiarity how communities/subs are supposed to be used.
So it's not we're starting from scratch... It's just getting rid of the annoyances of Reddit.
Take Mastodon/BlueSky as an example. People are already familiar withbthe concept of how to use it.
Sure! But, in this case Lemmy is literally a federated copypasta of Reddit, like Madtodon is of X.
This is being overly simplistic IMO. Lemmy is not a direct copy paste of reddit, just the idea is the same. Lemmy is missing many of the tools reddit has come to depend on for things like moderation and community engagement. The idea is the same but the framework is different and that comes with its own challenges.
Lemmy is a good enough platform for now and for future growth. It wasn't a drop in replacement for reddit when the exodus happened and it isn't a drop in replacement now, but it's closer. There are still lots of little things- quality of life improvements, moderation improvements, discovery improvements, etc that need to be tuned or fixed before Lemmy is ready to shoulder millions of active users, but that doesn't mean it isn't worthy of the effort today.
The beautiful part of the fediverse is we're all free to form our own ideas about how it's best grown and supported. If there's something you are passionate about there's nothing stopping you or anyone else from spinning up a community or instance about it and creating the niche communities everyone seems to miss. It all takes time, and individual and group efforts.
This is being overly simplistic IMO. Lemmy is not a direct copy paste of reddit, just the idea is the same.
But he's not wrong on a practical level, the content is almost the same on reddit and here, even the memes are being reposted from there to here and then reposted over and over.
To me, seeing the same content multiple times on the All feed makes it seem emptier, like I can just check it once a day and I won't be missing anything. I blame the accounts that post content on multiple instances/communities instead of posting once and letting it federate and the reposters who just recycle content over and over... maybe those who keep blindly upvoting too.
A normal user doesn't have any incentive to leave reddit if they are going to find the same things.
If there’s something you are passionate about there’s nothing stopping you or anyone else from spinning up a community or instance about it and creating the niche communities everyone seems to miss.
Yeeeeah no, as I said on another comment, creating a new instance requires some kind of investment, might be monetary, learn a new skillset or dedicating time to keeping it up, it's not something anyone can do/afford and as time goes on, it might escalate if you plan to preserve everything.
A new community... maybe, but then you're gonna have to go instance jumping until you find one that fits you and it might be quick or you might never find one.
Yes but we're also more mastodon less bluesky. If a bluesky-esque clone of Reddit comes along with better UX and paving over the issues of federation then it will win, the way Bluesky has beaten out Mastodon as the Twit alternate
But, that's not relevant to communities. You can kill a community by technical means, but technical means cannot create one; it's necessary but not sufficient, and not even the hard part.
Most people are still on fucking FACEBOOK. They are willing to put up with almost unlimited bullshittery for the sake of their sense of community. Building a better mousetrap won't work, and building a vaguely equivalent mousetrap won't even move the needle.
If federation works the way it's claimed to, then if we migrate even the bad parts of reddit here it should be fine.
Lemmy is turning into an elitist cesspool.
Where does the believe even originate from, that Redditors are any different than Lemmings? Basically the same people minus the youngest, because they stick with using Reddit. They might or might not migrate eventually.
Make communities here bigger by contributing and spread the word of Reddit alternative. Make search engines find Lemmy content and then it goes on it's own. I guess Bluesky will push the Fediverse, but I wonder how long people will stick to a Twitter esque when they could have Lemmy full text conversations and tree structures?
Advertise one instance instead of just saying "join lemmy"
id go a step further and say you need to draw a sub to a specific community. its hard moving users though when reddit actually attempts to prevent it by banning you for trying.
But wouldn't advertising one instance backfire and lead to huge server loads on that instance?
That’s not a problem you have to worry about right now, it’s more so not enough people are trying out the platform.
Recommending the instance you’re on Lemm.ee is the way to go.
Most people don't change unless they have to, and rarely even then. You'd have to make it so that they can't visit Reddit anymore.
Even on reddit itself, you can't get people to move from a sick community with hostile moderation to the preferred community. /r/Canada got taken over by /r/metacanada what feels like decades ago, and they turned it into a post modern bigoted classist hellhole, but it still ranks far above the "real" Canadian sub /r/OnGaurdForThee.
Maybe better not to compete with existing communities. Develop some anchor communities on Lemmy that are doing their own thing on topics that aren't well served on Reddit.
We already have the same problem here. Some of our major communities have belligerent mods on problematic instances.
We're not solving that problem, we're just making it easier to hide from it via defederation.
Of course we do. That's my point. It's not a Reddit problem, it's a human problem.
Stop using Reddit.
Post in communities that align with your interests. Post in communities for your geographic area, if you're comfortable with that. Comment on posts you see, if you think you can add something of value to the conversation.
That is what I already do. But I feel like there isn't much going on. Tbh, I'm more of a passive than active participant. Never been a "karma whore".
I mostly scroll through the feed and chime into topics where I feel I can contribute to.
I mostly scroll through the feed and chime into topics where I feel I can contribute to.
That's good too but maybe consider lowering your bar on what it takes to "contribute".
I have left many simple comments that have led to someone chiming in with something insightful that they may not have commented otherwise
Gonna have to change that. There's no such thing as karma here so there's no whoring. Be the change you want to be. I was the only poster in many communities before they started taking off. Lemmy follows the 90-9-1 rule, and you have to be the 1
Lemmy follows the 90-9-1 rule, and you have to be the 1
Well put
Bingo.
One suggestion to increase participation on Lemmy of those already here is to encourage people to spend some time just looking at the "all new posts" feed. I look at it a few times per day and was surprised at the number of Lemmy groups that I never knew existed. There are far to many groups here that started out good and just faded away. If it's an interest of yours post there and try to rejuvenate the group. Message the existing moderator if you can be added as a mod for that group.
Don't bother, just make your own communities or magazines and contribute to them regularly.
"If you build it, they will come."
You can tell people about it if you like (especially if it comes up casually in conversation), but if you try to push it too hard you'll drive people away.
If the fediverse grows too quickly, it will also introduce more problems existing systems may not be able to handle.
Send interesting Lemmy links to people you know. That's how they get interested, and check it out. You won't convince many people by extolling the benefits of the Fediverse, you just have to show them that they'll be entertained, and maybe they'll be somewhat more likely to switch if they know it won't enshittify. I'd say you should send links from instances that don't federate with some of the weirder places like Hexbear though, that's likely to turn people off until they realize how the Fediverse works.
One thing that we could use more of that draws people in is posts about relationship issues. Entertaining for almost everyone, and pretty much anyone can create them from their own experience.
Something I've been thinking about is that changes only happen organically, so I think it's good to not be an insistent advocate for a platform X, Y or Z. Instead, I think that perhaps it's better, instead, to simply use the platform the person is more favorable towards whenever possible, and if people then share something worth sharing, it should slowly bring people over. And regarding the annoying part, at most, making a note about technicalities and the type of people in the site could be good if discussions the person is engaged in allows, and if the person didn't burn people's patience by being pedantic.
Engage with communities here. The politics and tech communities are lively enough, but niche communities are lacking. Give people a reason to come here who aren't politics/tech junkies.
I don't want the masses from Reddit to migrate to Lemmy. I want people currently on Lemmy to post and comment. More engagement is what we need. No one is going to move to Lemmy if they see the top posts are hours old with only 100 upvotes and no comments.
If they didn't leave Reddit by now, they like the new Reddit experience.
Ask and answer their popular questions again in here. Also, a popular search engine should list the thread on Lemmy.
Lots of edgelords here like "I don't want the reddit plebs here" as though they weren't happily one of them a couple years ago.
Let them come over. Put the idea of federation to the test. Isn't that one of the major features of federation, if there are a bunch of shitty people you can just degenerate or use a different community?
If federation does what it claims then it'll only be an improvement.
I agree with people saying not to force people here if they don't wanna be (not that we could), but the people saying that folks still on reddit are there because they inherently prefer the reddit application UX is crazy. They prefer the content in reddit. And they have a point.
Folks here are way more insufferable than reddit. Just the other day there was a post being like "why do reddit users hate Lemmy?" And linked a reddit post about it. But the comments on the reddit post were considered, nuanced, and polite; while the comments on the Lemmy post were a bunch of neckbeards crying about how terrible reddit users are.
TLDR y'all need to look in the mirror.
be the change you want to see. offer alternatives to subs pissed about over moderation, ads and bot activity. some instances still let you create your own communities, like mine https://moist.catsweat.com
There needs to be less one sided group think, but I’m not sure that’s even possible anymore at this point. Just look at the US and how they voted this year. None of those voters want to be on this super woke platform. The population on here are the minority and just need to get used to it.
I think how fragmented lemmy is hurts it. I enjoy Mastodon more, because it doesn't matter what server a person uses, you have but a single feed of all the people you follow.
But here on lemmy, every server has its own communities and might even be having the same conversations apart from each other. While reddit is a giant single space for each conversation.
If there was a way to unite feeds so that, for example, /c/gaming gave you posts from every community /c/gaming you are subscribed to or federated with (or /m/gaming for us mbin folks). I think we could really see a proper exodus from reddit as it becomes proper alternative.
and of course, the classic lemmy experience would remain for those that don't want to do that. Much like old.reddit remained strong in the face of the site remake.
EDIT: Maybe what we need instead is multi-reddits. Custom made aggregate feeds made by the user, so you have full control over your aggregated feed. And they don't need to have the same names in that case.
That fragmentation annoyed me too at the beginning, until somenoe tokd me something along the lines.
"It's like different reddit subs with each hsving their own mods and rules"...
So /c/gaming on instance A, and /c/gaming on instance B, would be like /r/gaming and /r/gamingfornoobs.
Ptecisely, that's how I always saw it. Say /r/games and /r/gaming, ostensibly those should have the same content but each had its own culture (or did at one point, who knows now)
That's a good point. By each being its own server with own own rules and mods, my idea would make it harder on mods of the communities if people are not even aware of where they are posting.
Does your interface not show the instance with the community name?
I meant that as an extension to my original comment asking for all communities with the same name from different instances to show up in a mixed feed.
They are all available on every instance. It's not different than having five communities for the same subject on Reddit. It's worse here right now because so few communities have managed to "clear their orbit" yet, but it will get better.