I hate big tech controlling social media. I desperately want social media to be federated.
I really love community-driven social media like Reddit. Lemmy feels… too small. I really loved that Reddit let me jump into any niche hobby, and instantly I had a community. Lemmy, you’ll be lucky if that community even exists, and if it does, chances are nobody has posted in ages.
On the other hand, Lemmy is full of political content lately. I’ve basically been doom scrolling everything US election-related, and it’s really starting to take a toll on my mental health.
I know I can filter content. I know I can post and be the change I seek. Yet, it feels like an uphill battle.
Not sure what the point of this is, or if it’s even the right community to vent about this. I just really want to replace Reddit, but I find myself going back more and more (e.g. r/homekit is very active compared to Lemmy version).
One suggestion I saw a while ago was to use more general communities for things you’re interested in and as it grows then the more niche communities can be made. Ex: post about a specific game you like in gaming up until enough people like it to make a sub for that game. Or post about a song you don’t know in asklemmy until enough people do that to make whatsthissong
I totally get wanting the niche communities and, personally, I just lurk reddit completely not voting, posting, or commenting unless as a last resort if I really need to find info that Lemmy isn’t able to provide.
It’s a slow process and I don’t think there’ll be another boost of users in Lemmy until reddit does another thing that enshittifies it to annoy people to leave.
And some times, having the initiative to create such more specific communities could be a change factor for the growth of a social media. Also, with federation, not just the person can choose where to create the community on while not making it a walled garden as other sites would still have access to it, but also if a community for the given subject already exists but the user thinks he can do better, he/she can more easily do it with how expansive the “fediverse” is.
Yeah there are times where I’d want to make a community but the necessity of moderation makes it a big hurdle to even want to begin that process.
Our community [email protected] has for now everything beer, wine, cider… it didn’t reach the point of creating another specific, niche community. So I totally get the niche interests aren’t represented here yet and the number of homebrewers is big.
Still we get good engagement for lemmy and there are active people from industry, so I wouldn’t call it exactly small.
Unfortunately, community building is work, and it’s work that users actually do on the bigger, corporate sites. Those community builders helped get those spaces going, helped make them appealing, and help trap users there. In smaller spaces like this, we need to be the community builders, not just the content consumers.
One thing I find really helps is to use something that doesn’t look like the space you left. Lemmy looks an awful lot like Reddit, but it has themes, and even alternative web clients that can change the experience and make it feel like something new.
Lemmy also isn’t the content and communities, it’s just the website’s server software. You can access… ugh… the “threadiverse”… from websites using other ActivityPub enabled servers. There’s an ActivityPub Discourse plugin. nodeBB is adding ActivityPub support in its next version. Friendica and Hubzilla have group support, and work with Lemmy-hosted communities.
Find a new window on social media, and it might help you engage with it differently.
The other thing you can do is just niche down a bit here. Find a few active communities that you’re interested in, and focus your attention on them. Lemmy is actually much, much more like classic forums, where communities or spheres of interest have their own website. The difference here is that you can actually look outside of those communities to interact with other forums, too. It works a a lot better if you treat it that way. Find your home, as it were, and branch out from there.
Unfortunately, the modern mental model of social media is the fire hose, not the node-and-spoke that is actually best supported by the technology.
If the BlueSky migration keeps up the pace, I think it will be a good bet that Reddit to Lemmy will be the next big user migration. There’s signs it’s already started, within the last year I’ve been here I’ve seen the community and sub-communities grow significantly and there’s been an increase of self-proclaimed converts over the last several months.
I don’t see the connection between Lemmy and Bluesky/reasoning, can you elaborate?
Dreams.
Probably the hope, not completely unfounded, that the migration from one “legacy” (from the 00s) platform to a more recent alternative service - twitter to Bluesky - will help inspire people in other legacy platforms to also realize that alternatives do exist now, they are part of a broader conversation that they weren’t a part of even two years ago.
Even a year and a half ago, this place felt like it hadn’t yet installed the drywall, the wiring and tubing was incomplete. Now it feels more seamless, ready for a spurt of growth.
“Hey… Bluesky isn’t all that bad, I’m glad to be out of the clutches of a billionaire asshole, and not feel utterly lost here”, now cue what OP believes a number of people will also think: “Hmm… maybe I’ll check out Lemmy, too. See what the alternative to reddit is like.”
Some of them could have tried it, didn’t like it, might come back and be like: “Hey, Lemmy’s not too bad since last I last looked a year ago”, and here’s a clincher that definitely wasn’t here a year and a half ago: “The app works pretty good”, and there are a lot of new apps, having a choice gives a sense and weight of legitimacy.
I still remember the DDoS attacks
It’s still a tiny echo chamber like it was a couple months ago when I cut back on Lemmy use. It can get pretty repetitive and boring to read. I came back to Reddit because the user base was larger and there were more perspectives I could hear from.
A lot of focus is put onto posting, but I like to encourage commenters. I’ll post and respond all day, but if nobody is interacting, it’s going to stay quiet. Put the quiet to your advantage by doing things like:
If you like an image, say what you like about it. Lately, I’ve been having people talk about how they really have been enjoying dawn/dusk pictures, so I’ve been collecting more of that so I can post what people are in the mood for. It gives me good feedback, it gives people a chance to agree or disagree with you, and you got to participate.
Do you ask anyone any question? Take advantage of the relative quiet. With not having a million comments on every post, I have plenty of time to give you really detailed answers. I got asked how to differentiate between 2 animals yesterday, and I had time to make a nice visual guide, highlighting key differences and giving multiple visual examples of potential variations while still simplifying the process of identification. If there’s a million people talking like on Reddit, it’s hard to give people that much attention, but here it’s easy. I pretty much take time to respond to every comment.
Don’t be afraid to go off topic. Rules seem to be looser in many communities because of the low post count. This week, I posted something from a country with a different language, and I ended up having 3 days of conversation with a native speaker who filled me in on tons of subtleties of the language pertaining to our niche topic. I got to learn so much, and they got to learn a few things about English.
I feel you have to do something to have a good time here, but it needn’t be to post multiple things every day, but it’s more than just up or downvoting something like you can get away with on Reddit. We’re too small for you to have a free ride. But make someone laugh. Let them know that you liked their post with a short comment. If you don’t like it, say hey, do you have any content on such and such instead. Make a post saying, hey, what’s your thoughts on this? It doesn’t need to be something groundbreaking or insightful, you just need to give a sign of life so we know you’re here, and one of us will probably talk back to you.
Interact enough like that, and you may find what you enjoy doing, if that turns out to be posting, or you become the resident expert on a topic even if you’re not an expert, being a serial commenter, or whatever it may be. It’s a great opportunity if you make it one because it is so easy to get attention here if you try.
I’m not typically a social person, but being here has let me talk about what I want, when I want, and somebody will listen to it, and I can ask about things I want to know and get answers. There’s much less shouting into the void like at Reddit. Play Lemmy to its strengths and you will find enjoyment. And if you don’t like it, go to where you’re happy. Nobody’s going to hate you if you split time between here and Reddit.
I’ll post and respond all day, but if nobody is interacting, it’s going to stay quiet.
Well I just wanted to respond because I’m also trying to comment as much as I can and even post every now and again. But the issue I’ve seen is Lemmy draws a certain kind of person, which means a lot of like minded people in the comments. I see your response here, read it, like it and then think: “Yes I agree, nothing to add”. So I don’t respond, which makes it feel pretty quiet.
Another thing I’ve seen is not a lot of people even bother opening posts, they just scroll through the feed, get their dopamine and that’s it.
not a lot of people even bother opening posts
I’m a bit inclined to agree with this. I try to do the equivalent of the XKCD hover text, where you have to click through to get some of the good stuff. If you aren’t clicking through to the comments, you’re going to miss a lot of good stuff. Photo sets, photography tips, stories, fun facts. I try not to have the pic and title be the whole thing. But I’ll have 100 upvotes on the post pic, and maybe 10 on any bonus pics inside.
With some news posts, they feel like a RSS feed. Just a link to an article and nothing else. I may read it or I may not. There’s no initial comment or question to interact with. I don’t even know if it’s a bot posting or not that way. If all you offer is a Reuters link, I could have just gone to Reuters and gotten the headline myself. I feel these posts have little value until they start collecting comments.
“Yes I agree, nothing to add”
This is a common response I get when I try to get people to comment more. There can still be value to add to something like this though. Why do you agree? Did you agree before you read the post/comment? Do you have any caveats to your agreement? If you haven’t always agreed, what changed your mind? What part of what they said, or the chart/pic/stat they shared really stood out or was unexpected? You may agree, but you’re still a different person with a different background and different adjacent ideas.
Example from today: Pic of flying owl. Comment was basically I like all these recent pics of flying owls. On the surface, not the deepest comment ever. Buuuuuut, someone took the time to respond to a post, so I know they liked it enough to make effort. Makes me feel good knowing I motivated someone enough to respond, keeps me motivated to post again. I also learned that a specific type of content really got them interested. I know to look for more of it. Then I took the time to respond in kind, because their effort deserves recognition. I said I’m glad you’re enjoying it. I also said that even though I see hundreds of owl pics every week, that I was still surprised by something I saw in one of the recent photos, so that gives them or anyone else reading the response something to go back and look at. They might not have noticed the unique thing about the photo the first time.
Example going the other way: Maori rights in New Zealand. You can’t get much further from NZ than where I am. I know basically nothing about it. This topic really caught my attention though. I read the article to see what was going on, and I thought I understood the basics of it. I commented and said, hey, I read this, and this is my understanding. Am I correct in my understanding or am I missing some significant parts of the story not in this article? If so, can someone explain it or point me in the direction of some more reading? So I know nothing, but I showed them the story was making me interested in something they shared. Anyone familiar with NZ can chime in to talk to me. I hopefully get more things to talk about from that, and we have some conversation. I don’t have to know anything, I just show interest in the topic, and in interacting with someone.
Not every interaction is going to result in more upvotes, comments, or conversation, but if nobody is going to be willing to make the first move, it’s gonna be boring. We’re not big enough for the 1% rule (1% creators, 9% commenters, 90% lurkers) to carry us. It kills the creators having to force the momentum all the time, and if you disagree/agree too much with the small pool of comments, you’re going to say this place is boring. We need to participate, we need to show our individual personalities, and we need to interact. That’s the “social” part of social media. Have fun with it!
I see your response here, read it, like it and then think: “Yes I agree, nothing to add”. So I don’t respond, which makes it feel pretty quiet.
On the one hand, upvotes are there. On the other, they’re not really the right took for the job, Lemmy (and the Fediverse in general) needs some sort of “same” / “mood” / “this tbh” tag.
For me, the upvotes are ok. I use them more to gauge overall traffic. I have an idea the typical number of votes things will get, and I can see what deviates to see what is a hit, what’s typical, and what isn’t resonating. But without comments, there’s no “why” anything is good or bad. I’m not really any better off than before to give you what you want. I can take a guess, but you could have also taken a moment to tell me. It doesn’t tell me everyone’s opinion, but it gives another things for the people that do vote to either add upvotes to that comment or ignore it.
Also, as someone providing the content, it’s nice to have an interaction, even if it’s minimal. Creating posts can eat up a lot of time, and I’m doing it to talk to you all. If nobody stops by to even say, yo, nice work, or whatever, even if I have a lot of upvotes, it still feels like I’m not talking to anyone. It feels like a chore. But if I get one person that says, hey, seeing this really made my morning, now I feel awesome and I want to post more.
But without comments, there’s no “why” anything is good or bad.
Strong truth. But then again, the UX for this is relatively as reduced as the standard usecases allow; if the user can’t bother to click on “reply”, post even a “good.” then click send… come on man, we’re asking for literally two clicks and five keystrokes… if people can’t even do that yet they interact for hours on end on TikTok, then perhaps the problem is not lemmy.
Oh for sure. It’s going to be what ultimately makes or breaks this as a platform. You can’t force a userbase to interact, but as OP states, like many before them, for some people there’s not going to be much going on here. For people that want to at least be mildly active participants though, I haven’t had this much fun since forums were the big thing. I just imagine since that was a decent while ago now that either those of us old enough to have enjoyed them are rusty at it, and the yoots are too young to have seen how it used to work.
and the Fediverse in general
A significant number of the not-Lemmy-or-Mastodon servers support emoji and custom emoticon tags, not just ‘up’, ‘down’, or ‘star’. I wish that was more widely adopted.
I’d like to see us really embrace the improv mantra of “yes, and”. Agreement is great, but add something before you go. Upvote and comment.
That would be great, but does not seem on Lemmy devs priority list. Maybe Piefed
I wonder how much fuss would have to be put up in order to get nodeBB supporting it.
I agree with you. It’s disheartening when you see something you want to talk about and the comments are empty.
Or when you comment and no one else ever chimes in.
Yup, my questions in the Maori article have been up for 24 hours now, so time for people in that part of the world with direct knowledge had time to see it. My comments and questions got 7 upvotes, so other people seem interested in some more elaboration, but the thread is probably dead.
Someone’s leaving an audience that wants more hanging, and nobody even gave a yes or no saying if my understanding of the article was right. 😮💨
The thing I like about Lemmy is that they’re not banning you over stupid shit.
Oh they’re still doing that just easier to make a new space after that happens
Depends on your instance honestly
Post what you want, comment on everything, make your own community, etc etc etc
I see this all the time like some kind of catch-all for complaints about how effectively dead this platform is.
Not everyone is cutout to pioneer any kind of community, let’s just assume that OP takes this advice to heart, if their interest/hobby is niche enough, what’s even the likelihood of someone else tumbling upon it? Let alone contributing. Maybe this hypothetical other person wants to contribute but they see that it’s only one other person posting anything and they figure, “what’s the point?” Maybe they don’t agree with OP’s opinions and would rather find another “community” where their opinions won’t be contested even if it doesn’t exist. There are a myriad of reasons why, this is going to happen with every channel, fandom, interest group, etc. it’s a natural part of the process. The problem lies in the simple fact that there’s fucking no one here, there are enough bodies to come and stay and go and continue the cycle until a community is established.
Yes, there are plenty of channels or w/e they’re called here, but most of them are effectively islands in a sea of shit you don’t care about (or bots.) They’re not managed, and there’s nothing going on in them. Why is it up to you the user to stop what you’re doing and make something out of nothing? When there are already communities that do exist on other platforms, even if said platforms are trash like Reddit or Xitter are. The majority of users in large communities are lurkers, they might not actively contribute, but they do share content with their own friends or interest groups and that is what’s more likely to bring people in, those people might be people that do end up contributing, or they might be more lurkers. But it feeds into the growth of the community either way.
Most of Lemmy doesn’t have any of that though, because there’s no one here.
Community building involves more than just posting. It’s “If you post it, post about it everywhere else, and talk about it with everybody who will listen”. And then dealing with months if silence while you keep posting things that inspire others to join in.
Not everyone is cutout to pioneer any kind of community, let’s just assume that OP takes this advice to heart, if their interest/hobby is niche enough, what’s even the likelihood of someone else tumbling upon it?
The general advice is to go to more and more generic communities until you meet enough people to discuss the topics.
Originally, Reddit had no subreddits, there was only one single space where everybody would post.
Reducing the number of communities and merge some of them would definitely be useful. For people interested on that topic, there is [email protected]
I believe in Lemmy and the fediverse. But the subreddits with content I like aren’t here yet. So I still have to go back for that stuff.
But I always check here first.
Is there a way to ‘view all images’ like RES has a button for?
Try this, it improves lemmy’s web frontend
Lemmy is amazing. I am so glad I found my way here. I was doom scrolling as well. I had to unsubscribe from all my political communities I had joined and just keep one of my news committees. I then expanded the groups for my other interests. This really helped. You are in control of your time line here.
Use one of the apps so you can filter out content. “Trump, Trump’s, Republicans, Musk” seems to take care of the problem so far.I think I have some communities blocked and maybe a user or two aswell.
I don’t want another app. I use lemmy exclusively in the browser, and that feature is missing :(
Try using one of the PWA’s, like Voyager. Just go to vger.app in your browser. It’s still a browser-based front end, but it has more features than the default interface
Yeah, I withheld using an app until very recently for that exact feature. I miss the browser for other features though, not sure what to do. I’m using connect, maybe I’ll try a couple others or some other solution.
You should check out something like Tesserect, it’s a 3rd party front end for Lemmy that includes a lot of quality of life features, including word filtering. The demo is here: https://tesseract.dubvee.org/
If you like it, you could petition lemmy.world to offer it as an option directly.
Block FlyingSquid, it improves the community a huge amount.
Do it before they drag you into an argument, lose, then ban you.
Block FlyingSquid
You mean the user that moderates some Star Trek stuff and Out of Context Comics? What’s the problem..?
You’d be blocking half of Lemmy.
Funny cause I reduced my recent reddit usage cause I got tired of the toxic post election political liberal cope
Browse by “subscribed”, and subscribe to a lot of communities. Only do it by “all” when you can’t find good stuff in the subscribed view.
I do this and, while I do see a few intrusive US politics posts, it’s far less than when browsing by “all”.
The problem, as already stated, is that there are not many communities in the first place. And if there are, they’re likely more or less dead, with weeks or even months old posts.
Yes, it is a problem - depending on your tastes “subscribed” won’t be enough. But going “subscribed” and then “all” is bound to show less political posts than going straight for “all”.
Huh? There are a looot of communities. Of course, a good number of them are dead. To get a good idea of which smaller communities are active, I’d recommend following the [email protected] posts. @[email protected] did “active communities” overview threads a while ago at [email protected] too.
Disagree. I use subscribed and I get plenty of content, a couple hours worth a day. You may just be used to reddits firehose. If there’s a missing community, you can always create it and start posting consistently
I’m not here to post stuff, that’s the opposite of what I want. And the things I’m subscribed to I can scroll through within a couple minutes before they’re dry. It’s just too empty here with only a few threads and comments here and there.
Well then I can tell you you’re in the wrong place. There aren’t algorithms. There aren’t bots. Just people like me posting. It is run by and for individuals, and all posts are made by individuals. If you don’t want to post then you are the one to be mad at for not enough content
The fuck are you talking about? It’s not about algorithms (which there are some, just not content based), it’s about the lack of people. Maybe work on your reading comprehension. It’s simply a matter of the fediverse lacking critical mass.
And you are welcome to be part of adding to the critical mass by posting, but for lurkers this place is going to be empty for a very long time.
I don’t know why you people keep suggesting people do something that’s not within their interest & use case.
A lot of the small communities are not dead, they simply have a low post rate. If you actually post something of interest to them, they get engagement.
Social media suffers from the curse of the Pareto principle: The overwhelming majority of users do not generate content. They also suffer from the network effect: Most people will be where the content is, and most content creators will stay where the audience is. What we have on Lemmy is a group of people that skews more heavily toward consumption or commenting than posting new content, and the ever present thief of joy.
I have really been enjoying Comic Strips. There can be some political content, but there’s plenty of other interesting and funny stuff too.
Rather than trying to replace something else, it’s a good idea to look for what’s new to you.
Does lemmy have flairs? Would be useful if they had a mandatory flair for objectionable content
