There is a huge emphasis I see on just growing community size and creating an alternative to reddit.
Back in the day we used to hang out in irc chats with 5-10 active users or forums with few thousand users max. I made friends there I visted across countries. Years after Id log in and people would ask how you’ve been.
I had a reddit account for over 10 years and I dont think a single person would recognize my username. Its always felt like people aren’t talking to you but trying to appeal to the whole audience for points. Reddit exploits our psychology for attention but nothing humane is gained there. The super massive “community” ends up as a void where 99% of posts go completely unseen and any discussions suffer heavily from mod mentalities.
If this a place where even just ten people call home but feel good doing so, that is more good than a million being miserable. Maybe the best alternative is not to be reddit altogether.
Besides, good things have a natural tendency to spread, we don’t need to focus on it.
Hey! This post is not specifically related to the lemmy.world instance. From now on, posts such as these will be removed, in order for the community to stay on topic. However, as this is a highly upvoted post, I’ll just lock it for now.
Build a good community, the growth will come
As always.
While a part of me doesn’t think this will last forever, it’s nice to be a part of a growing community in which you were a part from the relatively beginning (of an exodus, if we’ll be more specific about it). It makes people feel more involved and closer to each other, and see each other beyond just being a random name or a number or a statistic. Honestly, the fact that there isn’t a million eyes looking right now and scrutinizing every word I say gives me more confidence to simply… comment. Put myself out there. Like what I’m doing now. I’ve probably commented more in the past two days than I have from years on Reddit.
And I feel like even if it does get bigger (maybe not exponentially; I honestly doubt Reddit will lose a lot of people as some people just don’t care for change. Look at Twitter :/ ), I feel like the fact I’ve been here from when it was in its infancy to whatever point it may become in the future would give me the courage to keep expressing myself.
Just my two cents!
I feel that. This platform doesn’t feel like it will necessarily be one to make it big. Or be mainstream. Or get all of reddit to move over.
I think what the platform does feel like is something I’ll remember fondly. When I think of my time on reddit, I mostly just think of arguments, power hungry mods, and spam. This feels like a community and I wouldn’t be happy to lose it to growth.
It can be the forum to rule them all
The longer ive stayed off reddit, the more I have grown the love the benifits of Lemmy. Discussions are civil, the vibe is a lot more chill and if anything, it invites users to participate. I wasn’t sure if I would manage to avoid reddit given how addicted I was to it. Suddenly, I feel like I’ve found a better place…
Honestly, both sides of the coin have merits. A quiet place where people recognise each other is perfect for making friends, but bigger communities collect more information and participation. It’ll be significantly less personal, but it has its upsides.
Lemmy does deel a lot better than Reddit though, I have to agree :D
To me, the real benefit of growth is the ability to have active communities focused on niche topics, like discussion of a single book series rather than a genre or books in general.
I don’t know if it’s possible get there without creating an Eternal September situation in the broader communities, but it would be nice if we could.
Don’t get me wrong, reddit was amazing until it’s CEO wanted to cash in on the hard work done by its community. I don’t have an issue with being profitable, the means used simply isn’t acceptable.
I was just going to say this! I follow a few subreddits that involve a lot of theories and sharing of video game information. Those would be absolutely gutted/non-existent with a small community because discoveries would be too slow to maintain interest for most.
The gaming instance on beehaw is picking up steam! But yeah it will take some time before it’s able to compete with r/gaming but I am here for it!
I probably posted and commented a combined total of five times a year on Reddit. Maybe I’m just a lurker by trait, but I definitely feel like the vibe here is much more inviting and I feel like I may participate in more discussions.
I feel the same, I don’t know if it’s just me but Reddit feels somewhat hostile at times when people misinterpret a small detail in my comment and proceed to rip me to shreds and it ain’t fun!
Better, not bigger.
I’m personally looking forward to growth here because I want niche communities to form like they did on reddit. And you can only do that when there’s enough critical mass of users.
Yes, very much this. I was able to reach out to a very small community before this blew up and the advice I got there was extremely impactful to a sensitive issue I’m navigating with my family.
It’s really the thing I’m most upset about losing.
It’s difficult to find spots to congregate and commiserate online when you or someone you love has an experience only shared with 0.1% of the population.
1 out of 1,000 and then only if they also want to talk about it.
If reddit still exists, and if I go back to it at all, that would be the only reason.
I know it’s not the same, but if you don’t see a community you like, why not create one and be the first? There may be someone else in the same boat as you.
This isn’t niche by any means, but I recreated maliciouscompliance (one of my favorite communities) because it wasn’t available and I wanted to see more posts haha.
(and if you’re interested -
https://lemmy.world/c/maliciouscompliance
Or type the following in the search bar at the top: [email protected] )
One of my favorites too, subscribed! I probably should start a few, there’s definitely some I’ll miss having regular access to.
be the change you want to see!
True, but a niche starts with one, two, six, a dozen, a hundred, folks who just persist and have a good time. And not worry about growth, that’s a side effect, not a cause. Growth is a corporate disease. We don’t need to emulate it.
In general, I prefer quality over quantity. I never joined Reddit, and only visited under duress (i.e. troubleshooting Linux install & Reddit was the only place w/the info I needed).
For some reason, using Lemmy feels like I’m using old-school forums like EZBoard (I know…dating myself). I don’t think that it needs to “become the next Reddit” to be an effective community platform.
Kind of a weird analogy, but it’s like Mallrats…practically NOBODY saw it in theaters, but over time, it found its audience.
Just focus on quality community interactions, and the user base numbers will find the right level.
I guess it depends on what you’re here for. I’m not really looking for friends as much as insightful comments from people of similar interests. Quality posts need a certain amount of people to show up. Like the guy spending months and years making the perfect photo of the moon. Would that happen in a forum with ten people? I don’t think so. Not to say that quality content wont happen here. It’s all up to each and every one of us in the end, and people seem to leave longer comments of better quality and substance. Lets do our best and see where it goes!
Im old enough to miss chat rooms on aol. Anything like that still exist?
@dreamsindigital01 @andobando Remember yahoo chat rooms? :P Me and my Ex would use them all the time to stay in communication when she was alive. Many years ago
I feel like discord is the closest thing I’ve seen, minus the bots flooding chat and IMing you to warn your account. Ah, the good ol days
Yes, on Matrix/Element there are chat rooms.
I still post on Web forums.
I like getting to know the people I’m chatting with.
I agree. I’m still hoping some subreddits will move over to Lemmy, but I’m really enjoying Lemmy anyhow. The Lemmy communities seem generally really positive so far and there is enough content for me to enjoy. It even helps with reducing my time lost on the internet while still providing me with the community and information-influx that I enjoy. Quality over quantity. I also really love the idea of the technical parts: federated, open source and self-hostable.
This place is exactly what I have been looking for Glad I quit reddit
Sort of sounds like my little Arizona town. “No, we don’t want this economic opportunity, we like the town small and manageable!” The average age ten years ago was 55, and now it is 65. What is going to happen to the town in 20 years?
Also things are a bit harder if you have a niche hobby. I started a community for back country skiing and I am still hoping that we get more content posters.
I agree and congrats for starting that community. My reason for being here is to connect with other flashlight enthusiasts. The other site has a large, tight-knit community and already a surprising amount of posts have come up on Lemmy. c/flashlight I hope yours continues to flourish.
The original post alludes to that point, where they mention logging in after years had passed. Sounds like the community fizzled out, much like every irc chat I frequented bank in the day.
I get being wary of growing into something recognizable, but the growth is already happening. Hopefully that growth can be community oriented and organic.
A concern that I haven’t seen mentioned is Eternal September. Right now, Redditors are the school kids who are barging into someone else’s space and trying to make it their own, without first knowing what the community is like.
The same thing happened on Reddit. I’ve always seen the Obama AMA as triggering Reddit’s Eternal September, though it can be argued that it was happening before that. The influx of users killed the Alot Monster, and forget about anyone helping with grammar; they’d be ridiculed and downvoted into the negative. Then, Reddit got rid of the up/down counter altogether, so nobody coming from Facebook would end up with hurt feelings.
Anyhow, there’s a risk that Redditors are going to ruin the fediverse. I’m new here and can already see it happening. Fingers crossed though, I’m staying optimistic!
Thank you for bringing up Eternal September. I feel like it’s one particularly relevant to the situation right now. I’m new here and I’m just jumping in and seeing what happens, but I’m aware that I should probably read more than I write.
I should probably read more than I write
maybe, this is definitely a respectful way to enter a community. but i think no matter what, people are going to feel like any community was at its peak right when they joined and they’ll impose the eternal september flag upon whatever next the influx after they joined happens to be.
I’m here for good. I quit reddit for a year and started peeking back again a couple weeks ago and saw all this drama unfold. This place is exactly what I have been looking for since reddit went south (years ago imo). Cheers everyone :)
Totally agree. We should worry less about coaxing redditors or about how many users joined etc etc. Interact with people. Post and comment. Create good content and share it. That’s what drives engagement, and all of the other concerns depend on engagement.
Somewhere some old Lemmy User was annoyed about the new members posting junk content. There seemed to be the opinion that if something has been said by someone else, there is no need to say it again.
I disagree, i feel that with every comment i enrich this community
Yup! It’s not a wiki with a 1:1 correspondence of topic:discussion. It’s a forum. 100 people can say 100 different things on the same topic. That’s the beauty of it.
I’ve read somewhere that Lemmy veterans are already fearing another eternal september. As a r/efugee myself I already love it here and will at least try to actually behave
