this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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Fediverse

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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).

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[–] todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee 0 points 26 minutes ago (2 children)

You have fallen for the ultimate trick: wanting a "big" community.

You only get that from big, centralized social networks that want to maximize the amount of content you are fed, because it maximizes your ad views, and their profits.

Embrace the smallness. Lemmy still has room to grow, and having lot of different options for communication that aren't all owned by billionaires is a good thing. The fact that it isn't constantly trying to earn your attention is a feature, not a bug.

[–] Chozo@fedia.io 4 points 20 minutes ago (1 children)

I don't think it's that we want "big" communities, necessarily, as much as we want active communities. For instance, if there's a niche game I want to talk about, it's currently a roll of the dice whether or not there's a Lemmy community for it, and then if it does exist already then it's pretty much guaranteed to see 2, maybe 3 posts per week, tops.

That's really the only thing I miss about Reddit, being able to pretty much always have a discussion on any topic you'd want, at any given time.

For niche things, you kinds have to go to reddit.

I mean the worst of reddit is on mainstream topics like politics anyways. You're less likely to see toxicity in like a gaming subreddit. (Less likely than politics anyways)

[–] Blazingtransfem98@discuss.online 1 points 53 seconds ago

People wanting more activity than the small exclusive private club Fediverse has become isn't a trick or capitalist fallacy, they just want other people to see their fucking posts. Is that so strange and wrong? Why post things if no one is going to see them? You're seriously missing the point of a social media, if you really think having small nearly dead spaces is a good thing.

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 hour ago

I know I can post and be the change I seek.

Imo, this is your answer. I'm not sure exactly other solution you want. Content will not appear on Lemmy without someone first posting it. Advertising the platform to help draw people in is also important.

[–] mlg@lemmy.world 8 points 3 hours ago

Jokes on you the political content here is from the redditors who pretended to quit their award fueled addiction by also joining lemmy.

Seriously though, compare c/Politics to c/Worldnews or c/News. There is a very large dissonance between the comments shared despite both communities posting the same news info..

[–] ZK686@lemmy.world 8 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

The thing I like about Lemmy is that they're not banning you over stupid shit.

[–] TheFrirish@jlai.lu 13 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Depends on your instance honestly

[–] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 3 hours ago

Oh they're still doing that just easier to make a new space after that happens

[–] GhiLA@sh.itjust.works 14 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Politics is the one thing we all have in common.

The good old days where everyone watched the same five TV shows and discussed them are over.

[–] UntitledQuitting@reddthat.com 6 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

firefly was mid, there I said it.

[–] CafeFrog@lemmy.cafe 3 points 11 minutes ago

Straight to jail. Right away.

Everything Whedon has ever done was mid, and I'm going to be banned for saying that, probably.

[–] NorthWestWind@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

US Politics is the one thing ~~we~~ you all have in common.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Do you come from a country with no politics?

[–] NorthWestWind@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

No, but how interested are you in HK politics?

[–] stardust@lemmy.ca 7 points 4 hours ago

Whatever the social media ability to "create" your own algorithm is important. One way being a subscription and sticking to it.

Second being keyword filtering. I use Connect for Android which let's me filter out posts and communities containing keywords.

Same thing I do on reddit with reddit enhancement suite.

It's just the nature social media where anone can sign up.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 15 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

The Fediverse is virgin territory. The trails aren't blazed for you here; it's your job as an early adopter to make it the way you want it to be. You want a community? Start it and participate in it.

[–] thawed_caveman@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Enjoy being the only one posting.

Mass adoption is fundamental to make any social media viable; the fewer users it has, the less useful it is. Reddit has more users than Lemmy. It's that simple. People won't start switching until everybody else switches.

Bluesky is only barely starting to compete with Twitter, and that's after Twitter drastically worsened. Lemmy is a long, long way from competing with Reddit.

To me, it's a matter of time. The structural advantages of the fediverse mean that it's more stable on the long run; what i mean by that is, for-profit Reddit will get worse while Lemmy remains good, leading users to migrate here, so Lemmy will eventually outlive Reddit. And then along the way there will be a few big moments where Reddit really fucks up and a wave of people washes up on Lemmy. This is already happening, i'm pretty sure all of us here made our accounts after the Reddit API changes.

[–] Kichae@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 hour ago

Mass adoption is fundamental to make any social media viable;

Forums used to be lively and self-sustaining with memberships in the low hundreds. You only need "mass adoption" if you want and unending stream of novelty bullshit that you don't actially want to engage with to entertain yourself with while on the toilet.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 5 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Joining an existing community is usually easier than starting a new one.

!newcommunities@lemmy.world can be a place to find an existing community?

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Joining an existing community is usually easier than starting a new one.

There's also the problem of management. Lots of Lemmy comms are abandoned and, while there are some I would like to exist, I just do not visit regularly enough to be responsible for moderating more and more and more communities across the fedi. So I don't create new comms.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 2 points 5 hours ago
[–] secret300@lemmy.sdf.org 16 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

I hate reddit as a platform but I still have to use it every once in a while because people won't move to Lemmy/mbin/piefed.

I honestly don't understand it. People complain that they don't use the fediverse because it's small but somehow they don't realize if they just migrate over then it won't be.

It's aggravating how dumb people can be but hey, that's the world we're living in. I'll continue to use Lemmy and visit reddit if I have to.

[–] Kichae@lemmy.ca 7 points 5 hours ago

Yeah. It's the same with Mastodon. "There are a bunch of toxic people making me feel unwelcome" can be met with "so I left" or "so we flooded the place and took over, because there were only lile 800 people there"

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 6 points 6 hours ago

I honestly don’t understand it. People complain that they don’t use the fediverse because it’s small but somehow they don’t realize if they just migrate over then it won’t be.

Network effect in full blast

[–] NegativeLookBehind@lemmy.world 6 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

It’s not the size that matters. Just play with it for a while, maybe you’ll learn to like it.

Give it some time, it'll get bigger I promise.

[–] xapr@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 5 hours ago

I would suggest blocking the communities that post all the content you don't like. After I did that, it's been smooth sailing, and I read the All feed. There's not that many large news and politics communities that you would need to block to get rid of that stuff on your timeline.

[–] Gointhefridge@lemm.ee 39 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Seeing all the cats made me realize that we need to all participate to make the community what we want it to be. It’s clear to me there are a lot of lurkers based on the influx of cat pictures. The more we start posting in ANY instance the more visibility there will be for active users.

[–] lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org 14 points 8 hours ago

the cats

The voids whence the content shall come!

[–] renegadespork@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Post the kind of content you’d like to see.

[–] P4ulin_Kbana@lemmy.eco.br 7 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

This comment makes me want to both up and downvote it, because while it may be true, I don't think I have the skill to post.

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[–] anon6789@lemmy.world 43 points 11 hours ago (10 children)

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.

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[–] Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works 12 points 8 hours ago

I only used Reddit for two years, but I’m now really happy I made the jump to Lemmy.

Sadly, I can only agree that some niche content is difficult to find.

But I can’t complain because I’m not creating any of that content and moderating some community.

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