this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2023
136 points (97.9% liked)

Asklemmy

43940 readers
849 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I wanted to get a pulse check on how new members are finding the general experience/website. Is it more confusing than Reddit or are you finding the instance system a better way of doing things as it can give you more freedom of where you choose to create an account?

I'm a new user myself but have found the experience to remind me of Reddit back in the day, lol. It's definitely giving me old-school yet modern vibes and it's great to see something that isn't Reddit growing in popularity!

(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] genfood@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Somehow, the UI is really buggy for me so far, and I experience numerous lags. I didn't manage to create a post yet, and sporadically, it seems like my instance is not available, due to some server error pages. Usually, after a reload of the page, it is fine again.

Furthermore, the UI is differently worse, than Reddits. Searching is awful, and I miss a lot of sorting functionality or algorithm for bringing up the comments based on likes and sub-comments.

I hope this will become better now, the Lemmy gets a lot of attention. Sadly, there is no completed iOS app yet. I don't like using the Website. :D

But then, it is nice to have a decentralized version of Reddit. And it seems it has already a few users, I hope Lemmy will grow further. I will stay strong.

Edit: A grouping feature for “merging” communities from different instances is much needed. I get it, it's a different instance and probably the users of the certain communities like to have specific rule variations or just don't like the other participants of the other communities. But at least for browsing content it would be a great feature.

Occasionally, I click on a link of a different instance, where I don't have an account. And it is difficult to get that link directly into your instance, so you could comment on or like/dislike it or whatever you wish to do. I guess a smartphone app would do its part there. Or some kind of switching feature, to get immediately to your instance, at the same place.

[–] pfannkuchen_gesicht@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

yeah, the UI seems very buggy right now. Jzst now I had the start page endlessly load various posts for no reason. I had to reload the page to make it stop.
Also the popup menus just stay up when they shouldn't and I expect a new tab when clicking post links, instead it loads in the same tab, so I always have to go back.

[–] salieri@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Honestly im loving the experience and even though its getting big because of all the reddit drama, im loving the small communities feel that it has for now. I have to say though that navigation cross instances its being a bit of a headache and i hope it gets better, much better. At least it should notify me that i am not able to see the rest of the comments on a post because of some settings of the instances / my account no? Or am i missing something?

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Mane25@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Interface is better than "new" Reddit, not as good as old Reddit + RES.

Also: if I click on a link on another instance (for example https://lemmy.ml/c/asklemmy when I'm signed in on lemmy.world), I'm not signed in to lemmy.ml so I have to manually search for it in lemmy.world to post there - is there a common solution to that?

[–] mobiuscoffee@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How federalization works can be a bit confusing. For me the biggest hurdle to get over was how the different instances - lemmy.ml and lemmy.world - are separate websites. They can connect and interact with each other because they're federalized, but your account is only on lemmy.world.

Now for some magic!

Relative links for communities (subreddits) can work across instances:

As long as your instance knows the community exists the links should work.

[–] Mane25@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks for your reply. I feel like I 90% get the concept of federalisation, and it's very interesting. Just from a purely user experience point of view (because this is what was asked), I've already had several times where I've ended up on the "wrong" instance without realising it. I guess it partly takes getting used to. My experience has been more positive than negative overall though.

[–] ScottE@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Overall it's going well, and experience from both browser and Jerboa is great, especially considering the lack of maturity and large influx. It's been amazing to see how quickly communities have shown up. A couple of weeks ago when I first heard about Lemmy and plans for Reddit subs going dark, I looked at Lemmy and walked away with a meh because of lack of content, and what was here was not my thing. However, throughout the day today I watched the number of communities grow like crazy, with new topical communities popping up every time I checked.

I do think lack of a centralized /c/ namespace makes things confusing for a lot of people, and will result in a lot of topical duplication between servers - even with federated access and searching. I get why lack of a centralized namespace is also a design feature, but it comes at a price, in my opinion, and it'll be interesting to see how it works itself out over time. Just an observation/opinion on my part.

Still a bit early to call it, but it's looking good!

[–] Gable@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Honestly, mobile needs a breakthrough app for iOS. It is not nearly as new user friendly as Reddit was when I started there. The whole instances/federation stuff is new to me so there is that additional layer to learn/understand. Here to give it a try though and I am hopeful for a new and different route for sharing and communication.

[–] domsch@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'll be honest. While I like the idea of decentralized social stiff, its also a huge issue. First you have to choose an instance, which isn't too bad, but you can't move. I hear Lemmy.ml being under pressure and I want to move somewhere else to help.with that. My account is 4 years old though and I can take nothing with me. Additionally this means all my content is on one instance. If that ever goes down, the network as a whole my keep existing, but my user and all I've put into Lemmy will be gone. And while I trust Lemmy instances more than reddit in terms of privacy, I'm not so sure when it comes to uptime and longevity. Finally, the whole concept of decentralized is hard to wrap my head around. My instance being separate from others but still being subscribed to communities of other instances feels unintuitive. Its the she issue I have with mastodon. I keep loosing track of instances, communities, apps etc. All with different names and logins etc.

For now, I'm trying to get used to Lemmy and just search for communities I'm subscribed to on reddit and see how it goes. It definitely works well enough. Just some conceptual issues I might have to get used to.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Richard@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

It’s promising, but I miss having Apollo (or similar) as my interface for the service. I very rarely used Reddit via a browser so not having that robust app is a loss. We’ll see if any of the app developers that have been impacted by Reddits API changes look to support the platform.

Started using Mastodon this year and it was conveniently at the time Ivory, Ice Cubes and Mona were all in the process of shipping beta or final releases. It made the whole experience much more seamless. Mastodon benefited from 6 months of prior unrest in the Twitter community and Devs were already transitioning when Twitter pulled the rug out under them. I think Lemmy will be a harder transition in that respect.

Keen to see how it develops but.

Edit: also interested to see how the decentralised nature of it all plays out for this sort of service which focuses on communities. For Mastodon it seems fine to follow people on other services where it’s still a 1:1 interaction (I with one account follow someone with presumably one account). I’m sort of curious to see how things will scale and play out when you have a dozen different Lemmy services all with their own “Apple”, “music”, “tech” communities and if that dilutes the conversation or allows it to be broader. Bit concerned things may get spread a bit thin at the conversation level, even accounting for the fact accounts can cross post.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] jcb2016@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Using lemmy zoomed it in my phone is a nice experience. I see everything. Looks good on my desktop also. Still trying to get a feel for this place

[–] oceanic@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

As a Digg and Reddit refugee I can only say: "let's goooooooo!!!!"

[–] Banzai51@midwest.social 2 points 1 year ago

Like Mastodon, I'm getting used to the decentralized nature. Now that I found subscriptions and the option to change my view to subscriptions, things are easier. I'm just worried that topics are going to get big on disparate instances that aren't linked. But as I use it, I'm liking it.

For now it is nice to be outside corporate sanitation.

[–] SpezCanLigmaBalls@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I’ve enjoyed it a lot. There are some stuff that could fit better on screen, like when you look at the communities you’re subscribed to. Also, it would be nice to show your subscribed communities in alphabetical order.

Otherwise, I really enjoy the layout. It’s so simple

[–] Idefinitelydonotknow@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So, honestly, the only thing that concerns me is duplication of various "subreddits", for a lack of better term.

I searched for Technology, and I found two different ones. I know that's how the Fediverse works, but it may cause confusion and drive down user engagement

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] AfricanExpansionist@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lots of problems here... I'm an experienced Mastodon user, and I have to say that I correctly predicted my experience with Lemmy.

It's not optimized for mobile, it's a lot of work to find what you want, and whereas Mastodon seems like an improvement on Twitter, this seems like a step back from Reddit.

Reddit also has an issue with finding subreddits, but Google indexes it and you can pretty easily find and subscribe to things just using keywords.

We need better app UIs ASAP, that make basic functions obvious and easy. It's a platform that probably does great on PC but I'm stuck with Jerboa, and it's really killing my enjoyment.

[–] mjohanning@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

Better UIs is definitely one of the main problems for mass adoption I would say. I don't have any trouble using it myself, but it can be a bit clunky.

[–] Father_Redbeard@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

People are much friendlier here, so far.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] cdbob@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm enjoying the smaller subs the most. Many subs I used to frequent have just gotten too big. It's nice to be able to post in a sub and have it feel like it used to.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] taladar@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

I just signed up a few hours ago. So far it seems to be entirely dominated by posts about the recent reddit drama which makes it hard to judge if there is much regular content here that I would enjoy.

[–] hddsx@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

It's actually pretty good, especially once you figured out how to subscribe to communities on other instances. I'm a bit miffed, to be honest. I was thinking about making something like this and I found that it already existed.

A few things I would change on the web interface:

  1. Long text post should have a "show more" instead of having to click into it
  2. Clicking on the title should bring you to the article if it's a link. Clicking on the comments should bring you to the discussion.
  3. Please. I have no iOS development skill but need an iOS app that's not in beta.
[–] nonresonant@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't understand how federation works and the different instances and how communities with in that regard. But otherwise I'm happy to leave Reddit and still have similar communities talking to my interest.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Agility0971@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I don't like the sidebar with rules. It removed the horizontal space from content if you keep scrolling.

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›