this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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I really want to like lemmy, but it's difficult. I'm new to all this fediverse thingy, and I might just have old habits and perceptions how things should work but... I keep seeing the same posts more than once, iOS experience is not that good really, sometimes I see dead posts from 2 years ago for some reason, despite having subscribed to like 30 communities there aren't that many new posts to read.

Part of it probably that subreddits had millions of people so a lot of posts every minute, but it still feels underwhelming.

It's not as doomscrolly. Maybe I should find something else to waste my time on haha

What is your experience with lemmy? Maybe I just do things wrong. Let me know

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[–] milkytoast@beehaw.org 26 points 1 year ago (2 children)

i mean so far, I'm enjoying it. sure, the community isn't as large, but that's mostly a good thing. on reddit, if i made a post, it would be like a 25% chance to get hundreds of comments, and a 75% chance to get none. here, I've gotten a few, high quality responses on every question post I've made. i do miss the "auto hide read posts" feature, but maybe that'll get added some day

[–] adj16@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (7 children)

You can hide read posts here! In the web app settings for your profile:

[–] adriator@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Is there a way to stop the endless loading of posts on the website? Because every time I try to click a post, it moves down because a new post loaded, and this happens every ten seconds, constantly.

[–] CosmicSploogeDrizzle@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It's a bug that wasnt an issue when the community was smaller. Last I heard they will replace it with a refresh icon that pops up at the top when new posts are available.

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

Oh thank God is a bug, I really thought it was a feature of the site.

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

Thank jeebus. I was getting all fussy thinking it was a me/my phone/my browser problem.

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[–] psilves1@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago
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[–] briongloid@aussie.zone 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fediverse currently reminds me of Reddit from 10 years ago in frequency of content. There is something nice about not being in the rat race, less toxicity.

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[–] orbit@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago (9 children)

The reality is that there was/is no reddit alternative and right now we're all in this transitory phase where we're all looking for a new home. We'll all just have to wait for the dust to settle. Lemmy isn't perfect but is improving and additionally other alternatives like kbin and tildes are in the works.

To your larger point, much of what you're feeling is the abrupt break in habits. I've been using the gap to develop more positives ones, and it's been great.

[–] Oslypsis@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A thought came to my mind when reading your comment.

Instead of finding a new home, let's make lemmy our new home. Let's try to populate lemmy more, get its activity up, and post more than we would've on reddit (since we have less users, we would need more posts per user), so it can stand a chance at being a reddit competitor.

[–] manitcor@lemmy.intai.tech 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Yes, make homes! we need so much more hardware, while personal instances may not be a good idea, we are so short on compute that if you are inclined run your own instance, bring your friends!

The experience on smaller faster instances is already comparable, the content flow, really not bad either though it takes about an hour of finding and subbing to the communities you want and a day for your instance to really start grabbing the content for you.

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[–] pistachio@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

The default sorting is by "active" which to me doesn't show a lot of new content (from the last hours). Switching to hot improves the experience a lot.

[–] turbulentMagma@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You make it sound like not doomscrolly is a bad thing

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[–] araquen@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago

I would say to breathe deep and take your time. Lemmy is not a clone of Reddit, and it shouldn’t be viewed as, say you would compare functionality between 2 third-party Reddit apps.

Think of it as coming in to a new MMO after having played the old one for many years. Some things will be familiar, and some things will be different. Some mechanics may feel like a “step backwards” while others are cool additions.

Lemmy isn’t new, but it’s getting fresh eyes on its user experience and that is a good thing. And unlike Reddit, each community/server/whathaveyou can be far more responsive to their users feedback. That said, not every response will be a “yes” but you don’t have requests filtering through various levels of technological red tape, which I understand has been a challenge for the Reddit moderators, who still do not have the necessary tools to effectively moderate their subreddits.

When I first joined Beehaw, and saw, originally, a “lack” of diverse subreddits (including my mainstays) I was a bit disappointed, but then I thought to myself: “damn the torpedoes, I’m just gonna wing it” and subscribed to a bunch of communities that looked promising.

I’ve been on Lemmy since the disastrous AMA and have not looked back. I’ve even engaged more in these last 5 days on Lemmy/Beehaw than in the last year on Reddit. And while I still miss my 250+ subreddits (including r/superbowl and the subreddits I collected as part of a Reddit gestalt (r/inthesoulstone, the subreddit for Purple button pushers, r/buddhistasfuck (created as a lark, someone posted it wouldn’t last a day and I stayed to prove them wrong, and while it was a quiet subreddit, every once in a while someone would post something they thought was “extremely” buddhist)) the Lemmy communities have provided more meaningful interactions. Plus, Lemmy will create its own gestalts, and I’ll have new ways to experience the never-ending stream of random data tidbits I have grown to crave.

[–] mo_ztt@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Honestly man, as much as I 100% agree on the UI difficulties, it's like a breath of fresh air. There's good music posted, people posted books and I looked and really wanted to read them. It's more human. There's this tiny little handful of content here, but it's not all same-y and in-joke-y and weird.

I'm not trying to hate on reddit, I still go to reddit for news because of more or less what you're talking about (the weird sorting in the newsfeed here and the lack of certain content). But what I like about here is that there are nerdy people, there's real content, there's not this weird hivemind and endless dopamine content. The great stuff about reddit was always the in-depth storytelling and unique content, to me, not just the gratification aspect of everything working right and new content popping up. I'm happy with Lemmy despite the hiccups because it seems like it's getting back to that.

[–] dystop@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I know the feeling, but the way I'm dealing with it is twofold.

  1. Create content. If the commuity you like has few posts, then start something. If the community doesn't exist, create it. I'm doing my part by creating maliciouscompliance (quick shoutout: /c/maliciouscompliance@lemmy.world , https://lemmy.world/c/maliciouscompliance , !maliciouscompliance@lemmy.world ).

  2. Recognise that I used to spend too much time on Reddit and I should spend less time on social media in general. "Not as doomscrolly" is a feature for me, although I recognise this isn't for everyone.

[–] Boozilla@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I find it exciting. Very reminiscent of the Digg exodus. Sure, it can be a little frustrating at times. But reddit was going downhill for me long before the API stupidity. Lemmy feels like returning home in a way.

[–] legion@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

It's not going to replace Reddit overnight. Those communities have to be built here. If people stick around, it will happen.

[–] CleanDefinition@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The biggest problem I see is fragmentation, people are creating the same community in different instaces, /c/Piracy for example. Lemmy should prevent this, community names should be unique, it should have an index of all the Lemmy Fediverse where instances can lookup if a community exists instead of waiting for a user to import that community to his instance. Something similar to what BTC does with the decentralized ledger.

[–] Ghast@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Having 'no single source of truth' is part of the joy.

If you're not happy with /r/cars moderators banning everyone who drives a Skoda, then you're out of luck. Here in federation land, you can just go to a different lemmy.something/c/cars place.

Of course you can still follow and interact with all the /c/cars communities from any Lemmy instance (and interact a little from Mastodon).

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

Part of the issue is that we hardly have enough people to sustain one random community, let alone several semi-independent ones. That barrier alone will turn others away and the cycle of not having enough souls will repeat itself

[–] Ghast@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Right, but everyone can follow the lot, so there's no need to divide.

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[–] dogmuffins@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

The biggest problem I see is fragmentation, people are creating the same community in different instaces, /c/Piracy for example.

I agree, to an extent. You're right in that if you were part of the vibrant community of /r/piracy then it's miserable to see it shatter here on lemmy. That said, this only applies if you're expecting lemmy to be a 1 for 1 reddit replacement. For this type of community to remain cohesive, /r/piracy would have had to spin up their own instance and in /r/piracy direct everyone to lemmy.piracyinstance.whatever.

You can't really "fix" this in a central way because even if you did, it would be trivial to create an instance that would allow duplicate community names. Also, I can see a lot of use cases for lemmy which do not intend to be federated.

That said, it's not necessarily as big a problem as it appears, if you just accept that this is how the fediverse works. There's no single source of control, so of course people can create 147 different /c/piracy communities if they wish to. Once you accept that, then it's not really that difficult to subscribe to all the /c/piracy communities you can find.

The problem itself could be diminished by a few new features which I feel certain will emerge in the future:

  • linked communities, where one communities content is syndicated to another. So if you post in !selfhosted@lemmy.world then you also post in !selfhosted@lemmy.ml. This would work differently to cross-posting, all comments would be reflected on both instances.
  • grouped communities, where you can subscribe to a group of /c/selfhosted communities with one click, so you see them all in your feed.
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[–] manitcor@lemmy.intai.tech 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Its hard for readers early on. You need lots of people to fill the feed. Get busy or wait for people to get things addressed and pipelines running.

Its mainly UX, it will come in time.

important to note, none of this made itself (even reddit); it took people using and contributing.

[–] Potato_in_my_anus@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

Yes, you' re right, I've been a Redditor for more than 16 years and have seen many subreddits come and go. Even today, there are subreddits like Android that only get 200 or 300 upvotes on a good day.

[–] dracul104@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If I'm spending less time staring at my phone and more time picking up a book or something, all the better for me. I've found myself engaging more and doomscrolling less though, so the time feels more well spent even though I'm spending less time then I would have on reddit.

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

Feels like an older reddit, which I enjoy(ed). I also appreciate the genuine interactions and that upvotes are a 1:1 with users. No smoke and mirrors.

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[–] JerkyIsSuperior@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The community and the app is still relatively new. To be honest, I prefer smaller communities where I can leave for a few hours without half the posts sliding to page 5 and beyond. Instead of uncritically consuming digital content, try to contribute to smaller communities, post a couple of cool links, or even (Gasp! Horror!) do something else for a while.

[–] nosurf@unilem.org 2 points 1 year ago

I have a similar experience, but its like a user base of 200k vs idk how many million on reddit. There wont be an infinite amount of posts until lemmy grows more.

I think only 1 percent of all users on lemmy and reddit post. So its 2k active posters vs 60k active reddit posters (assuming reddit has 6m).

The sorting has been bad i also see dead posts but overall im enjoying lemmy more than i had reddit in the later years (joined 2010).

[–] DrQuint@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

I just sort by hot, check twice a day, make a thread if I want an inbox and it's fine

[–] bizzle@lemmy.moorefam.net 2 points 1 year ago

I mean, you're being realistic, and nobody can fault you for that. The jank is going to be too much for some people, they'll come here maybe but won't stick around. Other people will come and think that the positive aspects are more important than the negative ones and they'll migrate.

I'm a FOSS nerd and advertising makes me physically sick, so I'm more than willing to put up with the frustrating things about Lemmy.

My one advice is, if you want to see more content then post it.

[–] Dewie99@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I had the same problem of seeing posts more than once or consistently when viewing the site.

I had to dig under the Menu, click onto my profile name, select Settings, and make some changes.

Under that page I changed “Type” to “Subscribed” (Default was Local) and “Sort Type” to “Top Day” rather than “Hot”. Then make sure to click “Save”

This seems to have improved things for me a bit.

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[–] Awoo@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

One of your issues is probably sorting by Active instead of sorting by Hot. A major difference in the experience on Lemmy is the "Active" sort method being the default.

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

Oh my, that has just been there the whole time and I repeatedly glossed over it!

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

It's far from perfect, but I'm taking a stand.

Half the reason I used Reddit was to cure boredom. I've decided to find other things to do. The other main reason I loved to check in was to make sure I don't miss big news. So far, Lemmy seems to scratch that itch. It'll take a long time for niche communities to establish, but I'll just deal with that for now. Maybe I'll just go back to some old forums for that purpose.

[–] meldrik@lemmy.wtf 2 points 1 year ago

Lemmy is still very early in it's development and there's only two full time working on it afaik.

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

+1, as many have said, participation is key. Make communities, posts, and comments.

[–] tRFRmrNe8Nj2Kimc@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I know what you mean. The biggest issue I'm having is finding and subscribing to communities that are not a part of the instance I joined with.

I kept seeing links that listed communities I was interested in subscribing to, but then it would ask me to log in, I'd put in my credentials, only for the log in to not work. I finally realized I had to make a new account with that instance, and then i could log in and join it. I don't want to have to juggle between 3 or 4 accounts to enjoy content, plus much if it is duplicated as some instance are linked, but others are not.

Also I use Jerboa to browse lemmy, don't have a PC, and would rather use an app than my web browser(Brave).

[–] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's not how it works.

You can subscribe to remote instances from your own instance. You shouldn't be using multiple accounts.

For example, you are on lemmy.world, and the group you replied to is on lemmy.ml. I'm replying to the conversation from lemmy.blahaj.zone. The instances communicate with each other.

What you need to do is search for the instance you want to join. So if you see a cool group called CoolGroup on a server called some.instance, you would go to the search box and search for [!CoolGroup@some.instance](/c/CoolGroup@some.instance). That will let you find it.

Yes, that could and should be easier, but lemmy is not a finished product, and it was not prepared for the reddit influx, so it will take time to iron out usability stuff.

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

yeah seriously

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

I'm actually enjoying the lack of doomscroll.

Since Lemmy isn't built to trap you for hours on end to get that sweet ad revenue, you can just run out of new stuff to see and then stop lemmying. Bust open the eReader or get to that backlog of bookmarked articles.

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

Does anyone know why so many subs I've subscribed to say pending? Does a mod need to approve it?

[–] jcb2016@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I Think its a bug. if you subscribe to lemmy.ml communities it will say waiting or something else. but if you actually check your communities, you are actually subscribed to them. It's happening to me as well.

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

I mean having 1 less thing to doomscroll on is good innit

[–] statlerwaldorf@vlemmy.net 2 points 1 year ago

I remember HATING Reddit after the great Digg migration. The information was presented in a different way and the discussions seemed to be the focus rather than the linked content. It took a while to get used to it and I'm feeling a bit of the same here. There are a ton of similarities that are already here, so it's not as jarring and things are improving every day.

I feel like I'm interacting more here than I did on Reddit for a long time. By the time anything showed up on my feed over there, it was 1 day old, had 5000 comments, and had devolved into memes.

[–] arthur@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago

Any new platform will have far less content to begin with. And far less tools. I hope that people do create apps like Infinity, Relay and Apollo for Lemmy soon (or that Jerboa grows to that quality level).

The content will come, as Reddit becomes a shell of it's former self to satisfy the VCs.

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