this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2023
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Asklemmy

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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!

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[–] ManateeManny@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I love it here and I'll express myself and show love to all with manatees

[–] eldrichhydralisk@lemmy.sdf.org 11 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Much like when I went from Twitter to Mastodon, finding "my people" is a lot more work. It's unpleasantly easy for links to a community to take me directly to that instance instead of leaving my on my instance where I'd be able to subscribe and interact. But also like Mastodon, the experience is much nicer once things start getting set up. Really nice not getting pestered to use the app constantly!

I want to second that it's very frustrating how links tend to go to the parent instance rather than my instance, as it seems like that's seldom what a user would want.

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[–] goldleader@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Sorry if this has been asked before. But my front page seems to dynamically add new posts as I'm scrolling. It makes me lose my place during the scroll. How can I have it just load once at start, and then allow me to scroll through?

[–] MinkLitly@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's pretty cool so far. Takes some getting used to, little buggy here and there, but nothing intolerable. People are more respectful on here. On reddit and most all other platforms, I just lurked for the most part to avoid getting "aKsHuAlLy'D" by some angry poster. It's chill here and it's got potential ^-^

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[–] vox@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

cool that it's written in Rust also decentralization (not the blockchain kind) is the future, but...
lemmy ui feels kinda unpolished, and sometimes community join requests just hang forever.

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

Yeah, the odd hangs are a little iffy (subscribing and upvoting). Though I actually like the UI so far since it's very clean. If I care enough I could always implement my own custom CSS using the "Stylus" extension in chrome/edge.

[–] cyber_kalashnikov@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I only disagreed regarding the UI. I like it.

Although there is always room for improvement.

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[–] roseh@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The interface is nice and friendly, but the way the fediverse and the different instances works is kind of confusing. Still not sure what that's all about

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[–] Parellius@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The one thing I'm struggling with is how do I find a subreddit equivalent? For example r/formula1 or r/UKpolitics on Reddit might be.... What?

Also is it possible to find these communities using Jerboa or so I need to login on my desktop?

Edit - spelling

[–] Phrax@reddthat.com 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Many specific subreddits don't have equivalents yet; check Communities (top bar on website)/All. On Jerboa the Communities button is the three dots on the bottom bar: https://reddthat.com/post/8623

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

It's just something to get the hang of. Currently somewhat confusing, but not insurmountable. It does feel a lot like Reddit did some thirteen years ago. This is a nice blend of modern and easy to use, and has a whiff of my early days on the internet (bb's, forums, etc) without measuring internet speeds in kbps, which is nice.

[–] Galiratabbycat@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I wish threaded comments would nest more even though that only plays well with desktop usage. It was the nicest feature of reddit to follow threaded conversations with ease.

I think the biggest issue is going to be discoverability of the largest community for a specific interest. For example, if people are interested in Diablo IV they are going to want to swarm to the instance with the largest community. Making that easy to find will grow communities very quickly.

[–] kresten@feddit.dk 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I find it easier than using mastodon for the first time tbh

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[–] Lizardonis@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

I was new to Reddit (3 weeks of activity), and switching to Lemmy is a bit confusing. But one evening is enough to learn the basics, I hope. Let's keep it rolling. :)

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

I'm really enjoying Lemmy so far, it's a lot different from Reddit but at the same time feels familiar. I understand and like the concept of a bunch of small hosted servers federated together. I feel like if user logins were also federated that would solve a ton of the onboarding issues for new people. I really miss default subreddits too.

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[–] BobQuasit@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I think Lemmy desperately needs to integrate two things:

  • The ability to search for communities across instances inside of Lemmy (I'm aware of the search option outside of Lemmy, but that's less than ideal)
  • The ability to easily search within posts A) in all local communities, B) in all subscribed communities, and C) across all communities in the whole Fediverse. Yes, I'm aware that C) is a huge ask. But I think it's vital to the success of Lemmy.
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[–] sphere_au@reddthat.com 7 points 1 year ago

It's gone quite smoothly so far - found an instance local to me and joined, subscribed to a bunch of communities, installed Jerboa and set it up - didn't hit any roadblocks.

The cross-server subscription thing is a bit counter-intuitive, but this seems to be an issue that people are already aware of. The Fediverse lengthy signup ritual of choosing an instance is there, but that's just a feature of how the medium works and I'm already familiar with the issues from Mastodon, so it didn't bother me.

[–] MajickmanW@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

There's a learning curve for sure, but I think I could get used to it. I'm hoping this boom during the Reddit black out helps pick up steam and we see a lot of cool features roll out in the mobile app/mornptions for fedoverse clients.

[–] MrMeatballGuy@feddit.dk 6 points 1 year ago

I think Lemmy seems like a good idea and generally like it so far, but i do think that users that aren't that tech savvy may have issues. It's also nice that the servers are customizable in a way, but at the same time if you pick certain servers you can't see down votes, or creating communities might be disabled which will seem inconsistent to newcomers that think of Lemmy as a more traditional platform like Reddit that only has one instance. The community search is also pretty clunky, a lot of users will probably have trouble understanding why they can't just find all available communities instead of writing an obscure email-like string that still says "no results", but then magically after searching again it will be there. I would say some areas are unpolished and even a bit buggy at times too. I figured these things out pretty fast, but being a software dev myself, i know that an end-user may struggle a lot more with these things, to the point where they may just abandon the platform out of frustration. I hope some of the rough edges can be smoothed out because the idea of this platform is definitely interesting, but if average people can't use it it's less likely to really succeed. I must admit that even i am a bit skeptical, and i may have to return to Reddit if not enough users/content migrate to this platform, even though i don't really like many of the decisions Reddit make. I'm giving it a fair shot though and i definitely like it so far.

[–] alphapro784@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I like it here a lot more than Mastodon and its so much easier to go and subscribe to other communities at other nodes/servers also to engage in other servers as well. Mastodon was a little more complicated, you do that but it was a little fincky IMO and of course I love Lemmy more than Reddit and I hope it blows up also stays that way too lol (RIP all the servers)

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

I tend to agree. Just not sure comparing Lemmy to Mastodon is fair, since they seems like different platforms (eg. Reddit vs. Twitter).

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[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's an exciting re-imagining of a few ideas (usenet, digg) seemingly mashed together.

I'm finding a lot of content that I've voted on, and I'm maybe done-with. I'd love to know (where to find) an option to hide content I've seen and voted around, so I can just count on regular in-mail to chase the conversation. I'm sure that nit will go away once I find some menu-option I'm just not seeing!

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[–] smdb@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

Long live federation! For me it’s just nice to see centralized social networks are losing popularity.

[–] GoOnASteamTrain@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

I'm loving a the idea and finding a bunch of nice people in communities :) The only thing I'm finding is that things seem to be creaking a lot, as I'm getting a lot of timeouts and such when I'm using Jerboa to upvote and search.

All in all though, it's great :)

[–] pattmayne@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I barely just started but it feels almost as natural as normal reddit.

Lemmy federates Reddit better than Mastodon federates Twitter. Mastodon is confusing. But on Lemmy I can clearly see the relationship between instances, and I can use it all as one big system.

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

It's still a little hard for me to know the extent to which federation works on Lemmy. For example, when I select "All" in the filter at the top of the page, am I seeing all the content from instances that the main instance (in this case lemmy.world) is federating with?

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

I love how it feels like a smaller but friendlier reddit. I hope more people can join

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[–] Reepor@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

New user and reddit refugee here! The instance system isn't as straightforward as something like reddit where all of the content exists in the same place, but once I understood how the system works (via the first few posts I saw after opening the Jerboa mobile app for the first time) I got signed up on an instance that ISN'T lemmy.ml and I've just began surfing in earnest! Thanks to the community that's made this possible!

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[–] s6original@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think it's great so far. I'm a reddit refugee who decided to leave that place when I couldn't use my third-party client (Sync). It feels all new in here and I really like it.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago

Same here. I do feel and see that a LOT of work will be required to get lemmy where it needs to be but something tells me that these are the interesting days for Lemmy!

[–] sparky@lemmy.pt 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

One question I still have is how quickly posts and comments propagate across the Fediverse. How can I be sure the comment I'm writing actually shows up across other instances, and how long after I write it does it take on average to show up other places?

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[–] Borgzilla@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago

So far, I find it's pretty good. I couldn't find a client for Emacs so I may create one.

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

I have a terrible experience on mobile. I'm literally only on desktop because I was ready to delete my account. It's extremely unintuitive, Lemur doesn't work for lemmy.world and the other app is confusing to use. :/

[–] minode@szmer.info 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

True, mobile experience is truly terrible and must be prioritized imo

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

Feels very early. The site design needs quite a bit of work.

  • The usual confusion on fediverse domain boundaries and usage. Seems very easy to accidentally route to another server rather than viewing that content within the current server (community/user links).
  • Doesn't retain sort/filter options on the home feed. I get that the default is local to promote some growth, but when I switch to subscribed I want it to stay that way.
  • Excess visual space, cluttered design with avatars and community icons and excess padding. It falls into some of the traps that make me despise the reddit redesign.
  • Strange prioritization of elements; visual emphasis on features that seem pretty niche or obvious (crosspost, tooltip text post preview, comment language, usernames), while more important elements get dwarfed or lost in the noise (timestamps, comment delineation + nesting).
  • Live reloads are confusing and would be nice to be able to disable.
  • There's a real lack of dom class tagging that would make it easier for me to remedy some of those issues with custom css and the number of !important definitions doesn't inspire confidence.
  • Ultimately the above are all things that can be worked out. If the core systems work well enough then the design is something that can be augmented. I've had some navigation issues (including a page that wouldn't load because it received a malformed json response from internal service), but the core functionality seems to be mostly there. Whether it'll hold up to more load we'll have to see.
[–] gamma@programming.dev 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It does remind me of Reddit when I first joined. I like federated services like Matrix and Mastodon, but Reddit was exactly how I liked interacting online. I'm really missing RES keybindings (in particular a/z voting, j/k navigation, x expandos, <Return> thread collapse) but the UX fits my needs very well otherwise.

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There’s a learning curve with β€œhow do I know which instance to join?” and then β€œhow do I find communities from other instances?” But I’m getting the hang of it.

What it needs most is a UI overhaul. If Apollo came to the fediverse it would be a game changer.

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

Enjoying it a lot. We just need more content over here. But I assume that is a problem that will solve itself very soon.

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

little wonky ngl, and i wish there were ui tool tips/ a small user guide for the uninitiated, but once u get over the initial learning curve it seems to be fine.

[–] Moonguide@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Having trouble creating a community. Wanted to create a Rimworld and a Hunt showdown community but it's taking ages. Otherwise, great! I don't even miss Reddit.

[–] bzImage@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The thing with lemmy it seems that you can install your own instance and the "federation magic" shares content between instances, but not accounts ?? !!!

[–] amanneedsamaid@sopuli.xyz 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Yes, if what you mean by "not sharing accounts" is that your user account is only able to be signed into from the instance you registered on. This is an issue because it means your account is tied to an instance, and if that instance goes down, so does your content. Lemmy is working to implement account migration between instances (Mastodon already has this feature rolled out), to fix this concern.

[–] phil_m@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago
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[–] llIIIlIlIIIIlIIl@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I'm kinda hoping someone will point out this feature already exists, but I wish there was a way to subscribe to a topic. Right now it feels like multiple instances are forming their own, say, gaming community, and it feels like this is splintering the community rather than growing it?

Other than that, I actually really like the decentralised nature -- and, while this is likely due to the very early nature of things, man is it nicer here. Weirdly feels like early Slashdot days...

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[–] Crabhands@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Search is brutal. I dont want to open a new link, i just want to type what im searching for and then search for it.

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