It was a bit confusing, I'm still a little confused on why I would choose one instance over another (I kinda just picked one?) And then there's the communities within the instances, I see some that are duplicates between instances and I'm not sure if I should just subscribe to the one on my instance or can I subscribe to the others? Are the vibes different? I'm sure I'll get used to it, I just haven't had to be an internet pioneer in many years.
this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2023
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Asklemmy
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Very confused.. I have a direct link to a Linux community and can't figure out how to open it, or join it, or whatever I'm supposed to do with it in Jerboa. Discovery seems severely limited.
Jerboa search only finds communities that at least 1 person on your instance subscribed to, to find new communities from other instances easily I like to use https://browse.feddit.de/
Then when you find a community, go to the web version of your instance (don't worry it's (mostly) mobile friendly) and type !name@instan.ce (don't forget the !) Then you can subscribe there. Close and reopen Jerboa and your new community will show up in the list. The Jerboa devs are working on fixing this.
There needs to be a place that brings all of these features together in one place. Otherwise the people who are used to being spoonfed functionality (which now makes up the majority of reddit users) will not switch over; or they’ll switch and bounce off.
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Thank you.
New thing I don't like: I could not reply to you from my inbox. I had to go back to this thread, start from the top, find my own comment again, and then respond to you. The button in my inbox that looked like a reply button just marked the message as read instead.
Also I just found the search, the icon looks nothing like a search icon.
Look 2 buttons to the right of the impostor button, the box with dots in it.
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It’s like eating something extremely good, best way to put it. It’s amazing, everything reddit did wrong doesn’t exist here. It’s like a utopia.
I'm confused but have been figuring things out.
Mostly it seems that many of my Reddit subs are reconvening on different Lemmy servers (.ml, .world, .can) and I can't yet figure out how to combine them or view them under one account?
I'll keep trying.
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I've been here for a while and i still don't like it for a number of reasons, many which have already been mentioned here. The UI/UX isn't as nice as old reddit and there a lot of complexities due to the fediverse that are just not easy to overcome. Why i think reddit will ultimately win out in this because most users will go back to it after a few weeks.
Agree. Reddit ultimately has familiarity and simplicity going for it. I have been part of Lemmy and the "fediverse" for a few months now but I still have no idea wtf it actually is and I feel like I'm still not a part of any one community.
I do have high hopes for Tildes though, seems to be somewhat of a middle ground
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I don't really know whats going on the whole instance thing confuses me. Whats it's pros? Why use it
Basically 4 things:
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Pick your own admin. I'm sure the kbin admin is awesome (can't be worse than spez, lol) but it's nice to have the option
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Have more control over what your server federates with. Hate interacting with people from a specific server? Move to one that blocks it. Want to interact with people from a blocked instance? Move to one that doesn't block them. Basically more options.
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Don't like the rules on your server? Go to one where you like the rules better.
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Your server is down? That's fine, go to a different one temporarily. You're gonna feel this hard on Monday. Kbin's gonna get crushed by the Reddit hug of death. You might wanna join up to a small Lemmy instance that the horde won't notice if that happens and you still wanna be on.
If you like kbin's admin, federation settings and rules? Then cool! You're missing absolutely nothing from being there (except when it's down). It's nice to have options though.
Secret number 5:
If you know how to host a server, you can host your own Lemmy instance and have all the powa!
@Barbarian So I have a few questions, being new to all this:
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Seemingly I am responding to you when you're on a different instance. I'm on kbin and you're on... sh.itjust.works? Am I understanding this right?
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My kbin account is restricted to just kbin, correct? I cannot use my kbin credentials to log on to another instance like sh.itjust.works.
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How do I make an original comment (this is a bit dumb lol). I see the option to reply to others but no "comment" button for me to comment on my own.
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On kbin specifically... what is a microblog?
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(Last one promise), what is up with the @stuff. I see this post link is kbin.social/m/asklemmy@lemmy.mt... I figured the /m is like reddit's /r, but what is the asklemmy@lemmy.mt meaning that this is the magazine/community from lemmy.mt when shown on the kbin /m/ instance version? Not sure if this question makes any sense lol I'm just trying to understand how this all works
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I'm so confused!! Still trying to figure out how to tell jerboa to show me communities that aren't local (and aren't showing in all - I did find memes and other juicy numbers there!)...
I might have made the mistake of trying to pick a server that wasn't struggling under the load of the Reddit refugees, but I still don't think it was a bad idea...
Quite a learning curve though. Some cheat sheets or heaven forbid, starter packs would be snazzy :)
Very good so far. I understand that server owners are needing to make changes to optimize for a large number of users migrating, so any slowdowns or service issues are completely understandable.
I really like the idea of a federated "reddit style" forum. Gives power back to the users.
I like that it’s still so small. None of this karma farming just diluting from high quality content and conversations
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It's been very nice both on mobile (Jerboa) & on PC. One thing that has been bothering me as a person that cares about my privacy is what some people are saying on the privacy subreddit on reddit about lemmy.
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It's not bad, but there are a couple of issues that concern me. One is that communities are fractured - that is, that communities about the same topics exist on different instances and don't connect with each other.
So I'm subscribed to a Books community on one instance, but that doesn't mean I'll see any of the posts on the same topic on other instances unless I subscribe to each of them. The total community of users on Lemmy who are interested in books are split up into small groups on different instances.
That's very limiting.
Of course there's also the issue of the relatively small user base overall. For some purposes a small community may be preferable, but for many others you really need a large user base. Looking for gamers for a face to face tabletop RPG, for example. Without a large user base, the odds of finding people within a reasonable real world distance of you is virtually nil.
I’m new and could be wildly wrong, but it seems like an improved UI could consolidate multiple communities into one “this is my feed” so you can participate in all of them. If one dies, you don’t lose everything.
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I miss more intuitive comment collapsing, I used it a lot to skip conversations faster than scrolling through them.
The whole federation thing is not intuitive for new folks. Although watching the lemmy.ml bubble is pretty funny.
I'm interested in reading more about Lenny's privacy and internal workings, ~~but this information is pretty hard to find.~~
I'm concerned about a reliable deletion mechanism Lemmy doesn't care about your privacy
Reddit thread of the same story
I'm also concerned by some posts which I hope are not true:
Lemmy's creator banned from r/socialism for posting neo nazi literature
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Couple of nit-picky things that I'd love to see changed.
This comment box. There's nothing to visually divide it from the original post. I got it figured out, but my brain is still resisting it as bad UX.
On the home feed, the group an article comes from is tiny and not obvious. My eye is constantly jumping back and forth from subject to group, group to subject, and it's fatiguing. The subject is only half of what describes the post: what group that subject belongs to is the other.
On the home feed, I have to click Subscribed for my feed. Setting and getting a cookie is at most two lines of code each in vanilla javascript, seems to me that'd be an easy choice to remember.
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I find the new layout to be confusing, no doubt I'll get used to it, but the hardest part was creating an account. I had no idea what "server" to make my account on, had no idea i had to choose one, thought it was exclusive and couldn't interact with other ones, etc.
Also, the only Lemmy app I saw on Google play was Jerboa for Lemmy. I got that, and I can't really make an account on the app so I had to go to the website. I eventually decided on lemmy.world or something. Overall, the app feels a bit unpolished and the Reddit app seems more welcoming, even though most of the subs are dark now.
One thing I do enjoy is the formating at the bottom. I do like that. And I have high hopes for my future using Lemmy as an alternative to Reddit.
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.
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The app I'm using (Jerboa) is a bit lacking, but I'm sure it'll improve. I'm unsure about how accounts work with the servers, can I migrate my account if the server I am using shuts down? Communities are tiny and a lot are missing, but I'm sure those will grow and fill in as more people join.
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