this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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Asklemmy

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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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[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (2 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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (3 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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

This is the sentiment I've been rolling with. I normally don't post often, but since the move I've created an instance and posted more than ever.

We have to make what we want. once we have enough content for people to be interested, the users and community will come.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can you point out an explanation for how this works? Like, if I run my own "instance" of Lemmy in a Docker container, what all is it doing if I and a few friends subscribe to communities on other instances (eg BeeHaw, lemmy.ml, etc). Is my little instance mirroring all of that data constantly? Just when one of us requests it? I need to know what I'm getting myself into basically.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think you might find that answer through lemmy's github and using their guides which I'll send it here in case anyone else is interested.

Lemmy's github

Lemmy's docs

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah I agree and am working on it in terms of engagement. Usability is going to be key for whichever platform eventually takes over. It could absolutely be Lemmy, but I'm watching for other possibilities as well.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (10 children)

I've been told my handle should work on all the lemmys but so far it only works on lemmy.one. I tried logging in with this at lemmy.world and beehaw and it didn't work. I tried creating a new login on both of those and it also didn't work. I want to like it but I'm confused and frustrated. I'll give it some time and see where the dust settles as you said. Call me old fashioned though but I just don't think shitposting on a forum should be so damn complicated.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You should never have to go to the actual websites for the other instances. Just like email, you wouldn’t expect to be able to use your Gmail account to log into Yahoo, right? Use lemmy.one as your homepage and browse everything from there. From there, you can use the Communities section to search/browse communities hosted on any instance, including Beehaw and lemmy.world.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Can you tell me how to make a new comment? So far, it's just allowing me to reply to others but no option to make one new...

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You don't need to create multiple Lemmy accounts. You can search for and find and join subs from lemmy.world on your Lemmy.one account. it's not instantly intuitive coming from Reddit, but once you make the connection to the other subs on different instances its established for you

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yeah, I try to share this to help people get it...

GUIDE:

  • don't go to a community on the server that it's on (e.g. https://lemmy.ml/c/asklemmy) [NO login]

  • do go to a community on the server you're on (e.g. https://lemmy.one/c/[email protected]) [YES login!]

everything else works the same using the instance-to-instance federation, but only as long as you use YOUR lemmy instance, NOT the one that the Community lives on.

When linking to a community from within a lemmy post or comment, use this format:

(Note: this works really well on the website, but currently my app (Jerboa) crashes for these links. I think this is a bug that will be fixed.)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Thank you, it makes so much more sense to me now.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Agree that it shouldn't be so complicated. I see that as a major flaw of the platform that will curtail adoption, but who knows, maybe one will win out over the others?

In any case, my understanding is that you can't log into the other instances with your username from lemmy.one, but you can read posts and interact with communities on different lemmy sites. For instance, I'm commenting from lemmy.world on a post you made using lemmy.one at a community hosted on lemmy.ml, but we can both read each other's comments, and so can people that signed up on other instances like beehaw.org.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

It will get better quickly—there are people working around the clock on apps and improvements right now. This isn’t like your normal social media site where they can use seed money and advertising to buy the best infrastructure right off the bat. This is a grassroots effort to make something that can evolve into a unique and independent service.

If we all stick it out with alternative options like this right now, we will be looking at a much freer future for online communication later. If we get annoyed and go crawling back to the capitalist overlords at FB/Twitter/Reddit, then we give them everything they wanted in the first place, and the internet will take one more step towards being a walled garden casino of ideas.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Im talking to you from a lemmy.world account right now. Whatever instance you chose to create your account with is the website you need to go to each time you login. From there, you will still have access to search comment etc with any other community through your current instance.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Your handle does work for all of the various Lemmy servers. But to access them it's like your email, you wouldn't log in to your Gmail account from Yahoo. Yahoo has no idea what your Gmail username and password is. So how can it let you in? And like email because both servers speak the same protocol you can interact with other users on other servers just like if you had their email address.

In your case lemmy.one is your email server so to speak. You can access any other Lemmy community or set of communities on another lemmy server by searching directly for their address on your home server or if someone else has interacted with another server already that server's communities will show up in your home server's All list and you can see those posts there and interact with them as if they were local to your home server.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

You’re successfully doing it right now, commenting on a post from Lemmy.ml. You don’t need to log in to other instances, like Beehaw, to comment.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Your handle won’t let you login on other instances but you can follow communities on other instances from the instance you signed up for.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That surprised me a bit when I first used Mastodon. "Wait? Why can't I log in? I just want to follow this person! Oh, right, have to go to my original server and do it from there". New to Lemmy, but finding and following other communities feels much easier than on Mastodon.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Are you on mobile or are you using desktop? The mobile app is definitely still in development so it's missing a lot of those QOL things that you are missing.

For me it's been helpful to use that fediverse search tool, and copy and paste it into the search. Seems to work better on desktop. I've got a decent feed going today, but it's definitely a work in progress.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Your handle only works on the instance you signed up on (lemmy.one).You can view communities from all other federated instances (lemmy.ml,etc) from your home instance (again, lemmy.one). You shouldn’t be trying to sign into other instances with your handle