this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2023
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Unhappy with Lemmy (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

I'm really not happy with Lemmy so far. Its a great community and a cool concept, but the amount of bugs I am experiencing is really starting to put me off.

The site constantly updates / glitches, when I try click on something it moves just before I click so I end up clicking on something else. If I open a post, as soon as I go back the entire home feed is different and my sorting preferences have been reset.

As someone coming from the refinement from Apollo this really is offputting and makes me want to use Lemmy even less.

The people here are great, the federation is cool and I like how decentralized it is, but I think I'm going to log off now and I don't expect to be back anytime soon.

Ps. A functioning app I can download directly from the app store would be great. I'm not interested in progressive web apps or testflight betas, I want something that just works and is well refined.

Edit: I understand its early days, I'm not faulting devs for not being able to keep up, all I am doing here is expressing my opinion. I'm also sad about losing Apollo so that definitely adds to my disappointment quite a bit if I'm being honest.

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[–] [email protected] 97 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you expected someone's fledgling project that's just getting started to be as polished and refined as something that's had thousands of dev hours over the last 5-10 years then that's just bad expectations management. It will get better.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I understand its early days, not faulting the devs here, I'm just expressing how I feel

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (16 children)

You should give kbin.social a shot. It works better than lemmy currently. I made an account on lemmy.world and kbin.social and end up spending my time on kbin. Even on mobile with no app, I find the user experience better. I am sure it will get better for all instances with time.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

kbin isn't bad, but it's been plagued with 500 errors - probably due to the massive influx of new users/instances.

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

Makes sense that kbin works better as kbin actually let me register I had trouble even trying to register on 3 different instances before someone recommended kbin because, and I quote, "it just works."

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago

I’m not sure if you will find much sympathy here. Many people (myself included) left Reddit because their policies and ethics now outweigh the benefits of a refined, smooth experience. Although, even that may be gone now if you’re switching from Apollo to the default Reddit app…

The communities here have made any occasional glitches worth it for me.

P.S. you can set your sorting preference under Settings.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Yup. It's buggy and the native apps are pretty rough. I'm trying to give it a chance. I suspect the original Reddit was pretty rough too.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

The original Reddit was definitely rough. But it was also an open source project and grew with time, until the company closed-sourced it in 2017 and went with the new redesign (which remains controversial with older redditors even now).

Tbf the fediverse (and Lemmy & Kbin as Reddit alternatives) is in a very impressive state for something that has been fairly small scale up to now. It'll improve faster given the increased interest and as new devs decide to pitch in. Early reddit was exciting and chaotic; its a good time to be on a site like this.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Agreed, the original reddit was rough, definitely much worse than Lemmy currently is now. For the amount of growth Lemmy has seen its holding up well, I just wish it was better. Maybe I'm impatient..

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I understand you but...

pls be patient, stay with us.

Many skilled (and less skilled) people are working hard and cooperating to make Lemmy better week are week.

(Pretty sure Aaron Swartz would have loved that)

Love the project 😎

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Most have been here less than a week. It will take time. The Fediverse was not created with the intention of toppling Reddit in one week. Many of the bugs that people have been complaining about are being fixed in the next release.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

100% agree. I will deal with bugs today because I can see the benefits of decentralization. Yes it's buggy, but I know that we, the community, are fixing it. And that we are making the service better as users and not in some top-down decision making way.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Also maybe it's just me but I find people's lack of patience to deal with a few bugs really strange. Yes I've come across bugs and intermittent connection issues but it's not really the end of the world and knowing that the Devs and admins of each instance are working hard to keep things turning over is enough for me... I'll just do something else for a bit. It was the same when Reddit would go down or what ever.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

Give it time, but don’t stop giving feedback. Every platform is buggy in the beginning.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

It’s very early. There are a lot of great ideas here, but also a lot of details yet to be worked out. Also lots of bugs.

I wasn’t on Reddit in the early days, but I expect it had problems too. I know twitter did.

If you’re a developer or have any skill in that area, I’d encourage you to contribute. If not, I’d ask for 2 things:

  1. Have patience and a bit of grace with the devs, operators, and mods, especially in these early days.
  2. Get active and talk about what you want and what’s not working for you.

This is your chance to help make “Thing n+1” better than “Thing n”. Chances like that don’t come around very often.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I guess I don't notice any of this because I'm on jerboa. Haven't had complaints with the app.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

It's so close to the reddit apps It's throwing me a loop. But yeah. Other than the hot feed bug It's been 'good' for me

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Lemmy is very new software currently only at v0.17.4

If you're here then you're getting the real Early Adopter experience. That isn't for everybody.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I was using the official reddit app (gasp) before this, using Jerboa now and it feels just as smooth if not smoother?

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

I'm on iOS so Jerboa isnt an option :(

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

Did you try Mlem?

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

My condolences to your past self and congratulations to your current self!

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm using jerboa. It's very similar to rif. I had zero expectations coming in. And that's probably a big part of why I like it.

It's definitely buggy. Clunky. Etc. But I'm here for it, and I'm curious what becomes of it. It's actually pretty intuitive, and the bugs will be ironed out as we go. It's kind of like everything in life. It's what we make it. And I really vibe with that.

Tbh I don't need perfect or easy. It's home brew decentralized version of reddit. I can deal. But I understand your concerns and agree with all of them, but I'm just kind of enjoying the journey and viewing it as it's own experience.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

I'm not using an app, but rather the site directly on a PC. I've been pretty happy with the experience so far, and it's become something that I check regularly now. I'm looking forward to the communities becoming larger and having more content.

Of course, I'm also looking forward to the mobile experience improving for others, too.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

You can't really expect an amateur project led by 2 people (or 1 in case of kbin) to be comparable to a decade of reddit development. Even the Apollo app, that just built in top of other tech instead of having to reinvent the wheel, is at least 5 years old by now afaik.

If you just care about convenience then reddit is still your best bet. If you have other concerns then you need to weight which one matters more.

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

I want something that just works and is well refined.

Not trying to be rude or anything but, if you are trying to replace reddit with another reddit this won't work out for you. Lemmy is not and will never be Reddit. It will never have the same functions and bugs will show up sometimes, why?, because this project is funded by normal people, they aren't making any money at all.
I'm not saying that you should be ashamed of expressing your opinion, but please keep in mind that this project is fueled by passion and love. You could focus your time in trying to make it better rather than just pointing out problems that people are actively trying to solve.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

I'm sour about losing Sync, but have you tried Jerboa? It's absolutely not as feature-complete yet as any of the big 3rd party reddit clients were, but it feels totally familiar and I've been happy using it so far.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (5 children)

It's really not any buggier than trying to use reddit

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

It'll get better with time but yeah I agree it's clunky and buggy at the moment. Kbin (kbin.social or fedia.io) seems to be a more stable alternative but have their own bugs and issues.

I'm not sure I'd give up on it though; maybe come back and forth and see how it gets on. It isn't meant to be an instant Reddit replacement, but the increased interest will spur more people to help with development and some communities seem to be reaching critical mass to be sustainable.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

I'm extremely happy with Lemmy and I actually think the bugs give it charm. It make it feel more like home. No big corporations. I'm fine with limited content and problems for the time being. I'll take it over Reddit any day.

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

The sorting bug definitely needs fixed ASAP. Hot is stale, top posts somehow start sending new posts, and posts from other instances are often slow.

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

Yes this is exactly what I am experiencing as well

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (5 children)

My big issue is that I haven't found a good setting for my home feed that consistently updates. I've had the same posts at the top of hot/all and active/all since I started, it's difficult to find posts that have any activity that aren't multiple days old because of this

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

I sort all/new or subscribed/new and just scroll. I'm subbing to a vast array of communities I wouldn't have otherwise and I've found a number of really good reads and discussions. If there was a way to hide already viewed threads it would make the experience much better, but I can live with it for now.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm mostly just getting a few bugs on sh.itjust.works and I've got no idea where to get support from here. I'm sure it'll all get sorted in time.

Jerboa for Lemmy (the app) is pretty good though mostly. It's no RedditIsFun but it's functional enough.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

The real solution is for the developer of apollo to make it work as a lemmy client. You should probably let him know.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

FWIW most of the glitches are in the official web UI, so using another UI (e.g. Jerboa on Android) fixes most of the issues.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Understandable, maybe you can come back in the future when hopefully some of these bugs are ironed out and apps like Mlem are out of alpha.

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

I do have quite a laundry list of remarks for Lemmy too. The bugginess and lack of features is understandable. But it is quite centralized and I see a future where it will be more centralized the more users will join due to a bit of a fundemental flaw of federation.

Maybe these problems will be fixable. I hope so, because I think it is a really cool concept. But I am not sure if I agree with the execution of it. I would love to contribute to this project if these problems are fixable.

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

How much are you willing to pay for this?

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

lol you should have seen what reddit was like 15 years ago.

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