or another way to ask it, what made fedi easier for you to adopt? I don’t think the answer is better ways of explaining how federation exactly works, because no matter how good of an analogy you can make, most users don’t care and just want to know how to get started

EDIT: I guess I’ll go first, for something like Mastodon I think encouraging people to use a client like pinafore.social or Tusky instead of going directly to the website of the instance would help stop people from confusing themselves by getting redirected between instances. Same for Lemmy as better clients start to pop up

  • manitcor@lemmy.intai.tech
    1·
    2 years ago

    Echoing others here, UI/UX is a big one, its SOOOO close, there are just some minor bugs (that might be major under the covers) that if corrected could really smooth over the end user exp.

    Biggest personal complaint I have now is all the links that just pop me onto another instance. I am on a federated network, why should I get bounced to other instances when I click links on my own?

    If for some reason my instance cannot get the content, THEN produce the real link and I can choose if I care that much or not.

    • thebestlettuce@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
      2·
      2 years ago

      I’m seeing a lot of people having issues with accidentally getting bounced to the wrong instance. I have a friend who got confused and gave up on fedi I think because of the confusion from this same issue.

      Using a client does help though

      • manitcor@lemmy.intai.tech
        1·
        2 years ago

        i wonder if there is an issue filed on this in the UI repo, I can’t imagine this is a server bug if other clients work ok.

          • manitcor@lemmy.intai.tech
            1·
            2 years ago

            also your link on my side

            do i need to wait for my server to pull your stuff in now that i have tried to hit it, or do i need to change something on my server? Im running pretty much all defaults right now.

            • Barbarian
              1·
              2 years ago

              I realized just after posting this might be a little confusing and deleted it. Apparently not fast enough :))

              Currently you need to do a search for the URL on your instance before a new community shows up

              • manitcor@lemmy.intai.tech
                1·
                2 years ago

                yeah, i think that is the only thing that triggers the node to pull down your server content, and its slow with no UX to tell the user to just wait, you have to hit search then come back after 10-30 secs and do it again. Even then I have had issues, I assume because my server is still new.

                Many little bugs, but I dont see anything impossible to address.

          • manitcor@lemmy.intai.tech
            1·
            2 years ago

            I should file a bug, the issue im having is with this little icon right here, though im sure there are fundamental augments over this icon somewhere.

            It took me a few before I realized the chain icon is what I want instead; which is a confusing icon as its the same Icon used for general internet links on most systems and even on lemmy’s editor.

            Even now, because its bright and colorful I still click it at times and get frustrated.

            Why is hopping to the other instance such a prevalent feature, this is bound to confuse people with much shorter patience.

            There are other minor oddities as well like putting colons in post titles just causes things to hang and of course inconveniences like less tooling. All of which I expect will be fixed overtime.