Im joining in on the reddit ditching thing, and was kinda worried at first that i wouldnt be able to like use it the way i did reddit as it feels like a whole new place, but after engaging with posts and people and actually being a part of lemmy rather than being lurk mode all the time i was pleasantly surprised with how easy it is to become a member of the community, theres a reasonable amount of subs (or whatever the other word for em is) that fit my interests, enough linux content and shitposting for my liking, and the overall random posts made by people equally fed up with Leddit. (also i admit i used reddit a little cus there was this post on the fedora sub showing how to fix a sound issue i been having after a recent update)
Pretty great tbh. The tricky thing with being an early adopter is you kind of have to be the change you want to see, but I’m old enough to feel no shame about just barging into places and starting new threads as needed.
So far started two accounts on two different instances (I like to keep different subjects somewhat separate) and had really cool interactions on both.
Obviously there are a few UX issues, trying to sub to remote communities is kind of a nightmare, but hopefully I’ve subbed to enough that other people on my instance will find it a bit easier to find them through search.
great, i’ve really liked lemmy so far. its really the first alt big tech platform like this that i’ve gotten into, was never big on mastodon or any of the others out there.
lemmy is honestly a breath of fresh air. really great platform so far, i think it has very strong potential.
i still use reddit for some things, but overall i’m starting to use lemmy a lot more. great work from the devs, can’t wait to see the future!
At least on my instance everything is running fast, snappy. I like the clean interface. Haven’t encountered any major bugs yet.
The only downside for me so far is that there is not a lot to see yet. The only active posts and communities are about lemmy itself. Which is understandable of course but I can’t wait to actually get to the phase where I actually get to experience real content lmao
Oh man it has been unironically great! First day I joined there was basically nothing but a meme sublemmy and a couple of tech subs too, but nowadays there are communities popping up left right and center, and I’m seeing so many familiar subs recreated on here, too
Overall my past week of using Lemmy have been phenomenal, and I’m happy to say that Lemmy has become my mindless scrolling app of choice now
Edit: correct number of weeks
I’m excited for the possibilities, but daunted by the realities.
It’s going to be tough to get enough foot traffic to start populating smaller subs. It seems like the Reddit API drama is the big break needed to hit a critical mass of users, but how many will take the time to figure out something like Lemmy? And are the Lemmy instances ready? It’s strange to root for Reddit to go through with the API changes after using Reddit for so long. But if there was ever a time to pay a bit extra for additional hosting resources, June 11th (or now!) should be it. If a large influx of new users crash Lemmy instances, and no one can sign up, a golden opportunity will be lost.
Signing up was not a flawless process. You are asked to make a choice about servers with little guidance on what it all means.
Requiring a 10 character password with additional character conditions is going to turn a lot of possible new users OFF. It should be 6 characters, with no conditions. Yes, it’s not secure, but we need sign ups above everything else. Users can choose to get as complex as they want, but simplicity should also be an option. If people later grow to value their Lemmy accounts, they can secure them at a later time. But extremely easy sign up should be the default for now.
Asking people to write an extensive answer as to “why you want to join this particular server” should also be suspended temporarily. Again, it’s about ease of signing up. We should try to get as many signups in as quickly as possible, and weed out the problem people later. After the possible Reddit migration boom ends, you can go back to application essays as a requirement for entry.
The web interface is buggy. The site will often “reset” as you are reading a thread, and the whole thread will act if “refreshed”. If this causes users to lose a long post they are typing, they might quit Lemmy then and there.
The community structure needs to be more unified across instances. It’s confusing that there are local groups as well as “multiverse” groups across federations, often with the exact same name. It’s a bummer that the communities can be splintered, and will have people not realize what’s really available.
I think we’re might see some weaknesses of a distributed system like Lemmy in the next few weeks. It’s hard to organize and get everyone rowing in the same direction with no “CEO” or clear leader. It does feel like little fiefdoms doing their own things, and that makes it even harder to hit critical mass.
In terms of content and userbase, so far so good. It obviously leans heavily towards the technically competent. Lemmy sort of screens for the technology inclined since it’s only well known to those who are up to date with the latest in tech. So of course it’s easy to feel like everyone is like minded and cool for now. But we need to attract casuals if we want vibrant, non-tech groups to exist and flourish too.
I’ve only been exploring for 2 days though, so I can be very wrong.
I just got approved here, but have been on Mastodon for a couple of months. Mastodon signup was a lot glitzier, and yet I still couldn’t convert my friend, who was like “I don’t understand, what do you mean it’s like email? >_<”. I don’t have high hope for Lemmy atm…
I think Reddit will backpedal and renegotiate with users/devs down the line, once the initial backlash has died down, and they have lowered everyone’s threshold of what they would consider a “victory”. Things like Lemmy will act as a sword of Damocles/safe harbour for the next time they screw up, sure, and that’s a good thing. But I doubt Lemmy will explode in popularity, even if some 3rd party Reddit clients are discussing adding Lemmy support to sort of rugpull Reddit, and that’s for 3 reasons(imo):
- The hosting costs will be exorbitant for all those new users, considering
- Lemmy will be stuck in the exact same boat as Reddit re:all those unpaying users, except now there’s no ads either. Donations are the honourable business model, but a couple thousand well-meaning people with disposable income can’t properly finance a popular platform.
- Even if the Lemmy community solves the above 2 problems, you still have the deciding moment of the “let’s jump ship today” user tidal wave, which will make or break such a migration happening. Closest thing I can think of is the WhatsApp Privacy Policy shenanigans in '21. Melon Husk said “Use Signal” - a fine suggestion, tbh - but Signal wasn’t ready for this, and so their servers crashed and burned during the tidal wave, while for-profit Telegram just paid for more servers and thus converted the refugees into users.
Requiring a 10 character password with additional character conditions is going to turn a lot of possible new users OFF. It should be 6 characters, with no conditions.
I gather that is not your case and I see what you mean if I think about my parents for instance, but objectively I can only think that a 6 characters password with no restrictions (e.g. 123456) might have been “okeish” and yet still object of jokes 20 years ago, but now it shouldn’t absolutely be passed as a norm anyway close to “adeguate”, users need to be correctly educated on their own security awareness in general, but also especially here because the it is very likely that the instance where the user account is registered to will not have any paid customer service around to solve their users issues with account security breaches because of their weak passwords.
So regarding passwords for the casual as for the expert user once and for all the xkcd comics stripe on passwords:
https://xkcd.com/936/and here is a couple of handy online and downloadable generators inspired from that comics stripe:
https://xkpasswd.ethanify.me/
https://xkpasswd.net/s/But also learn to use password managers! Which also come often with their own handy password generators btw. The gist of it is that you need to remember only one password for the manger, and in turn it is going to remember and service for you your credentials for all your accounts. .
For instance for the average casual user Bitwarden should more than suffice, it is free, has a freely managed remote service, apps for mobile and extensions for the browsers, it is open source and has been audited: https://bitwarden.com/
I perfectly know that is a an uphill process, I can see that with my parents, but I also like to think that maybe if something I tell them about how to manage their passwords is able to stick in their mind then one day it might save them from being robbed online for always using the same few charters password everywhere for every effing website.
So regarding passwords for the casual as for the expert user once and for all the xkcd comics stripe on passwords: https://xkcd.com/936/
And when I use a passphrase that my password manager generated, the sign up form called it “weak”.
A much shorter password (about half as many characters) that is arguably weaker and has less entropy was considered “strong”. Just because it had punctuation.
And when I use a passphrase that my password manager generated, the sign up form called it “weak”.
Then respectfully it might be your fault, but I don’t know the metrics for which Lemmy rate the passwords, you can also use this other estimator, download the local version of course:
https://github.com/dropbox/zxcvbnI for instance used a simple setting:
and got:
;;75.cupcake.manly.argument.53%%
testing it on https://lowe.github.io/tryzxcvbn/
Lemmy although gives it a “medium” quality rating to the password, so I guess it must estimate it differently
I agree that the signing up process should be streamlined and bugs should be fixed. But I don’t agree we should maximize the userbase even if we need to weed out a lot of nasty people and bots later. That would make the platform more unpleasant instead of better.
I think the critical mass has already been reached. Not to be an exact copy of Reddit with all its tiny subs, but to be a nice place in its own right.
To combat the splintering problem I think there should be an option to combine similar communities of different instances. You would still have to choose an instance when posting, but when reading you wouldn’t.
Requiring a 10 character password with additional character conditions is going to turn a lot of possible new users OFF. It should be 6 characters, with no conditions. Yes, it’s not secure, but we need sign ups above everything else.
I honestly can’t agree to this. Current “save” standard is at least 12 char 3 complexity, to which already too few adhere.
But let’s take it a bit further, say, you get more sign-ups due to easier passwords (which I kinda doubt matters that much compared yo other things, but let’s roll with it). Imagine Lemmy would suddenly boom with those new users due to changes to make it easier + Reddit acting odd: Lemmy would still be in the initial growth if it suddenly becomes big. Lot of users + no big company/organization/etc to back it up with it’s resources (as suddenly booming things can’t scale resources instantly, it takes time to adapt) creates a seemingly easy target (no matter if true or not). In other words, it’ll create motivation to try and hack it. And with a low password strength, that would mean easy to hack accounts. And what would a large amount of hacks do for the reputation? Especially on a nee service? Probably scare all those new people away as quick as they came…
I gotta say a lot of this makes sense.
I really like it. The platform itself is great. The main thing that needs improvement is the onboarding experience. It seems really confusing at first, but I think that’s mainly because it’s not explained well.
For example, the first step of the onboarding process is choosing which server to join, which I think is kind of a misleading decision. It seems like you’re choosing what community you’re going to interact with, but that’s not really the case. You’re mainly just choosing who’s going to foot the bill for your network traffic. The decision seems important but it’s really not IMO, at least not for someone who’s just trying to jump in and see what Lemmy is all about.
Also, community discoverability is a problem, but I think that could easily be solved with better UX on the community page. (For example I think there should be a message that says “Looking for more communities? Try doing {insert instructions here} to find them.”
When choosing a server isn’t it also important to pick one you think will be around for a while? I’d hate to lose my history if my server went offline
Maybe there needs to be a way to set up regular auto-backups to your local machine (or regular prompts for manual backup), then import history into your new accounts on other servers.
Edit: also there should be a way to change which instance is your “local” for the homepage, irrespective of which one you actually log in to.
Yes. My first Mastodon account was on a server which no longer exists. Unless you are hosting a personal instance, it takes commitment to keep one going, or to at least give your users adequate warning that it is shutting down. Although you could just run a script on a VPS, forget about it for 5 years and let Jesus take the wheel, that’s not a nice thing to do.
Sometimes though, the candle which burns twice as bright, burns half as long.
Yes it’s a meaningful decision, I’m just saying that prospective new users don’t necessarily understand what the decision means or why they should make it. I’m not really sure how to solve this issue though, since it’s part of a larger question of why should anyone pay to host a server to begin with. I mean currently nobody is incentivized to maintain a server that costs a significant amount of money, so why should anyone try to attract new users?
I love it so far,only needs more people
This. We have to spread the word mouth to mouth. There are a lot of people who are sick of reddit and willing to tolerate the growing pains + bugs of Lemmy.
deleted by creator
Well, I’m here !
I have removed my Reddit account after 10yrs + 100k + karma and more hours invested than I would like to admit.
This time, I’m legit done with the place. I don’t like where they are headed and decided to give Lemmy a go.
So far, so good :)
I got my account approved and I’m good to go. This is my first comment of many, many more to come.
Good to be here folks…
Hey I’m new here bc fuck spez. There’s definitely potential here. Would like it to be easier to find communities (sublemmies?) And the app needs work but I’m ready to go all in. Did I mention fuck spez yet
While not every community is on Lemmy yet that I visit on Reddit, by people migrating from Reddit to here, hopefully that issue will be solved soon. The community here seems way more welcoming than the Reddit community is too
So, first day of Lemmy and so far I’m enjoying it. I’m looking through communities and seeing what I’d like to follow or not.
Criticism (hopefully constructive) that I do have:
- I miss the random niche subreddit side of things, but I’m not sure if that’s as a result of lack people on the platform, or the UI not promoting that style of thing much.
- I am missing a good iPadOS client. I’m currently using the Web UI, which works well enough, but it’d be great to have a more native app.
- It seems strange that I can’t have a One True Fediverse Identity where my mastodon identity is the same as my lemmy identity and vice versa. I note that Takahē has started refocusing into more of an identity broker for ActivityPub and less of an online experience, so maybe it will be the one true unifying identity.
On the plus side:
- There are a lot of fun general communities on here.
- People are really nice, in general, and this doesn’t seem to be changing, compared to the histories I’ve been browsing
- I really like markdown as a way to post, and it seems to work ok from my iPad
All in all, it’s been a positive 24hrs, I might give an update after a week or two.
Just signed up a few minutes ago. I honestly really like it so far. I was never into Twitter but I did try out mastodon and just couldn’t get used to the look of everything. It was also confusing to sign up. So far Lemmy has been great. I am surprised how many active users there are. I was worried it would be super dead.
edit: spelling
Now I’ve got my head around how the instances work and how everything is connected but not connected at the same time I’m growing to like it. Once more communities pop up I think it’s going to be good
So far I am really enjoying it, mostly because whenever you post something you don’t get 130493025084385 people telling you that your are a horrible person and completely wrong and offering you unsolicited advice and ignoring your question in the first place.
It is NICE here. For now at least.