Phpbb already exists and has been far more stable for far longer. Federation is the only thing really justifying Lemmy as a separate project from traditional forum software.

Given, I think it could use more easy/immediate moderating tools in the UI (like mastodon) and more robust personal blocks for users. But I get the feeling this post is secretly trying to address the lemmy vs. lemmygrad political split.

Tbh, I don’t think Lemmy.ml’s site culture is capable of growth. The tech users are here because of the novelty, but beyond that they don’t comment much and seem to use the site as a glorified RSS feed (note how, pre Gen Zedong migration, the only posts with more than a half-dozen comments were about Lemmy software updates). They don’t really add any value that you can’t get on reddit or hackernews.

Longform forum posts aren’t super useful to anarchists, who tend to aggregate on mastodon for a reason. Short, visual, personalized, and curated content speaks more to modern anarchist norms and values. They don’t like people telling them to “read theory” and will make fun of your 5000 word wall of text screed. Snappy, information dense toots that grab your attention in the first 5 words get boosted pretty quickly. However, traditional-format posts on !anarchism@lemmy.ml only get 3-6 upvotes and maybe 2 comments a best. (And before any of y’all complain, prove me wrong by engaging with each other).

Lemmy site culture was pretty much in decay before GenZedong got here, and it breathed new life into the medium (even just through inspiring people to complain about lemmygrad, which has increased engagement dramatically). The longpost format is quite perfect for marxist usage and I’m interested to see if lemmygrad can get a network of socialist sites going. Seeing this much communism on the TL has been my dream for this place for the past couple years.