I discovered Lemmy as a reddit alternative once they introduced the api changes, and from what I understand, so did most of the current users. So I was wondering what was Lemmy like before that? Did any notable things or inside jokes happened? If you are one of the old users are you happy with this growth? Is there anything you’ll miss?
You could come to lemmy once a month, and see just about nothing change.
It was not nearly as fun as it is now
https://lemmy.ml/u/Communist from a 4 year old account.
And I thought my 2.5 year old account was pretty old
Slow, mostly tech- and politics- focused (for me, as I follow plenty lemmygrad communities), and to be honest kind of boring. I’d open it up once in a blue moon, check if there was some content, “nope”, and then move on.
Now though? I’m probably a few hours straight here, drinking my yerba and using it.
It was… sleepy. One guy provided half the content. Particular topics had like max 30 people interested enough to click the arrows, usually way less. Hell, even the few trolls we had were usually recycled.
I’m very happy with this growth! Lemmy before the refugee influx was nice enough, but the conversation topics were more or less based on politics and open source software. With new users coming here posts have become much more varied.
As far as notable things are concerned, there is one incident that I thought was funny. About two years ago, the content on Lemmy was sparse. So sparse that even if a post only got a few upvotes, it would get on the front page. And so it came to pass that one user’s posts were regularly featured on the front page. The user will stay unnamed, but the posts were about flat earth.
The posts were downvoted, many into negative numbers no less, and ignored at first, but they just kept coming. And the user was so adamant that the earth was flat, he would go off in the comments calling people “simpletons” for believing the “lies” we were fed. So then a few users, myself included, went to the user’s community and just started shitposting flat earth memes. The user tried arguing at first, but then went quiet. And after that, no more flat earth posts.
peaceful
It still seams a lot more peaceful than Reddit was. It feels like the early 2000s all over again!
It was a niche network for few passionate people. Content was more political than generic. It always felt like it would succeed though. Only thing I’m missing is that the website was blazing fast back then. It’s struggling now with all the new users but I’m sure that will be fixed sooner or later.
Very quiet, you’d have to wait a month for a new content cycle, I prefer it after the migration tbh make things morefubn and engaging
I’ve been here for 2 years. Didn’t post anything or comment until the migration.
This influx of users has been great, and I really hope the momentum continues!
As a refugee myself, I’m glad to hear the old ones seem to perceive the influx as mostly exciting and positive. I had some worries some people might not like how the new ones change and overwhelm what’s old and dear.
Ah well, maybe it’s too early to judge. Maybe you hate us next week? :)
