I know it may be a lot of users’ first time using something that is decentralized like this. As I’ve been a Fediverse user for some time, I had been waiting for a big migration like this to happen as it usually happens with Twitter every now and again. Welcome to Fedi, hope you enjoy your stay!
Personally, I love it. I was disgusted by Reddit’s actions after 12 years of using the site daily and made a full hop over to the Fediverse.
I have deeper and more meaningful interactions with people and content. It’s been enjoyable for sure to see a quickly evolving and changing place.
I see a lot of people lamenting how the shutdowns didn’t kill reddit and how the Fediverse won’t ever take over reddit? And I couldn’t care less, in fact I think it’s probably a good thing. I like this more niche engagement and look forward to participating as it continues to grow.
I can most agree with the deeper and more meaningful interactions. Fediverse feels more interpersonal with others for sure, I’ve had huge threads in public Fedi networks where we get 20 people on a thread, just having some friendly conversation that you otherwise would not see on Reddit or Twitter.
Personally I’ve totally stopped using Reddit. Now that the scroll bug is fixed on the instance I have my account on, there’s no reason NOT to use this instead. Also it’s nice to see that when you make a thread, that thread matters since it’s not going to get lost in the mess of posts due to all the bots and karma farming. It feels more like your actually contributing to a community here.
The tight-knittedness (new word, yay) of many Fediverse applications is part of the reason that is a thing, and the decentralization a.k.a. private ownership by individuals rather than companies of instances means moderation is more meaningful and less robotic. The only bots you should ever see on the Fediverse are purpose-made ones. Examples are the gutenberg bot and various anime photo bots on the other Fediverse sites that are bots made just to post things, no farming incentive.
I’m finding the interface a little confusing and the app on Android a little clunky but I’m spending more time on Lemmy than on Reddit. I expect to be here almost full time after the first of July. I’ve started a few communities of interest to me and am posting as often as I can. I am commenting on other people’s posts and generally trying to contribute. I hope this really takes off.
There are some apps for Android, mostly in alpha/beta https://lemmy.world/post/465785
Liftoff looks nice
It’s now on the play store too.
I’m enjoying the community here and in other instances I’ve explored. On Reddit, I never really got that urge to contribute and was just content to lurk. Here though… it’s a different feeling and I managed to make this post. Don’t know how much I’ll actively participate, but perhaps I’ll open up as I spend more time here.
The Fediverse is home to more open-minded individuals, so that sounds about right. All of us here just like chit-chatting about whatever we nerd over. ;)
You know, I’m not entirely sure that holds. There was always a great sense of open-mindednes on Reddit; the big problem was populist binary opinions emerging as user density increased.
While a community is small, individuality can find a greater platform for expression. I have yet to see a larger community able to preserve those ideals, especially in the presence of reductive social proof voting up/down. The real test for Lemmy isn’t today but a few years from now when communities have a greater saturation of users and whether thought diversity will survive a nascent hive mind which these platforms always seem to evolve into.
It’s shattered my drive to find One Platform for all of my needs, and I think that’s going to work out to be a net positive. I used to be against having to hunt and peck through multiple sites and juggle multiple accounts, but the less time I’m spending on Reddit, the less I’m bothered with the idea of doing that. I can picture some of the old-guard Forum Folk looking down on my reliance on one community rather than spreading out across multiple sites—ah well, better late than never 😅.
Losing out on previous Reddit content has felt a bit like a Library of Alexandria kind of thing for me, however. I’m sure that Lemmy and the wider fediverse will ultimately help to fill that kind of knowledge, and Reddit was by no means some Bastion of Knowledge, but I can’t help but think about what prior content, both large and small, meaningful and trivial, is going to be inaccessible because of this whole intrigue.
I still have a lot of work to do in archiving my content and saves from Reddit, but I don’t see myself going back to substantially engage if I can help it. The culture around here in Beehaw, if anything, has felt much more worthwhile to engage in than I ever felt anywhere else online.
Losing out on previous Reddit content has felt a bit like a Library of Alexandria kind of thing for meGood way of putting it. That’ll be the biggest loss for me personally. So so so many issues or problems or troubleshooting I’ve found the answer in past Reddit threads.
Well it’s been all but an hour and it’s … weird. I’m still trying to find communities and I’m not sure how to do it methodically.
There are some websites that can help you:
https://browse.toast.ooo/communities
Take a look at this post too: https://mander.xyz/post/859785
I absolutely love it here. It’s everything an old anarcho hippy punk could ask for. No regrets on leaving reddit
Judging by this you’d love the Fediverse Twitter alternatives, of which I use much more than Lemmy (Feddit). Here’s a list of instances, works similarly to this, except it’s Fediverse Twitter rather than Reddit.
I spend most of my time on beehaw, they’re my kind of people
Like it but I still feel a little lost after a few days. I miss the depth of content of what I was used to read. Once I know my way around it, it should be better.
I like it and think it has a lot of potential, but at least with Lemmy I’ve encountered a lot of bugs. I want to also try Mastodon and have yet to delve into it.
I do highly recommend Mastodon! It is a great Twitter alternative, and is way more laid back at least in my experience. I use it as my frontend to the Fediverse on my phone as it is easier that way, but I prefer Pleroma and Soapbox otherwise. Still need a Lemmy frontend on my phone but, eh, not a phone user that much anyways.
Frankly wonderful. It needs scale, though not as much as people think. If the people that have moved stay involved we probably have scale for a lot of things now.
In terms of Beehaw, like it very much. Like the relative lack of Trolls too, and lack of ads, and presumably lack of behind the scenes content selection that other platform presumably does. The issue outstanding of course is the defederation with a few major instances which needs to be resolved somehow over time. For now fine. I to worry about how the Behaw team supports the site at scale be it man power or money. So I hope everyone considers that and does what they can.
I frankly come from the Mailing List, Usenet, and Compuserve days and frankly Lemmy meets the grade except maybe in some more technical areas like Law, Medicine, and Taxes. The FIRE community is small or non-existant, but this is really just Financial so we do have a community. Yes I came from Reddit, but I have used many Forum platforms before and sometimes still do. Lemmy and Behaw seems great.
Where Lemmy is a little short is a few bugs. The web UI is best, but it too has some bugs. Jarboa was not even complete when this torrent started but now it looks fairly complete but the latest update crashes a lot and still has some annoying bugs like setting the default view which use to work fine. I trust all of these will vanish with time so they do not hinder my resolve to stay here as long as we have enough scale. Sorry I cannot help with these other then put in bug reports if they persist. I do program and know Linux well, but the tech you guys use is not what I know which means it would take me 6 months or a year to do anything useful.
Anyway. All the best to everyone. Very appreciative. For what it is worth, I did drop a little in the tip jar to help with the presumably larger costs, and otherwise try not to bother the admins. They have kind of an impossible and under appreciated job.
I recommend trying this alternative webapp
It’s been positive overall! There have been some minor hassles here and there, but nothing I wouldn’t expect from a small team/site suddenly getting a lot more traffic than usual. Understanding the whole concept of federation was a bit much at first, but I understand it better now, or at least well enough for my own purposes!
Completely understand the concept being a bit to grasp, but it should be noticeable to really anyone that it makes for a fairer internet forum than most. Also, I’m a huge fan of FOSS (free open-source software), so the Fediverse has always been a must have for me.
i enjoy the lack of ads and the community, if smaller, seems more welcoming in the subre… instances? I’ve visited so far. but everything seems a bit laggy and it’s cumbersome to get into. but so far definitely worth the hassle!
Definitely, one of the thing I noticed is that I brought up a rather contentious topic in open source related to the licensing and people engage in it very thoughtfully and diplomatically. If you tried the same thing on Reddit, it often become a toxic squabbles almost every time.
It’s a trip, and I wanna go everywhere lol
I’d been on mastodon since 2018 I love the fediverse a lot. I love that I don’t feel pressure to be a certain way or post a certain way (like putting a typo in my meme on purpose to increase engagement 🤮💀)
I love that a community is enough. we don’t need infinite upwards growth like a bunch of lunatics
I love that there’s so many instances. I love opening up my browser again.
Would be willing to answer any questions about the Fediverse that people viewing this post may have, by the way. Don’t be shy :)
Ok, dumb question: Can I use my Lemmy account to access Mastodon? If everything is interconnected on the Fediverse, I don’t understand why I couldn’t. If I can’t, I don’t understand how everything on the Fediverse is interconnected.
Another question: I think one of the pillars of Reddit is its searchability via Google Search. It makes it very worthwhile to invest writing high quality content on Reddit’s communities if you know that it has wider implications.
What’s the state on discoverability through search engines for Lemmy? I suppose a major problem here is that all content of a federated server is at risk of getting lost forever if the owner winds it down.
