Ask Lemmy

I gave Lemmy a dedicated year. A few notes:

Very few people click through.

Lots of rage bait.

Communities split over instances make it pretty hard to know where to post things, what with defederation and such.

I didn't miss much "news"; lemmy was functional for reporting what people were talking about.

No notification of moderation actions taken against you is a choice.

Those who post small websites that do cool things: thank you! I did discover several other cool places and tools.

I found that about 1/10 of the top lemmy posts (after filtering out jokes and sports) are links to AI slop that nobody bothered to check, comments just take the headline as real if they affirm. Pointing this out in the comments did not reduce engagement or drop the posts.

Cutting it out of my routine, at last for awhile.

One thing I really hoped for from the social Internet was access to people and data that could correct me/fill in gaps. But lemmy doesn't do this, as people see what is upvoted and upvotes are used for affirmations to the reader.

It's the same as reddit. platforms don't make a different. people make a difference

It's all the same people, with the same arrogance and same entitlement and egotism, who take themselves way too seriously and think that justifies their to harass, insult, and report/ban anyone who says stuff they don't like. to the point they will go into other communities to take your commentary out of context to prove how 'evil' you are over a different of opinion or perspective, even if it's a more complex or nuanced take on what they already agree with.

It's just got a lot of extremist weirdos who think their extremists beliefs are some deep profound truth that they must use to browbeat other into submission. A lot of them with superiority complexes that cannot tolerate any admission of limitation or flaw in the glass house from which they throw stones all day.

And the userbase and voting systems generally rewards short, shrill, outlandish, and hyperbolic headlines, commentary, and personalities more than it does thoughtful commentary. Thoughtful commentary with nuance and acknowledging the limits of your understanding... will get you harassed and banned.

It's not an open forum for diverse discussion among a respectful group of people that it wishes it was. It's just tiktok with text.

Good! I'm a long time lurker, new user.

If you dedicate a day to figuring out how lemmy works then imo it's quite straightforward. I appreciate the expansion of free speech (i got banned from reddit for telling an AFD member to kill himself) and generally most people here seem ok. it's still rather niche but oh well. We can fix that by inviting friends! It's also much more authentic. A lot fewer covert advertisements and more actual people.

I use social media a lot less which I like. I like that it’s a smaller area that seems to grow organically. I like that there are different ways to engage and it’s interoperable.

The concept is still confusing at times but I think it’s better for me than non-federated options.

how has your experience been?

Posts and comments cannot be easily deleted, for one.

Otherwise, the general experience is like being at an anarchists' beer hall.

came last april ish after a reddit purge, was on another instance before it was shutdown forever. there has been less content though. and i dont like the tankie, or anything related to "tankie politics"

I stayed permanently since middle of last year thanks to piefed.social. it has a great onboarding system for anyone that might not have the gumption or will to self curate raw lemmy, mbin and now piefed outputs. A.k.a being lazy like myself.

Although for my close online friends I'm likely to suggest other piefed based instance just because tobspread the load around.

It feels like reddit back when it was smaller and before the abhorrent new UI and their aggressive algorithm. Well we all know the fediverse is practically without algorithm for good and bad.

So with this view it semi forced me to be more active in the communities I'm in. I mostly comment though rather than making posts but hey any little thing helps.

And besides I just love piefed has topics i.e. multireddit a.k.a a group feed of multiple communites, where I either I can subscribe to premade topics by the instance admin or make my own grouping of topics/communities.

I still to my chagrin dip back to reddit for some communities or topics but it's none of the big ones. Things like psychotic people that has way too many x (bags, retro games handheld devices, headphones, fountain oens, paper notebooks, ereaders, knives, pocket trash, etc) and spending way too much money on them.

In my opinion this platform is great. Most people here are friendly, and smart. Although there are a few exceptions.

I've been here since a year, i think. And its the first contact i made with "the fediverse".

All in all i would say that, apart from power tripping mods, and a few weird users, its a great platform i would definitely recommend.

There's one problem tho, where no android lemmy client, that is compatible with android 7 has avif support

lemmy is a mess since the same community can be found on a different server. same news have 2 comments, but 62 on the other. this thing is just gonna stay as an underground social media until someone solves this.

I joined two years ago after the Reddit API thing, full of hope and with bright eyes. I even got a couple of doggos in my PMs, which was nice. It got even better after I finally blocked enough weird porn communities so I stopped bumping into them all the time.

Now I only open Lemmy when I’m having trouble sleeping at night. I browse All/Active, and 90% of what I see are bot news reposts about Trump doing something stupid or scary, or some “are .ml tankies” shitstorms.

Also, I got banned on the Linux community at .ml and I have no idea why or even when it happened, which I actually find kind of funny.

I don’t feel good about being on mainstream social media any more. Any time I spend on Reddit or YouTube is minimal and with a sense of distrust.

I’ve been on lemmy for a few months now and it’s grown since I joined and grows more every day as people hear about it.

Never looking back.

I created my first fedi account in 2017. It’s still a bit strange to hear people say there’s no content because to me this place is bumpin. It’s the same as anywhere — it what you make of it. With some careful curation, it’s plenty fine for my needs, and the underlying idea of internetworking social networks is something I believe in very strongly.

I've only been on the fediverse for a total of like 10 minutes, but it seems so far like a perfectly viable alternative to big tech's data collection schemes disguised as websites.

It gets better the more familiar you become with it. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone in real life. There are parts that are just way too jarring.

I’ve been on the Fediverse since mid-2023, and I’m sticking around!

I bailed on Reddit, FB, and IG, and I’m only on Mastodon and Piefed now. I find that not being on algorithm-driven social media makes me less angry, and I have a much easier time avoiding getting caught up in a mindless scrolling marathon.

I like the ability to filter out by keywords, it makes for a much more pleasant experience

As far as improvements, my main complaint is that I wish there were more people and that the people who are here comment more. Bigger isn’t necessarily better, but there are a lot of communities that just don’t have enough people posting and commenting to make things feel lively yet.

Got tired of the tankies on lemmy, was about to go to piefed, heard about the censorship of piefed, went back to lemmy. So idk

I'm not new as such. I joined up on kbin initially and tried to establish my communities on there, but kbin kinda collapsed. Then I gave up for a while.

When I came back, I moved to lemm.ee and set up television and obscuremusic and got them going (the former especially) and then unfortunately lemm.ee shut down and then I moved to Piefed and rebuilt it all over again.

For me, the biggest downside is there just isn't the same amount of content/engagement as reddit. Also, it's even more of a left wing echo chamber than reddit (and I say this as someone left of centre).

I’m new here and it’s quite a relaxed experience. I think there are more friendly and reflected people. It’s like people here are able to criticise properly and take criticism and also encourage and praise a little. I thought this was lost since early internet. But also very political / activist. I feel like in a bubble of people who want to change things for the sake of people and not capital. As much as I like it we’re not enough. I don’t care there are not many comments. Less comments, less fomo.