I wanted to get a pulse check on how new members are finding the general experience/website. Is it more confusing than Reddit or are you finding the instance system a better way of doing things as it can give you more freedom of where you choose to create an account?

I’m a new user myself but have found the experience to remind me of Reddit back in the day, lol. It’s definitely giving me old-school yet modern vibes and it’s great to see something that isn’t Reddit growing in popularity!

  • BobQuasit@beehaw.org
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    2 years ago

    I think Lemmy desperately needs to integrate two things:

    • The ability to search for communities across instances inside of Lemmy (I’m aware of the search option outside of Lemmy, but that’s less than ideal)
    • The ability to easily search within posts A) in all local communities, B) in all subscribed communities, and C) across all communities in the whole Fediverse. Yes, I’m aware that C) is a huge ask. But I think it’s vital to the success of Lemmy.
  • Sploosh the Water@vlemmy.net
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    2 years ago

    Echoing many things that other users are saying already:

    Signing up/choosing a home instance is confusing. I don’t think it’s very confusing conceptually, but it is confusing from a UX/UI perspective. Subscribing to outside communities was the toughest part, I had to find them through a different instance using a search engine, then manually paste the community-specific URL into my home instance search, wait several seconds, then click into the community home page and finally click “subscribe.”

    Not something a casual user is going to want or even figure out to do. I trust that many of these growing pains will be fixed in the coming weeks/months. I just hope that it’s not all a flash in the pan and then fizzles out totally.

    Once using it though, I like the general feel of it. Better themes and some cleaner UI choices and it will be really nice imo. People are friendly so far and that’s worth a ton right there.

  • MentallyExhausted@reddthat.com
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    2 years ago

    There’s a learning curve with “how do I know which instance to join?” and then “how do I find communities from other instances?” But I’m getting the hang of it.

    What it needs most is a UI overhaul. If Apollo came to the fediverse it would be a game changer.

      • hllywluis@sh.itjust.worksOP
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        2 years ago

        I think you can just use whichever one you find most convenient, I would wager lemmy.ml would be your best bet as it’s the most active instance. The other accounts I think you could just keep as a backup in case the main lemmy.ml instance goes down.

    • Silviecat44@vlemmy.net
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      2 years ago

      Mlem is an Apollo inspired iOS app for Lemmy. Very barebones at the moment and in beta but inproving

  • YourBrainOnScience@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    I will make this my first ever Lemmy post:

    Overall, this definitely feels like a promising alternative with some growing pains. The bigger communities are decently active but the decentralized nature of Lemmy carries the risk of some communities becoming too fragmented where communities are duplicated in different instances. As some other users have suggested, This could be remedied by creating “Super communities” spanning the Fediverse which could help with growing to a scale large enough to rival Reddit and incentivise even more Redditors to make the switch.

  • flambonkscious@sh.itjust.works
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    2 years ago

    I’m so confused!! Still trying to figure out how to tell jerboa to show me communities that aren’t local (and aren’t showing in all - I did find memes and other juicy numbers there!)…

    I might have made the mistake of trying to pick a server that wasn’t struggling under the load of the Reddit refugees, but I still don’t think it was a bad idea…

    Quite a learning curve though. Some cheat sheets or heaven forbid, starter packs would be snazzy :)

  • Z3DT@feddit.nl
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    2 years ago

    Confusing. There are communities I can’t subscribe to because I can’t access them from my instance, and I have no idea why that is. The experience has been interesting so far, and growing the network is going to be something I’ll be keeping an eye on. For now, though, I’ll have to wait until someone creates the communities I was a part of on Reddit.

    Edit: It seems a community won’t show up on your instance’s community list unless someone in that instance is subscribed to it.

  • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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    2 years ago

    The app I’m using (Jerboa) is a bit lacking, but I’m sure it’ll improve. I’m unsure about how accounts work with the servers, can I migrate my account if the server I am using shuts down? Communities are tiny and a lot are missing, but I’m sure those will grow and fill in as more people join.

  • Higante@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Feels like this might be the fediverse flavor that sticks with me. I tried mastodon and diaspora, but they didn’t stick. Didn’t help that I hated Twitter and Facebook.

    This feels chill so far. I like it

    • Neuromancer@lemmy.villa-straylight.social
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      2 years ago

      Yeah, I was never a Twitter user so I didn’t “get” Mastodon. Lemmy speaks the language I understand and now I really dig it. It’s super cool that I can chill over here and still interact with people on Mastodon to some extent.

  • domsch@lemmy.ml
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    2 years ago

    I’ll be honest. While I like the idea of decentralized social stiff, its also a huge issue. First you have to choose an instance, which isn’t too bad, but you can’t move. I hear Lemmy.ml being under pressure and I want to move somewhere else to help.with that. My account is 4 years old though and I can take nothing with me. Additionally this means all my content is on one instance. If that ever goes down, the network as a whole my keep existing, but my user and all I’ve put into Lemmy will be gone. And while I trust Lemmy instances more than reddit in terms of privacy, I’m not so sure when it comes to uptime and longevity. Finally, the whole concept of decentralized is hard to wrap my head around. My instance being separate from others but still being subscribed to communities of other instances feels unintuitive. Its the she issue I have with mastodon. I keep loosing track of instances, communities, apps etc. All with different names and logins etc.

    For now, I’m trying to get used to Lemmy and just search for communities I’m subscribed to on reddit and see how it goes. It definitely works well enough. Just some conceptual issues I might have to get used to.

  • Stone4D@beehaw.org
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    2 years ago

    It’s pretty nice. I do hope it picks up more activity of course, but it’s just been a chill and low key sorta thing for me so far. Way less toxic than most other sites I’ve used.

  • Mane25@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Interface is better than “new” Reddit, not as good as old Reddit + RES.

    If I click on a link on another instance (for example https://lemmy.ml/c/asklemmy when I’m signed in on lemmy.world), I’m not signed in to lemmy.ml so I have to manually search for it in lemmy.world to post there - is there a common solution to that?

  • petrichorbreeze@lemmy.ml
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    2 years ago

    Not a fan of Jerboa, but I realize that it’s early days. Hopefully we can get some of the UI people from the 3rd party reddit apps on here to develop a better client.

  • sjolsen@beehaw.org
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    2 years ago

    It’s weird, a little confusing, and a little janky. Love it so far. It’s not a novel observation on my part but it definitely feels new and exciting the way Reddit and Tumblr did back in the day.