People need to realize you can use alternatives
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I tried to make an account on lemmy.ml and it looks like their servers are (understandably) overloaded
I ended up choosing lemmy.world instead
My understanding is I’m not missing out on anything by chosing a less-popular instance. Did I get that right?
The documentation explaining how fediverse works is so bad. It’s so long and convoluted anyone new just can’t be bothered reading it.
tbf people just wanna sign up and click on funny links, not browse through 100 rando instances to find the one that lines up with their exact interests and wait for approval and worry about uptime and whether their instance will still exist in a year
I feel that, while lemmy is still a work in progress, it is already pretty adequate for solving this need. If you want to subscribe to other instances you can do it from within your insance by going up to communities and searching. You can also click the all tab and see a bunch of instances from around lemmy that your instance is federated with.
I think mastadon struggled with this because the twitter model is to follow people and depending how far removed the servers are this can be trickier. Compared to lemmy where people interested in a single subject will likely target and find the subject theyre interested in and bring themselves together naturally.
Furthermore I think some people are splitting up and dividing into sub instances and tiny subjects a little prematurely. Reddit didnt get super esoteric with it’s subs until it got big and the larger subs either declined or got too noisy to talk about certain things. Like for example how beehaw has an operatingsystems instance instead of a linux, ubuntu, macos, windows, fedora, archinux, opensuse, openbsd, etc. Right now there arent enough of us that we dont need to subdivide.
Let me see if I underatand this correctly:
If I create an account on a random, small instance. And then go to the “all communities” feed. I can automatically see all communities that are in my instance. In addition to that, I can see all communities of other Lemmy instances, that are “federated”. But I cannot see other communities from other nstances, unless I go on there, find the communitis and manually subscribe to them (I believe there are other ways to get them to show up, like using the search etc.?)
So, as a normal user. Who’s just looking for a replacement for /r/all, wouldn’t joining the largest lemmy instance that is fedarated to many others (Just by how many users it has, because it’s the users who link instances by their actions?) make perfect sense?
The all communities tab should be showing you communities from every instance you are federated with. It’s true that they won’t show up in your feed until someone on your instance connects to the instance it’s on at least once, but you don’t need to be on a massive server to be connected to all the major communities right from the start.
Very true. It would be sad to build up a persona on a smaller instance to then have it go dark and take your user with it. Other than losing your collection of “upvotes,” you can just recreate a new user with the same display name on another instance and keep going. 👍
Holy crap, you can do Slack style emoticons? Huzzah! 🎉
Idk I kind of think it having a bit more complexity might help ward off enshitification
worry about uptime and whether their instance will still exist in a year
that’s the biggest thing for me, it’s hard to sign up on smaller ones without worrying about its long-term viability
This is something that lemmy devs need to better address. This is an “Eternal September” kind of situation. People (me included) are not used to the fediverse. They think you can participate only if you’re in that instance. And people want content, so they think "why’s the instance with most people? Ahh lemmy.ml? Cool, let’s join.
yeah. i think the other problem is that people don’t know if the instance would be good performance wise. i.e. i joined lemmy.ml because it was the one i found first.
A good way to handle it would be to have an instance list. with number of users vs maximum users. like joining a server in a video game. if i see its super full, i’ll pick another server. of course, we’d need some large banners to make sure people know they won’t be missing out on other instances.
I would go one step further that the instance thing should be transparent. Like when you sign up, some process could determine from a “neutral instances pool” which is the one you should join, then when you log in you’re in that instance but you don’t really know where you are. It just “works”. That probably requires a lot of rework and sharing login infomration between instances. But as a more “aspirational thing”
This is something that lemmy devs need to better address.
I mean, it’s not like there are big warnings at the top of lemmy.ml’s sign-up page and join-lemmy.org that tell you not too (with a link where to find other instances)… *end sarcasm
But really, how much more adressing do they need to do? Just close off join requests all together? Because I don’t think it can be much more clear to be honest.
Yeah it’s there “This house is full, please go to another one…” but unless you know what’s up. That could be a huge deterrent to new users which I don’t think it’s the goal. I now know how this fediverse thing works and that it doesn’t really matter which instance I’m using. But for a lot of new users that concept doesn’t even register. So it needs to be more transparent from a UX perspective. Sure we could leave it as a sort of “gatekeep” and from a certain point of view it makes sense. It all depends on what the lemmy devs what to achieve.
Problem is that a) new users don’t know that they can join communities across servers, and b) it is intuitive use start with the servers that a lot of people like.
Instance browsing and onboarding is probably the biggest challenge to Lemmy’s growth. The current experience either scares new people away, or encourages them to congregate on a limited set of instances.
If the registration process just picked a random instance for you, maybe something nearby, and assured new users that they can visit communities and interact with users across instances, very few would pick the biggest instance.
That isn’t guaranteed, though. The other day I wanted to create a new community and was browsing instances on join-lemmy.org/instances for an instance that was compatible rulewise. The one I picked evidently wasn’t a good pick (burggit.moe). Trying to advertise my new community, I found out it was defederated from beehaw (and likely others) and got insulted as a pedophilia sympathizer …
Randomly assigning new users to instances would make a substantial fraction of people very unhappy.
I would be very sad if I was randomly assigned an instance in French (for example) because I don’t speak French.
I applied to 3 instances when I decided to join and lemmy.ml was the only one that responded so there’s that.
It’s also that lemmy.ml is the instance I’ve seen posted everywhere when it’s brought up, so naturally people would just sign up there instead of finding somewhere else.
How’s it work if I get banned from one instance? Yet I can still comment in that instance I got banned from? No clue how that works
If you get banned from your home instance, you’re banned everywhere.
If you get banned on a different instance, you can no longer post/comment/vote in communities there but otherwise you’re fine.
stupid beehaw 3:<
Beehaw kind of seems like a problem child. Like, the first thing I saw about them is that they were de-federating.
Just joining in, and what will happen if the instance you created your account on decides to stop running. Does your account just dissapear?
Yes. But it is easy as hell to set up on another instance or even throw up your own.
I chose lemmy.ml based on two things:
- I wanted a server that wasn’t likely to close I don’t really know for sure, but I imagine it’s easy to underestimate how much money or time is required to run a server. And I’d really prefer not having to worry about migrating. The ‘run by Lemmy’s developers’ part makes me think that either the risk will be lower or the people running the server will know how to prevent reaching a point like that.
- I didn’t want to join a very specific instance As I see it, there are two possible scenarios:
- The instance I join will affect the content I’m exposed (and not exposed) to, in which case I want to experience ‘the whole internet’ rather than a section of it.
- The instance I choose is irrelevant to the content I get, in which case, (apart from community rules) it shouldn’t really matter which one I choose, so I would just join the biggest instance.
Still something that could help with the choosing-an-instance process is to display in the list of servers the community rules and if they are blocking certain communities.
This was pretty much exactly my thought process. My biggest concern here is account stability-from what I can tell, if your instance gets taken down by its owners, your account is gone.
So until the devs figure out a way to centralize account credentials so that isn’t an issue, I’d much rather join on a big instance than a small one, especially one that the devs of lemmy themselves own. They have a clear interest in keeping it running, so the chances of my account vanishing are small, just like with bigger social media sites.
The hard reality here is that, much like in real life markets, federated social media will likely tend toward a small number of very large instances and lots of significantly smaller ones. Most people want a stable, consistent experience and don’t want to worry about losing communities or accounts. And unless an instance is STRICTLY policing it’s communities, like lemmygrad for instance, then I think we will see the same thing happen with communities-right now there are lots of communities that are basically identical, and I think we’ll see one or two of each become the “main” ones people use-and those will likely be on larger instances.
so the chances of my account vanishing are small
As long as you don’t mention Tiananmen Square or the CCP’s ongoing genocide of Uyghurs 🙃
I keep seeing people joke about this-do the mods here really ban people for talking about it? It seems like it’s a bit of a meme here…
Short answer: yes, the mods consider criticism of the CCP to be “orientalism” (ie, racist against Asians).
There was a bit of a kerfuffle the other day: https://beehaw.org/post/457546
You worry it’ll close if you choose a smaller server, but you don’t mind your server being instable due to being over capacity (something it’s already having issues with, hence asking people not to join)? Like, no matter if the servers goes down due to it being over it’s capacity or due to quiting, you still can’t use it… Sure it may come back up, but why not join a stable (semi-)big sized instance instead that run smoothly for you and doesn’t cause more trouble for the devs?
I mean, you trust the developers to keep things running smoothly, but you don’t trust their message to not join because they currently can’t…
Correct me if I’m wrong, but being over capacity will likley get sorted. Quitting is permanent.
IDK, beehaw.org and lemmy.world aren’t doing too bad
Nah just register at whichever instance that sounds the coolest to append to your name. Just FYI I’m from
programming.dev.I just went with our local instance. :)
This is the way
This is the way
First was on programming.dev, but it’s a quite new instance and it’s search cache doesn’t show a lot of community’s, so I switched and made an account on my local one.
“I just want to be where the people are” 🧜♀️
I created my own server…
Me too. Gonna close registrations at about 100 users. I don’t want this to get expensive but I’ll contribute what I can
Based on my previous experience running a Mastodon server, 90%+ of people are going to concentrate on already popular servers, especially the “official” one. I suppose I will also close (or be strict about) registration at some point myself, but I have a feeling I am not going to have to worry about it for a long time. My goal now is just to get some friends and acquaintances to join any lemmy instance, bonus points if it is mine.
I’ve just started my journey into lemmy, but I have to say, the federation part definitely needs better tooling. Like exploring beyond the borders of my instance is (at least using Jerboa) relatively hard. It feels very much like distinct universes, and less like a single space (like Reddit).
Where is the content stored by the way? On the posting user’s home server, on the destination community server, on both, or on every lemmy server? It wouldn’t be so bad to lose a username on one server if it shuts down - just create a new one - but I want to be sure my contributions stay accessible indefinitely.
I’m not 100% sure, but I think the source of truth is the community’s instance, that instance then informs the instances of anyone subscribed to that community. (This is all based on my understanding of how the pieces in ActivityPub could be fit together to build the features lemmy has)
Well, since I am one of the people who chose the “official” server on Lemmy as well as on Mastodon, I will tell you why I did it: The “official” server will most likely be the one, that has the least chance to be abandoned/closed at some time in contrast to a small server maintained by some student as a side-project (no offense :-) ). I don’t want to loose everything and start at zero, so I chose the most “reliable” server.
I absolutely understand. I used to run a Mastodon server, and stopped when it no longer interested me. I never really used twitter anyway whereas I am on reddit most every day, so I am expecting this to hold my interest/attention longer. I run a number of services for myself already (git, password manager, media hosting, authentication, etc) so the burden of one more thing in my homelab is minimal vs someone who isn’t doing that sort of thing.
Overall, some manner of truly federated and distributed user identity is something the current fediverse seems to be lacking. Nobody has really adopted DID yet and most of its registries still rely on some sort of central authority for identity regardless.
There’s a big difference between hosting single user servers vs public servers though. If it’s just for you then you can do whatever you want with it and it can be a lot of fun (until something breaks that is)
Yeah the people that say “what instance you join doesn’t really matter aside from your local page” when it does. It might be easier to get into an instance with only one other person, but that doesn’t mean that instance will continue to exist a year from now or even tomorrow.
Same here. I only have a couple of users though so I don’t show up on join-lemmy.org anymore. Not sure how to gather more users now. I figure if I do actually get up to a hundred or so users I’ll set up a LibrePay account and expand based on available funds.
How do you create your own server?
With some technical knowledge.
https://join-lemmy.org/docs/en/administration/administration.html
Its a bit techy right now, but hopefully some of the big name managed hosts will have scripts soon like they do for Mastodon.
This is the way. If you don’t like the moderators, don’t play on their servers. It’s that simple.
Proud to be a sh.itjust.works user
I’m reppin’ Lemmy.World
They need to do away with the ridiculous manual approval process on most servers and recommend servers that forego it on the main site.
I agree with this. Why should you have to write an essay to join a server which communites you might not even chose to interact with? Completely ridiculous
if you don’t wanna apply, then don’t apply, simple as that, just join one of the generic ones without an approval process.
the application requirement exists for a reason: many communities only want certain kind of people in their server, if you’re not a match, and you know it, then why bother even trying or complaining about it? find another one that’s your match because you aren’t their match either.
Don’t think anyone was confused about how to exercise free will. The criticism is on needing/having the process. Everyone understands why it exists. Some just think it’s a poor reason.
Yeah. I don’t know how to argue for it. It seems obvious to me that some communities have standards to keep and an open borders policy is an automatic way of not keeping those standards.
There are servers with “open borders” that require lengthy essays. Your reasoning is irrelivant
that’s not “open borders”, that’s equivalent to a visa request that will very likely be denied if the border agent decides he doesn’t like it, so my reasoning stands
I’m sorry but your reasoning is flawed in so many other ways that confronting all o the issues would require writing an essay which I have already involuntarliy started thanks to your complete idiocy. To start with: essays can easily be fabricated or automatically generated. There is no guarantee of any kind that a person is a ceirtan way because he sent some text over the internet assuring anyone of those qualities. There is no way to trust any server unless it’s invite only where people only invite friends they know can be trusted. If that’s how lemmy will end up then it will never be able to replace reddit. Having to interact with lunatics like you make me realize that lemmy is sure to die
Lemmy is worthless without users. We need people to switch from reddit to lemmy. If you get new users to belive that lemmy is not like reddit, they won’t switch. Making you write an essay to join a server will get the average person thinking that joining a server is a big deal and mak the conclusion that lemmy will be fragmented and not like reddit and promptly quit making an account on any server. You seem to have a lot of faith in people being willing to understand how lemmy works but the average person will not be idealistic and only check to see if it can be a replacement for reddit. Your mindset is activley killing lemmy and I want lemmy to grow. Your asshole attitude isn’t helping you make your point either.
Generic users should at first join a recommended server. Those don’t require essays. If they wanna join some niche server that has “high standards” in one way or another, then they shouldn’t expect the same requirements.
If you wanna promote lemmy, suggest ppl join any of the recommended servers that don’t require essays. I see no incompatibility with mass adoption (what you propose) and some servers not allowing everyone to join. Just promote the ones that do allow everyone to join and don’t promote any list of servers that puts the essay-requiring ones at the top cuz, as you say, that will obviously make it so very few people join.
I personally joined https://sh.itjust.works because it’s basically open borders and doesn’t require absolutely anything, not even an e-mail address. I just tapped a name and a password clicked registered and I was in. Promote shit like this instead of the picky ones. I don’t see what’s so hard about just giving the right links to ppl.
Not to mention that even after you do the essay, it takes forever to get approval on a lot of places. I signed up on lemmy.one first, and couldn’t log in for a long time…then signed up at beehaw.org. My lemmy.one account finally became active yesterday, while my beehaw.org one still hasn’t been activated, and it’s been 3 days.
Just curious, what’s the point of having an account at multiple? I was under the impression you could use one anywhere to use it everywhere.
you realize you can still view the communities without logging in, and decide whether you vibe with it.
also, I noticed quite a few instances had pinned posts introducing the instance to new people and telling them about what the instance stood for.
I didn’t mind writing an essay, because I had already browsed Beehaw and read all their philosophy links and I really liked it. I had read the blurbs on the other instances (there were only 70-something then)…. So I might tend to over-do stuff anyway. :)
Because with a federated model, servers can have different rulesets for their members, and and whitelists are an easy way of enforcing that.
Sucks for the users, good for the admins. If you have an alternative method for this, feel free to make a PR to lemmy and let server admins know of your update.
If you can’t code and don’t want to learn to code, but it’s still important to you, you can hire a developer on fiver to help you.
I would like to see lemmy succeed but I don’t care enough to spend money or precious time for it. Your way of writing makes you seem like a really unpleasant person to be forced to interact with IRL
Thanks I guess.
You’re good.
Servers could certainly curtail or contain some of the information of their members, but then again, if those servers restrict the ability to access other communities by a large amount, the userbase of that server would suffer from a general ignorance that would effectively ruin it.
Still, I think it’s important to reflect on the unpleasantries initiated here, so bear that in mind.
I don’t speak for how server admins vet the approvals but I know for sure it helps to avoid bots. Or used to avoid bots prior to chatgpt.
I’m very tempted to switch to another instance, but from what I understand, you can’t migrate your account like you can with Mastodon? That seems like something that should be expected with fediverse apps…
I think clarity on this or maybe a “roulette” of which instance on new user accounts would help. Most new users are Reddit refugees and just sign up to the mothership.
A roulette would be nice, the system balances the load of each instance. The downside of this is that it will negate the theme or purpose of the instance since the assigning of the members would likely be randomized instead of joining by choice of instance values and purpose.
I think that’s a pretty low stakes problem. I would wager it’s better to get people in the door so they can begin to understand what it even means to be on an instances that fits the vibe they’re looking for.
Even if ideally we could migrate, it’s always possible to just create an account elsewhere.
It’s low stakes to you because you don’t care about it. It’s not low stakes for the people who set up instances specifically based around building communities with a common theme.
That’s very true! I don’t think it should be completely random but something instances could opt-in to or have some other opt-out criteria.
It would indeed be bad if an instance focused on a specific mindset, goals, or subject was essentially invaded by clueless new users!
Yeah I think opt-in would be great.
I think it could benefit severely from having like a couple of “newbie” instances where people get placed unless they choose otherwise, where their accounts then have to be migrated from by choice when a month has passed or something. Like a beginner server on an MMO with people who help newcomers understand the basics.
I don’t think a roulette would work, because not all instances are created equal. Like, just look at Lemmygrad for the proof of that. There are other differences too, like some instances turn off downvoting.
I use lemmy.world. they have an associated mastodon as well.
