The front page of Lemmy is mostly posts from 2-4 days ago. I can see people getting bored/not bothering to check back if it's always the same posts on the default sort.
There is a bug in 0.17.4 that stops front pages from updating shortly after the server is restarted, thus resulting in “hot” and "active" showing stale posts.
I have fixed this issue on https://lemm.ee already, you can check our front page to see fresh posts. The fix will soon land in the main Lemmy codebase as well so other instances can take advantage, you can track the issue here: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/3076
I have also advised other instance admins that regularly restarting their Lemmy server will work as a band-aid workaround until the proper fix is released, so some admins have already implemented this in order to get their post rankings working again, but the proper fix will come in the next release of Lemmy.
There are two maintainers, but it's open source, so dozens of others have contributed over the years (and a lot of new contributors have joined in the current month - myself included!)
that regularly restarting their Lemmy server will work as a band-aid workaround
This will cause another problem. The outbound federation queue is held in RAM only, and restarting lemmy_server will cause it to forget to send copies of comments and postings to other instances when it has not yet finished delivery. see issue: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/2142
I think OP is getting at the point that maybe the default shouldn't be local. I set mine to subscribed, but until a server is widely used, maybe the default should be all. It's more of a server admin thing than a software default thing, IMO, though.
Yea this is how I'm doing it, and it's great. Plus I get real time notifications on new communities. I used reddit by new too, but here seems to be genuinely more engaged.
Be the change you want to see, post new things, comment on stuff, upvote away.
A big mind shift from reddit is that the contribution doesn't have to be the most interesting, insightful, or novel. When you're in a giant community it can feel like you have to have the most incredible thing to feel like its worth posting. Here you can experiment so much more
The problem is actually not that there isn’t enough new content. Sort by new and see your front page get flooded every second. The problem seems to be the sort options bugging out for days at a time
Yeah I'm starting to see this as well. On my second or third day here and the front page is the same, I have to actively look for more. That's going to drive away new folks
Yea, I think a custom sort/filter option would be innovative comparing with other UX: e.g. I want all the newest posts of my subbed list with more than 3 comments and certain keywords in/out rather than just hot/new/most comments. RES partially enabled this.
I've been sorting by 'Hot' recently, its a little more chaotic but it's definitely a fresher experience. Also I just found out you can hide read posts! Which has been a huge game changer.
I just started trying out changing the setting "show read post" to unchecked in my settings to hide read post. Now I don't need to see same old stuff. It is great! It is like reading emails now 😂
I use the app so I have to refresh every time to hide tho but I don't think that will be a thing for web users.
EDIT: I checked your lemmy.world instance with the same settings https://lemmy.world/home/data_type/Post/listing_type/All/sort/Hot/page/1 and indeed all posts seem to be old. It's something to do with your instance maybe. I suggest meanwhile you use All Top Day instead. This will ensure you get top posts of the past 24h.
When I set my front page to "All" and "Hot", it constantly adds new posts to the top of the lists and shuffles everything down. I just visited the page and it updated the list three times in about five seconds. Is there a way to make it not do that?
Hey! 👋 There's a setting you can toggle on your account for 'show read posts' which should stop you seeing things you've already interacted with. That might help you out 👍
Important note if you were confused like me: expanding an image is not currently counted as an interaction for the purposes of hiding already seen content.
Love this idea. I definitely treat most content lists as an inbox; if I've interacted with it, archive it somewhere unobtrusive in case I need to refer to it later.
In your profile settings is a way to set the default.
Some users have reported a visual bug where when you go back to the main page it will say that you have a different sorting method selected, but the results of the page should still reflect what you've set as your default. We're all Alpha Testers for Lemmy :)
Some people have, so it'll be a little slower, but there appears to be a fairly critical mass of users here now. It's now a question of actually creating active communities to start luring people away.
Is the default sort different depending on your instance? Like you're on lemmy.world, but I'm on reddthat.com. Are they the same out of the box, or is there differences?