Does anybody here still wish the Fediverse just had more people?
I know and can accept the response that say I should register to X site if I want more activity. I do plan to, least with Reddit, just biding some time before I make yet the 20th disposable e-mail and probably the 100th account before it gets banned again if I cross a glass person. Glass person being someone who's so fragile on opinions and things that they'll scream 'BAN THEM BAN THEM!'.
I've been on KBin Social, Lemmy World (least 2 dedicated accounts), KBin Run, Mastodon, Blue Sky .etc
And I'd stay for a good while but I also found myself bored immediately. I check for questions to answer, it's the same questions I've seen days and weeks prior. I check around for things that are reported and they'll be hours old and some of them can be years old.
I love the idea of the Fediverse, I like some of the features that are implemented. Especially when you do ask questions on here and you're allowed to expand on it. Unlike AskReddit for example, they don't really like that and will remove your post because explaining what your question is about and backing it with an example is just unacceptable to them.
I don't know. 43,000+ people sounds a lot on paper, but in practice, it feels like you're dealing with 50 people at any given day.
Yes, I wish there would be more. But I am okay with the state it's in. The engagement is good enough, and I discover interesting things every other day. You can't force it anyway.
When I used to have Reddit on my phone, I'd look at it as soon as I woke up. There was new content constantly throughout the day so I kept coming back.
Lemmy doesn't have the content churn, so I can genuinely just look once a day and spend an hour or so catching up. No FOMO! I much prefer it.
However I do miss some of the niche subreddits that got reasonable activity on Reddit and absolutely zero activity here. They were my favourite part of Reddit.
I'd take more activity in those niche places, but I don't miss the addiction I had.
Spez let me go cold turkey for a while. Thanks (fuck) Spez.
Niche subreddits can have good content, and also I find myself looking at Reddit threads that come up in web searches, like if I search for a tech problem I'm having. But yes, the behaviour of Reddit as a profit-hungry corporation makes me want to not use Reddit or see their ads.
Lemmy seems to have quite a lot of people to be fair. Apparently Lemmy.world has nearly 7,000 users a day, which is quite a lot when you think about it.
One thing I think about is that maybe there are drawbacks to the Reddit-style format of Lemmy. A cool thing about old internet forums is that posts were show in chronological order with no upvotes, which is more similar to a real world conversation. You'd read the most recent posts, rather than the most upvoted posts. This means somebody new to the conversation can have their opinion seen.
The upvoting system means that a small number of posts get nearly all the upvotes and attention, and people who post later have their posts largely ignored.
Maybe I'm wrong but it's just something I thought about.
Sure that is true. Thank you for looking at my post and replying to it by the way. But I was just thinking how some people might just look at the top comments and nothing else. Maybe the upvote system does have some benefits though, like making bad posts less visible.
Maybe less content good? Infinitely scrolling is not great, and we all know that. Having limited content on Lemmy at allows me to at least move onto something else.
Yeah and it depends. The fact that there is no easy way to search the fedi for similar posts right now is a bit cumbersome for sure.
I see a lot of new users post something that has already been answered a 10000x times (What's the best Linux distro? It depends !) And luckily there's always someone to give a mature and comprehensive answer to a new comer without scaring him or down voting him to oblivion. This shows that there are a lot of people who believe in Lemmy and are ready to repeat themselves to keep Lemmy alive and give new comers a warmly welcome ! However I have only seen that kind of interaction in the Linux/self-hosted communities... Most memes/ask Lemmy/political views/... Communities seems rather hostile on their own opinions and quickly become a cesspool of anger and hate :/.
Also a lot of people think because some communities have a lower user base they won't get any answer or interaction I was quite surprised to get a comprehensive answer and help in the [email protected] community which has only 50 users/month !
I do, yes, especially for niche communities. But other social networks aren't the answer. Go look at what Reddit has become, or Twitter, or Facebook. It's all junk. Half of it is AIs talking to AIs. There's almost no meaningful conversation taking place. At least here we occasionally get some good conversations, although those are rare outside of politics and Linux.
There's plenty of diversity if you join boards focused on them, like LGBTQ communities. I think the defaults just lean excessively into the demographic you described.
.world is no different than reddit so you shouldn't expect any improvement there.
for me the lemmyverse is better so far than reddit, x, or facebooks but that's because i spend most of mt time away from the diet reddit lemmyverse instances; maybe that'll work for you too.
More users would be great for the fediverse, in theory. Right now Lemmy (and Mastodon) can attribute a lot of their users to people unhappy with Reddit Inc. (or X) in some way. Throwing more unhappy people into the user base would probably not lead to good outcomes.
Personally I think Lemmy and Mastodon will never get the critical mass of users needed to maintain healthy communities because the only thing they have to offer is a less bad clone of an existing network.
X is bad because a malignant political demagogue is actively destroying what most people liked about Twitter. Reddit is bad because reddit inc. cares more about profit more than the needs of the user base. But the platforms they created and/or operate aren't designed with a federated model in mind.
If the fediverse is ever going to move out of the technically savvy, early adopter nerds phase I think it's only going to do that through something new and better than what already exists.
For me the biggest problem is not volume in general but volume of niche content. The best thing about Reddit was all the active, engaging communities that would sprawl around any niche subject you could imagine.
You know, you actually hit the nail on the head in the context I had failed to articulate. Like yes the Fediverse does have some interesting communities, but they're communities we expect of the fediverse to have that everyone else has. But, it does not have a dedicated Nostalgia community, it does not have AbruptChaos or anything else. Just the basics.
And I think if more people took on tasks like running the communities while educating people the benefits of the fediverse, then we can see a bit more growth. Because the point of the matter is if people are desperate for a Reddit alternative, they're going to want to feel like they're home. If there's nothing here that's going to help make them feel that, then they're going to just stick to Reddit for better or worse.
But, it does not have a dedicated Nostalgia community, it does not have AbruptChaos or anything else. Just the basics.
There's only so many communities you can maintain active with 45k monthly active users
And I think if more people took on tasks like running the communities while educating people the benefits of the fediverse, then we can see a bit more growth.
Speaking personally, while I am here, my participation in Lemmy is lacklustre at best; same with Mastodon. I got burnt out from social media and the years from 2016 - 2024 have really ruined my enthusiasm. I think maybe a lot are in the same boat. Maybe we'll see more people come out of the "shields up, dark times overload" in a year or so... and maybe it will take longer.
I wish there was more people on not-so-general communities.
If this means less meme or political posts, it would be for the best. However, more specific communities that are not part of a themed instance have very little activity. If I want to learn about ecology and its science, I know I can find many active communities on slrpnk.net, if I want content that matter to Germans, I can go it feddit.org, jlai.lu the same for Frenchs. But if I want people posting picture of nice looking sticks or find !foraging stories or connect with people doing [email protected] I know that I have to be patient and that's to bad 'cause if people spend less time commenting US election or some shower thoughts, some people will find time and fun interacting in these communities and many others.
For more diverse content I indeed wish, but you can't build a healthy social network with an explosion of members without the moderation and toolings required to handle such a wave.
I'd rather be there while the Fediverse grows organically and gather my info from multiple sources the old fashioned way.
So You Thought You Were Lying Low in a Space Forged by an Exodus from Society to Bury your Shoebox of Fake IDs but Nuance Defied Expectation, a Stone's Tale
Ya it's not bad. In the popular areas it seems like I can get away with just commenting on things but smaller communities I need to make a post to make it feel not-dead in there.
I have actual internet friends here. People who, based solely on their efforts and words and interactions, align with my own beliefs and ideals and help me temper and adjust accordingly as time goes on. Adults. I'd happily stay like this or with more, similar people, growing slowly and legitimately.
Agreed. The past year has been a great change from other social media personally. I was Reddit only for the prior 7 or so years and Lemmy feels like a time hop back to pre-dystopic Internet days. I approach it more like my favorite forums from the 90's-00's.
Less content and users are ok when it leads to more civil engagement's.
Same here. I find lemmy very relaxing.
Multiple times a day I’ll see people admit they misunderstood and upvoting each other. It’s quite refreshing. Sure people still be people but. It feels like we care and aren’t throwing trash on the floor. Whereas Reddit everyone will wipe their ass on your nose.
I was digging through old foot lockers from my army days, a while back, and found an old AOL 2.0 CD. I did not toss it into the fire, however. Fond memory friend, thanks
The largest Lemmy instance is the most boring, full of unfunny memes and the worst Redditor culture. What you want is high quality postrs, not simply more people!
At this point I've blocked so many .world communities that I don't see that as much. There are some users who I notice bring the reddit antagonism and I tend to block them too. If I come across a post that is full of reddit quips I just block the whole community. I guess I've blocked fewer .ml communities overall.
I don't know. I do understand the preference of quality over quantity, but there is a limit. There's a difference between reddit anime discussion, where each episode discussion has hundreds of diverse opinions - most being shitty - sure, but while the voting system is flawed, the interesting comments do tend to rise. and between lemmy's anime discussions, where an episode has...let me check: between 0 to two comments: https://lemmy.world/c/anime or https://ani.social/c/anime. That is really sad.
Not to mention that reddit has so much niche subreddits
Having enough users for a community is important, I agree! I think that with the current size of Lemmy userbases, communities are often more like topic flags than self-sustaining niches.
Though to pick on Reddit, every time mods crack down on bots their subreddits decrease in posts and comments around tenfold. A lot of the engagement is fake. Mostly to boost numbers for financial reasons but they can also serve as a means of controlling behaviors and narratives.
Be the change you seek! Most anime communities will let you post episode discussions, and if your instance is active enough you'll draw viewers sorting by new.
It's not really elitist, Lemmy was founded as an alternative to Reddit, but Lemmy.world is a repitition of it, not to mention the anti-Marxist pro-zionist moderators. It's understandable that people leaving Reddit don't want the same thing as Reddit.
I used reddit for two things: news, and niche subcommunities around small hobbies and fandoms.
We've got the former here, but I don’t know if we'd ever have enough of a critical mass to sustain the latter. And that sucks for me, because I no longer have a good space for that stuff, but I still don't ever want to go back to reddit now.
We do, people just have to put in the work. I run two niche communities. Satisfactory and Taylor Swift. Both take time to run and manage, I had to be the sole poster in both for a good long time before other people started jumping in and posting with me. Someone has to be willing to put themselves out there.
Same, I come back every few days and don't feel like I've missed some big meme or event. Reddit you had to log on literally everyday or you could miss some joke and now it's memed all over every sub and you have no clue what's going on.
If you think this question is being asked too much, go and sit at AskReddit sometime. Count the many, many times you will see questions like 'Why are you single?' or "What would you do if someone gave you a million dollars?' or similarly worded questions. They are posted by the hour, almost nonstop.
You get a question like mine like once in a few weeks or a month maybe. But you hadn't seen anything until you check out AskReddit.
Agreed! Seriously people this is not reddit. It does not have a bajillion users. Stop asking for it to have a billion users! This question has been asked So. Many. Times. I'm content with the amount of users here, of people want to invite more than invite more, but what is this post? "I have noticed that there are fewer users". Correct! Next question.
I would say I miss some specific people or groups, both on Lemmy and on Mastodon, rather than generally "more" people. Friends of mine, certain people I used to follow on Twitter that haven't made the jump, some communities about specific hobbies, that sort of thing.
Overall, I enjoy the fact that I can get a rough idea about who is who instead of interacting with a mass of faceless strangers.
Since the vast majority of website users are minimally engaged, I would love for a few more active posters for stability of content and discussion, but not a massive influx of users just to have users.
I also don't want a plethora of users who get banned repeatedly for not being selfaware that their behavior is the problem. The occosional crossed wires ban, no biggie, but thinking there are so many glass people that creating dozens of alts is necessary is not a good look.
Yes, I still moderate a subreddit which is a support group for a particular surgery. There isn't such a community on the fediverse and the group of people who need this surgery seem to be few in number here too. (Won't be any more specific about the nature of the subreddit or surgery for privacy reasons, before anyone asks)
I think the Fediverse is the perfect platform for things like what you run. I also think at times how great the fediverse could be for those who're mentally struggling. Just imagine, a decentralized platform where not only is it separated from the general network, but it's an instance/server where people can feel safe and private. Also secure too.
You don't get that feeling on Reddit. People are telling sensitive stories out there for all to see on Reddit and anywhere else. They're unfortunately setting themselves up for the chance of anybody stumbling upon those tellings and could give them hell for it. Making them worse off than they already were.
Personally I don't find a huge difference with reddit and threadiverse, at least for larger subs. Sure, on paper there are hundreds of comments, but most are the same tired decade old memes. You can predict what the comment sections are gonna be like from the title alone. At worst you get similar comments here, but you don't have to dig through hundreds of comments before finding something worthwhile.
Absolutely. There's just fuck all to do here. I used reddit for fan communities a lot, and most of them stayed behind. (Unless you're a trekkie I guess. Then you're set.)
Nearly every niche community I've joined has essentially died due to not having the critical mass of users to support that community. Hell, even look at the large states like California or Texas: they're communities with only a few hundred active users and maybe a couple thousand joined. Feels like the lemmy is mostly us politics, star trek, Germans, and memes.
You know a platform is big when like nearly all states of a country have their own subreddit and their own userbase. It's like, that's impact there.
It's the same here, I check the front page and what do I see? Politics, politics, politics, a couple memes and maybe a news report that isn't politics.
I didn't say anything about communists. I said I missed being able to interact with people who shared my hobbies. I just want to grill talk about cartoons and video games.
Also, I was sold on Lemmy because they told me it was an user owned alternative to reddit, which was going tits up at the time. "It's a communist website." Is not what they told me to get me over here.
The "threadiverse" (i.e. lemmy-compatible communities), yeah. There are still many topics that I would find interesting to discuss, but that nobody talks about here; to the extent that there are communities for them, they get very little activity.
The microblogging fediverse (mastodon-compatible), I think, is popular enough by now, I have no real desire to see even more activity there, can hardly keep up with what I'm currently following there and currently tend to unfollow more accounts than I start following.
For example on Reddit there is an active subreddit for learning my first language (German), where learners post questions about it and I frequently answer them.
There is such a community here too, and I am subscribed to it, but hardly anyone ever posts to it, so I have nothing to respond to.
I wish there were more people in the fediverse, but not necessarily heaps more on Lemmy. I don't want Reddit numbers on Lemmy. But I wish there were more platforms and more people engaging with them, and no, if the answer is shit like Threads then I don't want any of it.
Find a good instance, it's nice that way. Hexbear is really nice to browse locally, I'm sure there are other instances with active communities like that with good local feeds. The issue isn't with magnitude of people, but the activity levels of people, otherwise you get instances dominated by a few people similar to Reddit.