My experience of getting started with Lemmy so far
My experience of getting started with Lemmy so far
Thought that I would start off my first post in this place by getting this off my chest. In case anyone is wondering why more people haven't flocked to Lemmy yet, this has been my experience so far.
Last night I decided to give this place a shot and sign up, just to be met with a join page that was mostly unresponsive and didn't want to load anything. I ended up giving up and going to bed but thankfully by the morning, the web page had listed the possible servers for me to join.
So, especially after my experience the night before, I thought that the server that has in its description "recommended for users to join this server to reduce load" was a good start.
Then it came to looking for apps. I thought that the app with the description "made by Lemmy devs" would pair well with the server recommended to new users. Only to find that the server that I joined isn't even listed in the app when I try to sign in. And that manually typing it does nothing but give "server error" responses as well.
So now here I am, typing this from my laptop, wondering how many other people try to join this platform and give up after the first couple of hoops that need jumping through first. I'm hoping that eventually I will find the right server and app combo to give me an actual complete, working experience but so far my experience here has been a little bit ridiculous.
Anyway, glad I got that off my chest. Hi Lemmy, just a Reddit refugee hoping to make a home here, once I've got this absolute circus of trying to get going here in the first place behind me.
Unfortunately Jerboa isn't a great app. Voyager has worked well for me.
I’m happy you made the trek here despite the hiccups 😊
I made an account on lemmy.world and use Boost for Lemmy since it's exactly the same as Boost for Reddit and it's pretty awesome. I paid for the app, one time purchase, no subscription but you can launch the rocket to support the dev.
I use Voyager on android. Works pretty well, and it allows you to filter content by keyword or community
It also still displays split voting scores, when many apps don't. Combined scores really skew the perception of what's really going on.
It also has RES style tags
It was a similar bullshit experience for me. I created like 4 different accounts at the beginning because one server needed to allow me to join, one didn't load, one literally disappeared one week after I started on it and so I ended up on the one that I am now. Every time I switched I lost all my settings, filters and blocks.
It's a very disjointed experience and you can immediately tell there's no one putting proper focus on user experience.
I would be shocked if the average person encountering a quarter of this shit would not give up immediately and for ever.
note that since a year now, you can port your settings over to new servers
Also, smaller instances seems shunted from .world for example.
LW is too large of its own good, until they upgrade to 0.19.8 it's going to stay messy.
Yeah, the Fediverse needs to transcend this clunky as shit open source ass stuff. Thank you for the excellent back end. Now since this is important, we gotta get the front end not to be hostile.
The world is transforming radically and needs a new internet that is both not corporate and not shitty. Fedi's at like 1.2 out of 2.
As far as apps go, I personally recommend sync (if you're on Android anyway)
And I personally have enjoyed jerboa app.
Nice, I think I used that for Reddit for a bit ages ago. I'll definitely check it out, thank you!
So while it's good to spread server load, for a new user it's also good to just land on a reliable server and then I'd suggest move to another server once you're familiar with Lemmy if you find a server you prefer. You'll already find a lot of content has been federated in locally on established servers.
I'd suggest Lemmy.ee, Lemmy.world, Lemmy.ml, of sh.itjust.works . There are also good regional servers like feddit.uk, and Lemmy.ca and similar non-english servers.
In terms of apps, I use Boost which is pretty much identical to the old Reddit version.
You should be able to log in to any server on most apps, so it may be that the server you've picked is a little flaky or difficult to reach?
OP, don't go to lemmy.ml unless you're a hardcore tanky.
Maybe not that one https://feddit.nl/post/16246531
Yeah, onboarding is a major bottleneck to jumping into lemmy.
I can't say that's a bad thing, but it does make it a barrier to large scale adoption.
That being said, I'm kinda surprised that jerboa didn't work for you. I've never run into trouble manually entering instances, but it's been a while since I used it. While it isn't exactly the best app for lemmy, it's the most reliable overall. Well, on android, no idea about iOS.
But, I noticed you said you were a sync user at reddit. Sync for lemmy is pretty reliable, though (as was the case with reddit) the developer does the whole no updates, then a single big one thing, so it can lag behind lemmy version updates a good bit. I'm using it right now, and it's fully functional for a user. Can't moderate on it. It also has some issues with markup handling, but every app has some quirk or another with that. That's a lemmy thing tbh.
Connect is another reliable app, purpose built for lemmy. Boost and eternity (which was infinity before) are both essentially the same as the reddit versions. Summit and thunder are nice ones that are lemmy based. Tastes vary, but those are the ones I've liked most.
The good thing is, with that barrier to entry, you tend to not have as many idiots. The kind of folks that will sign up and spam shit while being an twerp because it's easy to do tend to get filtered out. So the overall experience here is more fulfilling. Might want to avoid lemmy.ml, and hexbear if you aren't pretty radically leftist, and just avoid lemmygrad entirely.
Posted on Lemmy.world from lemmy.myserv.one. very cool.
Is this something that's incorrect to do around here? From what I can tell, myserv.one has one single community and the whole deal is that you're supposed to able to access anything from there? Although I've already come across a post suggesting that there's some sort of server wars going on around here so I'm starting to wonder if this is actually the place for me. I just want to post and talk shit, not worry about the url I'm coming from or tip toe around in case I stumble into some war that I know nothing about.
You can do what you're hoping to do. There aren't "server wars" but there are a few instances that are known to have users with extreme tanky views. Many servers have defederated from lemmygrad, and hexbear.net. There are a lot of users with similar viewpoints on lemmy.ml, but they tend to be less extreme. Everything else is pretty normal, albeit heavily left leaning.
No. Not at all. You said first post, so I thought it was kinda cool. Anything else I wanted to say... Well This sums it up.
Is this something that’s incorrect to do around here?
No. It's exactly the point of federation.
No, it is absolutely fine.
You make an account on an instance and this is your home instance then you'll be able to interact with other instances like you are doing now as long as the server you joined hasn't banned an instance.
Ignore all the drama and use the block function liberally for shit you dont care about and you'll soon be able to tailor your experience to more of what you want to see and chat shit about.
Once you get your head around what is going on it really isnt too complex, it is just the initial experience that can be a little confusing I guess.
I'm using the web UI and it works great, even on mobile.
Yeah, looks like it's back to Firefox on Android for me. Just tried Sync and it doesn't list the server that I signed up with either. Lol. Lmao even.
On iOS, I can recommend Memmy.
Voyager was the best app I found during my brief stint on iOS.
I read that Memmy wasn’t under active development any longer. I switched to Voyager and I’ve been pretty happy.
Interesting, I haven’t had complaints after blocking a few communities.
Same I’m loving the tag system. Makes blocking arses way easier and cleans up my feed.
