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
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    45
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year 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.
  • MentallyExhausted@reddthat.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    26
    ·
    1 year 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
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year 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.

        • DelusionalAI@lemmy.fmhy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          1 year ago

          Is there any point to having more than 1? As long as the instance isn’t shut down it shouldn’t really matter which one is “Home” right?

          • Evkob@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            1 year ago

            Right, as long as your instance’s server is up, you should be able to interact with any content using ActivityPub.

    • Silviecat44@vlemmy.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

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

  • Banana@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    24
    ·
    1 year ago

    I like the concept
    But it feels very much like its been designed by nerdy developers and has had little to no-input on user friendly design.

    The federated idea can work but it needs to be more seemless than this.

    1. Communities with the same name should be merged when viewing it from any instance, so you can see all the posts from these communities, they can be moderated seperatley and for advanced users you should be able to select which communities make up the merged community.
    2. By default you should see all of the merged communities in a central place and be able to subscribe to them easily, at the moment its handled different per instance but you have to seek out these communities to subscribe or follow them.
    3. I strongly believe there should be a centralised log-in system, so you can log into any instance with an account from another instance, this means if your instance goes down your account is centralised and is safe.
  • Sploosh the Water@vlemmy.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    23
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year 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.

  • YourBrainOnScience@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    1 year 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.

  • petrichorbreeze@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    1 year 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.

  • egg sandwich
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    1 year ago

    I’m enjoying the concept behind the fediverse, and while communities are small right now, they’re eventually gonna get bigger and be more centralized.

    I think the UI/UX does need a little more work, but that’ll come with time.

  • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year 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.

  • starrox@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    1 year ago

    I am enjoying it so far. I usually tend to lurk but the community is, as many have said, very welcoming and it creates an atmosphere where it encourages you to contribute (not just with up/downvotes but also comments).

  • Z3DT@feddit.nl
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year 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.

  • Retainer8510@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    It’s giving me some early reddit days vibes. I remember searching for communities that fit my interests, it felt less based on recommendations and more ‘pick your content yourself’. never felt the urge to post much myself on reddit, this feels like a place I would though.

    Biggest downside I see right now is user base size and UI of mobile apps. Have only tested Jerboa right now, which feels like a very basic app (still working fine though!). once I get some customization capabilities back on mobile I’ll be happy!

    And the user base will grow, the fediverse approach feels kinda nice.

  • Higante@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    1 year 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

  • domsch@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    1 year 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.