Bad UX is keeping the majority of people away from Lemmy
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One didn't allow down votes. Seemed like a good idea. I rarely down vote. But in practice, when I do it's for a reason. And I want the option.
Another went down for roughly a week. So that didn't work out.
Which is one reason I embraced Communick; a paid instance. Been here since.
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Have you ever been on Facebook? Ever read the illiterate moronic uneducated garbage that people post as fact? It's called 'my truth'; maybe because it's only true in their sphere (of one).
There are going to be a seriously large number of people totally flummoxed by that question.
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Sure, but trends seem to hit harder here, probably because we’re smaller. There have been weeks where it seemed like 60% of the non text posts in my feed were about jeans or beans or vegan cat food. Those probably weren’t more than 0.1% of posts, but they sure felt overwhelming at the time.
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I don't really want them here, but I'd rather them be here than on reddit. Reddit is more toxic than this place and a lot of that comes top down. At least here people can spin off an instance the minute admins/mods act like dicks. There, the culture just gets worse and festers and it contributes to toxicity in the world outside itself. Imagine if the r/theDonald pricks have been ostracized and started their own instance which most instances defederated with quickly.
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You seem to be doing the same? Majority of reddit users are younger than op. People who use old reddit are objectively the minority
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You're taking zero choice away from people, All I'm asking for is better defaults and guidance
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join-lemmy.org already has this in a way:
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There are aspects that could be better, sure. I think communities should be like sets of posts, subject to unions, conjuctions, and other set operations. Then you wouldnt have the issue of 5 versions of c/memes, they could be virtually joined into one memes community at the user level (and the user can filter out instances icon unities risers they don't like of course). Moderation could be decoupled from communities and made a broader service that users choose to interact with, agreeing to a level of moderation comfortable for their experience.
But also, put me in the group that thinks lemmy should stay small. Corpo social has convinced us that a single big room with every idiot and literally their mother screaming into it is how the internet should be and it isn't. We can go back to smaller, focused online communities that don't openly invite everyone to come in and fight.
Centralization tendencies are all rooted in power and control. We need to fragment more.
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Thanks for sharing! Very much aligned with what i have in mind... Only difference would be to narrow down to 1 or 2 (if at all) on the landing screen - maybe all other options are under a "advanced user? Click here to expand server selection" or something like that...
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I'm not saying everyone should have the one I think is best.
I've said many times I don't have the solution, it's just painfully obvious that what we have now sucks. (goes against basic UX principles)
I'm saying the instances that care about not filtering out non tech savvy people, and that want to attract more users, should care and put some effort into this.
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Thank you for including sources, this was my point to AnonymousWolf.
I should have said "they may not be the same" as I didn't check either. I stand corrected.
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The problem here is that those are filters, and the newcomer will usually still be faced with several options, which will still make them scratch their head.
A wizard is a good idea, with simple questions, rather than filter buttons.
But it needs to end up telling you "here you go, this is the one you want!", giving you just a single instance. Doesn't matter that multiple will probably match the answers given - then just pick one at random. Chances are, they will be equally happy on either, and if not, well, it isn't very hard to switch to a new instance later on, when they have become regular Lemmists.
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I personally see three big issues with getting new users to Lemmy use and stat on Lemmy:
- knowing about it: It is a matter of time before Reddit bans linking to Lemmy. Either by outright preventing their discussion via shadow deletes or full deletes. join-lemmy.org would be well served by purchasing ads on Google and on Bing
- join-lemmy ux needs to be improved: this goes to your point and I fully agree that there needs to be a better onboarding experience. I am a fairly technical guy and even I had trouble understanding the major concepts behind Lemmy. Many of these concepts aren't terribly important to a new user though. At least at first.
- more and better content: this is fortunately getting better but we're not there yet