Bad UX is keeping the majority of people away from Lemmy
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The main reason why I still prefer Reddit, is content. Even though I am subscribed to similar subs/communities/magazines/whatever on Reddit/Lemmy, the content of my Reddit home screen is filled with interesting content compared to Lemmy. And, I never had to ban/hide anything/anyone on Reddit.
That problem will go away if we get more people to join lemmy by providing good smooth UX
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This reddit post likely has tens if not hundreds of thousands of views, look at the top comment.
Lemmy is losing so many potential new users because the UX sucks for the vast majority of people.
What can we do?
I totally disagree.
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Lemmy is too right wing to serve as a good Reddit replacement. The queer communities on Reddit don't want to move here because their members will be harassed.
Political literacy classes are available online… the idea of anybody thinking Lemmy is right wing (whether it’s code or the majority of its user base) is hilarious and a bit sad at the same time.
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I tried, but I like information density and the new UI is a horrible waste of space. I get why people like it and it's way more modern, I'm saying loads of people who used reddit from the start will probably never get used to the new UI, mostly because of the customizability and open API.
Reddit didn't have apps in the beginning, so we made them over the years perfecting the UI. I settled on baconreader with a compact view, but it and so many others died when the API was purged. I patched my app and can still use it to this day, but I don't because fuck them.
Oh yeah absolutely the app purge is why I'm here. I absolutely despise their mobile app; but on desktop I don't mind.
The information density isn't that important to me on desktop since my screen is plenty large and scrolling (or collapsing) comments is easy.
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Where they are is having spent most of their life in a walled garden corporate internet. What you need to understand is that all new things have a learning curve, and the process of learning needs to be accepted - rather than trying to pressure free systems into being the very thing everyone is wanting to get away from.
Freedom means having choice. Sometimes a lot of it. Sometimes that's scary. But it's worth embracing.
If any of that were true there wouldn't be posts and comments here and elsewhere from professional programmers who gave up on the registration process because of bad UX. I was one of them. People don't give up on registering here because it's "scary".
If you're one of the many people here happy for this to remain a niche for tech people then that's different.
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Political literacy classes are available online… the idea of anybody thinking Lemmy is right wing (whether it’s code or the majority of its user base) is hilarious and a bit sad at the same time.
Spacetime is relative. If we're putting directions on politics, then politics has to be relative too.
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Spacetime is relative. If we're putting directions on politics, then politics has to be relative too.
Well, right is a term relative to centre which is relative to left.
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If any of that were true there wouldn't be posts and comments here and elsewhere from professional programmers who gave up on the registration process because of bad UX. I was one of them. People don't give up on registering here because it's "scary".
If you're one of the many people here happy for this to remain a niche for tech people then that's different.
If somebody gave up on the registration, how would you know? They wouldn't be here to say it.
If you gave up on the registration, then how are you here? You're inventing impossible physics to support your arguments. Are you a professional programmer for doge?
Here's what your expert opinion is really about:
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I've decided this is good and want a Lemmy that is restricted to just the nerdiest of nerds.
These little spaces are cool without all those horrible reddit users.I like this idea! I still don’t see how the more narrowly focussed servers would benefit me. I went with Lemmy.world because size matters in a forum, and the admins have been outstanding with reliability. The most likely reason for me to jump ship would be if that reliability fell.
That being said when I was new I had no idea what hexbear was or Lemmy.ml or whatever, and there’s only so much a description can do. I know the difference after reading many discussion threads
But I so would have jumped on Lemmy.nerds over Lemmy.jocks or Lemmy.preppies. Multiple servers with clearer sub communities may help make onboarding easier. That being said, I realize I could just do that if I wanted to. I also realize that may just amplify the echo chamber effect
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You're welcome, that's probably going to be much more pleasant for you ha ha
Huh, I read this so differently than you guys intended. I was imagining different subscription profiles or something where the day is pleasant with things like c/awww but I get my rage on at night with c/politics
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Well, when I started to use lemmy I had a few problems:
- I read something on the landing page about "Mastodon account works too" so tried that, so basically confused fediverse, activitypub, mastodon and lemmy and wondered why nothing worked. Oops.
- I tried to join a community that was meant to migrate away from reddit, but found two duplicates. So I wasn't sure which one was the correct one. Ultimately the migration failed, even though it was a software oriented community
- Then I soon wanted to make a new account on a server that doesn't require an email. Because emails today are basically personally identifiable for security agencies.
- Then I found out that socialists are called tankies on lemmy and some of the main socialist instances are banned by the limbrols. So I made a new account and posted a little and had an interesting discussion about voting in proto-fascist democracies and promptly got banned by the tankies. Oh well.
- Then I had a discussion about how calling russian people "orcs" is racist. You guessed it, banned.
- Well several accounts later, here I am, the last sane man on the internet and you all fucking suck hahaha
I do think lemmy is worthwhile and can be fun, but as a reddit alternative it has already failed. You cannot purge insanity by splitting it up into smaller insanlets. That's just schizophrenia.
What are those?
limbrols
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Maybe this is a terrible thing to say, but I actually like that registering for federated sites requires a bit work.
IMO, the internet was more enjoyable when it was just full of us nerds
But once we need our over whatever we’re overly focussed on, we’re back to being the only ones in the computer lab at 3am
We need to bring enough nerds together or bridge the airgap, translate the jargon, find our unifying furry identity
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To the guy in here going "UX != UI!!!" Sure, but you can't design UX, especially for the unwashed masses. "Tried cutting toenails with lawnmower; severed foot. 0/10 bad user experience."
Lemmy has a "have our cake and eat it too" problem. It offers two mutually exclusive promises:
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Each instance is its own independent self-contained little Reddit with their own communities, culture, code of conduct etc. so that individuals can find a place that suits them or make one if none is available, and
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All the servers are part of one great big federated system where all users have access to content on all instances so it doesn't matter which instance you sign up for, you can access it all.
In practice, the former is more or less true, the latter really isn't.
First there's the obvious topic of defederation, which makes the "join one server, access all of them" an outright lie. On the one hand, I think everyone here will agree this platform requires defederation to function so that we can kick out instances like lolli.rape or whatever, which thank you admins and mods for dealing with. But what about Hexbear, or Truth Social (which as I understand it is running on Mastodon software). The only honest answer to "where do we draw that line?" is "somewhere in the middle of that slap fight over there."
It is intellectually dishonest to say that Lemmy has this problem and Reddit doesn't. Post in r/mensrights and an automod bans you from r/twoxchromosomes. Do basically anything anywhere on the platform and get banned from r/conservative. They managed to implement "It's a different platform depending on who you are" on a monolithic service.
All that crap aside, the average user has a more limited perspective on the rest of the fediverse than his home instance. Often, the UI defaults to viewing only local posts, you have to tell it to give you a global feed. You can browse a list of your local communities, you can browse a list of global communities, you can't browse a list of communities on a given foreign instance. 'Show me everything on lemmy.sports' or indeed 'show me a list of communities on lemmy.nsfw.' You cannot create (or moderate?) communities on instances you aren't a member of. It is, if only slightly, easier to participate on your home instance than elsewhere.
Either your choice of server does matter, or it doesn't.
If it does matter, we shouldn't have so many general purpose instances, it should be lemmy.music and lemmy.art and lemmy.uk. Then newcomers are presented a meaningful choice. Are you mostly interested in discussions pertaining to your country? Your hobby? Your career? Sign up here to mostly participate in that, and no matter which you pick you can visit the rest of the Lemmyverse, too."
If it doesn't matter, then design it such that instances are entirely transparent to users; eliminate the possibility of [email protected] and [email protected] coexisting, and make all instances lemmy1.world lemmy2.world, issue credentials centrally and then just spread the load in the background.
I don't think you can have both at the same time.
I'm of the opinion that federation should only prevent a community or instance from appearing in the all feed. I should still be able to subscribe to communities that my instance has defederated from.
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If somebody gave up on the registration, how would you know? They wouldn't be here to say it.
If you gave up on the registration, then how are you here? You're inventing impossible physics to support your arguments. Are you a professional programmer for doge?
Here's what your expert opinion is really about:
"If somebody gave up on the registration, how would you know?"
Because although I have an account here on Lemmy I can still see discussions on comparable sites."If you gave up on the registration, then how are you here?"
Because I came back a year later after coming across a good explainer for how the fediverse works.I'm not going to look at that link.
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I think, you didn't get my point. Everything you mentioned.
In the EU there is some amount of data protection and privacy rights, so that matters to quite a few people. Commercial outfits handle those distinctions behind the scenes (eg, US users vs EU users get different amounts of privacy). On the fediverse, the user has to figure this out themselves.
Beyond that, I agree with everything you say. Some of the instances don't even have the name "Lemmy" in the domain or brand which makes it confusing. Or maybe they're not Lemmy but just ActivityPub compatible. I have no idea. You can also get unlucky picking a "bad" server. I first joined Kbin.social because it had the best UI at the time but man, it rarely worked and totally put me off.
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I disagree. I just found a link to lemmy.world, with no idea of how lemmy worked, and I'm perfectly happy. People's complaints about servers seem to come down to personal issues.
It’s like politics, hahaha. Those who don’t trouble themselves with too many details remain content with whatever they their emotions dictated while those who do research, sort out real facts, read reviews, understand the platform details live the next four years in constant anxiety
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Especially because most users respond to this with “good.”
good.
Your comedic timing is impeccable.
Sure. You complained about that opinion, but it doesn't mean I can't hold that opinion. I don't agree with your observations or conclusions. We don't need more dimwit asshole conservatives here, if that's what you mean by 'wider audience'. That group already whines that Reddit is too leftist for them. I don't really agree that Lemmy is more extreme in that regard, other than specific instances like .ml or grad. The politics I see here are not more extreme and I don't find the user base 'repellant' at all, and I hold fairly typical US left views (would like more socialism, believe in human rights, universal healthcare, oppose racism, etc).
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"If somebody gave up on the registration, how would you know?"
Because although I have an account here on Lemmy I can still see discussions on comparable sites."If you gave up on the registration, then how are you here?"
Because I came back a year later after coming across a good explainer for how the fediverse works.I'm not going to look at that link.
Then I'll just quote it directly:
"Here’s what all these complaints about federation choices reminds me of: every job I’ve ever had, new people get hired from time to time. What do they do? Long before they’ve had any time to get any training or learn how things work to maybe get a better understanding of why some things are done the way they are - day one, they start complaining about all kinds of little things, waxing fantastical about how they’d do things differently. Same energy.
Nothing is perfect, and maybe things can be improved in a number of ways as time goes on. But also everything has a learning curve, so maybe try learning that curve before making demands about getting rid of the core elements that make federation what they are."
That's the thing: no matter how well a system is designed, there will always be a subset of people who find it confusing and frustrating. I've seen Facebook users who refuse to touch reddit because it makes no sense to them. People who never "got" Twitter. Hell, I love digging into operating system environments and learning how they work, and even I ragequit Apple devices every time I touch them - systems whose design is the most celebrated in the tech world.
Learning new things is just uncomfortable, and there will always be people who refuse to do it.
But the fediverse is here, and despite your gatekeeping attitude about it "never being adopted by the masses" because it doesn't follow your personal views; it is growing just fine. New users come and go every day. New systems get federated regularly. Maybe a different reddit clone than lemmy will prove to be the most favored one? Who knows. But it's doing just fine, one day at a time. And it's open-source, so if you don't like it, then code something about it.
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I've used Voyager before and while it comes close, unless they changed how the app operates, I don't think that app fits the description that I'm asking for.
The entire issue with Lemmy is the Federation aspect of it, while it's a good thing to have it's way too confusing for the everyday person. For example I use eternity, the only layout that remotely looks decent in my opinion. It worked similar to Voyager where when you open it for the first time it brought you to an instance and then when you went to make an account it asked you which instance you wanted to make the account on. That right there is going to turn away a good 30 to 40% of the people looking. I know it almost turned me away.
For the point of responding to this comment I reinstalled Voyager, I'm going to portray my experience from someone who doesn't have experience with the fediverse. If you don't wish to see the narration, you can skip the spoiler
Okay cool I see a bunch of posts, I expect this lem.ee thing is the program oh fun they have Politics on the front page I thought I was trying to avoid that but okay there are some memes here that are pretty cool, let me try to like one,
oh I need an account yeah that makes sense, neat they have a learn more button(most people likely won't click this btw) okay an entire page explaining that the programs like an email client, how is up voting content like receiving emails
(personally think they should have used subscribe/follow for that imo)Okay cool I think I get it let me just use the default instance, let me just skip past all of this pointless TOS stuff, "please write I accept acknowledging that you've read the rules in the sidebar on the front page." uhh Sidebar? Well I don't know how to get to that so let me try the next instance, lemmy.world sounds good. and that one is a 1 2 3 process(if email verification works)
From here they have a functioning account but the app has failed to tell them the core aspects of what federation is, they've failed to explain what defederation is, they failed to explain what the repercussions of choosing an instance does, it's only explained that Lemmy is like email, and to the everyday user, email is identical across all providers, users very rarely if at all have an email provider actively block an email server because they don't agree with what's going on there. For example in the case of LW by choosing that platform you're actively removing yourself from anything that's against their mentalities such as the piracy community, you're also subjecting yourself to a somewhat heavy moderation style instance and also subjecting yourself to hatred in the community without actually realizing you're doing so. You won't know this tell you get told by a user (and you WILL get told by a user).
This could be avoided by having a integration with fediseer or being able to integrate with the instances Blacklist so you can see what is blocked. Or even just a link to their rules would be amazing.
That's my main annoyance in current mobile apps, they are only decent for established fediversers. Most people would have left second or third message into my experience and just gone back to other platforms
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I'm of the opinion that federation should only prevent a community or instance from appearing in the all feed. I should still be able to subscribe to communities that my instance has defederated from.
If I understand the way the Fediverse works correctly, global content viewed by members of an instance gets cached on that instance. So even though this thread is "on" lemmy.world, because I'm participating here there's also a copy on sh.itjust.works and that copy gets passed to me.
Among the instances sh.itjust.works is defederated from, there's one called "rape.pet". I'm okay with The_Dude saying "No, you can't get there from here" to shit like that.
