I’m pretty happy with the experience on Lemmy so far as I joined even before the blackouts started happening. The trigger was the dumpster fire of an AMA with the CEO. I tried kbin first because it’s supposed to be newer and more interoperable with other federated platforms but I found the instance I was on wouldn’t properly load content from Lemmy and I couldn’t find a kbin Android app. So I’ll be here for the time being.

During the shitstorm on Twitter and the exodus to Mastodon, I tried out Mastodon and felt that it was a similarly welcoming experience. But I kept reading comments on Reddit that the Fediverse was too complicated and it was too hard to find people to follow because you needed their username as well as their instance to find them. I hope people have realised that it’s not that much harder during this current Reddit shitshow.

Everyone understands that Reddit/Lemmy/kbin is built on community, and the growth of this community has been fostered by moderators, not Reddit itself. So my question to any subreddit moderators is: Is there something about the Fediverse that would prevent you from moving your community off Reddit? It seems pretty clear that people will try Reddit alternatives even before their favourite subreddits have moved. Users are engaged with the communities that you have built and loyal to the 3rd party app developers and we don’t give a fuck about Reddit as an organisation.

Discussion open to everyone, but curious to know if any moderators are also using Lemmy.

  • bui@lemm.eeOPEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    Thanks. Yes I understand where you’re coming from. But I also agree with your other responder. I wouldn’t be too quick to underestimate people. I’m not white, I’m over 35 and in a sexual minority.

    I think that if someone has made the effort to learn how to use Reddit because they were able to find a community they belong to outside of Facebook or Twitter, understanding Federation isn’t a huge learning curve if you’re already using email.

    Even if you’re a non technical user, there are enough of the massive subreddits that went dark that these people wouldn’t be able to easily ignore what was happening, or be at least mildly interested in why it was happening.

    To me, the changes with Reddit’s APIs simply highlight the disconnect between Reddit as an organisation vs Reddit as a platform for building community.

    Maybe it’s a naive view, but other than the moderation tools, the reason that communities have grown to be safe places is because of the unpaid work of moderators, not because of Reddit’s leadership. If users appreciated why moderators and 3rd party app devs are pissed off, they would understand that the power of their community comes from the bottom up and moderators hold a lot of influence.

    Regardless, it will be interesting to watch moderators wait for other moderators to decide which should come first, the chicken or the egg.

    • pinwurm@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I also agree with your other responder

      For clarity, I appreciate the points and don’t disagree!

      As a fact, I don’t know the demographics of this place, other than seeing what the most popular communities are currently - and making assumptions informed by my experiences with emerging technologies of the past.

      I would find it very difficult to believe that Lemmy is closer to being representative of the general population than Reddit. Clearly there are going to be plenty of people that don’t fit the ‘archetype’ of early adopters, which is a great thing! Diversity is a requirement for us to thrive.

      understanding Federation isn’t a huge learning curve if you’re already using email

      The reason I don’t give people credit is because… well, it’s like this.
      Skype has been around for 20 years. Zoom pops up in the pandemic. 3 years later, people still can’t manage their zoom calendar invites, someone is always unmuted when they should be muted, “how do I screen share?” or “how can I turn my camera on?”. This is like 1/3 of all meetings. And if there are breakout rooms… it gets worse. People aren’t good with tech…

      I would go a step further and say that understanding the Federation isn’t actually relevant. Most people just want a convenient product that does the thing they want it to do. Whether it’s getting breaking news or a cat picture.

      the reason that communities have grown to be safe places is because of the unpaid work of moderators,

      100% agree.

      If users appreciated why moderators and 3rd party app devs are pissed off, they would understand that the power of their community comes from the bottom up and moderators hold a lot of influence.

      I really want to believe this, but I’m more pessimistic than you. My experiences would tell me they don’t understand and don’t care. They just want the thing they’re comfortable with to work.

      I’ve tried to explain it clearly and simply. I’ve gotten, “I never even heard of 3rd party apps before this. I’ve been on the official app for 8 months and it’s just fine. It’ll be fine, sheesh!”. If you try to explain that they indirectly already benefit from independent developers like Imgur, they won’t care.

      When r/NBA went dark during the Finals, mods were receiving threats. They opened it up to public comment and people really couldn’t comprehend why any of it had to inconvenience their ability to have a dialogue during their important event.

      As an NBA fan, I’m empathetic to those frustrations. But is the average Reddit user empathetic to ours?

      Going full circle - that just means we have to make this place great. Great third party tools and apps, great dialogue and simplicity. I’m hopeful that Federation is the future of online communities. The timeline will depend on how fast Reddit implodes,