I’ve been on Beehaw and Lemmy.world for the past two weeks now and while people seem to be posting content that isn’t about Reddit or Twitter or how great federated platforms are, such content does not receive as many comments/discussion as topics about the Reddit API controversy, or the current Twitter controversy, etc.
I prefer to sort by “new” when on the main page of either Beehaw or Lemmy.world. Most posts scarcely get a few upvotes and almost no comments. Without comments, I feel far less inclined to leave a comment unless there’s a discussion already going on.
It feels like the gravity of discussion is still mostly centered on complaints and discussion about Reddit (or Big Tech in general), despite this platform being billed as a Reddit replacement. Hopefully that changes with time but there’s a reason I haven’t left Reddit yet.
Reddit is the big news right now, so that makes sense. It’s news even outside of our own circle of technophiles and ex-redditors.
It’s up to us to spread things out. A whole bunch of us are just waiting for someone else to take a step. If we take the step ourselves, people will join in, AND new users checking out the platform for the first time will see familiar things that make them feel like they’ve come to the right place.
Removed by mod
I do wonder how new communities will reach critical mass. I don’t understand how fediverse searches and tags work yet. How do people discover a new community about cute seals or Toledo or Fortnite?
Do the creators of these communities need to be using tags in a certain way?
Lemmy Explorer filters also through the descriptions: https://lemmyverse.net/communities
and there’s also still Lemmy Community Browser: https://browse.feddit.de/
community promo: https://lemmy.ca/c/communitypromo
wow this Lemmy exists! https://lemmy.ca/c/wowthislemmyexists
a few more search-sites turn up with this filter: https://lemmyverse.net/communities?query=find+communities
afaik Lemmy does not have a tag recognition yet.
@rimlogger@lemmy.world
I started !workreform@lemmy.world about 2 weeks ago, and now it has an estimated 3.4-4k subscribers (depending on how the subscriber statistics work) and people are posting stuff.
It takes time, and it takes some effort on the part of the creator.
But you’re right, some communities will grow faster than others. I think there’s a balance between creating communities that are too broad vs super-specific communities for now!
We need to give it time. We are so used to things working instantly that it feels strange to have to wait. Enjoy the moment and do your part!
It’ll take time. There’s also a variety of services now: Tildes, Mastadon etc. Plus the reddit apps seem to be working again.