What are your thoughts on the Lemmy ecosystem?

I’ve been trying it out for the last week. I have my own opinions, but I’d like to hear others and see if we have common ideas on what is good/bad/indifferent about the Lemmy ecosystem.

  • GHiLA@sh.itjust.works
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    7 days ago

    Yeah, but no, but yeah.

    On Lemmy, individual communities aren’t big enough to be communities but the community is big enough to be a community.

    So any post that makes it to the front of the entire Fediverse has quite a few familiar faces and feels like old reddit would.

    The issue I find with wanting Lemmy to be as big as Reddit is, you’re pining for an era of Reddit that doesn’t exist anymore. You can’t go back to 2011-2020 Reddit. It isn’t there to go back to. Bot posts aren’t just indistinguishable on occasion, they’re upvoted all the same, by other bots.

    This is the best you’ve got. Pitch a tent and make the most of it, fam.

    • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Unfortunately the bot problem is coming to Lemmy.

      Bots posting content is already a thing here, and then taking up front page space is already a thing.

      Lemmy is speed running “How to lose your sense of community”.

      • OpenStars@discuss.online
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        4 days ago

        I disagree somewhat bc of one very crucial factor: here bots exist but they tend to be labelled as such. Look in your settings on the web UI if you find this not to be the case.

        You click on a user account, then click block them, repeat just a handful of times and then bam, pretty much you have blocked all the bots there are. Yes it takes effort - it’s not done by default - but at least it’s possible, whereas on Reddit there is simply nothing that can be done, with virtually any amount of effort. Over there they are baked right into the system… right?

        And here the bots are, or even can be, helpful. A bot that you know is a bot is a good bot, or at least an honest one.:-)

      • wise_pancake@lemmy.ca
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        6 days ago

        I don’t agree, the longer I’ve been here the more familiar usernames I see, so to me it’s been improving.

  • doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    6 days ago

    For conversation about various subjects with broad appeal and a left wing slant, sure.

    For tech support or info on niche topics, not at all. Lemmy is not big enough, old enough, or easily indexed by search engines.

    The porn is also pretty mid tbh

  • bluewing@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    Short answer is No. It suffers from many of the same issues of echo chamber, bias, and bullying. Just on a somewhat smaller scale due to fewer users. And never forget - Winter is coming. There will be a time in the future the bots will notice lemmee and come for it also.

    But I suspect this is all a human thing. We are a contentious bunch at best and down right hateful at worst. We build communities only to poison and kill them in the end.

    • Corgana@startrek.website
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      6 days ago

      I think it has potential to be better in a way Reddit can never be, but the two biggest instances do so little moderation their userbase might as well be “people banned from too many subredits”.

      I assumed the killer feature of Lemmy would be “zero reply guys” but instance owners seem willing to tolerate them in the interests of faux-engagement. But the irony is this sort of “engagement” actually scares new users away.

        • grozzle@lemm.ee
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          6 days ago

          i think corgana meant zero people who reply with meaningless comments just for the sake of replying, like those tiresome one-line joke threads that choke up every big subteddit.

        • Corgana@startrek.website
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          6 days ago

          A “reply guy” (wikipedia) is someone who responds to posts/comments in an annoying (usually smug/condescending) way, like what you think of when you think of a “redditor”. Big platforms like Reddit like reply-guys because they generate engagement (often someone telling the reply-guy to f-off) it’s also not a behavior that an algorithm can recognize, so human mods/admins are needed to curb it.

          Over time, if Reply-guys are not banned they tend to make the overall ecosystem too exhausting to participate in, and (authentic, desireable) engagement declines.

  • Naich@lemmings.world
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    6 days ago

    I’ve started a few subreddits and not had much engagement. I started a really niche community here and had someone posting to it within hours. Yes, fewer users, but the ones that are here seem to be more willing to engage.

  • ikidd@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    I was a 15 year Reddit veteran and modded a couple dozen communities over there. I’ve moved over here with no regrets. The only thing that takes me back to Reddit is search results, and that’s getting less and less as more people have abandoned it and deleted comments.

    The amount of bots there now is astounding. It’s making me believe in the Dead Internet Theory.

  • TastyWheat@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Well, I deleted my r account the day they fucked over the app developers. Been here since, so I guess it’s a decent alternative. Not as much current content and it’s 90% politics on the front page… That can be filtered out though.

    The militant Linux missionaries though, they get blocked. They show up in most tech threads and it got old a year ago.

  • Novice_Idiot@lemmy.wtf
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    6 days ago

    A large part of what’s hindering Lemmy is search engine visibility, the “append reddit to your query” trend is really helping Reddit while it can sometimes be somewhat difficult to find content on Lemmy or the fediverde more broadly

  • doingthestuff@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Lemmy is a terrible place but after leaving Reddit after a dozen years, it sucks too. No going back. I kinda want to leave Lemmy - such miserable, hateful echo chamber - but, where would I go?

  • VanillaBean@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    I was a Reddit veteran for years, I hate Reddit now and don’t use it mostly due to getting random permabans. Lemmy functions well - much better than that dog shit site Reddit, but it’s not there yet in terms of communities and activity. There is very little local/regional activity that I miss most from Reddit. Overall, it’s effective in the technical sense, but content-wise it is still a very small fraction of what Reddit is unfortunately. And I am not confident it ever will be a true replacement. Will also add that Lemmy is EXTREMELY FAR LEFT, to a disturbing point. If you are a centrist, you will be silenced.

  • bitwolf@lemmy.one
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    7 days ago

    Lemmy communities have the potential to be just as toxic.

    That said, the broad majority of interactions I have are very positive.

    It really depends on the community choice. I tend to choose Lemmy communities rather than “reddit refuge” communities.

    I imagine that plays a big part in my personal experience.