this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2022
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Asklemmy

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I was wondering what the point of lemmy was, if we can't get a certain number of people, we won't be able to thrive as a community and I don't see lots of people joining even though it is an open-source and decentralised forum unlike reddit.

There are many obvious things lemmy could do better, should I make a report about it? I think we are lagging behind and not doing things which are obvious. A better GUI for mobile website would be one of the top suggestions I have. thoughs?

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[โ€“] MadScientist@sopuli.xyz 28 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I don't think there's a need to replace Reddit, Lemmy just needs to serve as an alternative for those that want it. And I think there's plenty of people here for a thriving community. I also think it functions perfectly fine for the most part. The mobile website looks great, and we even have a great mobile app. I'm not sure how reports work with Lemmy, but if you do have any gripes then by all means report them. The one major thing I think is wrong with Lemmy (and honestly the Fediverse in general) is how bad federation is. Communication across instances should be straight-forward and seamless, but it's often just broken.

[โ€“] liwott@nerdica.net 1 points 2 years ago

@MadScientist @Owell1984

Lemmy just needs to serve as an alternative for those that want it.

Woouldn't it be nice though if most people wanted alternatives to walled gardens?

[โ€“] Owell1984@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

there aren't plenty of people here. we need more. we need to be a better alternative.

[โ€“] triplenadir@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Looks like there are about 500 monthly users across the main instances https://join-lemmy.org/instances

Reddit has about 430 million monthly users as of October last year.

If it needs a network effect of about 1% for people to ditch Reddit for Lemmy (like it did for Myspace โ†’ Facebook), that means we need about 4.3 million... so about 4,299,500 more. Better get working on some outreach ๐Ÿ˜‰

[โ€“] dessalines@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Just a note that active monthly on lemmy, means you've posted or commented. Reddit might be using that more loosely, as in someone who just views the site. In that case their numbers might be highly inflated, include webcrawlers, etc.

[โ€“] triplenadir@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Oh good point, Reddit are almost definitely including people who just vote, and probably people who just view ๐Ÿคฆ Is it easy to get "unique 'people' who looked at it" numbers off Lemmy instances, to make a fairer comparison? (Not optimistic that Viacom will be releasing numbers of how many humans they think are actually using Reddit any time soon..)

[โ€“] dessalines@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

For logged in users, there is a table that checks if you've read a post, so it'd be possible yes. But IMO just viewing something shouldn't count as "activity".

[โ€“] triplenadir@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 2 years ago

You're saying you don't want to add metrics just to have a dick-swinging contest with Reddit's fake numbers? Confusing ๐Ÿ˜‚

[โ€“] liwott@nerdica.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

@dessalines @triplenadir are reactions to Lemmy posts from other fedi-platforms counted? Like what I am doing right now ๐Ÿ˜

[โ€“] dessalines@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think we have this as an open issue, but haven't done anything with it yet. I wouldn't mind reactions as long as they're activitypub compatible.

[โ€“] liwott@nerdica.net 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

@dessalines I think you misunderstood, I meant to ask whether comments and votes to lemmy post from other platforms are counted in Lemmy's activities?

[โ€“] dessalines@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Is it reactions, or votes? Afaik only lemmy votes are federated. What other platform has up and downvotes?

[โ€“] liwott@nerdica.net 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

@dessalines Since you mention it, one issue I find with the federation of votes is that from Friendica I can see who the voters are, while I assume Lemmy users may expect their votes to be secret.

[โ€“] dessalines@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago

Yep, votes are anonymous in lemmy.

[โ€“] liwott@nerdica.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

@dessalines Up and downvotes from Friendica seem to work very well ๐Ÿ˜€

All I meant was that having a count of active Lemmy users that includes people who interact with Lemmy content may also be useful in probing the importance of the userbase. From example, right now I am directly only using Friendica, but it makes sense to consider that by replying to your comment, I am somehow using Lemmy.

[โ€“] dessalines@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

The site activity counts use a local = true filter, but the community active counts don't have that. Adding federated users to site activity counts would probably be wrong.