this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2023
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Asklemmy

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I wanted to get a pulse check on how new members are finding the general experience/website. Is it more confusing than Reddit or are you finding the instance system a better way of doing things as it can give you more freedom of where you choose to create an account?

I'm a new user myself but have found the experience to remind me of Reddit back in the day, lol. It's definitely giving me old-school yet modern vibes and it's great to see something that isn't Reddit growing in popularity!

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[–] Parellius@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The one thing I'm struggling with is how do I find a subreddit equivalent? For example r/formula1 or r/UKpolitics on Reddit might be.... What?

Also is it possible to find these communities using Jerboa or so I need to login on my desktop?

Edit - spelling

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[–] Reepor@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

New user and reddit refugee here! The instance system isn't as straightforward as something like reddit where all of the content exists in the same place, but once I understood how the system works (via the first few posts I saw after opening the Jerboa mobile app for the first time) I got signed up on an instance that ISN'T lemmy.ml and I've just began surfing in earnest! Thanks to the community that's made this possible!

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[–] Devgard@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

the UX can be a bit clunky, such as opening links to other communities and not being able to subscribe, but overall it's been quite fun so far. a lot more fun than mastodon as its quite serious (as any twitter substitute would be)

[–] Pendor@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The web is okay, kind of, but the mobile apps (what I mainly use to browse this stuff) are sorely lacking, especially on iOS.

I decided to write my own client (mostly for myself) and so far the API seems very straightforward. Might eventually publish it to the stores, if its mature enough.

It's heavily based on Apollo (in case it wasn't obvious). One might even call it a rip-off 😅

What I'd really like to work on after the basic navigation is done is discoverability. I think the platform really needs some improvement there.

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[–] Pagliacci@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

Getting signed up was a bit hairy. I tried going through the lemmy.one server and still hasn't gone through, so I went back and signed up through lemmy.ml and that got approved pretty quickly.

Aside from that still getting a hang of things. Not sure how to search for communities for specific interests, not sure how many of those exist yet.

I downloaded the Jerboa app on Android and the UI is pretty familiar coming from the Boost reddit app.

[–] sjolsen@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago

It's weird, a little confusing, and a little janky. Love it so far. It's not a novel observation on my part but it definitely feels new and exciting the way Reddit and Tumblr did back in the day.

[–] kommanditbolag@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

I think it's got all the potential, and I really mean it. I want to be here and I will try to contribute wherever I can. The onboarding of the platform is confusing, but everyone already knows that. I can see the growing pains, but that's totally fine.

I enjoy the format, and I very much like what Lemmy is meant to become.

[–] monkeytennis@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I love the idea of Lemmy and I haven't found it too hard to create an account and get the gist of things.

BUT, the novelty will wear off and I'm not interested in general channels. I used Reddit for UX design, menslib, indieheads, OCD support, and lots of niche stuff that doesn't seem to exist here.

I know the answer is for me to get involved, but I work long hours and am a single dad to 2 .. I could set something up, but I don't have time to find quality OC and nurture multiple communities. I'd honestly be a poor mod.

I half expect Reddit to announce major changes to their official app, which may be enough to win a proportion of people back.

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[–] mykl@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

It’s welcoming but confusing. I think there’s two reasons for the latter:

1- Many of us forget how basic Reddit was when we first started using it, and the features we all know and love got added over time and repeatedly refined based on use.

2- Most of us here are because we have been users of incredibly well designed apps crafted by developers with a passion for great UI. If I try using the (new) Reddit site or their default app, I find myself equally confused.

There are still so many changes happening in Lemmy functionality, and as we’ve seen with Mastodon, we will hopefully soon be overwhelmed with great apps.

In the meantime there’s the great community already here and growing. I saw a comment that you can estimate that Reddit has 90% lurkers, 9% commenters, 0.9% posters, and 0.1% “community builders” I think it’s those latter groups who are leading the exodus, which is great news for us and terrible news for whoever ends up owning Reddit.

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[–] eldrichhydralisk@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Much like when I went from Twitter to Mastodon, finding "my people" is a lot more work. It's unpleasantly easy for links to a community to take me directly to that instance instead of leaving my on my instance where I'd be able to subscribe and interact. But also like Mastodon, the experience is much nicer once things start getting set up. Really nice not getting pestered to use the app constantly!

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[–] matthewc@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Liking it so far. A social network is only as good as its community. The community is small but high quality. I'm excited to see Lemmy grow.

[–] Borgzilla@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 year ago

So far, I find it's pretty good. I couldn't find a client for Emacs so I may create one.

[–] DidacticDumbass@lemmy.one 7 points 1 year ago

I love it. I am genuinely excited to be on here, and it is literally the only social media I use at the moment.

The single feature I that I think would improve the site tremendously is some kind of indicator to know if I have posted in a thread before. It is silly, but sometimes discussions blow up and I cannot remember everything I write.

Like, just a colored dot next to the title in topics I have posted in would make the experience so much better.

[–] Kissaki@feddit.de 7 points 1 year ago

Too confusing for the average user.

I dislike many things about the UI and UX.

Nevertheless, it's useable, and interesting enough to keep using for now and see how it goes.

[–] gamma@programming.dev 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It does remind me of Reddit when I first joined. I like federated services like Matrix and Mastodon, but Reddit was exactly how I liked interacting online. I'm really missing RES keybindings (in particular a/z voting, j/k navigation, x expandos, <Return> thread collapse) but the UX fits my needs very well otherwise.

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[–] NeonBlue@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I've been here for a while and i still don't like it for a number of reasons, many which have already been mentioned here. The UI/UX isn't as nice as old reddit and there a lot of complexities due to the fediverse that are just not easy to overcome. Why i think reddit will ultimately win out in this because most users will go back to it after a few weeks.

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[–] llIIIlIlIIIIlIIl@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm kinda hoping someone will point out this feature already exists, but I wish there was a way to subscribe to a topic. Right now it feels like multiple instances are forming their own, say, gaming community, and it feels like this is splintering the community rather than growing it?

Other than that, I actually really like the decentralised nature -- and, while this is likely due to the very early nature of things, man is it nicer here. Weirdly feels like early Slashdot days...

[–] Grenfur@lemmy.one 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I think this is my only real issue. It would be amazing to have an app that would allow you to create a gaming "folder" of sorts that you could drop all the gaming communities into under one heading.

Since you can already post to different instances, having a way to better organize them would solve for the fragmentation pretty well. Then even with multiple gaming communities, they all still show as #Gaming or whatever on the user end.

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[–] super_user_do@feddit.it 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (9 children)

The webapp Is only fine on desktop. On Android I'm having to use Jerboa which works and does its job but still has an extremely outdated and unpolished user experience

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[–] sprocket@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago

Considering how new it is and how many people (like me) who have suddenly turned up from reddit I think it's doing brilliantly.

I'm using Jerboa and it's not bad but it could be a bit better. I'm getting a few bugs like the screen juddering when I scroll now and again, and the UX takes some getting used to.

But yeah, overall I'm impressed and excited to see this place grow.

Just please don't ever do a reddit 😂

[–] Woodyboye@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So far im still confused, but I’ve learned a lot in the time I’ve been here, so i think I’ll come around. I feel like the main issue I personally have is population of communities and actually finding communities. Ive found a couple ill look at in an asklemmy thread and im sure itll grow over time, but I personally dont have much I can contribute yet, so im not sure how much I can do personally.

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[–] taladar@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I just signed up a few hours ago. So far it seems to be entirely dominated by posts about the recent reddit drama which makes it hard to judge if there is much regular content here that I would enjoy.

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[–] Burt_Toastcrumbs@feddit.uk 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm new to this. I've always been a lurker and never really had the urge to connect to Reddit or other social platforms like twitter. But this feels better. It's daunting at first but after being on the platform for a very short time I see something good and its interesting. Some new but very familiar. So I connected and I want to contribute. That's how it makes me feel.

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[–] MisterMonday@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Very similar to how Reddit used to be. I expect higher quality content here, and so far, I've found it. Just waiting on a few niche communities to be created, but I expect they will pop up in time. Good riddance to Reddit.

And the less said about other social media sites the better.

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[–] YungOnions@feddit.uk 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Confusing. The apparent 'segregation' of instances is difficult to get my head around. The Jerboa app is (understandably) in early days and not that intuitive to use. The layout of the website isn't much better (it wasn't at all obvious how you're suppose to even post stuff, for example). I get that we're all coming in on the 'ground level' here, but the whole set up feels very rough-and-ready. I'll keep an eye on Lemmy to see how things progress but at the moment, honestly, if feels like I'm working against Lemmy/the Fediverse rather than with it.

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[–] LordGalen@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago

Enjoying it a lot. We just need more content over here. But I assume that is a problem that will solve itself very soon.

[–] Adi2121@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The community has been way more friendly than any other social media I've been on. Th UI/UX is confusing and at times bad, but it makes do. It has been a nice experience.

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[–] Banzai51@midwest.social 7 points 1 year ago

Like Mastodon, I'm getting used to the decentralized nature. Now that I found subscriptions and the option to change my view to subscriptions, things are easier. I'm just worried that topics are going to get big on disparate instances that aren't linked. But as I use it, I'm liking it.

For now it is nice to be outside corporate sanitation.

[–] Potato_in_my_anus@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've been a Redditor for more than 16 years, and it's a little complicated understanding how this works. But I'm sure I'll get the hang of it.

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[–] Maldreamer@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The app is good considering its in the early version. Have only been testing out for a few hours. The whole instance and server thing is still bit confusing regarding how it handles the post and comments in one server over to a user coming from snother instance. Any place to search for communities?

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[–] Lund3@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago

Other that all of the sign up feature being very confusing, I kinda feel afraid of selecting a less popular space to create my account on, as its not really documented what happens if the space your account is created on dies.

[–] DannySpud@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago

I'm definitely not utilising all the features of being in the wider Fediverse yet, but I'm starting to get the hang of the Lemmy-verse. This federation stuff is really cool and definitely the future of social media in some form or another. Ironically this is closer to a real metaverse than Meta has ever got.

There are definitely rough edges everywhere, the joining process could do with being streamlined significantly and I have some issues with accounts being tied entirely to a single instance. Generally though this is perfectly usable and the main issue is the lack of content. It's annoying coming back to my front page after several hours and everything is 16 hours to 2 days old, hopefully this will improve quickly as the migration gains steam.

[–] smdb@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

Long live federation! For me it’s just nice to see centralized social networks are losing popularity.

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