How can we boost Lemmy membership?

Since my favorite reddit app came to Lemmy I’m really keen on getting more people into the fediverse to pump up the volume of content around here. Are there any initiatives that we can assist to get folks onboard?

I had my wife join, and she likes it, but laments the slow pace of new material in the communities.

stevedidWHAT,
@stevedidWHAT@lemmy.world avatar

Honestly I would rather let people come in naturally.

endless growth faster than what occurs naturally is cancer

Literally

Wahots,
@Wahots@pawb.social avatar

Quality over quantity, too. We have more than enough repost meme subs that are JPEGed to hell to last us many lifetimes. I’d like more subs on like, lawnmower maintenance, indoor gardening, painting, car repairs, mountain biking, etc.

stevedidWHAT,
@stevedidWHAT@lemmy.world avatar

Agreed, I personally liked true off my chests, am I the asshole, etc. more conversation encouragement but tbh I don’t really see that going over we’ll just get here given how hard it is to have a convo without trolls popping up or people who’ve been brainwashed into using the same sort of logic.

Idk like I say, if we got something good going on, more people will naturally want to come and to stay. We’ve got plenty of lessons we can learn right now from the community in its current size. Why exacerbate the issue

jazir5,

Community grouping. It would massively increase the available content, and make lemmy much easier to browse.

maegul,
@maegul@lemmy.ml avatar

We’ve got a new sorting option that boosts smaller communities coming in v 0.19. That plus community grouping would be killer!

jazir5,

I don’t know if this can be adjusted at the platform level, but is it possible you could put in a filter for meme posts? That is 85% of my feed, and I’d really like to minimize them as much as possible.

I come to Reddit(and now Lemmy) for discussions rather than memes, and the content I’m looking for just doesn’t appear in my feed at all really. It would be great if there was a way to filter out or diminish the quantity of those types of posts. Reddit has flair, which makes it easy to filter that way. I’m not sure if Lemmy has something comparable that would allow easy filtration like that.

maegul, (edited )
@maegul@lemmy.ml avatar

I think some short of tagging system might be in the works. Not sure though, not whether you could filter by them.

Maybe you could change what you’ve subscribed to?

jazir5,

I mean in the main feed, as opposed to the subs/community subscriptions tab. I’d like to use it for content exploration, similar to how I would use /r/all on Reddit, but with memes filtered out.

maegul,
@maegul@lemmy.ml avatar

Right. Yes I’m the wrong person to talk to. I gave up on local and all a while ago. Sometimes local is cool I guess.

sunbeam60,

Community grouping is also so closely aligned with a federated mindset - one instance may disappear but the community survives.

That said it’s clear you’ve got anything from openly fascist to diehard tankie on Lemmy servers so would definitely have to be a two-way choice and there’s a risk it just won’t work in the way we hope - I can easily see common topics fragmenting into so many shards anyway as one group can’t stand another group.

itsmaxyd,

posting more content. sharing lemmy posts with friends

atrielienz,

It’s not intuitive to do so.

Knitwear,

Might’ve missed it but I haven’t seen anyone say “Make it not awful to use”

It’s helpful to say that we need better onboarding infographics to simplify explaining how to use Lemmy, but also, Lemmy needs to be easier to use. Finding and following communities is far too complicated.

I come here everyday out of sheer bloody mindedness because I want it to work, not because I enjoy it. Yet.

HonorIsDead,

Yes this is the most critical. The apps that have been made are a good stride in the right direction but the fediverse is not intuitive to use

jazir5,

Lemmy needs to be easier to use. Finding and following communities is far too complicated.

github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/3071#issuecommen…

We need to get this proposal implemented. It would pretty much solve the issue.

pineapplelover,

I’m trying to wrap my head around this, the issue is a very long conversation. Basically two subs merge together if they agree, if a user wants to post, both mods need to see if it’s not a duplicate? This might add more complication with more merging like a 6 group merge or something, it could be chaotic with more mods and each other having conflict wars.

Alborlin,

I totally agree with this point that, Lemmy needs to be accessible easily, I started using it and find it useful because of boost app. Otherwise it’s very hard to understand and still is what is Lemmy.world what is lemmy.ml etc. And how to make them combined.

Let’s not forget to comment this on I needed account , I tried to sign-up with lublnfrom boost didn’t work. I had to Google sign-up for Lemmy.world which takes me to special form , which has disable login with disposable email id’s. All in all TOOOOOOOOOOOO difficult process for common users. Doing this process I am still not sure if I comment on Lemmy.whatever subs.

Finding community and joining it, I still have no idea. It’s all too complicated.

Overall

  1. What is a different Lemmy’s means
  2. Simplifying sign-up process and make it streamlined
  3. Make easier to use Lemmy

These would be my suggestion as Lemmy stands now.

mild_deviation,

Linking to Lemmy image posts is a bad experience. This use case needs to be much better because content is the main way that non-Lemmy users can be motivated to join Lemmy. I tried to share this with a friend yesterday, and had to explain that the image I actually wanted them to see is locked behind a tiny thumbnail, and that the full size Good Place Janet someone commented is not what I wanted them to see (at least not without the context of the posted image).

There’s no way to open a shared Lemmy link in your client of choice. You can manually add URLs on Android, but you have to do that for every Lemmy instance, so that’s not going to fly. I don’t know if there’s any solution at all on iOS.

There’s not a good way to control what content I see. It’s essentially either “everything” or “a single community”. On Reddit, you could already have multiple communities about the same topic on Reddit, but usually one was dominant, and you had multireddits to save you if there truly are a few good related subreddits. Now on Lemmy, you multiply that problem by N instances, and subtract the multireddit feature. This situation simply must be made better somehow.

jazir5,

This should solve that when it gets implemented.

There’s not a good way to control what content I see. It’s essentially either “everything” or “a single community”. On Reddit, you could already have multiple communities about the same topic on Reddit, but usually one was dominant, and you had multireddits to save you if there truly are a few good related subreddits. Now on Lemmy, you multiply that problem by N instances, and subtract the multireddit feature. This situation simply must be made better somehow.

github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/3071#issuecommen…

mild_deviation,

Nice, thanks for the link. That link is about the posting side, whereas I was talking only about the viewing side (apparently covered in issue 808), but the posting side is arguably even more important in reducing fragmentation. Just as it’s frustrating to group N communities for viewing, it’s equally frustrating to post to N communities, and then have to interact with them separately.

jazir5,

Unfortunately until it’s implemented I just can’t bring myself to use Lemmy full time. It’s too chaotic content wise, but once it’s implemented I may fully switch over.

mild_deviation,

Eh, if you’re mostly just consuming/lurking, it’s probably better to use Lemmy by viewing all posts on all communities on all instances, then filtering out the communities you don’t like. Gonna be like that until it gets more popular, and importantly, stops becoming less popular.

Thisfox,

It would be amazing to be able to easily and reliably link comments to places, like r/locationhere might have done in Reddit. I am finding it slow to work that out here.

Swyperider,
@Swyperider@lemmy.ml avatar

Currently on reddit if you attempt to link to a image directly outside of reddit and somebody clicks it, it’ll redirect them to a media viewer page that hides all the comments but provides a link to view them. As much as I hate that redirect, I don’t think it is a terrible idea for Lemmy to do as well because of the issue your friend had with the thumbnail that you wanted them to click.

mild_deviation,

I don’t like Reddit’s approach. It hides nearly all information about the post. You don’t get to see the number of upvotes or comments, and you can only see as much of the title as fits on a single line.

I’d rather the image post viewer default to an expanded state, and have a clearer delineation between the image and comments. Right now, there’s not even a header saying “Comments”. You’re expected to just know.

Swyperider,
@Swyperider@lemmy.ml avatar

That would be great. I am not sure if it was RES doing it or it was a default reddit thing but I do remember images automatically expanding on there. Having it happen automatically on Lemmy would be great as long as the user is not on a slow or data-capped connection.

mild_deviation,

Even on a slow connection, if you’ve clicked the link, you’re there to view the post. The image simply must be visible by default. It would be more interesting to allow clients to choose what image quality to load, but I don’t know a good way to do that. Maybe default to low quality, then you can choose high quality after logging in?

BilboBargains,

Post noodz

SirQuackTheDuck,

We’ve got those condensed over at lemmynsfw.com, and I believe they are actively looking for more mods

xusontha,

I’m not sure if that would be fun or not, I’d assume not because people would probably try to post some disturbing stuff

ParanoidFactoid,
@ParanoidFactoid@beehaw.org avatar

Fix the design flaws first. Especially broken incentives for toxicity and lack of moderation tools. It’s too big already right now.

Sasuke,
@Sasuke@hexbear.net avatar

we could offer every new member a free pony and maybe a soft drink of their choice

RandomVideos,

Most people are familiar with the reddit app. There should be a “reddit for lemmy” app that is as terrible as the reddit app

MargotRobbie,

Make valuable original content here that’s not found elsewhere, post and comment thoughtfully as much as possible(No. Pun. Chains). Don’t try to turn this place into reddit, be better than reddit.

People who are on reddit that wanted to come here right now has already done so, so it’s important to drew in people who has never used reddit before here instead of always waiting for reddit to do something stupid.

Also less celeb gossip please, need a place where I can get away from that on the Internet.

jackpot,
@jackpot@lemmy.ml avatar

the last point should be ignored, the whole point of lemmy is to have as many communties as possible and subscribe to the ones you like. you can defederate ones you dont like

MargotRobbie,

I respectfully disagree. The goal should always be to foster high quality discussion over raw quantity of comment and artificial engagement and the devs have said as much in their documentation of Lemmy’s design.

Otherwise, this place would be no different from 9gag or imgur comment sections, much less reddit.

nosurprises,

This elitism is both hilarious and sad.

Devdogg,

From Margot Robbie. Got it.

SirQuackTheDuck,

Also less celeb gossip please, need a place where I can get away from that on the Internet.

You get celeb gossip? I believe I’m somehow connected to the sewage hose that’s Elon Musk posts. I’d love for some more varied content instead of “[rich idiot] said [something incredibly stupid]”

MargotRobbie,
BackOnMyBS,
@BackOnMyBS@lemmy.world avatar

What I like about your username, other than reminding me of an actress I like, is that you could really be here, but no one would think that she would (1) be on lemm.ee and (2) she would use her actual name and photo for her account.

MargotRobbie,

It would be pretty clever, right?

Also, that profile picture is AI generated. :)

Thisfox,

Which reddit app came to Lemmy?

Mobius,

I’m over here now thanks to Boost.

Thisfox,

Ok. Never heard of it. I am an Apollo refugee.

GiddyGap,

Sync

yoz,

Infinity

dan,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

I hope the developer of Relay makes a Lemmy app. I’m trying Boost and it’s just OK. I might try a web based one (Photon or Alexandrite) next since I don’t think a native app really adds any value over a PWA.

detinu,

Sync for Lemmy is pretty good. Closest thing to Relay atm.

dan,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

I’ve tried Jerboa, Sync, Boost, Connect, and Liftoff. They’re all good, but IMO none of them are quite as good as Relay.

Zitronensaft,

I use the default PWA for my instance and whenever I go back to my home page it acts like I am logged out until I reload the page. It gets old fast because it switches me from subscribed to local posts. I may finally cave and seek out a dedicated app in the hopes it works more smoothly.

dan,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

Photon looks like it’ll work better than the standard Lemmy web UI. I just need to get around to seeing if it works as a PWA, and installing it on my Lemmy server.

GarbageShoot,

Purge reactionaries so that minorities feel safe

Omega_Haxors,

This. Reddit levels of nazi apologia right now. Huge room for improvement.

fubarx,

Not-so-secret of Reddit success (vs other link aggregators) was that they allowed NSFW content. Set up a separate opt-in corner of Fediverse to post that stuff and a big chunk of reddit will migrate over.

GarbageShoot,

Reddit’s in was not simply “NSFW” content but essentially CSAM behind a paper-thin veneer of deniability. Let’s not imitate that.

SnowdenHeroOfOurTime,

Uh what? Never once saw anything like that on reddit

Omega_Haxors,

You should now understand why so many people were quick to jump ship once the CEO screwed over the moderators.

Gerbler,

Oh Reddit for sure had it. Jailbait was a big one and IIRC spez was a mod of it. It eventually picked up news attention and they axed it but it was a huge sub for a shockingly long time.

Wasn’t the reason why Reddit got big though.

jackpot,
@jackpot@lemmy.ml avatar

reddit had a lot of disgusting shite they wouldnt take down but i doubt its success was largely dub to that

clay_pidgin,

That’s lemmynsfw.com

lunaticneko,

Fortinet at my corp just banned the whole thing.

ZeroEcks,

Kind of fair enough really

tfw_no_toiletpaper,

You shouldn’t browse porn at your company anyway lmao

SayJess,

I was shooting the breeze with a fellow Team Lead (automotive manufacturing), when I noticed that he was browsing Indeed, on our workstation. He didn’t care if they noticed; he knows he is indispensable.

Serinus,

If they’re smart, they’re working to make him less indispensable asap. The dude has one foot out the door whether they like it or not.

lunaticneko,

But then how do I assert my dominance at meetings? By having hentai on when plugging in the projector?

OhmsLawn,

That’s probably evidence of success.

Omega_Haxors,

While I think a majority of their success came from basically being the only usable search result from google, I would be lying if I didn’t say I was extremely disappointed and left for a bit after I found out why I couldn’t find any NSFW instances on here.

makeasnek,
@makeasnek@lemmy.ml avatar

We need a better site to link to than join-lemmy.org. It should concisely pitch lemmy to everyday users and suggest an instance for them to sign up at. Don’t get into the weeds about federation or choosing instances or selecting apps. Just select a sane default and point people to it. Rotate defaults to avoid overloading a given instance or making it too powerful.

Valmond,

It’s not only the “base” instance IMO, most servers have wildly different communities.

There should IMO be some way to search for communitues from any server (and subscribe to them, which is a real hassle especially if your base server doesn’t yet know about them). I like the endless flow of memes as much as the next person, but what I really want is a bunch of communities I’m interested in so that I can lurk, ask questions and eventually create some hi quality content.

lalo,
Valmond,

Well yes you can search for the name of a community but not for the type of content, IDK like from all the descriptions.

Maybe a sort of indexer could do that…

shasta,

Sounds like you’re looking for a different client. Connect has a perfectly functional search bar.

Valmond,

When I search for a community in Connect it only shows me communities my home sever knows about.

shasta,

But if your server doesn’t know about them then wouldn’t you be unable to connect to them anyway?

Valmond,

Yeah that’s like the problem I’m trying to point out :-)

An indexer or Lemmy-crawler that indexes all the descriptions and stuff (maybe messages?) and make it searchable could be a road to check out.

blue_berry, (edited )
@blue_berry@lemmy.world avatar

I think the joinlemmy is currently worked on

Spasmolytic,

Agreed.

Blaze,
@Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de avatar
jelloeater85,
@jelloeater85@lemmy.world avatar

I like the design, but the categories are all wacky, if your in the know about fedi stuffs.

Ategon, (edited )
@Ategon@programming.dev avatar

The instance finder is built to encourage the use of topic specific instances rather than general use ones so that communities are grouped together better in the same site. The site can then manage all the communities effectively and have the site customized to accomodate them better (and make it feel more like a home for what you like looking at and discussion with others rather than one of many reddit clones)

Categories are mainly so that people are sent to a topic instance that matches their interests. Science goes to mander, programming to p.d, sports to fanaticus, gaming to lemmy.zip, etc.

If youve got some suggestions on how to improve it though let me know, still in progress

jelloeater85,
@jelloeater85@lemmy.world avatar

Sure! Maybe move Lemmy.World to general? I know we’re kind of a catch all instance. Other then that, great stuff.

Ategon,
@Ategon@programming.dev avatar

lemmy.world is in general. Just instances appear in more than one spot (and some general communities appear for a category if they have the largest community for that category and theres no topic specific instances for it). For example of multiple spots lemmy.db.zer0 is in A.I., anarchist, and a couple others since it has those topics in it

jelloeater85,
@jelloeater85@lemmy.world avatar

Ah neat!

makeasnek,
@makeasnek@lemmy.ml avatar
  • Publish useful content on lemmy. Link to that content on other social media sites
  • Anytime you see a negative article about reddit particularly on reddit, remind users this will continue to get worse, link them to lemmy and explain what it is/how to join.
  • Donate to lemmy development to improve UX.
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