I had the same experience. There’s basically like 4 active communities there (including the general talk one) and if you aren’t interested there’s really no content. I think the guy who made it just wanted his own little personal fiefdom that he could tightly control. Which is fine but I ended up coming here and have enjoyed it far more
This seems to highlight a common misconception, kbin isn't really any smaller than Lemmy when we look at active users, in fact it seems it has only just (three days ago) caught up: https://fedidb.org/current-events/threadiverse
Somehow Lemmy seems to have stronger brand recognition, and people often seem say Lemmy to mean things which include Lemmy and kbin users/platforms.
The active users graph doesn’t match the users or posts graph. How can it show matching active users when the users and posts are both increasing dramatically compared to kbin? Something seems off with the active users metric.
I checked my own server on there, 3 active users, but it only reports 1. It’s better than nothing, but they’re doing something to make it show less than lemmy. None of my users are bots.
But then try looking at a few users in this thread (which lets note is on a Lemmy instance). From my spot checks about half the comments are from kbin users?
The main thing for me would be the plethora of high-quality apps already available for Lemmy, not even a month out from the start of the Reddit APIcalypse.
That being said, I think kbin looks infinitely better in either mobile or desktop browsers, making the need for an app less urgent. I don't even think there's an app available for kbin right now, at least for Android.
It's in beta testing atm. I'm really interested to see what the dev has in store, but I have to say the PWA for kbin is pretty flawless as it is. What UI complaints I have, I'm sure will come and I'm happy to be patient.
Lemmy was far more confusing for me, and every time I go over there to check unfederated content or grab a community address, the colors hurt my eyes. I only check out my leftover Jerboa app rarely, whenever kbin's updating and I'm too lazy to do something else. At any rate, we all get the same content
Agreed. I think one of the main deciding factors starting out here was the availability of mobile apps. Seems Lemmy already has a handful while kbin only has the mobile web for now and an application is only in a closed beta at the moment.
I go back and forth between Kbin and Tildes, with a toe still left in reddit for a few niche communities. I like the idea of the fediverse, but there are definitely a lot of growing pains that it seems to be going through, and kbin just seemed like the most modern, polished, choice. (plus the devs are much less sus than Lemmy)
Tildes on the otherhand feels a lot more close knit, and more about discussion specific topics rather than being a collection of different communities. I kinda like the smaller size, plus the overall tone there is very respectful, so it's great for more nuanced conversations. This is where I come for my memes and my random conversations though.
Tildes, for what it's worth, is not intended to be a replacement for Reddit. Its creator/admin is trying to purposefully cultivate a very different culture than what you might find on Reddit or Reddit replacements like lemmy/kbin/squabbles/discuit/etc. From their Philosophy page:
High-quality content and discussions
Tildes prioritizes quality content and discussion through its mechanics, design, and organization. Fixation on growth and related metrics results in other sites having a bias towards high-appeal, low-depth content like funny images, gifs, and memes. The priority on Tildes is to cultivate high-quality communities, which are far easier to build when they don't have to fight an uphill battle against the platform itself.
Limited tolerance, especially for assholes
Tildes will not be a victim of the paradox of tolerance; my philosophy is closer to "if your website's full of assholes, it's your fault".
This is a difficult topic, so I want to try to be clear about where on the spectrum Tildes is trying to land. I'm never going to refer to the site as a "safe space" or ban anyone just for occasionally acting like a jerk in an argument—I'd probably have to ban myself fairly quickly. However, it will also never be described as anything like "an absolute free speech site".
Personally as an old, I love it. The whole vibe promotes longer, better thought out replies, as opposed to the modern internet where people are more often looking to do quick hit n' run posts with popular sentiments for easy internet points. I also love the proactive removal of problem posters. Some people are just looking to stir up trouble wherever they go, but don't fall under a specific rule that might get their account axed. Tildes isn't afraid to uninvite problematic assholes.
If its culture is something that resonates with you, feel free to hit me up for an invite while I have some.
By requiring invites, they are already punishing people not the abusers as their philosophy states
Trust people, but punish abusers
By gatekeeping. And making it difficult for people to join, it assumes that everyone is a criminal/troublemaker until proven by a some sort of vetting process.
Reminds me of when malls used to check your pockets for stolen goods before your exit. The assumption of guilt sours the whole experience.
Their “vetting” process sucked too. I just asked for an invite and they gave one with no questions asked. I could easily just start spamming troll stuff and they would ban me but still. Quality moderation and an approval process can accomplish everything tildes wants to do without stifling its ability to add users and variety of discussion.
My experience from the "early days" right when the Reddit blackouts were planned and people were looking for a new home, Lemmy was the main name being dropped. Plus when you went to the general Fediverse hub, Lemmy showed up at the top, while I just happened to read someone mention Kbin being a better interface and I had to search around for it.
If you decide to make Kbin a home (you don't have to have just one), stop by the KbinStyles magazine. I think this is where Kbin is showing its true power, customizing. I haven't really seen much of the same possibilities mentioned for Lemmy (yet). Both softwares are very early on, so there's lot of potential for either.
Lack of awareness of Kbin I think. Also the monthly average users are the same, but lots of communities were created on lemmy instances.
Lemmy is older and I think when people thought a million people had signed up they thought that was the place to be. But it was all bits and the two are similar in terms of users, although most Kbin users are on Kbin.social at the moment.
I've tried both and I prefer Kbin. I like the interface, I like the mobile PWA app, it just feels more modern and polished compared to lemmy. But it's just a preference thing they're largely the same.
For me it was that it was privacyguides making their own lemmy instance that led to me opting for it as my first introduction to the fediverse. Other than that other subs like piracy set up their own instances and now Android. So I wonder if getting a Lemmy instance set up is easier than Kbin?
I’m not sure if that’s true. Lemmy only calculates active users as people who have posted or commented a time frame. The graphs that I’m seeing for kbin’s active user count matches their total user count.
I really feel like it doesn’t matter what you use as long as it’s part of the Fediverse. If whatever you’ve chosen is federated we all benefit. I feel that ever since Kbin federated there’s way more content even on Lemmy. I’m just glad that we can all see and interact with one another.
That’s true. Though the fear of defederation (and in turn isolation) is always there. I wish they make it so that the users, not the admin chooses which instance to defederate. But maybe this is too tedious to implement.
If your instance defederates from an instance, or you are defederated from an instance you enjoy, you can always move to a new account. Unlike Reddit, you don’t have Karma to link you to your account so you can just move over to a different instance (although subscribing to all of your favorite communities again is a pain in the ass)
I guess that is a solution. But I agree creating a new account means starting over, looking for communities once again and maybe your post history, plus the hassle of having to manage two separate accounts. I guess the issue of fragmentation in the fediverse needs to be addressed too as it matures.
Add comment