Perhaps I’ve misunderstood how Lemmy works, but from what I can tell Lemmy is resulting in fragmentation between communities. If I’ve got this wrong, or browsing Lemmy wrong, please correct me!
I’ll try and explain this with an example comparison to Reddit.
As a reddit user I can go to /r/technology and see all posts from any user to the technology subreddit. I can interact with any posts and communicate with anyone on that subreddit.
In Lemmy, I understand that I can browse posts from other instances from Beehaw, for example I could check out /c/technology@slrpnk.net, /c/tech@lemmy.fmhy.ml, or many of the other technology communities from other instances, but I can’t just open up /c/technology in Beehaw and have a single view across the technology community. There could be posts I’m interested in on the technology@slrpnk instance but I wouldn’t know about it unless I specifically look at it, which adds up to a horrible experience of trying to see the latest tech news and conversation.
This adds up to a huge fragmentation across what was previously a single community.
Have I got this completely wrong?
Do you think this will change over time where one community on a specific instance will gain the market share and all others will evaporate away? And if it does, doesn’t that just place us back in the reddit situation?
EDIT: commented a reply here: https://beehaw.org/comment/288898. Thanks for the discussion helping me understand what this is (and isnt!)
On Reddit you also have multiple subreddits on technology. Especially when Reddit was just starting out several people started technology subreddits. It is just that you only visited the one most popular with the most users and most content. Which built up over quite some time. I think it is weird to expect Lemmy instances to be exactly like Reddit is now, when you consider Reddit is 17(!) years old.
While there will be a few instances which are very niche because they get defederated from anyone else and they may have a technology community as well, for the bigger, federated instances there will be the one big technology community again.
Currently people all over the fediverse start new communities without checking if they already exist. This won’t go on indefinitely…
Nothing to add here. Thank you.
Reddit 16 year club here
Can confirm
I think the difference is entry points. You’d start with /r/gaming - but you may eventually unsubscribe from that and subscribe to more niche gaming subreddits or even game specific subreddits. The day one Reddit experience is significantly more digestible compared to Lemmy. Content and community discovery isn’t as easy on Lemmy either.
It’ll get better with time though. The tech needs time to improve and the ecosystem needs time to grow. Contributing to those two things will be what allows issues like difficult onboarding and difficulty discovering content to naturally solve themselves.
The thing you getting wrong is if you go to /r/technology you are only seeing one subreddit on Reddit. It is not all Technology forums on the internet nor is it even all the Tech stuff on Reddit. You never see it all. The world is big, you never will. You just though you were because Reddit is well known, and the Technology sub-reddit is well known to you. You made a choice just to use that subreddit still and Reddit has no interest in federating with other sites. At least on the Fediverse you can see most things on the Fediverse if you choose.
This is a good way of describing it. Personally I’m finding that the fediverse is helping me to challenge those old reddit habits of just getting everything from one place. Reddit essentially became THE internet for me and the more I used it, the less I ventured out.
I agree. Even though I always knew there was more then Reddit, Reddit kind of becomes the place. For me included, even though I have used Forums of all sorts for over 40 years. So thinking Reddit is the only place is what they want you to think and it is easy to start thinking that way. Frankly it takes some un-thinking to actually come to one’s senses.
the less I ventured out.
That’s turned out to be a big thing for me, too. When I was younger, I’d spend literally hours a day on StumbleUpon some days, just clicking through niche sites I’d never find otherwise, and submitting new ones I found that I thought other people would like. It was a competition to find the most interesting little-known sites! Now I spend 70% of my browsing time on Reddit, just passively seeing what other people have found.
It’s time to get back out there!
Give it time. Big communities will form, and unlike Reddit, there will be more competition between them. You won’t just have one group of mods squatting over “Apple” or “Android” because they registered it first.
That’s the worst, someone gets the name first and they’ve ruled as mods ever since. Subs never rotate mods or rules and it goes unchecked. Here if you don’t like it, start your own
This is definitely a great post. The only thing that I think would help also would be discoverability and user choice, but it’s obviously easy to say without working on it.
Reddit had relatively consistent discoverability, but the whole “federation” aspect (which is the whole point) makes a very different landscape to wade through.
Definitely, this is a milestone for a new wave of “early adopters”. It will be interesting to see how it evolves.
It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. Think of it like this:
- Instances: define some ToS and Code of Conduct
- Communities: define a theme and a sub-Code of Conduct
By having multiple instances, you aren’t bound by a single ToS or Code of Conduct, you can pick whatever instance you want that matches the content you want to post to a community.
For example, the same “Technology” community could be on:
- an instance directed to kids
- an instance that allows visual examples of medical procedures
- an instance that discusses weapons technology
Having the community limited to a single instance, would never allow the different discussions each combination of instance:topic would allow, even if the topic is technically the same in all cases.
Forcing communities from multiple instances to merge, would also break the ToS of some of them.
So the logical solution is for the user to decide which instance:communities they want to follow and participate in, respecting the particular ToS and Code of Conduct of each.
On Reddit, the r/Technology community needs to follow a single set of ToS and Code of a Conduct. If you try to discuss something that meets the topic but is not allowed, then you will get banned, possibly from all of Reddit.
I guess the real question here is: is this a bad thing, or just a different thing?
You could even say it’s neither. Different communities can have different vibes and choice can be good (I’m sure at one point we will be able to define our own multi-communities as well). And Reddit has a similar setup where multiple subs for one topic can be created, so I don’t see it as really that different. It’ll probably coalesce together over time.
If the choice is tolerating trolls and jerks vs. dealing with communities that are fragmented and harder to find, I’ll choose fragmentation every time.
I just wanna say what’s on my mind (trite though it may be) without all the pedantry, trolling, and hostility. I’m not a mean person IRL, I don’t put up with jerks IRL, and I want the same thing online. Everything else is a distant second. I like Beehaw.
By the same token, I support anyone who disagrees, and I encourage them to find an instance that’s a better match. I just want everyone to be happy and feel comfortable expressing themselves. I hope people find an instance that suits them; they shouldn’t feel like they need to change to suit the instance.
Ah yes, /r/technology, the only technology subreddit on reddit. There certainly has never existed a https://www.reddit.com/r/technews/, or / https://www.reddit.com/r/technewstoday/ or a bunch of more technology subreddits. No. Of course there ever only was /r/technology. No fragmentation whatsoever on reddit.
Thats what a lot of people don’t understand. There were always duplicates
But you could just easily subscribe to all of them. That’s not fragmentation.
You can easily subscribe to all the technology communities here as well, it’s just two clicks sometimes instead of one.
thats fine as long as there aren’t the same posts in all of them!
Then you don’t need all
Another example, a random game, Overwatch:
-Overwatch
-overwatch2
-OverwatchTMZ
-OverwatchLFT
-OverwatchPS4
-OverwatchLore
-OverwatchLeague
-CompetitiveOverwatch
-Overwatch_Memes
-OverwatchUniversity
-OWconsoles
-OverwatchCollector
Fragmentation has it’s benefits in this kind of format too, maybe you’re just interested in an aspect of something, not 15 memes a day or drama. You can easily fit everything into one sub, who would want that though.
Lol.
On Reddit, you also have r/memes and r/meme (and many other similar ones). I think there are r/woo(oooo)sh subs with between 2-6 os. But in both cases one has vastly more users than the other(s), and most people probably only know about the most popular one.
So yea, over time one of these tech communities on Lemmy will probably be much bigger than the others, and grow faster because it’s the biggest and thus most attractive.
Don’t forget the 4 AITA subs, a few subs for some fandoms because admins can be trash (Making a Murderer has like 3 itself). It’s fragmented on reddit too.
On Reddit there can be multiple tech subs too, and I bet there are. Usually one of them just becomes dominant.
Yep I followed multiple subs with overlapping content, especially with technology, PC hardware, etc etc
There are 2 car-enthusiast subreddits. /r/autos and /r/cars. Years ago they were planning to merge because they were so similar. Some disagreement between the direction caused them to not merge and actually differentiate. Now /r/cars doesn’t allow image posts to foster more discussion while /autos can be more about looking at cool cars. I think similar things will happen to Lemmy
I agree that something similar will happen over time. I think there’ll inevitably be overlap between instances and their communities, and that overlap will stymy discussions to a degree. But I also think that instances and their communities will gradually begin to develop their niches and have different strokes for different folks. Beehaw may be more attractive to having a friendlier or more cultivated group and discussion, another instance could lean toward corralling the banter and memes, and another still could be the best fit for media.
I think the most powerful thing about platforms like Lemmy, even if instances aren’t in federation and even if multiple accounts end up needing to be juggled, is that Lemmy makes creating communities and instances like Reddit so much more accessible. Reddit is no longe the only place to get an experience with a format like Reddit, and I think that’s a big win.
Honestly, this is like “the old days” where there were lots of small forums across the web. The big difference now is that you can be a member on one of them and subscribe to others hosted elsewhere, and there are sites like lemmyverse.net to find them. We used to have to find forums ourselves, through word of mouth, search engines, etc.
There’s still forums today, but not as many any more. IMO Lemmy/kbin are a great replacement for ‘traditional’ forum systems. Lemmy even has a theme that looks just like phpBB.
No, this is worse than the old days. Back in the old days, forums were centered around specific groups and interests. All of the Reddit replacements are trying to replicate Reddit but without what makes Reddit actually the great: the mountain of archived content from over the years.
Instead of going back to the old days, what we got is a bunch of general discussion Internet forums.
All of the Reddit replacements are trying to replicate Reddit but without what makes Reddit actually the great: the mountain of archived content from over the years.
This premise, I feel is the wrong way to look at it. What you think what’s makes Reddit great and what made reddit great to me are totally different. What each user wants or expects from a reddit alternative is something that ISN’T Reddit. If I wanted Reddit, I’d go back to Reddit.
From your post, I don’t think you were really into internet forums. I was a part of several dozens forums, with tons of overlapping and also different discussions. I was sad when many of them slowly died as Reddit dominated niche communities. The current expression of the community-based fediverse such as Lemmy and Kbin are a return to form that I deeply missed. In the old days you could have an art subforum and the vibe of each art subforum was totally different, but shared the general themes of certain styles of art.
I think the “fragmentation” of the current fediverse is great, its no longer one massive hivemind of a single dominate discussion points. I think in the long term, many of these communities will grow and change to suit their respective audience and some will fall out of favor and that’s okay.
I personally do NOT want a single technology community. It becomes boring and samey really fast as the same opinions are reiterated over and over. Focused unique communities will come around that will be my peak of this amazing system.
Well said, variety is the spice of life! Reddit became very samey over the years. The archive of info is fantastic but who’s to say that cant happen on a federated platform? Things are new and rapidly changing right now, I have confidence that Lemmy and platforms like it will grow into their own and become better than the things it’s replaced. Reddit was long overdue for some competition or correction, here it is
plus it felt like a lot of stuff got curated and posted by super users around the big subreddits. it felt like there were like the same 20 peoples posts getting most of the attention. at least here theres the potential for more diverse view points and posts from different instances.
From your post, I don’t think you were really into internet forums. I was a part of several dozens forums, with tons of overlapping and also different discussions. I was sad when many of them slowly died as Reddit dominated niche communities. The current expression of the community-based fediverse such as Lemmy and Kbin are a return to form that I deeply missed. In the old days you could have an art subforum and the vibe of each art subforum was totally different, but shared the general themes of certain styles of art.
I was very much into Internet forums as a child and posted on quite a few. But I didn’t go on any of the general discussion boards, I focused those on specific topics or niches. That is what’s missing with the fediverse today. Everyone is trying to provide a Reddit alternative right now but forget what made Internet forums of old great - their singular focus on a particular topic, community, or subject.
All of the forums I’ve used didn’t focus on a single topic or subject. It was usually made up of people sharing a general interest, but there were always boards within each forum for either general discussion or more focused discussion on a particular topic like movies, games, art, philosophy, etc
That’s fair. Everyone has a different way of doing things.
I don’t know that they’re forgetting it. Both types of forum exist here. There’s plenty of general-purpose instances, but there’s plenty of specific instances too. At a casual glance, maybe a third of the instances on the join-lemmy list? startrek.website is a Star Trek-focused instance. programming.dev is a programming-focused instance. lennygrad.ml is a marxism-focused instance. There’s a wet shaving instance, there’s a cyberpunk instance, there’s a solarpunk instance, there’s a magic: the gathering instance, there’s a dungeons and dragons instance, there’s a pathfinder instance, there’s a science instance, there’s a science & nature instance, there’s SEVERAL furry instances, there’s a general anime/manga instance and also instances for specific anime or manga, hell there’s an instance just for butts.
If you want to join a focused instance and focus on that topic, just like old-style forums, that’s already just a thing you can do. You don’t have to take advantage of federation.
What lemmy needs is a multi-Reddit style function where you can group communities into silos by your choosing
Here’s some threads I’m monitoring hoping it’s added.
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/issues/1113
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/3071
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/818
I think this with some instance agnostic linking that makes you always stay in your logged in instance, making subscribing and searching easier would be huge
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/pull/1156
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/issues/1048
Admittedly the devs seem weirdly hard headed about this but it seems they have blinders on and can only see it from a tech perspective. There needs to be easier ways to move between instances and communities, find communities and group them based on categories so it LOOKs and is parsable from a single pane of glass.
No, there were and are huge forums which catered to pretty much everything. From chatting to dating, gardening, gaming, technology, motor trucks, all in one forum.
Reddit actually just tried to replicate these forums but with a less centralised approach, ironically, by allowing everyone and not just the forum admins to make a new category on the forum.
I think the problem is more that some people still struggle to understand how to find and subscribe to communities and magazines not on their instance.
Overall it feels like the days of massively centralized social media are over. Twitter and Reddit won’t disappear but the fragmentation has already happened. Maybe it will be for the better.
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/issues/1113
This solves your issue, it isn’t a fundamental problem, it’s a growing pain.
I love this suggestion.
this issue is about subscribing to all communities of the same name on all federated instances, even ones that might be added in the future.
There’s some problems that would need to be worked through, but ultimately I absolutely crave this being added in.
That and something like multi reddit groupings.
Of course, I would only like this if it were optional. I don’t think it should be core or default.
Where your account is hosted and which communities you subscribe to doesn’t have to overlap at all. For instance, I’m on VLemmy but almost all of my subbed communities are on Beehaw.
I also think it may be a feature rather than a bug to have multiple communities for each topic. Each individual community can build its own sense of identity, guidelines, and norms. I’m personally feeling refreshed by the smaller volume of posts and comments in a way that encourages me to engage. Reddit had become very passive for me due to the sheer size of everything.
Do you think this will change over time where one community on a specific instance will gain the market share and all others will evaporate away? And if it does, doesn’t that just place us back in the reddit situation?
To the second question of putting us back in the Reddit situation: Yes.
If you want one platform, that’s what Reddit did for you. How did that work out?
This discomfort that we feel from many communities paving their own ways I think is temporary. We will learn to adapt to this. I think this is not a fundamental problem with Lemmy, but a UI/UX issue that new UI features will help us handle as the needs are outlined and the “pain points” are made more clear.
One platform or source is not the answer. Freedom in choosing from many sources of information is where the real benefit lies.
i think we’re going to have to tolerate this discomfort!
More than just tolerate, I think you can find a certain amount of joy in this time of change and really relish something new, unusual and different. Just because it is new and uncomfortable doesn’t mean it has to be unpleasant. Figuring out how to be sensitive to your own emotions and work through change quickly can get you there.
uh-huh…
I was kind of joking, really, sorry :)
I was saying it like the idea of having to to tolerate unpleasant feelings about this is a bit silly to me, as in what we’re talking about is really not something that I would expect to evoke discomfort full stop. I think its interesting, sure, but if it goes well, super, and if coming on lemmy (which I actually have reasobably high hopes for) isn’t enjoyable, then alas, you know?
Defederation was always going to be at risk when you have different user bases with different values interacting with each other.
Look at email. The standard is open, but servers won’t process email from different domains because those domains are known to be spam only. I expect Lemmy is going to be similar.
Email-server are even working with a whitelist, so even a more radical choice, just to keep every random user from spinning up their own servers and spamming everyone else without any limits.
