Recently, I made a post here, which gained some traction in support of the cause. However, I mistakenly used an outdated screenshot of Photon. It turns out that photon.lemmy.world is running an older version of Photon, which caused some misunderstandings.
For those who saw that post and were misled or disliked Photon because it appeared to display only 2-3 links on-screen, similar to new Reddit, let me clarify. While Photon is modern and intuitive, it is not like new Reddit in this particular aspect. This outdated screenshot gave the wrong impression, which I’ve since updated, but I wanted to create this new post since many people may not revisit the previous one to see the corrections.
The latest version of Photon, which can be seen at phtn.app, is a big improvement over what’s on photon.lemmy.world. Photon is modern, intuitive, and, speaking as someone with years of Reddit moderation experience who has also started moderating a few communities on Lemmy, it offers a far superior moderation experience. For example, Photon allows you to view the mod queue for all communities at once, making moderation much easier compared to the base UI or other alternatives.
Photon's modularity and customization options are comparable to, if not better than, Kbin's UI. You can easily change fonts, reposition docks and panels, apply custom themes, adjust sorting, and customize the modular side panel to arrange and pin items in any order you like. All of this can be done without needing CSS or additional technical knowledge. It’s probably the most modular yet user-friendly UI available right now.
Here’s an example of the latest Photon interface settings:
Here’s a more customized version I created in just a few seconds—it can be personalized even further:
In my previous post, I emphasized the need for a modern, visually appealing, and intuitive UI to help the Fediverse grow and attract mainstream users. Currently, Lemmy remains dominated mainly by discussions of political topics and critiques of Elon Musk, while its user base is still relatively small at around 40k+ users. For Lemmy to thrive, it needs to expand beyond its current niche and cater to more general topics and interests.
Personally, I use Reddit for far more than just shitting on Elon Musk, discussing politics, or even tech, especially FOSS. For example, I frequently engage with communities about cars, gaming, TV shows, entrepreneurship and general topics that are largely missing or underdeveloped on Lemmy. These general-interest communities are what make platforms like Reddit so versatile and appealing to a wider audience.
If we remain in our current comfort space, Lemmy will likely continue to stagnate as a niche platform. Meanwhile, other alternatives could grow and potentially replace Reddit one day, and it may not be decentralized, open source or community-funded rather centralized and driven by investors/VCs, Just as we’re seeing with platforms like Bluesky gaining traction over Mastodon to replacing X/Twitter. By embracing a UI like Photon’s, which is both modern and user-friendly, we can create a more inviting experience for mainstream users, helping Lemmy grow into a platform that caters to a broader audience.
I follow what you're getting at here, but I think this line of thinking, of Lemmy as a platform, also contributes to the issues in drawing more people to this network of communities/sites.
As Kichae said in your other thread:
On one hand I agree that the interface, and in turn the user experience, is worth focusing on to help get people to participate around here. On the other, I think you also need what Kichae describes at the end of their comment. Communities that can stand on their own with their own distinct identities and interests that also happen to let you talk with and see stuff from other distinct communities.
At some point I'd like to move to a little more focused sort of community like that built with Lemmy (or Piefed, or Mbin), but haven't had luck finding any that fit so far since many are broader in scope instead.
Basically we need to market it as a forum software instead of just a reddit clone
Believe it or not that will not do us any favours lol, the term "forum" is becoming a thing of the past and if we want to become more mainstream and break being a niche platform, that isn't the way to go.
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It's a bit of both in my opinion. You only market/suggest Lemmy (as forum/link aggregator software) to those with the tech knowledge to build with it, but to everyone else you mention a community site to join and don't bother mentioning what it's built with, as they won't care anyway.
Right, I'm not hung on the term, just the idea.
To add, discourse is pretty big among techy communities, including, ironically, the fediverse forum. It also has a pretty terrible user experience, but also a ton of tools for corporates, which lemmy will probably need if they want to market to those types (lot of potential money there).
And the thing is, even if those don't add to the regular fedi/threadi verse, they still get people familiar with the platform and UI.
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Agreed.