Ask Lemmy

No one is too dumb to be a contributor: big or small.

It's easy to make statements, suggestions, and opinions, but it's really hard to actually do things in practice.

We all want more people here. The question is "How?", and simply saying "Make good defaults" is easier said than done (what are good defaults?) and "good defaults" is too simple of an answer to a very complex issue.

The conversation has been stuck here for over a year already as very few people are actually willing to develop and test these solutions which takes a lot of resources too.

The irony of the situation is that a lot of these solutions that have been suggested also need a central authority. For example, people have suggested creating a central hub where everyone can sign up to. Another example is creating a little quiz which begs the question "Who decides which instances goes there?".

The best effort I've seen in trying to implement a solution are Reddit mirrors which aren't well-received because nobody likes talking to bots.

As a personal anectode on "lowering the barrier of entry":

Since I started this instance (ani.social), my goal in mind was to make it very easy for users to sign up. There's no manual approval here (except when it's being flooded with trolls). Only email verification is needed -- just like every social media platform.

But sometimes when new users sign up, they comment or post on communities in instances that defederated from us.

Now I have to think about how I'm supposed to explain defederation to people, and the moment I do try to explain, that's a big turn off for many.

Trying to hide federation is impossible. The Fediverse demands a new kind of usership that understands how the network works.

Again, I'm not saying Lemmy can't improve (it can in a lot of ways), but it all boils down to developer resources and who's willing enough to test these solutions to see what works and what doesn't. On the other hand, it takes minimal effort to say "It needs to be better".

Apparently redditors who are too dumb to register should stay on reddit?

How else do you use a service but register? How are people supposed to help others that can't even register? Didn't they register for reddit? How can they register for reddit, but somehow fail at registering for lemmy?

It's like telling people "if you want to join lemmy, go to the join lemmy tent". People go to the "join lemmy" tent, see sign-up booths with "general", "LGBTQ", "French", "German", "Italian", "art", ... and just turn around going "OMG THIS IS SO COMPLICATED!!!!11!1!!!!!1!". Seriously, you tell me, what the hell can be done? Are they not self-filtering at that point? Do they want the server to be picked for them? They just open joinlemmy.org and are redirected to a random server or something? What if it's directed to hexbear?

Is having the freedom of choice really so complicated? I do honestly do not understand...

Isolationism occurs in any functioning group because people fear losing it, or being drown out by the new users. There's also the small sect of people who seem to have the vocal attitude of "well I figured it out so you shouldn't need my help," which I've run into in varying forms.

I remember it happening on Reddit too. First when the great Digg migration occurred. And at various times later in some subs that shot to frontpage level popularity.

I think we should encourage migration. Lemmy isn't going to shoot to Reddit levels overnight, we're probably seeing a growth that will plateau, then shrink as people miss their niche communities (which we have too few active users to have thrive). If we're very lucky the folks that stick around will grow Lemmy 10ish%. But every time we do that those niche communities become that much more viable and Lemmy in generally becomes more appealing lurkers.

Who's "we"? I don't run a lemmy instance. I'm not against new users. I'm also not opposed to a lot of hard work and money going into making the experience better, but since I'm not providing either - who's "we"?

There's a lot that can be easily improved when it comes to cleaner default settings and usability. I'm all for what you're suggesting. But...

We can't expect people who want a perfect copy of Reddit to stick around here. We can welcome people when they come try out Lemmy, but there needs to be some give and take. For the benefit of leaving the control of spez and co., some jankiness and learning curves is the price to pay, mostly owing to resource constraints, a smaller userbase and the decentralized philosophy.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. When new users arrive here, I welcome them and regularly offer tips to make their experience better. On the other hand, if they aren't willing to put in the effort to make the experience their own, I won't cry if they go away either.

Apparently redditors who are too dumb to register should stay on reddit?

This has come up on Mastodon as well. Mastodon has a default server, which is mastodon.social. It's somewhat controversial. I think it's helped adoption but it's also putting the ecosystem more under Mastodon gGmbH's thumb...which is not great. I myself am on mastodon.social because it seemed like a sane default. I'd have chosen differently if I knew what I know now.

I'm not as plugged into what the defaults are for Lemmy or if there even are any. I'm sure there is room for improvement, but it is fair to say there are a lot of people who willfully refuse to understand how federated software works and act like it's so complicated that no mortal can possibly understand it.

Can we do a lot more to help people who wish to join decentralized social media? Yes, absolutely. Should we give people shit for acting like choosing a server is so hard and confusing that they'd rather be on fascist-aligned platforms? Also yes.

I miss being able to subscribe to posts. That's a good Reddit feature that I think we're missing.

I haven’t seen many comments not wanting people to join but more like, we are fine even if they don’t.

When I joined lemmy, I found it to be rather easy, so I never understood this barrier to entry.

I think it’s because someone just linked me to an instance, so I just went there and signed up like a regular site.

Ideally we want more users and for the fediverse to hit critical mass but idk how that can ever happen when corporate social media sites will always have a marketing budget.

So imo it’s not the difficulty, it’s like wondering why people keep paying for certain software when there are free alternatives, cause corporate software will always be more dumbed down.