this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2025
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Asklemmy

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I was a long time reddit user, and made a couple new accounts as throwaways last year from different emails but they kept getting shadowbanned everytime I tried to post, comment or send a message. Just last night, my 3 year old account I had no issues using it at all got shadowbanned as soon as I sent a message. It's just so frustrating how hard reddit is moderated and there's no explanations given either they just shadowban you and I don't even know where to ask anyone either I installed Lemmy, hoping it'll be a good alternative and it is great and a lot of things I like about reddit, but there's a significant lack of the type of communities that I browsed in reddit. Hopefully I'll find them here or more people will join and it'll be better. So what made you install Lemmy and what did you wish Lemmy had?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Reddits idiotic moderation

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Reddit killed RIF. I'd already been looking into Lemmy, leading up to the day, but once my app stopped working, I switched to Jerboa and made a Lemmy account.

...didn't stay on Jerboa long

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I switched to Connect, and have liked it well enough that I haven't tried any others

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

Joined about a year or two before the reddit API fiasco.

  • I really don't like ads+tracking and didn't want my posts supporting a company like reddit
  • I'm an advocate of FOSS
  • reddit has inherent pressures to censor content based on mass media pressure and profit, and to permit anti-social far right trolls
  • reddit punishes proxy users, where many instances here allow me to protect myself while posting here
  • didn't like the new reddit layout - even before I came here, I was lurking for a year or two on alternate frontends
  • I believed federation was a good strategy at building a better reddit alternative

But also, it actually had some communities at the time. If it were more dead, or unfederated, I'm not sure if I would have put as much effort in building communities.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Banned for a stupid reason from Reddit. I made a joke that a mod from r/entertainment didn’t like and got banned. I kept accidentally commenting on the subreddit because I often comment on posts without checking subreddit. Even though I had muted and blocked r/entertainment it kept popping up on my feed because it’s a general subreddit. Got banned from Reddit for trying to circumvent the ban.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago

I like open protocols and free software, and during the API exodus there was finally enough content that I wanted to jump ship.

of course I had annoyances with reddit, but I have annoyances with Lemmy too.

it's still preferable imho

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I was part of the reddit exodus over the 3rd party app bullshit. I saw a post from one of the bigger servers bitching about how you shouldn't join lemmygrad or Hexbear because they are full of tankies so I made a Lemmygrad account. After Hexbear refederated I added a few of their comms and realized I jive more with their community than with Lemmygrad so I made a HB account and added a bunch of my old Lemmygrad comms to that.

I wish the hobby comms were more active. That's really the only reason I still have my reddit account.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

I used old.reddit.com exclusively, so the app thing never affected me personally. But when the admins started extorting those devs, and lying about it... I started looking for the exits. The day I wrote it off entirely was when they casually announced they'd reject and ignore the site-wide protest of moderators who do all their work, for free.

You can't own a community.

You can enable them... or you can abuse them. Reddit chose abuse. The enshittification had been undeniable since 2016, when fascists choked the front page, and the admin response was 'everybody play nice.'

The company doesn't make anything. The site is an empty box. Every worthwhile conversation on some arcane niche, every thread pruned of idiot bastards, is something users made. It's not even like Facebook or Youtube, where a significant chunk of (eugh) "content" is profit-driven. A forum is just people talking.

Moral disgust aside, I immediately knew - the quality was fucked. Posts would keep happening. Comments would abound. But the only reason Reddit worked was that voting filters the best stuff toward the top. The same filter does not work on crap mixed with crap. That's all there's going to be. Bots and fascists yapping at one another in approved tones of voice. r/Funny with five hundred names.

Dumb bastards tried to sell a recipe for stone soup.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

i’m in the US and am becoming increasingly worried about privacy online (as if i needed more reasons). as a leftist, i believe it will become even more difficult to organize in the near future and want to protect myself as much as possible. i know nothing can truly assure me my information won’t be compromised but i’m going to try and do what i can to limit the possibility. also, dealing with reddit, twitter, and bluesky have convinced me to abandon popular social media. i don’t even like using YouTube.

i want to belong to a community of likeminded people who understand the seriousness of privacy and the reality of potential revolution in the US.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

This. Lying bastard.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

When reddit started it's dive down the enshitification hole. As for things I wish it had, a lemmy version of multireddits would be nice, especially since we can end up with multiple communities for the exact same thing here.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

I got temp banned for saying antizionist things, while I was banned I began to look for an open source alternative which lead me here. Early on I used .world but after finding out about Blahaj Lemmy I switched :3

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (1 children)

My Reddit app stopped working…

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

It was a new technology that had released and I was keeping up with its progress. I didn’t use it super religiously until Reddit banned a bunch of leftist subreddits around 2020 though because the user base was still pretty small.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

I got banned for inciting violence for saying Monty Williams should invest all the money he stole from Detroit back into the city and then promptly be killed with hammers as a sort of ritual sacrifice to cleanse Little Caesars Arena of his bad juju. It was just a joke and had lots of upvotes but guess it hurt a mods feelings.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

My first admin finger-wag in fifteen years on reddit was after a long conversation with some antivax loon. I understand how "Okay, enjoy your dead kids, I guess" could sound like I'm the bad guy, in a vacuum. But we don't live in a vacuum. Any site unwilling to acknowledge that 'hey uh your mistakes might end a human life' can be expressed glibly is not being moderated sensibly.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

First came over with the API Reddit thing but realized Reddit is way better and Lemmy had zero content so I just went back as many did.

Then I got super into selfhosting and read a comment or post on that sub that asked why is the selfhosting sub not self hosted but thedonald is? That made me realize I thought Reddit was dumb and lemmy was my future. Now I try to invest in all selfhosted things

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

I installed it alongside mastadon, and Lemmy was mode usable than mastadon

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago

API debacle. Went from Apollo for Reddit to Voyager for Lemmy

[–] [email protected] 36 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I used Apollo to browse Reddit. It was really a great app, and it made browsing Reddit enjoyable. The dev, Christian, listened to his users, frequently updated and improved the app, was active in the subreddit, and seemed to care about making it a positive experience. It really was like being a part of a club.

It wasn’t just that Reddit shut down the API, but the way they boldfaced lied about Christian and their interactions with him. He was feverishly in talks with them to save the app, but Reddit not only wasn’t negotiating in good faith, but even worse, lying about the interactions to try to smear Christian and make him look like the villain. It was then that I knew that Reddit would never be the same, and I started looking for alternatives.

I tried several, but Lemmy seemed to be the closest to Reddit and scratched the itch. Not only that, an amazing dev created Voyager, which is heavily inspired by Apollo, (pretty much a direct copy), and makes me feel at home. There’s not as many communities here as subreddits over there, but I have curated a great Home feed, which includes most of my interests and that I enjoy browsing. I can honestly say the comments here are much better and more authentic. On the whole I get real replies and have better conversations instead of trolls and confrontations like I frequently did at Reddit. I do stop in over there sometimes out of boredom and browse, but it’s really not the same as before. (And maybe it is, and I was just fooling myself and not seeing it.) I don’t think I’ve posted or commented on Reddit since Apollo died except on live sports game feeds, which I do miss over here. I found a regional instance that I like, and, on the whole, I really enjoy it here.

TLDR: API killed Apollo.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

My story’s pretty much this.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Same journey for me. Digg > Reddit > Lemmy. I do need leave .world though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Same journey here.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

I was on .world too, but I’m from Georgia, so I like being on yall.theatl.social much better. It’s a smaller, more tight knit community, and it’s in Atlanta, so it’s more-or-less local for me.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago

Started on Digg moved to reddit when Digg shot itself in the foot moved to lemmy when reddit shot itself in the foot. I will say I post and comment way more on here. Than I ever did on digg and reddit combined. This place feels more like old school forms than social media. Where people come out of the woodwork to be jerks. Ether because your views don't match theirs or you get some spelling or grammar that's not 100% perfect vs just engaging with your ideas for a constructive discussion. I can't tell how many times I have come back to a reply and gone " you make a good point." on lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Not reddit but the same

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

I guessed Reddit's trajectory would only go (mostly) downhill. I say mostly, because a few new features are useful, like comment searching. Awards are also back. Stayed in Lemmy because the community is more focused

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Early last year I decided I wanted to join social media so I'd periodically look up lists of different social media websites and I joined the ones I vibed with. Lemmy was on one of those lists. I've been having such a great time so far! 😃

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I assume you mean the federation in general or at least the reddit alternatives like mbin or lemmy. this is asked every so often and there are sorta multiple waves and I came in response to the reddit api thing were it was really apparent how things were gonna be.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Tired of 14 YO "experts" and trolls.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

I am actually 41, Sir!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Got a new phone and decided to use the opportunity to change up alot about how I do things, including using new social media platforms

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

Reddit is becoming WAY too nazi like. Say something that goes against they ideas and views? banned. fuck those fat fucks.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Happy new year and welcome to Lemmy!

TL:DR; Reddit sucked, I got bored when it was offline. Lemmy has similar moderation BUT a transparent modlog. Post grouping, more niche communities I'd like to see.

I had first heard about Mastodon in early 2022, but since I wasn't into Twitter-style posting I kind of forgot about it and moved on.

The quality of discussions I was having on Reddit had noticeably declined over the years, and top posts were bots posting reposts, and the top comments under those posts started to become straight up copied from past top comments.

Compact mode got turned off, and later the apps had an outage in March 2023, so it was actually out of boredom when I had stumbled across Lemmy for the first time. It was a tiny thing of around a few hundred active users across all sites then.

API pricing scandal happened a few months later, my distaste for Reddit increased and simultaneously Lemmy's popularity exploded. So for June I made it my transition period to convince others to join, and in July I made my farewell post, swearing never to post or comment on Reddit ever again. I peek into Reddit on occasion but Lemmy had fully replaced my Reddit habit by September.

Conversations here have been far more lively, nuanced, mature. It doesn't always happen, as there are immature clowns and trolls here like anywhere, but we have reasonable people who are able to have a productive conversation while having positions at odds with each other. This virtually never happened on Reddit.

Tip for you, there are some types of comments allowed on some communities but banned or frowned upon on others. If you get a comment removed, check the modlog, filtering for your username as to why it may be. It may feel like censorship or power tripping, but at least it is more open and transparent. You can make an account on another server or post on different communities, if it's simply a matter of differing philosophies with the controlling admins.

I'd want to see grouping features of communities, and also there are a number of bounties on features that would be great to see. Development isn't fast so I just have to be patient. More niche topics would be cool to have.

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