I’m 32, I remember using the internet before google was a thing, discovering flashy websites, hanging out on all kinds of internet forums and chatrooms, ebaums world, MySpace, new grounds… I rember when YouTube was just starting off and it was exploding with all kinds of content.
I joined Facebook in 2005, I remember when it was the talk of the town, it used to actually kind of be decent, all the content was from actual real world peers.
I remember when pages became a thing, and you could like certain topics, and then eventually it unfolded into something enterely different, I remember when it became New Facebook, and there became a chatbar. And then eventually it became a cespool of garbage.
I remember when reddit was at it’s prime, I discovered it in 2011, I spent hours scrolling and engaging in discussion. The content was always new and original, every day on Reddit my mind got blown by something, this is before all the algorithms, and when upvotes and down votes actually dictated where your post would be jn the feed. You could litterally refresh your page and watch your vote counts.
Since then I’ve watched it change, I could always tell something felt off about it over the past few years.
Everytime I would google something on the net on my phone and click a Reddit link, I would be prompted to install the app. I tried it and it was shit. Once upon a time I could just open Reddit is Fun through the browser. Reddit made it impossible to do that.
Since discovering this place a few weeks ago now, I have been hit with a familiar feeling, and that is I am actually enjoying my time here as much as I did on Reddit in the early 2010s.
The communities are more grounded, there is no bot activity, my big long posts aren’t deleted after posting them due to shitty rules.
I like how it feels free, and everyone agrees to just follow the rules of the community and if the post isn’t quite fitting, people can vote on that, as it should be.
Thank you all for restoring something that was once great, I really thought there was no chance in hell people would get away from those platforms. I always told people we need a new website, a new Reddit, and I guess this is it.
Definitely. This place is a (much needed) step back to what the internet used to be. Somewhere between 15-20 years ago and now, the online growth experienced obviously went in a wrong direction. I’m glad these huge social media conglomerations were a testing ground for us to discover how the web should not work, and Lemmy is a step in the right direction.
You moved me.
Good conversations on kbin, Lemmy, Squabbles, et al. I think there’s a new feeling of solidarity and ownership with these new (to some of us) forums. I’m here for it.
Solidarity and ownership… fellowship… it’s beautiful.
That this collection of people who are so often omni-belligerent have found common cause is wild to me
Yeah, ever since I first arrived on kbin, I’ve felt like a breeze is passing through me. It took me a while to realize, but then it hit me: it’s because I’m not enraging Redditors every day by just opening my mouth.
Guess what, I actually read the whole thing. (:
Guys we did it!
Funny how it feels like the old forums isn’t it?
I’m glad we found this place.
My biggest worry is that it becomes over moderated like all the subreddits.
I fucking hated writing a heated passionate post, only to have it automatically removed because I didn’t read the fine print.
I prefer when everything is voted on in the community, vs automatic removals and strict mod’s.
It actually took my motivation away to post, so I ended up just being a lurker.
The fact that there are so many Lemmy servers makes me feel as if one server goes to shit, there will be another one that offers more freedom of expression.
I also enjoy that that there is a specific instance for NSFW content, it keeps things organized.
OMG, writing a lengthy post just to get in auto-removed sucks so hard…
I’m hoping that mods will be fine.
I literally stopped to write answers on stackoverflow.com decade ago because mods were fixing my bad english (it’s another story) and always somehow kicked me for it.
That’s kinda why I joined Reddit originally. I couldn’t really work with platforms like Twitter or Facebook that are sort of about “me”. I just aren’t that egocentric. I don’t want to post daily shit about my life, and I also don’t really have an interest in reading about private daily lives of others. Reddit always felt like a classical forum, but adapted to have more of a constantly moving content. You were part of a computer / tech forum? Now you’d join some subreddits about this topic and be informed while also able to partake in discussions about it. Same for everything else.
I never wanted all that drama from the extremistic sides (remember T_D dominating /r/all through vote manipulation? Or “uncensored news”?), I never wanted the sluggish & bloated redesign with its thousands of awards and distracting animations, I never wanted mods & admins / AEO to turn abusive and / or completely incompetent (literally all my bans have been within the past few years, which was the minority of all my total Reddit time). And now they think they can dictate the content that once made them great & brought them to the point where they are now. If they cannot find a way to work with the users, then the users should stop working for them. Simple as that. Because in the end it’s the user base that made the platform great and filled it with content.
I’m also noticing a satisfying lack of the /s tag.
I wonder why that is. Do older users just not tend to joke that way as much?
I guess I’m older but I feel like it ruins it. The context matters most and I’d rather add context than a tag if I have to. Part of the joke is people missing the context when it’s obvious to others. I’m not sure there’s much point in sarcasm if you’re spelling it out.
Adding the /s is like saying “I just told a joke.” … with sarcasm, well it’s kinda like saying the punchline.
It’s more like “I just told a joke, don’t downvote me!”
This is my first time feeling part of an online community, it’s amazing!
Negative people are always saying we’ll never see anything like the early internet again with how everything is owned by corporations, but this last week on Lemmy has come damn close for me! Time to go be nostalgic about asking A/S/L in AIM chatrooms while watching flash animations on https://joecartoon.com/ eh @CoffeeBlood91@lemmy.ca?
(I can’t believe that site is still running!)
Oh man, frog in a blender! You bring back memories.
Well then, welcome to the Fediverse I guess :P
Get comfy, as Kbin and Lemmy aren’t the only services part of the Fediverse. There’s also Microblogging services like Mastodon, YouTube-like Video sharing through Peertube and even self-hosted streaming with OwnCast.
There’s statistics on https://fedidb.org, on which there’s also a list of instances/servers on all kinds of topics using all kinds of software.
We ain’t corporate, we’re a community.
Microblogging services like Mastodon, YouTube-like Video sharing through Peertube and even self-hosted streaming with OwnCast.
On kbin I only seem to see federated lemmy threads though. Are those mentioned yet to be added or how does that work?
I posted a toot on Mastodon back in November during the whole Twitter fiasco saying how Mastodon in 2022 felt like Twitter did circa 2010. Same feeling for Lemmy / Kbin!
You nailed just about everything that I’ve been enjoying about Lemmy, too!
To me, it’s definitely reminiscent of reddit circa 2011-2012. There aren’t any bots yet, so discussions feel more grounded; and it has a similar air of wonder to it, like people are still excited for both what the community is and what it can be.
…Except for the sorting. Sorting by Subscribed or Local feel reddit-ish, with the former being a self-curated feed and the latter being a broader discovery feed of whatever going on in your chosen instance. Sorting by All, though, feels a bit like stepping back to my old high-school 4chan days, but with less sharpies in buttholes.
I’m 51. I started with BBS’s, compuworld, Usenet and MUD telnet screens. I’ve seen access to the internet and pre internet go from 1,400 baud modems to 56,000 modems to the 5G internet access we have today.
To me, the fedeverse feels like a modern technology in development without corporations ruinous hands in it.
I really hope the corporate hold on social media is breaking, because they eventually ruined everything they touched in order to squeeze every last dollar out of it.
I’m younger than you, and I remember sweet chats with sysops on BBS:es and “rapid fire” message boards (one, then two, then four! replies daily), Fidonet “mailing” and then “mailing” through Usenet gateways via BBS, Gopher, LAN parties with token rings, the thrill of calling phreaked lines to call up a BBS on the other side of the Atlantic for local phone fees. Then with Internet, the Play by Email games with space strategy and fantasy. The plethora of different MUD:s with various themes and boundless optimism and plagiarism…
2400 or 14400 baud modem handshake signals still give me that thrilling feeling of freeedom and futurology. Just last year I had some of them added to my white noise list to sleep better as they also calm me down.
Your comment gave me fuzzy nice warm feelings.
This is starting to feel like an iteration of BBS— edit: I say bbs, but really I mean Usenet. I guess this is like bbs with better threading and organization, and you login to your local mirror to see what’s new. I like it, just need to get my head around it.
I’d love to know more of this pre internet BBS. What does it stand for?
Some BBSs had a communication system called FIDOnet that would dial up back and forth in a hierarchy at night to update their forums. You could personally run something called a point on fidonet that was analogous to running an instance yourself on Lemmy. I ran a point in the early 90s.
Wow, 14k4 modems, those were great… after messing about with 300 and 1200 baud modems. (Never got the 300/75 one to work)
I live how the fediverse is more like the old bbs system, federative and not high-jacked by greedy corps. Maybe we’re returning to the core of public internet, before the masses swamped in.
BTW I’ll turn 51 in less then 2 months. ;) (gramps remembers… 🤣)
I forgot about my 1200 baud modem on my C64! Storage was a casset tape.
Mine was on a 386SX-16, never had the need to put the Atari STe on internet. (And had an MSX when I lived with my parents in '85, no clue about BBs’es then)
I had an IBM 386sx with a 15" monitor.
It is great again! Mastodon was cool but lemmy is epic!
My only real problem with Mastodon is its presentation of material. Never really liked Twitter, didn’t like the individual focus. This? I like. Interests are abstracted from the individual.
It’s such a nice breath of fresh air that I really didn’t know I needed. But now, looking back, it’s so obvious things weren’t the way they should be. And here, in the fediverse, things feel like they are exactly how they should be! It’s so nice!
