Yeah, this describes my experience so far. I really want to like it here, but so far it’s been an effort.
I am using Mastadon more, hopefully with time we see a similar level of polish. However, even there it don’t see a dent in Twitter.
Unlike Reddit, Lemmy instances are individual servers that come together like an interweb of subreddits.
That is not how it works, like at all. This same thing happens with Mastodon when journalists come on with a negative attitude and don’t really want it to work so they don’t really try.
You know what I love about kbin/lemmy - no goddamn Nazis. I’ll take the growing pains of a burgeoning platform over Nazis on my timeline any day of the week.
The thing to remember is that the user experience on Reddit, Twitter etc. is only going to get worse from here on in. But on the fediverse it’s only going to get better.
I’m really starting to like this place now! At first I was hesitant, but it’s great!
I think kbin is working just fine. I’m willing to give it time to grow. Patience.
Are you using the jerboa app? I find it to be very close to the old experience.
I have been using the kbin webapp; but I did try Jebora. I might try again.
It can still be a little buggy at times, but I’ve found to be the closest to my RIF experience so far.
I‘m actually relieved if it doesn‘t become too big, I‘m afraid if it does, the corporations and other bad actors might come to destroy it again. I‘ve gone through this often enough.
The good news is that federated open source projects should be a little harder to destroy.
I ended up switching to Kbin and like it a lot more in regards to how the main page provides threads. It still has it’s issues, but they’re for the most part outside of the main loop.
I’m somewhat surprised at how much the dynamic page load really messed with my ability to navigate Lemmy. Basically if I went away for any given time it would go from top threads for the day to random junk that had no activity. It really needs a way to turn that off.
I think it’s important to note that when the Mastodon migrations really picked up, the software was already 4-5 years old with organized development. Lemmy is only around 3-4 years old and kbin is only a couple years old (with very limited public use). That makes a big difference in what you can expect from them. With the influx of interest in these platforms, you’re going to see far more help and contribution to the underlying code alongside better third party app support in the months ahead. These are both very young platforms and have a lot of room to grow in the next while.
Majority of the people here are super helpful, much friendlier, and supportive even with all the flaws that we are experiencing. Building a community takes effort. Everyone’s effort is focused here so that we can have the place that we want it to be - a place better than reddit.
I agree with this 100%
It’s the people that make a platform a success. For all its popularity and polish, reddit often felt toxic and abrasive. I haven’t seen too much of that here.
I actually like kbin more than I did reddit. Reddit has a huge advantage though, over a decade of content. What I like about kbin though is it feels smaller, I see familiar names and interaction feels like I’m talking to a person not a thing.
Needs to fix the “hot” sorting. Then I’ll actually be able to evaluate.
I would love a sorting type that just gives a whole new page of posts when I hit F5. For now, I guess I can sort by New.
On the plus side this place feels smaller so instead of just lurking all the time it feels meaningful to participate.
I think this is really spot on. I wasn’t looking for a “reddit alternative” that “kinda sucks” because it’s not reddit. I was looking for an actual “reddit alternative,” not a reddit clone. And yes, I’ve just been lurking up until now, but so far this seems so much more sane and reasonable. For the time being, at least. Until someone finds a way to turn it into a reddit alternative.
I created an account about 24 hours ago and this is actually better than I expected. Of course, I wasn’t expecting a complete and polished interface from something so new, but I had read plenty of horror stories about how lemmy/kbin signups were impossibly complex.
I like it. It’s already pretty intuitive and I like that it’s not a 1:1 Reddit clone. I can easily imagine this expanding and growing into something really interesting
Also, I got the username I wanted.
Hell yes. First dibs on usernames!
With the popularity of Reddit and how simple (in theory) of a concept it is, it blows my mind that there is not an alternative. Kbin and Lemmy are okay, but they are pretty big compromise so far.
I can forgive the issues with Kbin and Lemmy because Reddit has had more time and resources to build the platform. My hope is that with the new attention and the open source nature that Lemmy will show consistent improvement to where I don’t feel like I’m compromising.
There’s been little demand. Give it some time. Enjoy being in in the ground floor, or wait until it’s a little more mature. The more use and demand the more we’re going to see improvements and alternative mobile apps and such.
I fully expect it’s going to get better. None of the issues mentioned, from a quick skim, are insurmountable except figuring out where to sign up.
Because there isn’t enough resources to develop it without any real interest. Most of fediverse projects start as personal projects and evolve as they gain traction.
This version is the worst it will ever be. It can only improve from here as corporate greed is not a factor with open source project.
What are the big compromises? I’ve only been here for a day or two.
To be entirely fair with Kbin:
From Kbin.pub: “NOTICE: This is a very early beta version.”
For being an early beta, kbin is usable and remarkably polished. I think the downsides for most people are deciding what server to join and content discovery.
Reddit wasn’t all that amazing either when they first started - it took a while for things to get ironed out. Then they had to go and ruin a good thing
