I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but threads or comments about Lemmy or the Fediverse get downvoted a lot on Reddit and trolls who claim that it’s “dogshit” and “not going anywhere” get systematically upvoted.
Some of those trolls get then exposed when you ask them what Lemmy instance they tried and one of them with whom I had a surreal exchange answered with something like “yeah ofc I used Lemmy, this is the instance: join-lemmy.org” 🤦♂️
It’s frustrating that these trolls keep contributing to the big lie that “Lemmy is not ready yet” and that there’s “no viable alternative to Reddit”.
This and the overwhelming number of comments being “against the mod protests” just prompts me to question whether there isn’t some brigading being organized straight from the Reddit HQ.
I think there’s truth to some of the “not ready” claims… and this is coming from someone who really tried to get into Lemmy, ended up creating their own instance (as demonstrated by my user handle).
A few issues I think Lemmy dev team really need to address ASAP, from least technical (thus affecting most users) to more technical (this affecting less users) are:
1. UX/Discoverability – Finding communities are a huge pain in the backend right now, and with multiple communities on different instances serving same purpose (i.e.: [email protected] and [email protected]). Sure, Reddit had same issues (the example I’ve heard is /r/meirl and /r/me_irl), but Reddit offered solution (multi on old reddit, community+community on new reddit). There must be a way to streamline it with meta-communities or lists on Lemmy such that the contents can be viewed in a unified fashion. I recommended
!community@(note the lack of domain) to streamline all of user’s subscriptions with same name on different instances as an example; and perhaps we can use#list$user@lemmy.domainfor users’s maintained lists to unify!homelab@lemmy.ml,!datahoarder@lemmy.ml,!homelab@lemmy.world, etc.).2. Trigger happy defederation hubs – a certain instance has unceremoniously de-federated a couple of other larger instances. This is not the way, but here we are, with users on those instances not able to access the broader Fediverse, and vice versa. Until discoverability gets taken care of, it will be challenging for users to find a good home – this leads to next point:
3. Authentication – The Fediverse at large needs to separate authentication out from instances. Instances may provide their own authentication, fine, but there needs to be better way to authenticate against something else other than an entire new instance of Lemmy. The ActivityPub protocol has clear definitions on what is an actor, and users shouldn’t need to deploy a Lemmy instance to identify themselves, separately from a Mastadon instance to identify themselves, separately from a… etc. This is because frankly…
4. Deployment of Lemmy is utter garbage. The official documentation’s getting started guide gets users setup with an instance where the UI container cannot talk to public, but the lemmy backend can? Why bother shipping an nginx container if the backend will just expose itself to the whole wide net? Also, let’s just pretend postgres container isn’t open to the whole world with a basic password… Trying to get it up and running with Traefik was a pain, just do a quick Google and see how many people have asked and gave up, as well as how many different ways people have tried to go at it (something something xkcd 927; I’ve contributed to a new one of my own per linked post on top!), and the dev basically just straight up going ‘we don’t support traefik’… also, each approach is not without problems…
5. Federation is a bitch. I am pretty proud of the way I’ve used override to not edit original docker compose, and locked my setup down a little. But, I’m not ready to have the instance open to the whole wide web without CloudFlare in front… but allegedly, Federation doesn’t work with CloudFlare… why? Good luck trying to get to even a popular sub’s scale without getting hit with DDOS when someone disagrees with something someone else posted.
There’s many more problems, and I genuinely want Lemmy to work. But, Lemmy is, lack of better words, “not yet ready” for prime time. It is thrown into the spotlight with Mastadon (which feels a bit more mature, at least from reading the docs) because of bad leadership at mega techs… It will take a lot of work for Lemmy to evolve and mature, before it can be “ready” to really absorb the mass of Redditors leaving Reddit.
Not a lot of value in singling any community out… I think if it keeps up, eventually, they will just flip to private instances and de-federate themselves away from the larger fediverse…
I have an account on beehaw and I wrote like three sentences and was accepted, I wrote the same thing here on lemmy.ml not being accepted is probably more of an attribute of you
Regarding #2, I think not defederating might be an easier sell if users had the ability to block instances. Right now it’s just users and communities. Hate lemmygrad? You can block its communities one by one, but it’s kind of a pain. So instances only have the option of a full block.
Lemmygrad is a great instance, western chauvinist.
Lemmygrad is thoroughly obnoxious. Full stop. Also, you clearly have no idea what western chauvinism is if you’re calling me one.
Edit: To clarify, I don’t want Lemmygrad being defederated. It breaks up the Fediverse for little reason. But I do want users to be given the option to block instances on either the community or user level. Would I say the same thing about a right wing instance with a history of bigotry and hate? No, that’s another matter that goes beyond mere discomfort.
You for the past 3 years have been specifically propping up on Lemmy anything that aligns with NATO, while talking in a cheesy manner. You are the classical hideous western chauvinist. You hate Lemmygrad because you hate communism, and love neoliberal capitalism. Period.
Lemmygrad is not obnoxious, it is Anglosphere that is. Lemmygrad is pretty factual regarding history and geopolitics, and is the exact opposite of Anglo participants on internet. You hate Lemmygrad because they are anti imperialism.
I dislike it because it is a personality cult and worships governments that have not earned that praise. Communism doesn’t enter into it. While I’m not communist, I don’t hate it. It has some interesting insights, but it’s hard to ignore that in practice it usually just makes a new ruling class that has no intention of ever releasing power. I’m interested to see where China goes over the next few decades as it shifts from playing catch up (easy productivity gains) to reaching parity (harder productivity gains).
At this point, you’re just picking pejoratives out of a hat marked “disagrees with me”. I don’t believe in Western superiority, even if I believe in certain values that are widely espoused in the West (free speech, democracy, etc.). But I’m not shy about being critical of my country when it goes astray from my values. And I’m free to do so because I live in a country where that is a right. Would you do the same for China? Would you feel safe doing so if you lived in China?
And for the record, my family has a long history of appreciating cultures around the world. I just don’t like authoritarianism, populism, and kleptocracy, regardless of what political brand is associated with it.
It just coincidentally happens that all your history says otherwise. Years of your comments just being delusional abstractions, coincidentally siding with whoever is against China/Russia/Iran et al. It is definitely not a pattern, it is just mere coincidence. You have no degree of nuance, and its always hairsplitting aimed towards a goal of western neoliberal virtue signalling.
Countries that you say have not “earned that praise” happen to be countries that have not committed the atrocities that Anglo empire commits, which is funny since you do oppose the countries that do not commit atrocities, siding with the ones that do.
Again, you confirm my claims of western chauvinism, by claiming democracy is a “widely espoused” western principle. And it is funny, how China is more democratic than USA, since you bring that up. Hong Kong during the Basic Law issue had a poll conducted where citizens agreed to USA being a bigger threat to their democracy and freedom, than China would be. Guess what, Hong Kong does rank above USA on the Freedom Index, so there goes your argument.
Why has Assange not been freed in USA, land of the genocide, where he was extradited from UK? Why does Snowden live in arch enemy country of USA? How did Chelsea Manning suddenly become a NATO parrot? How come Daniel Hale suffered so much?
The fact is you love western neoliberal virtue signalling and Anglo supremacy, because you benefit from those atrocities and overseas superimperialist exploitation. Every government is authoritarian, socialists are just honest about it whereas liberals and conservatives are dishonest and malicious. You already are a populist when you parrot neoliberal trash. Kleptocracy probably best applies to USA, considering legalised and even fashionable lobbyist culture, where Europe is a very close second. Bribing and lobbying happens in all countries, but it happens the most in the countries that are on top of the superimperialist capitalist countries which are all Western, considering the transfer of wealth by means of imperialist plundery and loot has always been done by Anglos to East.