1096
we need more users (discuss.tchncs.de)
submitted 7 months ago* by to c/fediverse@lemmy.world
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I've been one of the people saying "we don't need more users. we need quality over quantity" and i was wrong.

the way it's going, lemmy needs active users who post content sothat the network stays relevant. networks like the fediverse benefit from network effects and that means that if we have more users, that improves the value and quality of the fediverse overall.

So please, everyone, when you can, make advertisement for the fediverse in your personal area. Go talk to friends, make attractive stickers and put them everywhere, stuff like that. We would all benefit from it.

edit: source for the graph

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[–] 3 points 7 months ago (1 child)

But there's barely any content here, especially outside of leftist politics and GNU/Linux

We used to have a thriving Star Trek instance before that one guy made that one post

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

    Which post?

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    A cisgender repost farmer made a post accusing the admins of being transphobic with absolutely zero evidence, and got the other repost farmers to move with him to a community on lemmy.world. He and his friends are now some of Lemmy's biggest power mods, with influence across dozens of popular communities. The Star Trek instance had discussion forums, lore, news, and casual conversation about Trek in addition to memes. Now people only use the .world and dbzero meme communities.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Tbf, that's not why the only or even I would guess primarily the reason why the startrek.website instance is used less. That was my first instance hop after Kbin.Earth died off (with that whole Ernst fiasco), and I abandonded it due to the very MANY technical glitches - like I remember making a post a couple times that did not make its way over to Lemmy.World for like a week, by which time of course nobody saw it, since even though it was "new" (to them) the time had gotten back-dated to its original, so it looked and acted like it had simply been passed over and ignored by the community previously, at which point it simply continued to be so forever.

    Also seveal times I would write a comment but if I spent >1 minute doing so, then it would not let me post - though neither would it deny my post either, instead simply spinning forever trying but never succeeded, my only recourse being to copy and paste it into another window to try again, and hope to avoid duplicates. Sometimes even voting was problematic, requiring MANY presses and also waiting between each to see if it "took" because of the network issues.

    Please note that most non-Lemmy.World instances were having those kinds of problems at the time, one of the multiple reasons being due to how Lemmy would send each individual item on its own (a vote, a comment, a post) rather than bundled together in packets of information, causing especially instances that are geographically far from Lemmy.World to struggle severely and be behind for weeks to MONTHS (aussie.zone was hit particularly hard). So I do not blame the instance admins for that, although the problem was more severe on STW, so I created what at first was an alt to use during the the times that STW was most problematic, but since Discuss.Online had such fantastic uptime, just started using it permanently.

    Also I don't know if you are talking about Stamets or FlyingSquid or whoever, but I will note that the Tenforward community is now even more fragmented before, with a version now on Piefed.world (it is the #2 community located there), where ironically they decided NOT to put a link back to tenforward@lemmy.world (e.g. as a Sister community), plus they still call the new one by the same name, making it at least LOOK like they want it to become the new default?

    Anyway PieFed has the ability to fight against such fragmentation effects by joining together all related communities into a single conjoined multi-community ("Topics" are made by admins and the "Feed" versions are user-customizeable and shareable!), see e.g. https://piefed.social/topic/tv-movies/star-trek that puts Risa, Tenforward, Daystrom Institute, and Star Trek all together.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Startrek.website was never primarily local traffic. It used to be mostly lemmy.world users posting Star Trek content to the Star Trek communities, a lot like dullsters.net, but less extreme.

    The off-instance users mostly stopped posting there and moved to Ten Forward, because of that clique's post.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Maybe. I did not even know about that post at the time - and I still am not sure that I do even now - and to similar posts people seemed to have mostly responded that they too were not aware of things. People might be a lot lazier than you are giving them credit for!:-P e.g. people coming over from Reddit simply hop onto lemmy.world without giving a single moment's thought to any considerations like spreading things out across the Threadiverse - which for someone's first instance choice I do not criticize (at least, back then it was more understandable), since they can best learn about the Threadiverse by having joined it, and then make a different decision later on.

    Nowadays, lemmy.world makes up roughly a third of the Threadiverse (14.2k / (35.2k + 2K PieFed + 0.7k Mbin). Over on r/RedditAlternatives, people like Blaze primarily direct new users towards feddit.org (iirc) or discuss.online (for people in the USA), or more recently PieFed (both are generalist instances and avoid issues with having the name "Lemmy" as part of it). Setting aside any issues with Lemmy.World's moderation practices (which personally I think are mostly overblown... though perhaps not entirely), it is just good practice to help spread people out a bit.

    Though back then, Lemmy.World made up a whopping ~80% of the Threadiverse. So having "mostly lemmy.world users" posting was the experience shared by pretty much every community across the entire Threadiverse (back then, mainly just called Lemmy, as first Kbin and then Mbin were always barely noticeable blips with <1k active users except the very first month it started).

    I do not doubt that there was additional specific drama there - several of those mods are kinda known for being drama lamas:-P - just adding this background context to it all.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Yes, I agree that most users were unaware, but most users also follow the leader-y types who have the strong opinions. Those three repost farmers worked together to move all the content over, and anyone who investigated was given the post with the transphobia claim as a reason. This locked in the network effect that made most people move over to Ten Forward, with little outcry.

    ST.W did have legitimate moderation problems, but the problems with the Ten Forward clique are much worse.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    This locked in the network effect that made most people move over to Ten Forward, with little outcry.

    Yes precisely. It might even have helped (a little?) that it was located on Lemmy.World?

    And I see how your comment is relevant since aside from (tankie-bashing,) politics and Linux, and generic meme reposts from other places, Star Trek was basically the only source of real OC here on the Threadiverse (even though some people avoided it, e.g. if they blocked FlyingSquid and any community that he helped mod, before he removed himself from Lemmy altogether). Fortunately others, like LOTR and Star Wars, are picking up more than they were in the past?

    Personally though, I think we are simply too toxic here to attract or keep most users checking us out from Reddit - which is ironic considering how bad the largest subs on Reddit itself have gotten. I know I for one generally avoid posting here as much as possible, seeing as how I nearly universally regret it each time I do. If it were just me that would be a personal issue, but seeing as how so MANY others tell an identical story... and oftentimes they do not even tell us here, but rather speak about their experiences using Lemmy over on e.g. r/RedditAlternatives.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Piefed.zip is my goto nowadays

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

    It seems like a great one! Like PieFed.World seems to have zero predefined feeds? (or maybe that's just the error message displayed to someone without an account) and also literally only four predefined Topic areas. It gives the impression that it is not finished being set up? PieFed.zip at a glance looks much healthier:-).

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    The zip admins are also very reactive, !home@lemmy.zip

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 child)

    Oooh, good to know. So is this your preferred instance to recommend to people then, as opposed to e.g. the PieFed instance picker?

    At some point we may need to try to spread people around more, but it has a tenth the MAUs as piefed.social so we definitely are not there yet! :-P

    Also it is highly exciting to me to see slrpnk.net's plans to migrate from Lemmy to PieFed - that is like the #14 largest Lemmy instance (if hexbear and lemmynsfw are not showing up in the list at https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/list).

    Edit: oh, but piefed.zip federates with hexbear.net - isn't that going to be problematic, as noob users often run for the hills upon being exposed to such? I am perfectly fine with hexbear being opt-in, but on piefed.zip it looks like it is rather opt-out? (even though it truly has an option to allow opt-out of, given PieFed's ability to block all users from an instance, unlike Lemmy)

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Edit: oh, but piefed.zip federates with hexbear.net - isn’t that going to be problematic, as noob users often run for the hills upon being exposed to such? I am perfectly fine with hexbear being opt-in, but on piefed.zip it looks like it is rather opt-out? (even though it truly has an option to allow opt-out of, given PieFed’s ability to block all users from an instance, unlike Lemmy)

    Let me know if you find a well managed Piefed instance that defederates HB but isn't Piefed.social. I couldn't find one until now, which is why I accept that as a compromise.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 child)

    Feddit.online is another extremely well-established instance, with an absolutely enormous list of both Topic areas and Feeds available for use, yet it is located in the USA so may lack stability in the future.

    Tangent: somehow even piefed.crust also has the "Newbie-friendly" label despite being explicitly a testing instance?

    I see what you mean about piefed.zip though - federating with hexbear works against it, not as it being a good instance mind you but only it having received the "Newbie-friendly" label - yet it is the best compromise that can be found under the available circumstances.

    Except PieFed.social itself, which is already to PieFed what Lemmy.World is to Lemmy in terms of centralization, which while not a concern now will be in the future. On the other hand, if the goal is to bring people from Reddit, then federation with hexbear might literally make recommending PieFed.social worthwhile despite that concentration effect, until some other instance is made that would work better?

    Edit: apparently piefed.zip does block hexbear.net, lemmygrad.ml, and lemmynsfw.com to new users by default, sending them a DM explaining the reason for the choice and how to un-do, making seeing their highly controversial content as opt-in rather than opt-out. See the comment from @demigodrick@piefed.zip below for more details. This makes piefed.zip fully "Newbie-friendly", alongside piefed.social and others, and together with other aspects such as the long history of stability and responsiveness and deep experience of the admins, a solid choice for one of if not the most-recommendable go-to instance for new users.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    If I've learned something from Lemmy, is that most people will never move once they are settled on one instance, which is why I avoid recommending Piefed.social.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

    It wouldn't be so bad if another 5k people joined PieFed.social, but after that then yeah I would agree, especially in principle. People should spread out.

    Would PieFed.zip possibly consider blocking all users from hexbear by default, thereby making interactions with them as opt-in rather than a nasty surprise waiting for someone to have to discover and then find out how to opt-out?

    It is hard to achieve consensus, or for one instance to meet all the needs, but right now PieFed.zip does not even have so much as an instance label for them!! To be fair I see that such a label is lacking for Beehaw communities as well. I am sorry to say but the more I look at PieFed.zip, the less "Newbie-friendly" it seems to me, especially in comparison to PieFed.social. The latter has for Beehaw:

    This post is hosted on beehaw.org which has higher standards of behaviour than most places. Be nice.

    Which is very helpful for people who have never heard of Beehaw to know about, is it not?

    I note that https://thriv.social/ has many Topics, Feeds, and has hexbear blocked, what about using it as a place to recommend? It is pretty new though, and it lacks the Beehaw label (an extremely minor point most likely as it could be easily added?).

    The same for https://quokk.au/, and that admin has a lot of experience hosting Lemmy. Although I don't see pinned posts for some reason, from multiple communities, so I wonder if there was a problem migrating over from Lemmy to PieFed.

    Otherwise, PieFed.social might just be the best recommendation specifically for newbies, until a more newbie-friendly instance could be built up?

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (1 child)

    Piefed allows to block instances at the user level, making defederation less of an issue. You have to keep in mind that there's another part of the Reddit population that prefers to have control over their own experience, and for which having a short defederation list is appealing.

    Thriv.social is indeed nice, but they don't provide a lot of details about who the admins are and how long the instance can last. Maybe you can try to reach out to them?

    The instance label thing is really minor indeed. You can still probably reach out to the .zip admins about it.

    Quokk.au is very Australian focused, I wouldn't use it as a general recommendation.

    About Piefed.social, if it reaches 5k active users, then the snowball effect will start and Rimu would have to actively lock it down for new users to spread. I prefer to avoid confusing people by linking to Piefed.social when it might be closed for new users in a few months.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (2 children)

    Piefed allows to block instances at the user level, making defederation less of an issue. You have to keep in mind that there’s another part of the Reddit population that prefers to have control over their own experience, and for which having a short defederation list is appealing.

    Agreed, my issue is that Newbies specifically will not be aware and thus not know. So if e.g. hexbear was added to that blocklist by default and all the user had to do was remove the block, that would solve the problem of making PieFed.zip more "Newbie-friendly".

    Or ideally a sign-up wizard question asking if people preferred a cleaner experience without more controversial content (read: trolls) vs. to be exposed to them and be able to make their own decisions.

    Though without either of those, I disagree that PieFed.zip is fully "Newbie-friendly". Which to be clear is a perfectly fine choice to make, I am just saying that it would help to refine that label. This is like arguing whether a picture showing someone in a thong bikini should have the NSFW label applied to it: if it does then it makes for maximum friendliness, and anyway what's the harm in having done so?

    I have zero desire to police someone else's NSFW experience anywhere, just offering these suggestions in case it may help more people feel encouraged to visit the Threadiverse and feel welcomed rather than get trolled and, being new, unable to at first figure out what to do about it. Just because we here were all hazed upon entry to the Threadiverse does not mean that the conditions must continue unabated.

    Or perhaps they should - if that serves as a filter for new people to select only those most matching the current crowd? I would disagree, but it seems a lot of people hold to that view, and also it is the default to continue unless changes are made. Change will require effort.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago* (2 children)

    Hey so I'm like a week behind here, but piefed.zip (and lemmy.zip) already blocks hexbear, lemmygrad, and lemmynsfw by default, and sends a PM to the user when they sign up to let them know why we do this, and how to remove it.

    I'll look in to instance labels. Piefed has a lot of features, which is great, but are many hard to find or not well documented.

    @Blaze@piefed.zip

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    img

    That's a fairly perfect answer imho, ticking all the boxes: (1) choosing to see that content becomes opt-in, rather than have to opt-out, crucially the reason why being that they have failed to abide by the rules of the wider community, and even been caught outright lying to instance admins; and (2) explaining the reasoning behind it, and how to un-do that decision (which can always be reversed later).

    Yes PieFed has a ton of features but I agree that it needs some work still on its level of polish, which Lemmy does ever-so-slightly better with, being older. Fwiw rimu@piefed.social has asked the community whether it desires more of the former vs. latter and typically the past answers have leaned towards more features (although I suspect the tide is beginning to turn on that based on posts submitted to !piefed_meta@piefed.social). I do think that PieFed will end up being the future and leave Lemmy behind (e.g. Jeena's story), though it would be even more ideal if they could both compete in offering fantastic utility as FOSS to everyone world-wide, in efforts to combat against enshittification of the internet!

    I have recommended piefed.zip (and also lemmy.zip) in the past to people, but after you explained that I have zero reservations about it being labelled as "Newbie-friendly" and will recommend it all the more as the default go-to instance - with nothing against piefed.social obviously (I am on it myself!:-P) but as a bulwark against centralization I agree with @Blaze@piefed.zip that it would be most ideal to spread people around, which right now means more off of piefed.social.

    Thank you for being a MAJOR part of the solution to advance the Threadiverse forward. I don't care that it's a week behind, I am so very glad that you responded here:-).

    Minor note: the ToS in the instance chooser on piefed.social for Piefed.zip points to https://piefed.social/tos which says "not found". That is the instance chooser pointed to by https://join.piefed.social/ so even though piefed.zip has its own could be helpful to change for people thinking of joining.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    Sorry to resurrect this old issue but @robottoaster@mander.xyz and I were discussing after that other thread got locked (likewise tagging @blaze@piefed.zip for relevance in feedback), and we realized that a wording choice may be leading to confusion for people.

    The page at https://piefed.zip/auth/instance_chooser where it says "Defederation: Negligent" was leading @robottoaster@mander.xyz to believe that a critical judgement had been rendered against PieFed.zip by virtue of it not having defederated from certain well-known "disliked" instances. Rimu indeed can be quite strong in his dislike of certain things - communities, post types, and the like.

    So instead I recommend the word "Negligible" rather than "Negligent", since PieFed.zip counts it a point of pride to be "a general instance open to anyone!", and its lack of defederation from most instances is a positive, not a deficiency as the word "Negligent" would suggest.

    I just thought that I would pass that thought along, in case it helps avoid future misunderstandings, and help entice people to try out PieFed.zip!:-)

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Shouldn't the Negligible term be changed in the Piefed software? @rimu@piefed.social

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Yes, it was changed to 'None' in v1.6.0. A change too minor to mention in the release notes.

    @OpenStars@piefed.social

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    Yeah, there was confusion (and accusations I was spreading misinformation) because zip is still running 1.6.0-dev, with the old wording. While the new wording on .social running 1.6.1 seems like a needed improvement.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    Sounds like Section 31 to me.

    Is that the original instance? https://startrek.website/

    I think we have to think more about network effects and be willing to move away further from copying Reddit. Otherwise we end up with the same powermod problems. Reddit has used Subreddits to split a massive crowd. We don't have such a big crowd so there could be better ways to organise our posts.

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