New here. Migrated from Reddit. Still trying to figure out Lemmy - what’s everyone’s experiences like coming from Reddit and does Lemmy serve as a good alternative? Pros and cons/differences?
I was a fairly active member at Reddit with a good social standing, I made 1 “controversial” comment and I got perma-banned… this sucks. I mostly followed music pages like r/TheBeatles and loved to just rant about Beatles albums, Paul McCartney’s latest tour, discuss new releases from other artists and also movies/TV shows. I can’t think of any other website that offers that kind of forum-like discussion other than Lemmy?
I really did always hate that Reddit felt like a massive echo chamber. The way the system works with upvotes and downvotes, if I said anything people don’t agree with, I’d get massively downvoted. I once got temporary ban for saying I preferred Zelda Breath of the Wild over Tears of the Kingdom… it really felt like I was treading on egg shells. My perma-ban happened in a discussion within the r/EveryoneKnowsThat search for a lost wave song. Really petty.
I’ve always hoped somebody would create basically a clone of Reddit, but without the politics and without being overly-policed. Where people aren’t pushed away for respectfully voicing their opinion. Is Lemmy the answer?
Lemmy is significantly smaller. Because of this:
+Trolls are easier to spot
+Interactions tend to be friendlier and more wholesome/respectful
+Far more originality shining through
-less engaged communities
-fewer niche communities
-no rich history to comb through
The modlog transparency is honestly my favorite part. I get so much enjoyment out of the “zomg the mods are just as bad here as Reddit” posts because you can immediately highlight their bad behavior, or alternatively see when the mods actually are power tripping.
Trolls are easier to spot, except for the fact that lemmy.ml is the default instance for many users and communities eventhough the entire setup of that instance is very politically influenced. You could be in for a bad experience when you try to post a fairly reasonable comment on any slightly political post there.
-Fads aren’t as easily called out/quashed, there isn’t much push back on the meme of the minute, wait I just described social media in general…
Lol yeah that’s true of reddit too
Thanks, all really good feedback. I’ve managed to find a few ‘somewhat’ active communities to join like for my local city which has about 1000~ subscribers. Not as bad as I was expecting to be honest… that’s enough user base for me to give Lemmy a shot I think.
I guess every social media platform has its politics
Idea: Try exclusively using Lemmy for a week.
If you love it, switch. If you hate it, don’t. If you miss Reddit, use both.
I use both. I like both. But I also want Lemmy to become the norm.
I like using reddit is fun app. So I’m hoping for a Lemmy is fun app.
I’ve heard Sync for Lemmy is a bit similar.
I’ve been using sync for Lemmy since the 3rd partocalypse of 23, and I haven’t been back to reddit since. It’s been enjoyable being on Lemmy, and the folks are usually pretty awesome here. I can second the niche interest thing though, but I’ve always used reddit in a curated general content fashion, so Lemmy is plenty sufficient in that regard.
I found I had to block a large number of communities from my feed that were very narrow minded. Once I did some diligent editing, however, Lemmy has become my daily browse and I’m happy with the change. I still use reddit for some of the niche communities that don’t have a counterpart here, but the larger topics (news, memes, technology) are well covered and open to discourse.
You, I don’t know you, but I like you.
Thanks for curating your feed instead of reporting everything you dislike, fighting or harassing people.
Peace
For general browsing, news, technology, mainstream topics etc… it’s much better than reddit, less toxic, better vibe.
It’s very small though, so I’ve found two areas where it is just not a replacement:
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Specific, smaller niche interests, they might have a community here but it is often empty and quiet or just non existent.
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Sports, specifically a place to chat during live events. There’s not enough people to support that.
So it depends what you are looking for and how niche your interests are.
I’ve mostly stopped using reddit and am in here now. But I still end up there occasionally. Not much these days though.
spot on
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Lemmy needs to figure out a way to “group” similar communities from different instances. That is the biggest flaw by far.
I moved over to it after the initial Reddit exodus and haven’t really looked elsewhere. It’s not quite a full replacement in terms of content and engagement obviously. It’s good for broader stuff like memes, politics/games/movies/etc in general, but not so much for the specific. There are quite a few games I used to spend a lot of time discussing on their subreddits, but they’re basically ghost towns here for a lot of them.
There are also some more specific community leanings. You’re gonna see a LOT of Star Trek and Linux related stuff.
But overall, I’m happy enough with it knowing it’s a non-privatized space to talk.
I really like it. Tech comminities & some others are very bouyant & interesting but niche communities really struggle. Even direct replacements of big subreddits struggle. Hopefully this improves.
One tip from my own experience. I use Voyager & blocked a load of US politics keywords.
And another, I subscribed to as many interesting Lemmy communities as i could then browse Home feed in the main & occasionally All to see if any other interesting communities crop up that could be worth joining.
Welcome & enjoy.
Lemmy is good but very, very small in comparison to Reddit.
For example, /r/mildyinteresting has 286k subscribers. Lemmy has around 51k active users across the entire platform and all of it’s communities. And /r/mildyinteresting is a misspelling of the even more popular /r/mildlyinteresting (23.4 million subscribers).
Even some of the niche gaming communities are larger on Reddit (/r/Kenshi, 145k; /r/factorio, 370k).
However, the small community feel is much more pronounced here on the federated Lemmy servers. You’ll see the same names pop up so everyone isn’t a complete stranger. Third party app support is miles ahead of Reddit’s crappy app. And if you don’t like your instance for any reason you can hop to another one easily.
You’ll see certain trends on trending communities here. There’s a lot more posts on Linux, Star Trek, and Tech news that isn’t as pronounced on Reddit unless you subscribe specifically to them. The meme community is top notch though and doesn’t have the incel and misogyny issues that plague Reddit.
/r/mildyinteresting has 286k subscribers.
The real number of active users on average reddit subs is probably far less than 50% of reported numbers. I can imagine that every year the percentage of real vs reported subscriptions falls another 10% or so, as accounts are abandoned and rando-banned etc.
It’s the best I’ve found, but I wouldn’t call it a “good” alternative myself no.
Many others have commented on the small communities/lack of niche communities so I’ll simply say I agree with the takes in this thread there.
Personally though, I generally find Lemmy to be far less tolerant of any dissenting opinions across most communities. And man do I mean any. There’s a plethora of topics that aren’t even worth trying to discuss here because if you introduce the slightest bit of nuance to a hardline take you’ll be downvoted, insulted, and ignored.
A quick example that comes to mind are services such as Spotify/Youtube. To make a long story short, I find that I use Youtube often enough that I don’t mind paying for Youtube premium. They need to make money somehow to continue providing that service and I can’t fucking stand ads so hey sure it’s worth the monthly payment to me. I’m a pretty satisfied customer all things considered.
Try offering that perspective in any related thread and you’ll be called bootlicker and made to feel like you’re propping up Satan himself for daring to pay for Youtube and be happy to do so.
There’s other, similar topics. Some are easier to avoid, like the FuckCars community. I was a pretty big fan of that community on reddit but on Lemmy most threads seem to truly believe we need to go 100% no cars at all and there is no middleground damnit. Other topics manage to work their way into damn near any thread. Biden could literally pull a child and puppy from a burning building and there will always be comments about how he’s still a genocidal maniac and basically evil. That entire war is basically just not worth talking about here imo.
And then there’s little stuff. For example, don’t ever say you use Windows here lest a whole horde of people jump in to call you an idiot for not having switched to Linux I mean really what’s wrong with you using the most popular OS in the world by a large margin. Stuff like that.
So I guess to summarize my feelings here, I personally believe the echo-chamber is far worse on Lemmy than reddit and that’s primarily due to the smaller community. A lot of likeminded people came to Lemmy and we’re missing a lot of middleground opinions that come naturally with a larger, more diverse population. Too many people view everything as black and white and if you sit in grey both extremes are against you.
There are absolutely exceptions; I have seen respectful discourse on the site. But the general trend I perceive here is that the echo-chamber is far worse.
yeah. extremism seems to be the norm here. and you will be harassed and insulted and told your a POS if you even mildly disagree with the extremist narrative. most of the content seems to be angry leftism idealism that reads ‘young idealist’ who thinks ideological purity is the solution to problems and is incapable of acknowledging a complex and pragmatic approach to any issue at all. and generally people who are totally detached from the average person’s perspective/experience, as per your windows comment.
it’s just people being people. people don’t like anyone who disagrees with them. it hurts their feelings. so they act out.
i will say at least the mods don’t ban you for disagreement or injecting a dose of reality into a simplistic ideological narrative about the world… which is why i gave up on reddit.
Interesting points. I feel a bit let down then and not sure I’ve found what I’m looking for.
One question… Say a new season of your favourite TV show just dropped, where do you go online to discuss it? I’m surprised that in 2024 it’s difficult to find somewhere online to just talk about topics. I do love Instagram but that’s more picture based, X/Threads are just random shouts into a void, Facebook is Facebook… I struggle to think of any options other than Reddit, sadly. But I’m open to suggestions and just curious to know where people would immediately turn - to see what other people are saying about the show.
Just to start off: I would recommend experiencing it for yourself first. A lot of people hold a very different perspective from me, even just in this thread. Maybe it’s the specific communities I frequent that are like this, I dunno. But it certainly is worth giving a chance if nothing else. Costs you nothing more than however much time you decide is worth investing into seeing if the site is a good fit for you. And also, I truly believe Lemmy has the potential to grow into something greater than it is currently. Which is why I’m still here checking it daily. I don’t find it’s a good replacement right now, but I have hope that it has the best shot at becoming a good replacement.
I hate to say it, but generally if I want to see discussion around a new game/TV show/book/whatever I find Reddit to still be the best place to do that. IMO, Reddit’s overall quality has dipped quite a bit (browsing /r/all) but the smaller communities are often still good. Of course, all it takes is one shithead mod to ruin that, but I suppose I’ve gotten lucky.
I took steps to distance myself from reddit with the 3rd party app fiasco. I never bother browsing /r/all anymore, I don’t use reddit on mobile anymore, stuff like that. But I hopped into Old School Runescape recently and, well, just look at the OSRS community on Lemmy. The top posts are 9/10 months old. So I browse r/2007scape in order to discuss the game.
There’s a great silver lining to Lemmy being so small though: one person can make a large difference. I believe with enough effort it’s possible for one person to grow communities on here and that’s pretty cool. I don’t have the time/energy to do that, so I go to where others are already gathered to discuss things But, if you’ve got the mind for it, there’s opportunity to be the change you want to see. It’s just not going to be easy and it’s going to be slow.
For example, don’t ever say you use Windows here lest a whole horde of people jump in to call you an idiot for not having switched to Linux
Just copy Linux Mint onto an USB stick. No need to boot it, you hang it around your neck like a cross, and display it to raging pinguinoids to pacify them.
I am using Debian, in case you were wondering.
In strict technical terms, yeah it’s okay, albeit with the shortcomings to be expected of a smaller development team. In terms of population and activity with this format, I think it may be at the top compared to alternatives as well.
There’s still others and other software options though for this format that people could try, which honestly may even be technically better, but lacking population/activity means they’re in an odd spot.
The first of these you’ll read about on here are likely Kbin/Mbin, possibly followed by PieFed or still-in-development Sublinks. Kbin/Mbin is definitely the runner-up in terms of federated Reddit-alternatives, as it was one of the few options available at the time people were leaving Reddit.
PieFed and Sublinks have emerged more recently with different priorities and approaches compared to Lemmy, but with the same desire to offer a federated option for people to deploy.
The last you may read about around here would be of stuff like Discuit, Lobste.rs, Raddle (and any other sites built with Postmill), Tildes, and the like, which are all most like Reddit in terms of their being stand-alone sites, unconnected to any others running the same underlying server software. However each of these, I think, may have lower population than the cumulative population of the Lemmy network of sites.
All that said, cutting to your last question: ultimately it heavily depends on the instance/site you settle into.
Lemmy isn’t a monolith, which is both its greatest strength and weakness compared to Reddit. You may be able to find a Lemmy instance/site that heavily blocks out politics and moderates lightly, but the irony of this is that it means it may have to be overly-policed to achieve that, and might appear less active in the process from heavy disconnection/defederation from any instances/sites that permit political posts/discussion.
Right now though, much of Lemmy is heavily political, and it’s arguably because of lax moderation to keep political posts/discussions to relevant communities, which is itself probably in part because of lacking moderation tools to enable lighter touches to redirect posts/discussions.
Nevertheless, it’s possibly the best option fitting the format available at the moment given the rest, but if Lemmy and federation doesn’t suit you you might check out Tildes or Discuit. Although be advised: Tildes remains invite only for now.
Links to all options/alternatives mentioned:
- Kbin, flagship site: Kbin Social
- Mbin. No flagship, check list of instances.
- PieFed, flagship site: PieFed Social
- Sublinks. No flagship, still in-development as drop-in replacement for Lemmy.
- Discuit. Not federated, but open source.
- Lobste.rs. Not federated, but open source. Requires invite.
- Raddle. Not federated, built on open source Postmill.
- Tildes. Not federated, but open source. Requires invite.
One last point, I swear, but if you do stick around and just want to chat about tv shows, movies, and music, I’d recommend visiting:
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]Honestly I think any general/casual discussion community would welcome posts about those subjects as well, which there are a number of across Lemmy sites to check out.
And Squabbler.co
I too have recently been perma-banned from reddit for nonsense. I still browse it with my banned account, I just don’t comment. They’re going to chase away heaps of people. I made a new account under a vpn to help someone and the account got shadowbanned. I think reddit is trying to become some corporate-safe-space where business can fake market directly to reddit users.
They’ve been blocking VPNs now and it just makes me not use it even in the few cases it’s useful.
I too have recently been perma-banned from reddit for nonsense.
I call then rando-bans. e.g. You were banned for violating unwritten rules, poorly interpreted rules, rules made up on the spot, or because the mod is having a bad day. Basically stuff where a warning would have easily sufficed.
I told a bot to go fuck itself and a human mod got offended on its behalf.
but without the politics and without being overly-policed
Lemmy doesn’t really do anything to address either of these.
Lemmy is basically an parallel universe of Reddit. There’s less people here, which means smaller but also less toxic communities. Since this is a segment of the fediverse, people also tend to talk about Linux and free open source software, while also trashing on Windows, Google, and any other product by what I like to call “Big Tech”. People are much more liberal here, there’s more tolerance for the LGBT community, there’s basically lots of hatred for cars, people praise the European Union. Ok some of these are bad examples of liberalism, but still, it’s all found here. Enjoy your stay. If you don’t like it, you’re free to bid us farewell.
Feels like early internet here, enjoy it while it lasts. Good chance this place will blow up and the normies will come in.
