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Lemmy has the same issue as Mastodon: what instance do I join? When looking at the "migrate from Reddit" page the two obvious ones are lemmy.world and beehaw.o

Lemmy has the same issue as Mastodon: what instance do I join? When looking at the "migrate from Reddit" page the two obvious ones are lemmy.world and beehaw.org. But now they don't federate with each other, so it's down to more special-interest and smaller instances where it's not really clear what some of the rules might be, just to be able to see posts from both of these bigger instances. The comparison is always made to picking a place for your email where Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail were all "the same", but that's not really true for federated social networks. There's quite a bit more mod actions that could significantly influence your reach or experience with the wider fediverse.

notatoad 3y ago
>the two obvious ones are lemmy.world and beehaw.org. But now they don't federate with each other doesn't that make it essentially the same decision as if you were joining any other non-federated web service? on what criteria did you decide to sign up for facebook vs twitter? or reddit vs digg?
- stOneskull 3y ago
  you'll still be federated with mastodon and kbin if you make a lemmy.world account. i personally just made an account on all 3, and time will tell what i use most and what becomes like a default.
tuchsen 3y ago
Is it weird that I don't really mind the splintering? Have massive social networks really been a net positive for society? It seems like, depending on how they're moderated, they'll end up in some local maxima of rage baiting and trolling (Twitter, Facebook four years ago) or a super sanitized dumb feed of cutesy content (TikTok, Facebook now, and soon Reddit). You always get defenders of these networks that say if you do X/Y/Z and not A/B/C, then you'll get value out of them. My X, Y, and Z formula for Reddit over the last couple of years has been to ignore the larger communities and focus only on interesting niche content. I think that's how a lot of other people use it, for the long tail of actually interesting content. And hell, I don't think you need the massive network effects of the larger social networks to make that work.
- gilmore606 3y ago
  Global-reach social networks have been good for very narrow niche interest discussion. If I have a question about Civilization 4 or roguelike game development, it's nice that I can post somewhere that's likely to be seen by a large fraction of the world's devotees of those subjects. When Reddit burns down that won't be true anymore.
  - tuchsen 3y ago
    I'll give you that Reddit has certainly made it easier for those communities to organize and form. I don't think it's true that it's the only place that those communities will ever form on the internet. Theirs nothing special about Reddit, Digg was a thing before Reddit, and forums before that. Our computers are all still connected, web browser and web servers exist. With software like Lemmy, it's become super easy to stand up a place for people to connect. People that like Civilization will find each other without Reddit.
qball 3y ago
>what instance do I join? The answer is "both of them". Pick a client that makes it the easiest to connect to separate instances on separate accounts, then choose the same-ish username. Federation is, fundamentally, an anti-feature that exists solely to create liabilities for the end user as, by design, it empowers people who should not be empowered to destroy your social graph arbitrarily (the "not sharing my ban list is bannable" problem plagues the Fediverse). This is not something the people writing the documentation understand (or worse, the above is a feature for them), but the correct way to use the service is to engage atomically under multiple different identities rather than be caught in the fallout of petty admin slapfights, just like signing up for a bunch of different phpBB forums was before the rise of Digg/Reddit.
- crayboff 3y ago
  > The answer is "both of them". Pick a client that makes it the easiest to connect to separate instances on separate accounts, then choose the same-ish username. That actually reveals even more complexity: having to understand what federation is, researching and experimenting with clients, how to find different communities across the fediverse. Each added complexity cuts how many people would be willing to make the switch
  - yareally 3y ago
    I feel like there's a need for a client application that makes signing up and connecting to both appear to be unified network to the end user
    - crayboff 3y ago
      Absolutely, the only way for these to take off is if you have a single place you direct people that makes the whole process braindead simple. Sign up has to be simple. Finding content has to be simple. Keeping updated has to be simple. The branding also has to be really welcoming as well.
- tuchsen 3y ago
  I can't verify this is true, but I've seen stuff pop up on Lemmy that Reddit accounts are getting banned for promoting Lemmy/Kbin/etc. Being resistant to unseen administrators destroying your social graph is literally a selling point of federation.
ekanes 3y ago
I wonder if end-user apps will eventually solve this. Conceptually, rather than server admins choosing what's federated, users will have several/many accounts and they will choose what they want, and under the hood that will be enabled VIA whichever server/account they have accesses that community.
ehPReth 3y ago
You could join some other instance, and then subscribe to communities on both beehaw/lemmy.world as well as any other ones that spark your interest right? Kinda like email. Or, if so inclined, host your own? I think most of them take a blocklist approach instead of an allowlist approach
- chaorace 3y ago
  Yup. You can join any of the dozens of medium-sized, unassuming instances and not have to worry about defederation at all. It's only the tall poppies that get reaped (i.e.: very large instances & instances with controversial stances).
dragontamer 3y ago
kbin.social federates with Lemmy.world and Beehaw.org. So... if you really care about getting to both servers, why not kbin.social? Or lemmy.one? > The comparison is always made to picking a place for your email where Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail were all "the same", but that's not really true for federated social networks. There's quite a bit more mod actions that could significantly influence your reach or experience with the wider fediverse. Not much different from USENET, really. Individual administrators could cut you off back then, though in practice it rarely happened outside of the pornographic / piracy groups. Indeed, I could very well argue that federation solves the porn issue rather nicely. Just defederate from NSFW instances if you have a professional instance. No sweat, no one will blame you for banning porn on your server. Tumbler, Twitter, and Reddit are all struggling with the porn question. It brings in a ton of eyeballs so they want it, but it kills advertisements and makes the site look unprofessional. ------------- Beehaw.org is just doing their own thing. They really want a very tightly organized community. Its not in their best interests to open up yet (not until Mastodon-like moderation tools come into existence in the Lemmy-verse). I wouldn't pay much attention to the drama. Beehaw.org may have been 2nd largest before this week started, but with only 12k users, they're much much smaller than the other servers now (including Lemmy.world and kbin.social). That's fine, they don't want to grow too quickly and that's their right to slow things down to the pace the admins / moderators are comfortable with. (Much like how Lobste.rs wants a tightly bound community as well). You can't make your own communities in Beehaw.org (only the admins can make new subreddits). So its not what 90% of people want anyway IMO.
viraptor 3y ago
> what instance do I join? Unless you want to interact with some specific people - it doesn't really matter that much. Sure, you'll miss some posts, but did you actually read every single one of them before? I'm honestly enjoying the quieter mastodon experience with some reactions not being fully replicated. It's nice to slow down and not experience a constant firehose. If something's really important in your community, it will get duplicated in a way you see it.

notatoad 3y ago

>the two obvious ones are lemmy.world and beehaw.org. But now they don't federate with each other doesn't that make it essentially the same decision as if you were joining any other non-federated web service? on what criteria did you decide to sign up for facebook vs twitter? or reddit vs digg?

stOneskull 3y ago
you'll still be federated with mastodon and kbin if you make a lemmy.world account. i personally just made an account on all 3, and time will tell what i use most and what becomes like a default.

tuchsen 3y ago

Is it weird that I don't really mind the splintering? Have massive social networks really been a net positive for society? It seems like, depending on how they're moderated, they'll end up in some local maxima of rage baiting and trolling (Twitter, Facebook four years ago) or a super sanitized dumb feed of cutesy content (TikTok, Facebook now, and soon Reddit). You always get defenders of these networks that say if you do X/Y/Z and not A/B/C, then you'll get value out of them. My X, Y, and Z formula for Reddit over the last couple of years has been to ignore the larger communities and focus only on interesting niche content. I think that's how a lot of other people use it, for the long tail of actually interesting content. And hell, I don't think you need the massive network effects of the larger social networks to make that work.

gilmore606 3y ago
Global-reach social networks have been good for very narrow niche interest discussion. If I have a question about Civilization 4 or roguelike game development, it's nice that I can post somewhere that's likely to be seen by a large fraction of the world's devotees of those subjects. When Reddit burns down that won't be true anymore.
- tuchsen 3y ago
  I'll give you that Reddit has certainly made it easier for those communities to organize and form. I don't think it's true that it's the only place that those communities will ever form on the internet. Theirs nothing special about Reddit, Digg was a thing before Reddit, and forums before that. Our computers are all still connected, web browser and web servers exist. With software like Lemmy, it's become super easy to stand up a place for people to connect. People that like Civilization will find each other without Reddit.

qball 3y ago

>what instance do I join? The answer is "both of them". Pick a client that makes it the easiest to connect to separate instances on separate accounts, then choose the same-ish username. Federation is, fundamentally, an anti-feature that exists solely to create liabilities for the end user as, by design, it empowers people who should not be empowered to destroy your social graph arbitrarily (the "not sharing my ban list is bannable" problem plagues the Fediverse). This is not something the people writing the documentation understand (or worse, the above is a feature for them), but the correct way to use the service is to engage atomically under multiple different identities rather than be caught in the fallout of petty admin slapfights, just like signing up for a bunch of different phpBB forums was before the rise of Digg/Reddit.

crayboff 3y ago
> The answer is "both of them". Pick a client that makes it the easiest to connect to separate instances on separate accounts, then choose the same-ish username. That actually reveals even more complexity: having to understand what federation is, researching and experimenting with clients, how to find different communities across the fediverse. Each added complexity cuts how many people would be willing to make the switch
- yareally 3y ago
  I feel like there's a need for a client application that makes signing up and connecting to both appear to be unified network to the end user
  - crayboff 3y ago
    Absolutely, the only way for these to take off is if you have a single place you direct people that makes the whole process braindead simple. Sign up has to be simple. Finding content has to be simple. Keeping updated has to be simple. The branding also has to be really welcoming as well.
tuchsen 3y ago
I can't verify this is true, but I've seen stuff pop up on Lemmy that Reddit accounts are getting banned for promoting Lemmy/Kbin/etc. Being resistant to unseen administrators destroying your social graph is literally a selling point of federation.

ekanes 3y ago

I wonder if end-user apps will eventually solve this. Conceptually, rather than server admins choosing what's federated, users will have several/many accounts and they will choose what they want, and under the hood that will be enabled VIA whichever server/account they have accesses that community.

ehPReth 3y ago

You could join some other instance, and then subscribe to communities on both beehaw/lemmy.world as well as any other ones that spark your interest right? Kinda like email. Or, if so inclined, host your own? I think most of them take a blocklist approach instead of an allowlist approach

chaorace 3y ago
Yup. You can join any of the dozens of medium-sized, unassuming instances and not have to worry about defederation at all. It's only the tall poppies that get reaped (i.e.: very large instances & instances with controversial stances).

dragontamer 3y ago

kbin.social federates with Lemmy.world and Beehaw.org. So... if you really care about getting to both servers, why not kbin.social? Or lemmy.one? > The comparison is always made to picking a place for your email where Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail were all "the same", but that's not really true for federated social networks. There's quite a bit more mod actions that could significantly influence your reach or experience with the wider fediverse. Not much different from USENET, really. Individual administrators could cut you off back then, though in practice it rarely happened outside of the pornographic / piracy groups. Indeed, I could very well argue that federation solves the porn issue rather nicely. Just defederate from NSFW instances if you have a professional instance. No sweat, no one will blame you for banning porn on your server. Tumbler, Twitter, and Reddit are all struggling with the porn question. It brings in a ton of eyeballs so they want it, but it kills advertisements and makes the site look unprofessional. ------------- Beehaw.org is just doing their own thing. They really want a very tightly organized community. Its not in their best interests to open up yet (not until Mastodon-like moderation tools come into existence in the Lemmy-verse). I wouldn't pay much attention to the drama. Beehaw.org may have been 2nd largest before this week started, but with only 12k users, they're much much smaller than the other servers now (including Lemmy.world and kbin.social). That's fine, they don't want to grow too quickly and that's their right to slow things down to the pace the admins / moderators are comfortable with. (Much like how Lobste.rs wants a tightly bound community as well). You can't make your own communities in Beehaw.org (only the admins can make new subreddits). So its not what 90% of people want anyway IMO.

viraptor 3y ago

> what instance do I join? Unless you want to interact with some specific people - it doesn't really matter that much. Sure, you'll miss some posts, but did you actually read every single one of them before? I'm honestly enjoying the quieter mastodon experience with some reactions not being fully replicated. It's nice to slow down and not experience a constant firehose. If something's really important in your community, it will get duplicated in a way you see it.