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this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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Ask Lemmy
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Honestly, the insistence that Lemmy has better discussions than Reddit. Mostly even popular posts have too few comments to constitute any in depth discussion. I won’t be going back to Reddit but I miss the vibrancy.
This but about how almost everything about Lemmy is spun as either good, or better than reddit's equivalent.
Like the other day I saw a post about how Lemmy's active users were on the decline, trying to claim that was somehow good for Lemmy. Or back when Lemmy had its /r/place copy, there were plenty of people saying it was better than reddit's. Basically anything about Lemmy that's somewhat lacking has people desperately trying to defend it as actually superior.
It borders on delusional at times. Yes Lemmy is good, but reddit is still better in dozens of ways, almost all of them related to user count. And this is coming from one of the people who deleted their reddit account and replaced it with Lemmy cold turkey - I haven't been back there (except for porn) in almost 8 weeks.
Yes, I miss reddit for porn. Porn lemmy is lackluster
And not niche enough. The stuff I like on reddit has 28 posts from the last 24 hours. The equivalent on lemmynsfw hasn't had a single post since mid-July and I'm pretty sure the restrictive rules on pornlemmy would just ban it if posted there.
You do know you need an account on the NSFW instances to see the stuff on them right?
Yes. I have one exclusively for it.
I see them just fine without one, but I did allow nsfw on my account when I created it
There is more. Go check the stickied post.
The stickied post on nsfw lemmy or ask lemmy or something else? And there’s more porn? Because honestly, that’s like telling me there’s more furry, Star Trek, and Linux content there- it’s already all over my front page and I don’t need any more.
It's not though, because it's all locked away through an interface that doesn't work for many people. And it doesn't matter how good what's on the other side is, if there is a barrier that ensures I won't ever be on the other side.
It goes both ways. There are ways Lemmy is better than reddit, even in this early stage - and the default interface is 100% one of those. Default reddit is getting more and more like facebook these days.
But the lack of users on lemmy really hurts it. Of the 20 posts on my current All page, 13 of them have 0 comments. 5 of the remaining 7 have fewer than 5 comments.
I really think Lemmy has the potential to eventually surpass reddit - but I by no means at all think it's even close to that point yet. While it still has a long way to go software-wise, growing its userbase is by far the biggest hurdle it has to overcome. And as long as reddit keeps getting worse I think we'll get there.
I did get your point that reddit's strengths don't really matter if it's wrapped in a package that's unusable. I just disagree that that means Lemmy is automatically better in every way.
I am also not overly into this chat - because of what I said not what you said. I considered deleting my original message because it was more negative than I care to be, but left it because people had already replied. I'd really rather not get sucked into a chain of messages where all I'm doing is complaining about Lemmy.
There are plenty of users. The issue is they're not all working together on the same content.
That's the really the issue with federation as a solution for Reddit. Reddit was what it was because of a single, shared userbase all commenting and voting on the same things. Like /r/place, it was one canvas, all hands contributed to it.
The fediverse was sold to us as working the same way but the results have been the opposite. It's fragmented with invisible walls.
While I agree that federation currently works against Lemmy, and I've written to that effect before (Though I think most such issues can eventually be fixed on the software side), I still disagree that there are plenty of users. The entire active userbase of Lemmy is still fewer people than are subscribed to /r/Montana. /r/AskReddit alone currently has more unique people on it at the time of this reply than Lemmy has had in the last month.
So that's our problem: We're trying to take the amount of people who might browse /r/AskReddit at its peak on a Wednesday, and using just them trying to rebuild everything on reddit. The userbase here is spread too thin. Federation is artificially spreading them even thinner, but even without it we'd still be desperately in need of new users.
anyone know if you can make a post there asking about Lemmy - I feel like reddit mods would remove it, you know?
That's just being obtuse. Reddit does, in fact, have better content. You wouldn't say a restaurant has shitty food because you don't like the decor.
I'm not denying that. I'm saying it doesn't matter, because I can't access it except through an app that I actively dislike using
I still use both Lemmy and Reddit and I honestly think Lemmy is in a sweet spot where there are enough comments for a discussion but not enough to go off topic.
Reddit discussions are never about the OP, they're always riffing on an off-topic joke that someone made in a reply to the already off-topic top comment.
Eh, Lemmy has the issue where the activity is low enough that the substantial number of low effort comments and comments that regurgitate the same bland sentiment are overwhelming.
These comments were annoying on Reddit and was my primary reason for leaving.
Hackernews manages a better balance. It is not as active as Reddit but there are a lot of insightful comments that balance out the low-effort contributions.
As an example: I’d happily happily throw a block party the day Elon Musk launches himself into the sun. I don’t need to see an article every time he takes a dump and the corresponding 50 comments about “elon is a menace”
Or anything Threads. The amount of exaggerated and irrational commentary about that was incredibly offputting.
It really depends on the topic. The big topics in Lemmy are better. But there's a lot of niche content that just isn't there.
Same dog piling happens on lemmy as it did in reddit. You try to introduce any nuance for discussion on a circle jerk thread, and it's down vote knee reactions.
I tried tildes, but it's the opposite problem. Pages of text for simple arguments that could be expressed in a paragraph, and people mincing words being too polite to get to the fucking point that they disagree. And if you're blunt and to the point, it ruffles feathers.
Lemmy users also tend to be stuck in one mind set and that is they know what they are talking about all the time no matter what even if their opinion is actually kind of shit.
In fairness, this is practically everywhere on the internet.
Yeah Reddit was no different
"lemmy users", most people here have been here for barely 2 months. The site doesn't have a defined culture yet, if it ever will given its fragmentation.
I get that you can't stand having to see opinions you disagree with, but you're really trying to prop up some punching bag here that doesn't exist.
Nah, there is a culture here and there was before the reddit move. If there wasn't then I could just say, "there are now more reddit users and you guys are like reddit users."
However, most Lemmy users who were here before are going to say, "this isn't like reddit."
Also, it's not about disagreeing with opinions because as you have said that is the internet. It is about seeing people who think they are techy and and that there is one way and one way only. I will give you some examples: Linux is way better than any other OS, FOSS is the only way because why would you buy something, Ew 3 dollars a month for Google drive the cloud is just too expensive, just pirate everything that will stick it to big corporations.
It's not a disagreement to opinion because these are things I also believe to some extent but on Lemmy they are extreme thoughts to the point of outright ignoring users asking about something and Lemmy downvoting and ignoring their question. So now Lemmy becomes more inclusive. There is also a, "actually," vibe here and a, "Im not like other girls," culture that most Lemmy users think they are so different from Reddit that they are actually just different kind of jerks.
Oh, then there is the, "yeah man, I know everything about privacy and security." And those types of Lemmy users have no idea how much of a nightmare privacy and security is on the Fediverse in general.
So sure I will prop up a punching bag and take a swing but this is the internet if you feel like the punching bag and this felt like a hit then it probably means I'm not too far off.
I love your you immediately got 4 replies proving your point. 🤣
I love how there are only 3 replies in total. 🙈
I half-agree with this. I think that this depends a lot on the topic and, while the smaller amount of comments does hurt discussion depth, the individual comments themselves partially offset this by being more thoughtful.
And, while anecdotal, I think that there's a considerably lower ratio of comments with negative discussion value here in Lemmy than in Reddit. I'm not even talking about the out-of-place jokes (although they add noise), but shit like this:
Don't get me wrong; you do find this crap here, but IMO it's way less than in Reddit. And they hurt discussion because they either waste the time of the more thoughtful and knowledgeable users, or outright disengage them.
I agree 100%. On Reddit you usually had the same style top few comments but under those you could actually see good conversation and discussions. Here everyone thinks they are right and you are wrong and nothing you can say can change that.
Alright lemmy let’s give this guy the most in depth talk about why lemmy has better discussions than reddit.
Lemmy isn't known for using bots to fill in gaps in user engegement, mostly
Fucking yes! I hated being interrupted constantly by useless bots telling me the meaning of random words or the differences in grammar. Shit was off topic and unnecessary.
Yeah, I miss hoping on some niche tech sub and saying that I was having trouble with xyz specific thing and I’d had multiple people comment that were super knowledgeable about that exact thing.