I rather like how total karma isn't tracked. I wonder how other people feel though?
I think just that is the confusing bit! Instances translate into separate reddits - as in completely different websites. Instance admins have as much power as reddit admins within the instance.
Communities are like subreddits, the main subdivision of an instance.
Where it gets confusing is you can subscribe to "subreddits" (read: communities) on other "reddit websites" (read: instances). It's pretty cool but can take a second to wrap your head around!
The next layer of confusion comes from how everything also interacts with things like Mastodon, Kbin, Peertube, and any other ActivityPub project.
Each instance is pretty customizable. Admins can disable things like image uploads and with so many people joining I could see why. Hosting all that could easily get expensive!
Thanks et merci! I'm happy to call sh.itjust.works my new home 🎉
It feels oddly nostalgic. I think it reminds me of the fun I used to have when I first joined reddit.
Rather than just mindlessly scrolling with a couple "hehs" or a blowing air out my nose slightly faster than normal.
I think many people were looking for a reason to leave but kind of felt stuck seeing all the alternatives being either dead or abrasive.
Lemmy seems to have captured the soul of what a significant portion of people have already been looking for.
I've already mentioned a few times here how I have similar feeling. An added effect to that is actually leaving comments again.
At some point I stopped really engaging with reddit and became a passive lurker. I thought I simply grew out of it, but maybe it's more about how the site stopped feeling like a community.
Or how it started feeling like everything on reddit eventually became a witch hunt of one flavor or another. The days of karmanaut or years later unidan may as well be forgotten history to modern redditors. If they're brought up it's for the drama or the cringe.
The feeling of actually enjoying them and how the community interacted with itself at that time has been lost.
I'm feeling the same way, but I suppose we'll soon see.
Even if the reddit exodus doesn't turn into another internet legend, I am enjoying having fun participating in a forum for the first time in a long time. Probably since reddit stopped feeling like one in the early 2010s.
How I'm beginning to make sense of it is by thinking that each instance is a completely separate "reddit". The admins of each instance are as powerful as spez or any other reddit admin.
The community subdivision is then just that, a subdivision within a custom reddit rather than a "subreddit" under the centralized "main reddit website".
The federalization aspect of it is then completely alien, but understandable. At least to me!
I've been thinking about this as well. Most reddit clones or reddit-likes in the last decade have failed after a wave of talking about how much "better" or "different" it is from reddit.
There's an imbalance in the userbase that makes it impossible to compare to the digg migration or past forum community migrations.
What I mean by that is before digg died or fark or slashdot or msn messenger or myspace... the competitor was not only alive but thriving with an organically built local community.
The difference here can be seen in how "reddit refugees" are not looking to integrate but rather supplant. If not intentionally, simply by sheer numbers.
I don't think there is an answer to this in a world where the internet has become 5 or so companies. At least not until there is at least an attempt at a more federated possibility. Like there was in the days of friendster and before.
I think most people would agree with the sentiment, but it's probably a side effect of people being a bit lost.
If you can't find the community or discussion where you could contribute more niche information, having the general reddit exodus topic at least lets you participate.
And I think that is the common thread of optimism. Even with the confusion and the jank, it still feels good to be somewhere welcoming and new.