Lemmy’s continued lack of basic moderation tools with zero indication that is going to change anytime soon is the biggest problem by far. It is also still a very opaque process to join and participate for the average user and standing up your own instance is no small feat, complete with legal minefields that many don’t even realize they are walking in to. No matter how you were engaging with the fediverse, there are huge hurdles. Even being a lurker is difficult.
I am not knocking the people who dedicate their time to making it work. Every second they give is voluntary and a service for us. But it doesn’t change the fact that we just don’t have what we need. Mastodon is the only side of the fediverse that is ready for prime time, and that’s borderline/has a lot of caveats.
The whole thing is very young - Lemmy is not ready for prime time, but compared to a just a few months ago it has come a long long way. I think it has a healthy user base, and just like Mastodon it will mature gradually as long as the users remain.
It will be interesting to see how groups are integrated in Mastodon - hopefully it’ll motivate more cross-fertilization between Mastodon and the Threadiverse. :)
Also, I find Pixlfed to be very much ready for prime time! Peertube as well if you’re a content creator interested in hosting your own content, but that’s a more narrow use case.
I only joined during the (modest) Reddit migration in June but I don’t think a single new moderation tool has been added since then despite all the momentum. Lots of apps (most of which have already been abandoned) though so that’s at least something.
It’s ironic that the Reddit to Lemmy migration occurred precisely because of the moderation issues of the former. Yet the dev seems to deprioritize this aspect for some reason. This is sad. I do hope Kbin will get a larger traction.
I really can’t be too hard on the devs, this is a completely volunteer operation, and the massive influx led to all kinds of very foundational issues related to scaling. As I said in another comment a day or two ago, I think many are focused on just keeping the wheels from falling off the car that is their own instances right now.
Realistically, I think the only way they can right the course is for several instances to go on hiatus that are run by people who can contribute 10 to 20 hours a week developing the platform. I am also making a number of assumptions, such as there is a big overlap between developers and people running instances.
I don’t think there is a big overlap. The main devs are hosting lemmy.ml and lemmygrad as far as I know. All the other ones are hosted by other people.
That’s frustrating. I think Kbin recently improved it’s moderation tools quite a lot, but I’m not involved enough to really have an overview.
I checked out Lemmy for the first time ten months ago from a thread that was shared on Mastodon, it was a completely different product back then. I agree moderation tools need to be a high priority, but there’s little doubt the platform has improved a lot over the last year. It saw a sudden growth that nobody was really prepared for, and all in all I think it is impressive how well it has gone so far. Moderation still seems to be better than certain commercial platforms. ;)
I definitely think the moderation itself is better because there is a stronger pool of people doing it, but we are just so severely limited by what we are able to do. For starters, there are no tiers of moderators. You don’t have like a “prime“ and then lower levels with different tiers of access. You basically have to give total control to another moderator, which is a huge risk.
I agree. I’m a " reddit refugee " so to speak but I think people here are jumping the gun with their expectations. Of course, Lemmy is not brand new but the actual influx of users seems to be pretty recent.
It took years for reddit to really become a more diverse site that actually appealed to a wider demographic then just tech nerds and communists, which from what I can understand is more or less what lemmy was comprised of before the huge uptick in migration here lol.
Anyways I do think people need to cool it with their expectations. More and better moderating tools being needed is in no way limited to just Lemmy either. Mastodon also has problems with admins fucking with whole instances, or just outright disappearing and leaving the ship without a captain.
Its the teething stages of the fediverse. For what its worth, its fucking amazing thats something as decentralized is getting this much play anyways.
The more people that come along and the more diversity in communties will eventually make the fediverse a better and more useful place then reddit was. It will take some time though, and a much large user base. It will come though.
PeerTube is ready for posting videos but not for consuming videos. I’m very involved in it with my own instance and my !peertube_admin_chronicles@tube.jeena.net but find it impossible to continuously find videos to watch on a daily basis and on top of that it doesn’t have a player for the TV where I normally watch all videos on.
Mastodon apps don’t have the same variety of UI as Lemmy.
Applications for Lemmy are simpler and more intuitive for new users who come from traditional social networks (such as Reddit).
None of us know what the developers are planning. That’s part of the issue. We don’t know what’s coming down the pipeline or if certain issues are even being addressed.
It’s the blessing and a curse of FOSS projects. Potentially near-endless capacity to address issues, but no systems in place to make sure issues are being addressed.
Lemmy’s continued lack of basic moderation tools with zero indication that is going to change anytime soon is the biggest problem by far. It is also still a very opaque process to join and participate for the average user and standing up your own instance is no small feat, complete with legal minefields that many don’t even realize they are walking in to. No matter how you were engaging with the fediverse, there are huge hurdles. Even being a lurker is difficult.
I am not knocking the people who dedicate their time to making it work. Every second they give is voluntary and a service for us. But it doesn’t change the fact that we just don’t have what we need. Mastodon is the only side of the fediverse that is ready for prime time, and that’s borderline/has a lot of caveats.
The whole thing is very young - Lemmy is not ready for prime time, but compared to a just a few months ago it has come a long long way. I think it has a healthy user base, and just like Mastodon it will mature gradually as long as the users remain.
It will be interesting to see how groups are integrated in Mastodon - hopefully it’ll motivate more cross-fertilization between Mastodon and the Threadiverse. :)
Also, I find Pixlfed to be very much ready for prime time! Peertube as well if you’re a content creator interested in hosting your own content, but that’s a more narrow use case.
I only joined during the (modest) Reddit migration in June but I don’t think a single new moderation tool has been added since then despite all the momentum. Lots of apps (most of which have already been abandoned) though so that’s at least something.
It’s ironic that the Reddit to Lemmy migration occurred precisely because of the moderation issues of the former. Yet the dev seems to deprioritize this aspect for some reason. This is sad. I do hope Kbin will get a larger traction.
I really can’t be too hard on the devs, this is a completely volunteer operation, and the massive influx led to all kinds of very foundational issues related to scaling. As I said in another comment a day or two ago, I think many are focused on just keeping the wheels from falling off the car that is their own instances right now.
Realistically, I think the only way they can right the course is for several instances to go on hiatus that are run by people who can contribute 10 to 20 hours a week developing the platform. I am also making a number of assumptions, such as there is a big overlap between developers and people running instances.
I don’t think there is a big overlap. The main devs are hosting lemmy.ml and lemmygrad as far as I know. All the other ones are hosted by other people.
Ah makes sense. Do you think they just don’t have enough people working on it?
Yes it’s a resources problem, I think so. If enough people donate then they might be able to pay a full time employee to work on it full time.
That’s frustrating. I think Kbin recently improved it’s moderation tools quite a lot, but I’m not involved enough to really have an overview.
I checked out Lemmy for the first time ten months ago from a thread that was shared on Mastodon, it was a completely different product back then. I agree moderation tools need to be a high priority, but there’s little doubt the platform has improved a lot over the last year. It saw a sudden growth that nobody was really prepared for, and all in all I think it is impressive how well it has gone so far. Moderation still seems to be better than certain commercial platforms. ;)
I definitely think the moderation itself is better because there is a stronger pool of people doing it, but we are just so severely limited by what we are able to do. For starters, there are no tiers of moderators. You don’t have like a “prime“ and then lower levels with different tiers of access. You basically have to give total control to another moderator, which is a huge risk.
I agree. I’m a " reddit refugee " so to speak but I think people here are jumping the gun with their expectations. Of course, Lemmy is not brand new but the actual influx of users seems to be pretty recent.
It took years for reddit to really become a more diverse site that actually appealed to a wider demographic then just tech nerds and communists, which from what I can understand is more or less what lemmy was comprised of before the huge uptick in migration here lol.
Anyways I do think people need to cool it with their expectations. More and better moderating tools being needed is in no way limited to just Lemmy either. Mastodon also has problems with admins fucking with whole instances, or just outright disappearing and leaving the ship without a captain.
Its the teething stages of the fediverse. For what its worth, its fucking amazing thats something as decentralized is getting this much play anyways.
The more people that come along and the more diversity in communties will eventually make the fediverse a better and more useful place then reddit was. It will take some time though, and a much large user base. It will come though.
Were actual tankies (you know, like those on lemmygrad.ml) really that much of a part of Reddit in it’s inception as well? Holly crap!
Is there a road map for Lemmy?
PeerTube is ready for posting videos but not for consuming videos. I’m very involved in it with my own instance and my !peertube_admin_chronicles@tube.jeena.net but find it impossible to continuously find videos to watch on a daily basis and on top of that it doesn’t have a player for the TV where I normally watch all videos on.
Mastodon apps don’t have the same variety of UI as Lemmy. Applications for Lemmy are simpler and more intuitive for new users who come from traditional social networks (such as Reddit).
Who knows what the developers are planning?
None of us know what the developers are planning. That’s part of the issue. We don’t know what’s coming down the pipeline or if certain issues are even being addressed.
It’s the blessing and a curse of FOSS projects. Potentially near-endless capacity to address issues, but no systems in place to make sure issues are being addressed.