or another way to ask it, what made fedi easier for you to adopt? I don’t think the answer is better ways of explaining how federation exactly works, because no matter how good of an analogy you can make, most users don’t care and just want to know how to get started
EDIT: I guess I’ll go first, for something like Mastodon I think encouraging people to use a client like pinafore.social or Tusky instead of going directly to the website of the instance would help stop people from confusing themselves by getting redirected between instances. Same for Lemmy as better clients start to pop up
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If we are going to be mainstream, we really need an app that abstracts away most of the technical aspects of Lemmy.
Sure, you and I might understand federation and like it - your average user will see this wall of text explaining how it works as a brick wall and give up.
So an app that just says something like “pick a server, don’t worry you can still see content from others, here’s our suggestion” and then “create an account and login” will work as even many games work like this.
Then the main feed needs to be abstracted away, replace long URLs with “community name” and let users subscribe and browse without any subdivisions (unless they want to filter it out). Make sure the interface treats everything as if it were a simple subreddit, they see a group about a game they enjoy and they subscribe - no friction.
I completely agree with the idea. I was initially intimidated about the sign up process a week ago. Left it and came back only because I’m determined not to use Reddit anymore. Also helps that I’m using mlem. It’s not the best but gets the job done. There’s improvements to be made, but if these suggestions are looked upon and implemented, it can really help.
Also I think having a popular person making a YouTube video on the sign up process might not be a bad idea. Visual guides are better than written ones for common users
Mlem looks great! IOS only though rip
Well if we give it time, there will be more.
Yeah a good Lemmy client app would probably help users migrate easier. I tried the only one on the android play store (Jerboa) but it crashes immediately when I log in
Isn’t there one called Jerboah or something? https://join-lemmy.org/apps Here you go
That’s the one I used, I just got the name wrong. It still crashes for me
Hmm I have no idea about that app since I am an iOS user but isn’t there a forum to discuss and get help with it? I bet there is a community for it. I know the app is not bug free and will take time to get better
Try some more after a day or so. For some reason it suddenly worked for me. Might be instance load idk
Yeah it works now! Posting from jerboa
Eyyy lesgo! :D
Guidance over complexity and choice
Better UI and UX - visual guidance, separation, clarity
Making links not redirect to other instances you’re not logged in to
Making links not redirect to other instances you’re not logged in to
definitely this
Honestly, I think the Reddit blackout already is pretty good. If the closed subs already had an alternative community or instance to recommend that would also be great.
Synergy with Mastodon would be nice. As far as I know Lemmy and Mastodon aren’t completely linked but also not completely separate. Would be awesome if I could now also just follow people or hashtags there.
But all in all I think the current direction is great. The relevant projects seem to be getting a large influx of bug reports, feature requests and pull requests. We’ll probably be seeing huge changes in the coming months.
Synergy with Mastodon would be nice
kbin is supposed to bring that. It kinda combines the both communities under one platform. Issue is that it’s still very unfinished and doesn’t have a good mobile app for example, but definitely something to look out for.
The number one rule of getting people to change their behavior is to reduce friction. Someone needs to make a client that can mask a lot of the federation behind the scenes so that non-tech folks can just hop on and start browsing
Echoing others here, UI/UX is a big one, its SOOOO close, there are just some minor bugs (that might be major under the covers) that if corrected could really smooth over the end user exp.
Biggest personal complaint I have now is all the links that just pop me onto another instance. I am on a federated network, why should I get bounced to other instances when I click links on my own?
If for some reason my instance cannot get the content, THEN produce the real link and I can choose if I care that much or not.
I’m seeing a lot of people having issues with accidentally getting bounced to the wrong instance. I have a friend who got confused and gave up on fedi I think because of the confusion from this same issue.
Using a client does help though
i wonder if there is an issue filed on this in the UI repo, I can’t imagine this is a server bug if other clients work ok.
I’d fix inconsistencies between instances. Like, I made this account in Beehaw and now I literally can’t create a community anywhere until I make a new account. It shouldn’t be like this.
It took me trying five different sites to join. Two asked for an essay, and neither have responded a day later. This is not tenable.
I’m a dev, and from the statistics I’ve gathered form abandonment is the largest factor towards failure to take an action. Having a form fail, having to “apply”, or having a failure message makes people leave. We have to fix this problem to allow for better adoption.
There needs to be some sort of central system to join. A site whose sole existence is to house an app with four inputs, and a button. Username, password, confirm password, email, and sign up. After this it should take a list of sites that volunteer to take users, and randomly place them into one. If it fails, or takes too long, it should try another. It should then inform them of the site, email them, and finally redirect them to the site logged in.
This would be difficult to implement as it requires these sites to allow third party sign ups but this would solve the form abandonment problem. Allowing this would also allow for apps to do the same.
Yes, this is my first time. I was never really a fan of Twitter or similar social medias, preferring the subreddit and thread based nature of Reddit.
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Explain to people how it works! The most difficult barrier for adopting the Fediverse is a lack of basic understanding.
but is it really? I feel like trying to explain the inner workings of fedi confuses people who really just need to know how they can get started and where to find the content they want to see.
@ruud@lemmy.world created a sticky post that is a work in progress, however I believe it is something that answers your question
One feature I’d really like is being able to click that link without being “logged out” as that link takes me to lemmy.world and my account is on lemmy.ca
I think little things like that turn away new users who get annoyed by all the “glitches” so to speak.
Clicking a link should first check if the link is to another lemmy instance, and if it is it should attempt to open that post while remaining in this instance.
I think if you use Lemmy (and mastodon and other fedi platforms) through a client you can avoid this issue. I use Tusky and Pinafore for mastodon, but haven’t found a good one yet for lemmy
The developer for Jerboa mentioned in a thread (sorry I don’t have the link on hand) that they are currently working on opening instance links within your current instance.
Currently it just pops up in an embedded browser, but I’m glad they’re actively resolving it!
I feel like that post has it backwards. It’s most helpful to first explain “how do i start and where do i find everything/meet everyone” then go into the details of what fediverse means. It explains the details of creating a community instead of tips for discovering communities, even though 99% of users want to join communities and will never make one of their own. I think it’s possible to make a more focused guide that targets what most users will actually need help with
What bothered me the most:
- I couldn’t find the lemmy site without adding “join” to the search. On the third page there’s finally a link - to github - which non-techies are immediately going to navigate away from. The remaining 6 pages had no more links to anything related to this lemmy.
- Once you ARE on the right page the majority of it is about getting you to host your own instance. This is where you’re losing the next 90%. This content needs to be 99% dedicated to onboarding.
- If you’re STILL in the pipeline your next hurdle is picking a site to join with no clue what this decision means for you. A whole bunch are gonna give up right there. There needs to be a curated short list of critical mass instances where noobs aren’t greeted by crickets.
- If you manage to actually register an account you’re then left with wondering how you’re gonna get any content.
- defaulting to “local” vs “subscribed” is technically sensible but very inconvenient for randos.
- the fact that you simply cannot subscribe to NSFW communities if you happened to register at a non-NSFW instance is very unintuitive
- there is very poor guidance to picking new communities even if you end up finding them in the search. raw subscribers is an insufficient metric considering how sparsely populated the space is. There should at least be another indicator for actual activity.
I’m not new to fediverse, but i found the same friction points like with mastodon
- which instance to pick (or maybe i should host my own straight away?)
- how to discover new communities - browse.feddit.de definietly helps with that
- links that redirects me to another instance
