Tl;dr
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Signing up- “Basic version”- you’re given a server automatically (so the user isn’t scared off by perceived complexities of the federated model)
- "Advanced version" - as normal, you choose a server. -
Normal use - everything defaults to “All” (for posting, viewing your page)
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**Links to communities ** on other servers for the basic mode are simplified
I spent a bit of time while signing up trying to decide which server to sign up to and whether it matters. I would say that this would be a barrier for many average Reddit users. Let’s make it as seamless as possible-- No need to choose a server.
Your front page has a “local” and “all” view. I don’t know the benefits of only browsing on local (faster? Less resources? Better if most of your communities are hosted on your local server?), However as many of my comms are global, I can’t see why I’d ever not use All. Let’s simplify it for the average user and not have the option for Local.
I’ve had a few instances where someone gives a link for a community and its not given in the right format so I can’t sign up to it (?it’s a server specific link - I still don’t know). This would be frustrating to the average user and another barrier. Let’s simplify these links and make them universal.
The “federated model” has clear benefits, however the additional learning curve will scare off the average Reddit user who is not tech literate. The changes above may be controversial and may Increase resource use on the platform or may be impossible, but I would say they would make Lemmy easier to allow new users to sign up and stay on the platform.
EDIT: I asked a few AI bots for their recommendations, and Claude-v1 had the best:
- Provide curated lists of recommended public instances. Lemmy could maintain an official list of featured instances that meet certain standards of moderation, activity, topics, etc. This makes it easier for users to find good communities to join without having to research instances themselves.
2.Create categories and tags for instances to aid discovery. Instances could self-categorize based on topics, languages, moderation policies, and other attributes. Users could then filter and search for instances that match their interests. This helps address the issue of needing to choose a server.
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Develop “instance spotlight” posts or videos. The Lemmy team could work with instance administrators to create blog posts, videos, and other media highlighting specific instances, their communities, moderation, and cultures. This raises visibility and drives more informed choice.
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Implement an instance recommendation system. Based on a user’s interests and the instances they join, Lemmy could recommend other instances that may be of interest. This makes it easy to discover more communities without needing to search manually.
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Create a “new user onboarding” process with instance suggestions. When a user first signs up for Lemmy, they could go through an onboarding flow that asks about their interests and then provides some initial instance recommendations to join based on their preferences. This helps new users get started easily.
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Allow users to follow tags, topics, or keywords instead of just users and instances. Users could then see posts from across the network related to things they care about, even if the posts are on different instances. This provides more centralization and cohesion without sacrificing server autonomy.
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Increase interoperability between instances. Making it even easier for users to follow users/posts, see profiles, share posts, and otherwise interact with different instances could help Lemmy feel more cohesive while still being decentralized. Increased interconnectivity leads to a better overall experience.
Hello. I moved to Reddit with the Digg Exodus, and now I’m here. History does repeat itself.
I can see how your basic option would be a good way of easily balancing the load of new users across the federation by assigning them according to the current capacity of each server.
However, I think it is important that you as a user choose an instance you are able to align with. Best example: If you’re not into it, you will have a pretty rough time on lemmygrad.ml.
It’s baffling how having a home instance makes you subject to the whims of the instance admins ref. banning your user across the lemmyverse or deciding what you will and won’t see by their Federation choices. It’s like, I despised Reddit for its blanket censorship and statistical-minority rule, and Lemmy has chosen to kind of replicate that?
I’d much rather my user profile and preferences, feed settings just be a lightweight, mobile or transient thing that can be moved around as the nature of each instance changes, with admins just housing an agreed number of users as part of the “cost” of being a Lemmy instance, and not having any pastoral role in their governance.
We made a new instance at lemmy.pro to also be a high performance one - so we read this with great interest!
Can I become a member? re my 3rd point, how do I sign up as when I open you page it seems to be server specific so I’m not logged in. I guess I need to change the formatting of the link?
These sorts of things would put off most users, I’d say.
Yes you can become a member, we have open registration. Signing up for and logging in to instances is a little buggy sometimes, so I don’t know if it’s a Lemmy thing or “us” at Lemmy.pro maybe having some configuration or new instance setup issue.
About your other question, I think what happened for you is you went to the base url of another instance you aren’t a member of or logged in to, like: https://lemmy.pro/c/cybersecurity so you can’t comment on anything when you get there, or subscribe to it etc, right.
The fix is to switch that syntax around, and write “[email protected]” and put that into the search while at the url of your own instance, and then can do all expected actions.
Maybe you already knew that but asked rhetorically; and you’re right, it’s cumbersome for new users. I think they’ll iron that out somehow someday.
Thanks a lot, I guess I’m one of those people who dives in and doesn’t read the manual, so I missed that part.
Requiring such syntax for links seems quite technical (created by an IT engineer to suit a purpose rather than for simplicity and ease of use) and “old fashioned”. I’m pretty IT literate, used to programme, been on reddit since Digg etc and it caught me up (though I should have read the manual!)
Perhaps such things are being tweaked.
I don’t think it’s a great idea to assign someone to a random server.
- You don’t want a view instance to get all the traffic.
- You want people to choose a server that fits their interests.
It’s just really hard to make something so centralized for something that’s meant to be the opposite.
What is the problem with having a centralized sign-up solution? Just consider it an extra service.
Maybe when someone signs up they choose a few interests and then the system chooses an appropriate server (or you choose yourself).
That fixes problem 2, but not problem 1.
I meant if server choice should be based on the servers that may have the most communities that match your interests, then the system choosing your server on signup according to your interests means you don’t have to choose a server.
It would be unlikely that all the communities that a user wants to become a member on are on one server, so point 2 would still stand (ie. you would want to see all of your communities on all servers, not just on your local server).
It’s a slight architecture change and people will get it with time. When I first started on reddit I couldn’t wrap my head around how a self text post worked but with time it made sense. Each Lemmy instance is like its own reddit front page but it houses its own communities.
Sure, though I imagine when most people want to talk about photography or gaming or whatever they want to talk with the entire community (All), not a small part of the community (local). We want good discussions, and fragmenting these discussions on the same topics in local groups seems to me backward as you’re missing out on the views of the majority and vice versa, hence why I’d say make “All” the default (and invisible, unless you want an advanced view).
If you want the average Joe and Georgette to come to reddit it has to be as simple as possible, and choosing servers, parsing links and deciding what view to see is too much overhead for most people IMO
As the ecosystem develops, I imagine several Lemmy instances will become somewhat of a network where they all federate each other, this sort of already exists between many of the largest instances. Though I’ve discovered bakchodi.org which it seems does not federate with anybody which is disappointing.
So yes technically you are commenting on a thread within your own server that is a mirror and then if the original server allows, users there will see your comments and can reply to you also.
I also would like to see the platform be more proactive about indexing communities on other sites, to me that is the whole point of creating an allow list for federating. I shouldn’t have to search for a community 5 times for it to appear on my home instance, and I should be able to subscribe from anywhere as long as my home server is federated.
Oh boy, you’ve confused me! The server mirrors other server’s communities? I was wondering about this as sometimes I have the same community open in two tabs and they have slightly different addresses, or maybe I had that wrong.
THis is the sort of backroom technical stuff that most users don’t want to see.
I absolutely agree that the „Local“ button on the front page is weird. I don’t get how it’s useful and it kind of negates the „it doesn’t matter what instance you have your account at“ argument.
Yes! Not sure why anyone would want to see the communities they are interested in but are only hosted on their local server.
