In other places on around the web, (chiefly /r/RedditAlternatives) whenever Lemmy is brought up, invariably I see the exact same complaints from brand new accounts.
Lemmy is too complicated, it wont gain traction, can’t figure out how to use it, can’t log in, etc.
Now, I’m definitely more tech savvy than the average redditor, but I just don’t see the complaints. You can go to any Lemmy site, instantly start doomscrolling with a familiar UI, and sign up on all the instances I’ve tried has been frankly more simple than making a new reddit account. The only real complaint I have is the generally smaller volume of users and posts.
My only thought here is the words like federation and instances getting people hung up. Maybe join-lemmy.org being a highly ranked site is doing more harm than good by creating an additional barrier to the instances and content.
Ideally, the first link someone sees when googling Lemmy would be a global feed on a fairly generic instance, with a basic tagline akin to ‘front page of the internet.’ End users don’t need to care about the technical details, at least not until they’re interested in the platform.
So is this “Lemmy is too confusing” sentiment even real? And if not, what motive would there be to astroturf this?
If it is a real issue affecting would-be users, how can we address it?
I’m probably the least tech savvy person on Lemmy. If my dumb ass can figure it out, the subset of Reddit’s population who we’d actually want in Lemmy’s community should have no problem.
That said, onboarding could have been better, and you’re right about the potential hangups: “fediverse” sounds like some kind of federal government function like a hub website that links to all the different .gov agencies, and “Lemmy” sounds like a cartoon character. Choosing an instance was more stressful than it probably should have been; ultimately went with .world by blindly following the advice of a YouTube video, but on day 1 I was pretty oblivious to the extremist shit that’s associated with instances like .ml and had no clue what ‘tankie’ even meant.
That was two years ago though - no idea if that reflects what getting started is like today.
And again, that’s all coming from a relatively tech-dumbass, so I’d imagine it’s probably smoother for people less prone to starting a fire when they turn their computer turns on.
Edit: sorry to anyone who had to read that before the edit… when I’m tired I have an annoying tendency to think a word as I’m typing and then just skip to the next one. And I’m tired all the fucking time, so my posts have a lot of holes Q_Q
Has not changed one bit. If anything the onboarding experience has gotten worse.
Lemmy isnt new user hostile so to speak but it sure doesn’t try not to be.
And God, the number of times iv had to explain that frediverse doesn’t have anything to do with the feds is insane.
Lemmy has some of the worse terminology.
I have no idea what the instances even are, I didn’t realize it mattered, I just picked one at random. I still have no idea what they are or why it matters
If you’re interested, the short version is that instances (A.K.A servers) are run by different people in different places. A reason to move instances might be:
My admin, the owner of the instance, has been doing things I heavily disagree with (bans, blocks, etc)
I don’t agree with the rules on my instance.
The instance is run in a country which criminalizes something that I care about, and so has to ban discussion of that thing (piracy, porn, etc).
I want to run a community on a specific instance for whatever reason, and so need an account there
And it’s okay! No need to understand those at first