What ways do you know to attract users?
Perhaps there are those here who have been with Lemmy since its inception. It’s interesting to hear your experience in promoting your community or instance.
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What’s wrong with Lemmy UI? It has one of the best UIs in the wild…
Error messages don’t show up and when they do they’re unhelpful. The UI is extremely basic and honestly quite uninviting. There’s almost no consistent iconography, the iconography that’s there isn’t all that clear, and every click causes a full reload.
Expanding images is slow for me. Images from startrek.website don’t load right (they do from every other website so I think it’s a bug on their side but still) and there are tons of UI inconsistencies all around.
Lemmy is great for people like me (and perhaps you) who prefer the internet of old where everything was basic but it worked, but it’s not going to be attracting mass market appeal any time soon. Most people don’t get federation or it’s just not a priority for them, and that’s the main selling point to Lemmy/Kbin.
This isn’t an attack on the Lemmy devs, they’re doing their best with very little resources, but pretending there aren’t any issues isn’t going to help either.
I think that the standard look of web UI, for people accustomed to the look of modern social networks, may not be attractive.
There’s a bit of an conflict there, because said UI appeals to old.reddit users and I’m thinking there may be a few here
I hate it a bit, its so confusing and has way too many buttons everywhere, the search hidden away etc.
https://blog.erlend.sh/lemmy-frontend-alternatives-are-popping-off
I think lots of them are better for general use, while the official one is most often the best supported. I disagree that many frontends are so great
There are alternate web UIs?
Photon: https://github.com/Xyphyn/photon
Old reddit style: https://old.lemmy.world
Voyager: https://vger.appAlexandrite is my favorite. Can also self host it.
That’s really neat, thank you!
I don’t understand how I’m supposed to use it ? the read me is cryptic to me
You go to the website, log in, and use it
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Lastly, I recently heard someone say that Lemmy consists mostly of critical posts about big tech, politicians and billionaires.
This is wrong, Lemmy consists mostly of posts talking about Reddit /s
Easier said than done, and I’m not myself a good example of that, but:
Create and maintain communities where users can talk about popular topics. Specially OC. Mild word-of-mouth advertisement of those communities and the platform as a whole, be it in other social media platforms or even offline.
Make sure to discourage the participation of certain types of users, because they will chase away the others. I can go further on that if anyone wants, but I think that the most important ones in this context are users who target others based on race, ethnicity, native language, where you’re from, or government that you pay taxes to.
Language and homeland should never be conflated, unless you want to tell linguistic minorities to fuck off (don’t do this). It’s fine to create a community for a specific language, or for a specific region/country/etc., but not both at the same time.
Make sure that the interface is translated to the target language. And if it isn’t, consider contributing with it.
I share your views.
I don’t think I’ve seen open racism or discrimination here on Lemmy, yet. (Except for those people that have strong opinions on communism/China perhaps.) Have you or other people witnessed something like that here?
Since you wrote that in bold letters: Do you have some personal insight on linguistic minorities? Or was it more a general statement… (I mean I have my own perspective. But I’d like to hear how things are for other people in places where I don’t hear too much about.)
I don’t think I’ve seen open racism or discrimination here on Lemmy, yet. (Except for those people that have strong opinions on communism/China perhaps.) Have you or other people?
I’ve seen a few. Way less than in Reddit, it’s mostly low-key, and instance admins get rid of them fast. However I often see people here saying that we should allow them in, and I think that it’s a mistake, specially if trying to promote Lemmy among non-English speakers. Because a lot of them will be somehow the target of this sort of discrimination, and they won’t stay here if they feel hostility against them.
Since you wrote that in bold letters: Do you have some personal insight on linguistic minorities? Or was it more a general statement…
The problem with that conflation between country and language is that it alienates linguistic minorities badly.
I’m not a minority speaker myself, mind you. But I got close ties with Talian (a cluster of Venetian varieties) due to familiar background, and I’ve interacted offline with the folks from the examples below.
Sometimes it’s external prejudice; a Kaingang speaker “speaks injun” so she’s assumed to be primitive and dumb in comparison with Portuguese speakers.
Sometimes it’s internalised prejudice; like Talian speakers claiming that they speak “broken Italian mixed with broken Brazilian” instead of a variety from Veneto.
Sometimes it’s questioning allegiance to the country; like “fuck off back to your Nazi country” if you speak Hunsrik (a German variety).
Sometimes it’s erasure, like people claiming “minority speakers? Everyone speaks Portuguese here. I never saw one.” (Pragmatically saying “I’ll pretend that they don’t exist because I don’t think that they should exist on first place.”)
Often it’s also practical matters - like online services not allowing you to access the service in your native language, even when available (often there isn’t), because you’re assumed to speak something else based on your country. Or expecting you to consume content from somewhere else than your homeland, because of your language.
And, from online discussions plus reading, I conclude that it’s the exact same deal elsewhere. It is not just “shit Brazil does” or even “shit New World does”, it’s everywhere - from Galicians to Okinawans, Saami to Xhosa, Pennsylvania “Dutch” and Maori speakers. Often with that feeling that you shouldn’t open your mouth, that you belong to no place, that you coexist with people who hate you, that even if your language is part of your identity your identity is wrong anyway. It’s gut-wrenching how much linguistic minorities get the short end of the stick because they’re expected to speak the country language instead.
[Sorry for the long text.]
Back to Lemmy. Those people want to consume social media as much as everyone else. Specially in their native languages, as it gives them the sense of belonging to a community - “this was made for us, by one of us!”. Memes, shitposting, a thought-provoking text, a meaningful discussion. And yet traditional social media consistently neglects them, I think that the Fediverse should welcome them with open arms - not just because it’s convenient for them, but also for the ones already here.
However when “we” [the Fediverse] create instances that tie languages with countries, we’re effectively telling them “nope, you are not welcome here”, exactly like the traditional media does. “We” can and should do better.
Thank you for your detailed answer.
[Sorry for the long text.]
I really appreciate you typing that out (for me).
I often see people here saying that we should allow them [discriminatory people] in […]
Oh no. I also see people suggest we need to attract users and generate content for Lemmy by any means. In my opinion, there is a good possibility we, as an ‘Reddit alternative’ not only accept people wo look for an alternative, but also the people who got banned there for good reasons, because they’re a-holes. But if that is the way it plays out, we’re going to be the more toxic little sibling of Reddit. I think argumentative people and things like re-post bots will kill engagement, if that’s your way of handling things. It’s a noble thing to want Lemmy to grow. But many people just don’t thing it through, properly.
I get the appeal of a true free speech platform. But I learned about the necessity of moderation during the Covid-times while I was building a small PeerTube instance. After YouTube got a hold of the misinformation, PeerTube got flooded by their fake-news documentaries and the content creators got banned on the large platforms and went to PeerTube, uploading their daily lectures about “the truth”. And the annoying people do yell the loudest. It drowns the regular stuff and it’s a sure way of not attracting normal people ever again.
I can co-exist with all sorts of different people. But my approach of dealing with them on a federated platform would be: I want the biggots confined to their own space and blocked by default. And make it really uncomfortable for them on the rest of the instances/platform.
[…] so she’s assumed to be primitive and dumb in comparison
Yeah, that’s classic prejudice and generally just being an a-hole to an individual you know little about.
internalised prejudice […] broken Italian mixed with broken Brazilian
I’m from Germany. It used to be a thing on the internet to make fun of people from Austria. Not because they speak differently, but because they were a minority on the internet. I don’t think people do that any more. It’s mainly a thing of the past and people learned to be better than that. Idk often there is a dynamic that people want to see someone below them. Especially if you’re not at the top yourself, you ‘need’ someone in the hierarcy below you to re-affirm yourself. I think that’s the main reason why things like that happen. It’s not really hatred or anything against those people. But bad nonetheless. (And some people just don’t know any better or don’t think in the first place. We should strive for that.)
Hunsrik […] Nazi country
Yeah, that’s stupid. Hunsrik isn’t spoken in Germany. And 200 years ago when this seperated, Nazis weren’t a thing.
online services not allowing you to access the service in your native language
Sometimes I get that. English it the lingua franca and people tell other people to speak the language that everyone there can understand. It’s the same thing like when you’re having dinner in a group, 3 people speak a different language. If they start talking amonst themselves in their native language, it kills the conversation and doesn’t allow for participation for the rest of the group. It’s the right thing to agree on a commonly spoken language then. But I also get the other side. If you’re on vacation for weeks and only spoke english to people, it’s kinda nice to meet the only other person speaking your language for once and you start chatting…
On the internet there are also technical reasons on top. To be able to moderate things, you need to be able to understand what is said. If you don’t have moderators for a language, you sadly have to ban that language. Or be happy to have an unmoderated corner on your instance. I don’t see a good way of handling this. (Except for growing a community in that language to a healthy size and have those moderators in place.)
But part of platforms like this is to provide a comfy corner for every niche interest. Providing for niche languages should be a part of that and we have the tools to do so.
it’s the exact same deal elsewhere
I don’t have too much insight about how it feels to be on that side. I live in a part of Germany with a bit of a dialect. Nagging people about how they speak is a thing. But I really appreciate that we have dialects and not every person I meet is exactly the same. I think most of the people I’ve talked to feel the same. And I myself feel attached to my region, maybe more so than to the nation as a whole. …I’d have to think about that, you can’t really compare the two things.
Then there are things like the “Low German” language. And I agree, regional languages and proper dialects are on the decline everywhere. But there is a consensus in society that we need to keep those alive. Many people do. And we even have (very little) regional TV program and some podcasts in low german.
But I have to make a distinction to dialects when talking about written language. You can’t really write in dialect. Just speak. And hence things don’t translate into the online-world.
[the Fediverse] create instances that tie languages with countries
100% agree. The Internet excels at connecting people all around the globe. It would be a shame if we couldn’t broaden our horizon past re-creating the same borders we know from our real-world nations.
To summarize things: Thanks for your perspective. I agree. Judging by my own surroundings, I think most people embrace linguistic diversity. It’s always more difficult to be part of a minority. But lots of people have made up their mind and are aware of that fact. There are people who don’t know any better and there is a certain amount of idiots around. I think the first group of people isn’t really a problem and we should push against discriminatory behaviour and small-mindedness. Platforms like Lemmy are good at connecting people and designed so they can cater for niche groups. We should use that to our advantage.
Oh no. I also see people suggest we need to attract users and generate content for Lemmy by any means. […] It drowns the regular stuff and it’s a sure way of not attracting normal people ever again.
I agree with you that the best approach would be to let them have some “containment cages” here and there. They tend to attract legal trouble and get deplatformed anyway.
I’m from Germany. It used to be a thing on the internet to make fun of people from Austria. Not because they speak differently, but because they were a minority on the internet.
I remember seeing a bit of this in Krautchan. Sometimes it sounded like plain humour, but sometimes as punching down (like claiming that Austrians on the internet were actually German shitposters, since there was no internet in Austria), or some local hate boner against “Serwus”.
Do you happen to have better examples?
Yeah, that’s stupid. Hunsrik isn’t spoken in Germany. And 200 years ago when this seperated, Nazis weren’t a thing.
Remember the conflation between country and language? Their logic goes like this: Hunsrik is just a fake name for German language (implicitly Standard German), and this gets “proved” by the fact that there’s a Germany in the map but no “Hunsrikland”. The same reasoning is the one used against Talian (the name doesn’t help).
The “Nazi” association that people do is mostly to make the person look like the bad guy for speaking a minority language. It’s the same thing with “batateiro” (roughly “potato guy”), to imply redneckness.
Perhaps not surprisingly it’s the same sort of person who makes a big deal out of Portuguese as spoken in Brazil vs. in Portugal, Angola, etc., by pretending that “Brazilian Portuguese” is 1) internally homogeneous (nope) and 2) has some defining, linguistic feature (nope too). As if crafting a language out of nowhere, to fill the “gap”.
On the internet there are also technical reasons on top. To be able to moderate things, you need to be able to understand what is said. If you don’t have moderators for a language, you sadly have to ban that language. Or be happy to have an unmoderated corner on your instance.
I’ve thought about moderation for this, as I was creating a local comm. Back then, I’ve concluded that it isn’t a big issue. Troublemakers beeline for the majority language (for visibility), and by the time that casual rule-breaking in a minority language becomes an issue, you’re probably able to ask for help from speakers of that language. Context also helps a lot.
I don’t have too much insight about how it feels to be on that side. I live in a part of Germany with a bit of a dialect. Nagging people about how they speak is a thing. But I really appreciate that we have dialects and not every person I meet is exactly the same. I think most of the people I’ve talked to feel the same. And I myself feel attached to my region, maybe more so than to the nation as a whole. …I’d have to think about that, you can’t really compare the two things.
That’s a great sign - for your community, the sense of belonging is still there, strong. That shold be the normal.
In Germany perhaps a better example would be the Sorbian speakers, I don’t know. But for Europe as a whole, Vergonha (“The Shaming”) is sadly a textbook example of it.
But I have to make a distinction to dialects when talking about written language. You can’t really write in dialect. Just speak. And hence things don’t translate into the online-world.
You can. And I’ve seen Swiss German speakers doing it informally. Since the distinction between dialect and language is mostly political in nature, there’s nothing that you can do with a “language” that you wouldn’t be able to, with a “dialect”.
Also, thank you for this conversation! (Sorry for not using German with you; I’m not too proficient in the language yet, and keeping it in English benefits other posters here.)
let them [toxic people] have some “containment cages” here and there
I think that worked well for the covid misinformation. And arguably quite some toxic (American) people left Twitter for gab.com and truthsocial.com
But… It has its downsides. I just had a conversation about right-wing populism in Germany. We - like many nations - currently suffer from that. I think filter bubbles are a big part of that dynamic. We discuss here, openly. While some other people radicalize themselves and each other on some Telegram channels. The far-right is on the rise everywhere and it starts to make me uncomfortable.
Regardless, we shouldn’t give them a voice here. They’re going to do it anyways, reasoning with them and giving good arguments does nothing and opposing them makes them even stronger. (I’m generally a very liberal person, but I count those populists to the toxic people and they should -in my eyes- all feel un-welcome where I am. Even in small quantities, they poison nice places and yell the loudest.)
make fun of people from Austria. […] Servus […] Krautchan […] Do you happen to have better examples?
Yeah, I see you’re well versed in internet culture, not many people know about Krautchan. It’s really not a good example for anything because it mainly contained trolls and shitposting. They were a group of people mainly commemorating their inside jokes. They really worked hard flashig out details to stupid small jokes like the one with the Austrians. I’ve seen this specific joke on other internet forums, albeit not often and not anything close to that degree.
We have German inside-jokes here on Lemmy, you can check out the community !ich_iel@feddit.de they do stupid jokes and innuendo, often about politics. But it’s not related to the old imageboards.
I don’t have any better examples. Well, jokes about stereotypes used to be a thing during the early parts of my life. Regarding regions: jokes about the inhabitants of East Frisia and people from East Germany. It was a play on stereotypes and on mainly on the same level with jokes about blonde women (stupid) and gay people. I think every culture has them. (“A texan walks into a bar in Ireland…” / “How do Mexicans sneeze? Quetzalquotle” …) I’ve wondered lately if those kinds of jokes are still around. I think they grew out of fashion. But that’s more playing with stereotypes than anything connected to language.
moderation for [minority languages] […] I’ve concluded that it isn’t a big issue.
I agree. We should try it and see what happens, instead of coming up with hypothetical scenarios that are probably never going to play out this way. I know some people would disagree with that. For example here on Lemmy, the people from beehaw.org want to build something like a safe space. They have rigurously used defederation on other instances that have different approaches to moderation and signup. Sometimes even before anything happened. They won’t like taking chances. But I think we have to be bold and try things. Lemmy still has a few technical shortcomings. But the general (federated) design allows us to do both simultaneously.
Sorry for not using German with you
That’s perfectly alright. English is the Lingua franca (common language) here. I’m very thankful I have it and it grants me the opportunity to efforlessly talk to people like you. I think recent developments in AI and machine translation like the local translation feature of Firefox 117 will soon enough bridge the gap more and more.
I suppose it’s difficult for minority languages. They are somewhat bound to become extinct. And people have to work hard to keep them alive. The world is very globalized. People commute to the next bigger city and work there. And generally move more often than they did a hundred years ago. Even in the small mountain villige in Tyrol in the Alps, the young people go study at an university in the city and a large percentage doesn’t come back after. They used to have a distinct dialect in every valley, back when they weren’t yet as interconnected as they are today.
I don’t know what OP was trying to achieve with this post. They didn’t engage in the conversation. I think internet communities have the abilitiy to connect non-english speakers. And even linguistic minorities. Lemmy would be a good platform for something like that. But I don’t think a top-down approach works here. We can (and should) advertise the service. But I don’t think doing missionary work will cut it. If you don’t have any insight on the culture, it’s really difficult to get to the people and make it a lasting and healthy thing. I wouldn’t know how to attract a dozen of the few thousand Sorbian speakers to get something going. And I don’t feel entitled to do so, either.
I’ve been imagining a federated platform that connects people who live nearby. As far as I know there isn’t anything like that around, yet. And there are some privacy issues to tackle if you want people to share their location. My use-case for something like that was to use it for classified ads. Or recommendations about concerts and cultural events. Maybe we should program something like that and also have language and dialect be part of the design.
Thanks for all the references you gave. I really can’t reply with anything of substance, here. I skimmed a few of the articles but I still have to read most of them properly. And I think I have to brush up on my knowledge about things like the Vergonha. For me, language discrimination hasn’t really been part of my perspective, yet. I grew up and live in a city. Things are more connected and more diverse here, and it happens to be a region thats close to speaking standard German anyways.
It’s really a fascinating topic. And encompassing lots of different dynamics. We can’t go back to live all our lives in a few kilometres of our birthplace in order to nurture local things. We need a more modern approach. But it’d be nice to keep those things alive and even actively doing something for it.
Yeah it’s awful how people subscribe to willful ignorance and right wing misinformation that can ultimately hurt them - like not getting vaccinated, and the right wingers are still the biggest group dying from COVID every day. We do suffer from right-wing populism which is the direct result of ignorance and lack of education in our country. The more stupid America gets, the more right wing it will become, until it completely falls apart as a country and never recovers.
I don’t know what to reply. I live far away but still on the same world. Shady politicians here follow what kind of stuff works in the US and copy the arguments from people like Ron DeSantis. I’ve even seen his face on the news when he visited Bavaria a few months ago. Imho German politicians should know better than take a picture with someone who has proper neo-nazi followers.
The USA is way ahead in being backwards. It makes me sad, too, and my solidarity to you.
I can’t imagine how it feels to have that many biggots and idiots around. And I suppose it depends on where exactly you live. But I think we’re headed the wrong direction. I have nice neighbors, though. I don’t think the situation here would look desperate to me if I wasn’t reading the news. So I’m still optimistic. But I have no solution for the short or medium term in the USA. There seem to be nice people around and also sometimes good things happen. Hope it turns out okay in the end, even if it looks desperate now.
Letting YouTube and reddit and Shitter and co do their thing while making sure all the great advice on how to avoid them is easily accesible on Lemmy…
We should create instances for countries. Like old reddit. That way the language won’t be an issue for newcomers. Unfortunately we lack the manpower. But I believe that with time it will pick up steam
We already have that. There are lots of feddit.de .it .nl .something. And We have communities for politics in Europe / Gemany / …
I see lots of fellow germans here. So no issue from my side…
sopuli.xyz is largely Finnish. Sopuli means a lemming.
saying that there is all the good content of Reddit with the bad content filtered out
Would love to hear about more instances and communities! I think that’s a big part of it for other parts of the world, reddit has a lot of those as well.
I’d also love to see some automatic translations built into the Fediverse. Something similar to the Firefox local translation would work, or maybe a cached version on the server once it’s been requested by someone. There are a lot of cool creators on Mastodon and Pixelfed where I have to copy and paste to see what is being said.
