Moving to the fediverse
Hi guys, are you familiar with the fediverse? It’s an open-source reddit-alternative that is owned and run by no one. So it doesn’t suffer from the threat of a single hostile entity making drastic, unwanted changes, as we recently saw with reddit, resulting in the side-wide protests.
It would be great to have your subreddit join the fediverse! If you do, I would suggest not using lemmy.world, as it’s already the largest instance and it’s better to spread things out so no one has too much control.
Info:
- https://fedi.tips/
- https://www.makeuseof.com/what-is-the-fediverse-and-can-it-decentralize-the-web/
- Graphic: How federation works https://old.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/14ier24/for_anyone_wondering_how_lemmy_works_and_is/
- https://lemmyverse.net/communities - explorer
- Awesome Lemmy Instances has a list where you can see how many instances block/are blocked by each other https://github.com/maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instances. This can help you pick an instance to create your community on.
- https://join-lemmy.org/instances - Click on an instance, and look at the right sidebar. It will list local rules of the instance. You can also browse the “local” feed to see what kind of communities live on that specific server.
You can even create your own instance like /r/futurology and /r/piracy did https://futurology.today, https://lemmy.dbzer0.com. If you do, you may want to seed your community with content https://futurology.today/post/166237.
Once you make a community on Lemmy you could sticky a post in your sub to let your community know, and/or create an automod sticky in each thread.
Mass unsolicited messages are like JW knocking on your door to preach. No one will appreciate that. This is like the alien.top creator’s methodology. While backed by good intentions, you’re not really convincing anyone to switch. Organic movement of users is really the only full proof way to get more people on lemmy AND actually retaining them. A large number of reddit users who joined the mass exodus 6 months ago are probably back on reddit now and only a few actually stayed.
This is like the alien.top creator’s methodology.
Hey there ;)
I am not sure if you are singling me out becuase of alien.top or not, because alien.top (by which I guess you mean the whole fediverser project) is less about “asking” them to move and more about getting those who are already aware of th fediverse and making it easier to migrate?
However, if you are talking about me personally, I have indeed sent messages to people (not in mass, personalized) and I can no doubt say it is effective as a way to bring awareness.
A large number of reddit users who joined the mass exodus 6 months ago are probably back on reddit now and only a few actually stayed.
Yeah, for a lack of content in the niche communities. How would that be the fault of the people who are trying to promote the Fediverse?
Hey. Not singling you out at all. The fediverser project was just the first thing that came to mind when I posted my comment, and I remembered the part where you messaged people directly. I think I have the same opinion with regard to people having accounts made on their behalf and their comments reposted without their consent. I’m curious, do you have any data on the % of people who chose to take ownership of the accounts that were created for them? I’m sorry about the negative (and some very harsh) feedback you received on lemmy with the fediverser project.
How would that be the fault of the people who are trying to promote the Fediverse?
Wasn’t saying it’s the fault of people promoting lemmy. I was just using that as an example of how even users who willingly tried lemmy during the exodus are hard to retain. My point was was that the only way to get more users on lemmy is to make the platform and its content better and let it grow naturally.
do you have any data on the % of people who chose to take ownership of the accounts that were created for them?
Not really. To do that the system would have to message everyone who posted or commented in any of the threads, and I didn’t get to that stage.
My original plan was:
- Start mirroring the content to bootstrap the communities
- Get people on Lemmy interacting with the content.
- Use the interactions from people already on Lemmy as a signal to people on Reddit that they have an audience outside of Reddit. (The original idea was to make Lemmy responses creating DMs to the user to let them know about the Lemmy link). Get the people on Lemmy co-invested in bringing these “higher-value Redditors” to Lemmy.
Profit. Start seeing a bigger mass of people joining Lemmy via the “fediversed” instances.
This plan stopped at step #2 because I did not expect to have so many people here browsing by “all” and then complaining about the flood of content from the mirrors. So the absolute majority of Reddit users never actually were made aware of the mirrored content. I still think it’s illogical, but I gave up on convincing hordes of people by arguing with “logic”.
I was just using that as an example of how even users who willingly tried lemmy during the exodus are hard to retain.
Agree, but it’s also a problem of pure lack of content. Now that I disabled the mirrors from alien.top, I honestly miss the niche communities that I participated and it is taking quite a bit of willpower to avoid saying “screw it” and re-joining the subs I participated there.
Most of subreddit admins and mods are not interested in migrating to somewhere else. A few months after API changes Reddit is still usable and active. Even third party apps are functioning if you apply a patch with your developer token. Also mods don’t want to lose their power.
If you really want to bring more official communities here, you should ask admins who are already interested in open-source or Fediverse. For example, I found that people behind Fossify (a Simple Mobile Tools fork) had created a subreddit. Ask them about Lemmy. It’s FOSS-friendly, there are a lot of fans here, so the chances that they’ll make and promote a Lemmy community are much higher.
Even third party apps are functioning if you apply a patch with your developer token.
Reddit is updating the link format, so some clients are starting to get broken: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/9459491
Good point about open source communities.
I would move an entire group of fighting games reddits over here but there’s no automoderator or mod toolbox equivalent. Until lemmy gets that basic functionality it’s moot to try and moderate anything at a high level
Honestly? Please try it. First I think you will not have as many problems because the platform is much smaller than Reddit so it won’t be as targeted as some popular Reddit subs are. Second, I think I can help developing the tools you need but it gets a lot easier to do so when working with an actual use case in mind.
I’m working with a few subreddits and their Lemmy equivalents, and I’d strongly recommend against this approach. As people have said, it sounds spammy and it would make the mods more suspicious of the Fediverse when someone comes along to actually try and work on stuff with them
It’s better to have this happen organically, but if you want to plan it out, what I’d recommend is work with one or two subreddit(s) you’re familiar with. Also know that you might have to take on the majority of the setup and moderation initially. When reaching out, be specific about the needs of the subreddit and why the Lemmy community might help the community, and be cool with them saying no.
Different ways it might look:
- copy in the subreddit rules (when it makes sense) and add mods from the sub, then let them run with it
- copy in the rules and have it be an official relationship between the communities where each just recommends the other
There’s no script because each time I reached out the situation was different. I can write up more on what’s worked well for me but that’s the gist of it
I get that you’ve got good intentions, but this reads like an email I would find my spam folder and I can’t imagine it would inspire any reddit mods to move over to Lemmy. The mods who were so dissatisfied with Reddit that they would be willing to migrate with the information in this script have already done so.
There are likely be some who might be willing to migrate if they get personal support from an instance admin or some other tangible offer of assistance, but nobody is going to jump ship just because “Reddit Bad” anymore.
Any suggestions for improvement? Or you think messaging mods is just completely useless?
you need to personalise it for each person and appeal to their unique interests. They are people, not bots.
I was thinking about the idea of adding “community ambassadors” to https://fediverser.network. The plan would be for people already on fediverse to tell which subreddits they miss the most, and then help them promote the Lemmy alternative by, e.g, listing which reddit users are the most active and send a customizable message showing them how to migrate. I haven’t done it yet because I’d like to have other instances besides alien.top to share the influx of potential users.
I don’t want more redditors on Lemmy.
People are people
I don’t think the problems on Reddit are because of the people on it, but the structure of the platform itself
In large part, I agree. But there are subs/content on reddit that isn’t available anywhere else. I’d like to stop having to go to reddit for anything. The more communities that set up shop on lemmy, the more search engines will provide people with alternative results to reddit, and the less we’ll have to go to reddit for niche content.
