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
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 (Jebril) but it crashes immediately when I log in
Isn’t there one called Jerboah or something? https://join-lemmy.org/apps Here you go
Seconding everything you said. Speaking as someone who enjoys Ubuntu and being frustrated, I came this close to walking away from Lemmy.
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
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.
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.
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
Explain to people how it works! The most difficult barrier for adopting the Fediverse is a lack of basic understanding.
“It’s just like email, but we all share the inbox we group-sort by instance then community.”
@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!
Yeah not staying logged in as you navigate around the site is pretty crippling.
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.
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.
I definitely like the people and interactions here way more than on Reddit. However, there are clearly a lot of technical challenges to solve with server management and the general UI experience. I often get confused on how things work, especially with regards to federation.
Hopefully, these issues get ironed out over the next few months or years and I can safely call Lemmy a great Reddit replacement.
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.