I’m really curious where else everyone here hangs out on the internet besides Lemmy.
I myself am frequently on discord with my wife and friends playing games. I’ve also found myself in and around smaller blogs spaces like Kev Quirk and related people. Reddit used to be a place for me to hang out but I never found a community that I felt connected to. I don’t know if YouTube would be considered a place to hang out, but I frequently spend way more time there than I should. IRC used to be a great place for me.
So, where are your favorite places?
I’m still on IRC! There’s a raw simplicity to it that I appreciate. You don’t have to use a bloated Electron app to connect to a proprietary service, you can just go straight text on the protocol-level in terminal (if you’re nuts), and the protocol is open and simple enough to understand that you can easily make your own client even if you’re a lazy or mediocre dev.
So IRC, Lemmy, and I guess Instagram (if that counts)
What IRC servers still exist that allow random people like me to just join but have interesting people and channels and not just trolls and spam?
I second this question! I’d like to know some good servers with healthy communities.
Yeah it’s feels really nice. I’m not on it now but I remember loving the feeling of it because it’s not fucking big tech shit.
Ever since Reddit killed itself, the only places I really lurk are Kbin (and therefore Lemmy by proxy) and Discord. That’s pretty much it.
I have ignored Discord for years until recently. It just seems like IRC with a lot of flashiness and emojis. Is there more to this experience? I don’t intend to be disparaging, but I looked for some specific topic servers and just found the quality of discussion to be low and the experience to be chaotic.
I’m willing to be told I’m doing it wrong though - is there a “here’s the right way to get into discord” approach I’m missing?
Yeah seems so, it’s pretty ok though. It tracks what is new and your mentions so it’s vaguely like a messaging app instead of IRC.
I personally think the best way to use discord is to create a server and invite people to it as you meet them online. For me, it’s gaming that connects me with people. My wife and I meet people that we like and want to play with more, and so we invite them. This usually results in getting invited to other small community servers.
There are a lot of game development communities there. It’s basically a cheap, more public alternative to Slack.
Mostly the same for me. I’ve been poking around Bluesky too but I’m having trouble finding content/follows I like.
Feeds are the secret at Bluesky. Once you have a few of those you like, look at deck.blue.
It’s interesting that you say that because I have trouble finding content that I like on all microblogging platforms : Mastodon, X, threads and all. If you crack the code, let me know.
Ditto.
Same!
I think some of us are intentionally avoiding big tech now and try to find places online that doesn’t feel completely dead soul wise.
Lemmy feels good for me, but I’m also looking for web sites where I feel connected to people.
I’ve found that small blogs are excellent for this. I started my own and reached out to a few smaller blogs from some really interesting people. I instantly felt at home in the community.
Thanks, yes, I guess it’s time to go back to following blogs and interacting with real people again on the web. Before big tech, that’s what the entire internet was. Just lots of original web sites from individuals wanting to show their web design skills or talking about random topics.
It just feels like it’s harder to find those now, and also a bit inconvenient to remember to go to each site every now and then. We got lazy with centralized services, with everything under one centralized controlled roof owned by an insane billionaire with mommy issues.
An RSS reader is the ideal tool for that. No need to remember to go to every site when all of them are in one place. And most blogs have an RSS feed as well.
How do u setup RSS?
I use a service called Inoreader. It’s an RSS reader that can be used on the browser, iOS and android. The free version allows you like 150 feeds or something like that with a lot of functionality. There’s really no reason to buy the service.
You just either search the blog in the inoreader search bar. Or, in the case of smaller blogs (which is where I like to spend most of my time), you just look for a link to their RSS feed somewhere on the website. Below is a screenshot of what an example RSS feed link looks like.
Often, if an rss link isn’t on the page, there’s still a feed available. /rss and /feed are the most common places to find it.
I know some websites with single moms looking for connections…
Already found my girl. :)
98% YouTube and 2% Lemmy
If rest of the internet dissapeared it would take a while for me to notice.
Primarily mastodon. Really enjoying that.
Facebook for relatives & friends from the real world.
I find the Mastodon/Threads/Twitter medium to be kind of hard to love sometimes. You must have found a great community! Where/who do you interact with on Mastodon?
Retrocomputing, film & art crowds.
I’ve been posting a lot of silent film stuff recently.
On the big instances or some niche ones?
hachyderm. Medium-big?
Honestly, I read more, do more gardening, play more videogames. Kinda a weird benefit, but I joined two book clubs and a walking group. Started going to a parenting group on Sundays so my kiddo and I are making more friends. I guess reddit just pissed me off enough to go out and be more in my community. It’s kinda nice.
XMPP MUCs, IRC, some Matrix Spaces. Lobsters, Mastodon.
I refuse Discord. I really wish I could refuse Microsoft GitHub—source code doesn’t need to be a proprietary social media plaform.
if it isn’t for work related stuff, there are some self hosted github alternatives like gitlab, gitea and gogs
they might have less features tho
Oh I don’t use Microsoft GitHub for almost anything personal, but some language ecosystems only allow packages on the platform …& the issues, discussions, pull request model has lock-in to where you can’t submit a bug, propose a new idea, or even submit a patch unless the maintainer set up something third-party. Due to so many projects with lock-in, to generally participate in free software you must have an account.
Those alternatives are good, and they are more than feature complete. I sometimes choose alternative DVCS for non-work stuff as well. Can’t be forced or forked to Microsoft GitHub if you are not using Git. 🫡
Hacker News, mainly.
Sometimes I log on to Reddit to help travelers to my country or hobbyists trying to learn engineering. I try to avoid discussion on Reddit as the quality is often not high, e.g. lots of tourists asking how to commit crimes in my country – better to just not answer.
For discussion I go here, it’s much more interesting.
IRC has always been pretty cool. I might go back to that one day. For now this is just the part of my life where I try to make money and don’t have much time to socialize.
Which IRC servers are worth some time?
Oh that’s ancient history. I don’t think they are around anymore. Used to be on the one for the local hackerspace before they moved to Mattermost.
Then a few for technical assistance with various tools.
Reddit (only subs related to living in Japan since those didn’t migrate here), kbin/lemmy, fark (though I almost never comment anymore), and an old-fashioned forum/bulletin board (more stuff related to living in Japan).
Edit: and I guess YouTube? 99% of the time, I’m watching from my TV which doesn’t have comments or anything.
YouTube has kicked the wasp nest by blocking Adblockers. Lots of drama over there
What’s weird is that you can still use ad blockers just fine while you’re logged out. So I just open the videos in a private browsing tab to watch them, but in a regular tab to rate or comment.
Since leaving reddit with the migration, I’m now on Kbin, tumblr, Tildes, and playing somewhat more regularly on Subeta and Dappervolk.
Would you be willing to invite me to Tildes? I’d like to join.
I haven’t had any invites to give out, I would otherwise!
From what I’ve read they’re given out randomly to Tildes users but I’m guessing there might be an upvote/comment/post threshold that has to be reached first to be eligible, and it’s unlikely I’ve come close to that yet.
I got invited by someone on Kbin tho, so keep asking in threads like these and hopefully you’ll get one soon!
Got it. I’ll keep asking around. Thanks!
Every time a site update/announcement/whatever happens everyone with an account older than like a week (iirc?) gets topped up to 5-10 invites. You can (could?) also just go to r/tildes or email and ask. They use invites more as a way to slow registrations down than to be an exclusive club so it’s really not that hard to get your hands on one.
Where are the invites kept for tildes users to give out? Like how do I find them on the site?
https://tildes.net/invite should let you generate some
Thank you! I had no idea.
OK, thanks for the tip. I’ll try sending an email.
Do you still need an invite?
(Also is there any way to DM across instances? Not sure how to send you the link ontherwise)I would love one! I emailed the site admin as instructed in the announcement blog post, but haven’t heard back yet. Let me try to DM you (my app shows me the option, although I’m not sure whether or not it’ll work…). I’m going to send it right away, so if you see this reply but no DM, it’ll mean the DM didn’t work.
https://tildes.net/register?code=6BSGR-R8QLT-QK7M8
Let me know if it works! I’ll send you another if someone’s used it before you got to it.
Got it! Thanks a lot!
Tildes is a new one to me. It looks quite a bit smaller. How do you like it there?
I read through the top pages every few days and there’s some interesting people there.
It’s a very small community though and not a place for memes or silliness, so it’s kinda intimidating and I don’t commemt much.
I’m on Kbin but I’m not really sure what the future of the project holds, and the lack of an app (except as PWA) makes the experience less enjoyable than Lemmy IMO. Also on Discuit which is smaller and feels pretty organic and relaxed; I tend to engage more there.
I only hang out here, been spending way less time browsing online, which I’d say is a good thing. Been playing more video games, and even reading.
Also I’m curious about Discord, when people say they hang out there, do they just find a channel they like and keep up with the chat all day?
as someone who was heavily addicted to discord: yes, morning routine was basically reading messages from the night, mostly fear of missing out
Also I’m curious about Discord, when people say they hang out there, do they just find a channel they like and keep up with the chat all day?
I think so. I’m in a few discords, but don’t really keep up with it. However, people seem to be active in them.
My wife and I run a very active discord server. I created it for the friends that we have made playing video games, and so we just all play games together and chat on there. It wasn’t a server that I’ve really advertised to random people; it’s just for people that we end up playing with.
Reddit for niche topics, Imgur for weird and funny.
Obligatory “fuck Reddit”
I still use Instagram to keep up and chat with friends and Facebook only because my kid’s school only posts there
The obligation to stay on Facebook for things like this is so frustrating at times. It feels like LinkedIn, where I have it because it’s the only place to get some information.
Privacy aside, my Instagram feeds now are mostly filled with posts from random people. I do want to follow my friends’ updates but the recommendation algorithm keeps churning out rubbish. If only I could bring them out of Instagram and Facebook…
TV Tropes is absolutely packed if you ever want to join.
