this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2023
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Reddit Migration

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### About Community Tracking and helping #redditmigration to Kbin and the Fediverse. Say hello to the decentralized and open future. To see latest reeddit blackout info, see here: https://reddark.untone.uk/

founded 1 year ago
 

Think about things from the point of view of someone who has never used Reddit or the fediverse, but you've heard about them both from recent news articles and want to see what they are about.

Reddit:- You Google Reddit and your first result is Reddit.com. You click the link and are presented with the front page. You from scroll from a few hours and end up signing up and staying.

Lemmy:- You Google Lemmy and your first result is a wiki article for Lemmy Kilmister... Your second result might be join-lemmy.org, which you're smart enough to realise it's probably more likely what the news is about.

You click join-lemmy.org and are presented with a page of information about the fediverse, links to set up a server and pictures of code...

There is very little chance you're going to investigate further.

If we want the fediverse to replace Reddit then either
A) Lemmy needs to improve its initial impression and Search engine optimization
B) We should be promoting a different platform with a better initial first impression.

I'd recommend kbin personally as it gives the same sort of experience as Reddit from the initial interaction.

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[–] abff08f4813c@kbin.social 274 points 1 year ago (24 children)

kbin is newer and less polished. But yeah I personally recommend kbin over lemmy for exactly the reasons you posted.

[–] tbird83ii@kbin.social 150 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Also, the Kbin dev expressly stated he isn't ready for a massive migration, and the current influx has caused him no end of stress. We want to keep him around and not drive him insane.

[–] BedSharkPal@kbin.social 77 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would argue we also don't want to be in a place where we rely on any one individual. Thankfully @ernest seems to understand that as well.

[–] ernest@kbin.social 304 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I appreciate the concern, and it seems to me that kbin is no longer just one person ;) Currently, kbin is a team of wonderful people who handle development work, devops, project management, and more. Additionally, Piotr helps me with administering kbin.social. There will be significant changes here soon, things are happening quickly. But to be honest, I wasn't fully prepared for such substantial growth, and it will probably take some time before everything stabilizes. But... this is just the beginning ;) What's important is that the snowball starts rolling, regardless of whether kbin, Lemmy, or Mastodon gains the most users. We all win in this situation.

[–] ferallettuce@kbin.social 55 points 1 year ago (2 children)

@ernest

@Fizzee @abff08f4813c @tbird83ii @BedSharkPal

Given that Kbin has more active users in the past month than any lemmy instance, I’m sure it’s been wild for you considering this was a side project.

[–] ernest@kbin.social 138 points 1 year ago (14 children)

Yeah, the pace is still crazy, but it's a completely different mental comfort when you're aware that you're not alone ;)

[–] digitallyfree@kbin.social 39 points 1 year ago

We're all with you!

[–] DracolaAdil@kbin.social 22 points 1 year ago

Yup, we are all with you dude!

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[–] BEEKAYRANDEE@kbin.social 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The thing that helps Kbin the most is that it is, by far, the easiest to understand. Googling "Lemmy fediverse" gives a bunch of various links to other Lemmy instances, which are presented in a way as if they are separated from one another. Kbin appears as one site, one location for content aggregation. Although that "goes against the idea" of decentralization, most users are currently looking for their "one home to replace their old one home". The more users flock to one area and learn how it works, the more things will begin to take their proper shape, so to speak.

[–] rideranton@kbin.social 22 points 1 year ago (3 children)

A feature we'll definitely want to have with kbin in the future is the ability to migrate accounts to other instances. That would mean that even though we're centralizing on kbin.social right now, people could move to other instances and spread the load across the fediverse without losing their history

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[–] Steampunk@kbin.social 19 points 1 year ago

Love you, Ernest 💕

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[–] Crankpork@kbin.social 23 points 1 year ago

Less polished, but the browsing experience is better and more customizable than any Lemmy instance I've been on so far.

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[–] bluGill@kbin.social 64 points 1 year ago (13 children)

I recommend kbin just because some of the people behind Lemmy are vocal far left wing. I want to support more moderates in the world.

[–] JamesGray@kbin.social 65 points 1 year ago (19 children)

What's the moderate position between "trans people should not be allowed to exist in society" and "trans rights are human rights"? You have to understand every time you or anyone else says some shit like this you're basically crying that people are taking a position instead of just watching the right wing try to ruin peoples lives.

The supreme court literally ruled to allow businesses to discriminate against people based on sexuality yesterday.

[–] Crankpork@kbin.social 30 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This. While things are new, and nothing has taken the place of "service that everyone uses", LGBTQA+ people are going to avoid the unsafe places which is going to push discussions further and further right. A "moderate" position that treats the bigots the same as people who just want to live and feel safe isn't moderate at all.

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[–] hydro033@kbin.social 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

It worries me that you get a bunch of downvotes for this. People are way too accepting of political biases if they're in the direction they prefer.

[–] VectorSocks@kbin.social 88 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Because it implies that basic, milquetoast progressive values are "far left".

[–] Chetzemoka@kbin.social 52 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, no there are literally tankies. Lemmy.ml the ml means marxist-leninist and lemmygrad.ml is just straight up tankie CCP apologists

[–] Crankpork@kbin.social 47 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What's left wing about simping for dictators? Just because they called their countries "communist" to keep people from realizing, they were both effectively totalitarian dictatorships, and that's about as right as it gets.

[–] honorfaz@kbin.social 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@Crankpork they're left wing dictators? The wings are about economic policies. Communism is an ultra far left economic system like pure laissez-faire capitalism is an ultra far right economic system. You can be authoritarian or libertarian in either group. Or you can have more moderate economic views and still also have more authoritarian enforcement or extreme libertarian/anarchic lack of enforcement

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[–] Chetzemoka@kbin.social 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

I mean, that's exactly my point though. People seem to be knee jerk assuming that the "leftist" accusations against the .ml instances are standard issue right wing hyperbole against progressive liberals and that's not the case. It's just as much that progressives are complaining because we have no interest in associating with tankies.

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[–] The_Tribble_Juggler@kbin.social 18 points 1 year ago

I'm liberal, but I'm not at the "censor users criticizing the Chinese government because they're communist" level. I was also skeptical of what people were saying about the lemmy.ml admins (the original lemmy devs), but they're anything but miquetoast progressive.

That doesn't represent all of Lemmy though. I just wouldn't recommend joining .ml

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[–] cacheson@kbin.social 37 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

I think part of it is that leftists (myself included) don't like being lumped in with tankies. I didn't downvote though.

The lead devs of lemmy are tankies, basically meaning authoritarian communists of the genocide-apologist variety. They also run the lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml instances.

This is also why I signed up on kbin instead of on lemmy. The other lemmy instances are fine, but I don't want to contribute to the influence of the lemmy devs any more than necessary. Hopefully they try to pull something stupid and get forked off the project.

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[–] Kantiberl@kbin.social 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

Oh don't even get me started on the downvote brigades from angry leftists around here. Don't you dare hold a moderate opinion around them, or they call you a nazi and tell you to go back to 4chan. You can read my post history. All I've ever expressed is the same sentiment expressed here, and I've been met with nothing but absolute vitriol.

[–] SoupOfTheDay@kbin.social 59 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Because we saw what happens with Reddit. People come in claiming to be “moderate”, and very quickly shit like T_D starts popping up. Also center of the road politics in the US has had rights taken away from millions of people in just the past year, and it’s going to continue to erode them from more. I’m not telling you to change your political stance, but I am telling you that people see them as an attack because they have literally been attacked by “moderates”.

[–] Melpomene@kbin.social 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's fair to want to ostracize those who claim to be "moderate" who are anything but, absolutely. Concerning civil and political rights, there should BE no moderate. Either you support people's fundamental rights or you do not. Either you support everyone's right to love, sex, and associate with consenting adults or you do not. Either you support people's right to choose what to do with their bodies or you do not. There's little left to discuss.

Having said that, the US (and the world generally) has a terrible record, left or right, in supporting people's civil and political rights. I'm overjoyed that at least left leaning folk now support those rights, but it wasn't a decade or two ago that those on the left of the political spectrum were parroting many of the same things that the right now parrots. "Marriage is between a man and a woman." "Don't ask, don't tell." So while I am glad they've shifted, I'm always concerned that if the political winds shift again, those in power will sacrifice individual rights in the name of maintaining said power as they did before they decided that advocating for our rights was going to keep them elected.

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[–] snooggums@kbin.social 38 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Your post history shows you are solidly on the right end of the spectrum based on your expressed opinions while trying to justify yourself as moderate.

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What you call "moderate" is likely viewed very differently by other people, since I assume you're from the US, and US politics has become a far-right fucking shitstorm. The overton window has shifted so much over there that "moderates" are degenerate cunts to more reasonable people.

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[–] Hondolor@kbin.social 28 points 1 year ago (3 children)

agree. Part of why I liked reddit was that I could customize my feed to ignore political diatribe (left and right) and just read the feeds that interest me. Lemmy is so infested with leftists that it spills over into every part of their community

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[–] AlternativeEmphasis@kbin.social 21 points 1 year ago

You're being downvoted because people don't understand you're not talking about "far left" like some Trumper. You mean literal tankies, which absolutely yes some of the Lemmy Devs are as well as Lemmy.ml. It's also a reason I selected Kbin.

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[–] BlackCoffee@kbin.social 28 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Reddit is almost 20 years old now?

Do you expect Lemmy and Kbin to be an immediate replacement or an replacement at all?

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[–] swirls@kbin.social 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm on kbin now because I have no idea what I'm doing.

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[–] originalucifer@kbin.social 18 points 1 year ago (5 children)

3 of the top 4 results for me are fediverse related when searching for "lemmy".

I don't think its the signing up, its the lack of centralization/community. reddit was a singularity, the community is protesting en-masse because they felt they were all part of the same thing.

to me, the fediverse is a segmented.. oddly connected group of overlapping communities. it lacks cohesion.

[–] Kichae@kbin.social 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The Fediverse is just the world wide social web. It lacks cohesion just the same way that the regular web does.

That's going to limit its appeal for the people who see the internet as 3 cellphone apps. But that's also ok. It doesn't need to be for them.

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[–] MonsieurHedge@kbin.social 18 points 1 year ago

It's also a hell of a lot clunkier. For all the talk of federation, it can be a total pain in the ass to view content on a non-native instance. Edits not loading, boosts/upvotes not taking, some posts just not showing up at all...

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