This reddit post likely has tens if not hundreds of thousands of views, look at the top comment.

Lemmy is losing so many potential new users because the UX sucks for the vast majority of people.

What can we do?

  • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    54·
    6 days ago

    Really early on like right after the API fuckfest, there was a large influx of users who picked servers based on whatever. As a result, servers defederated and there was a lot of drama as a result.

    Though that said I haven’t heard much about defederating in some time.

    • Otter@lemmy.caEnglish
      7·
      6 days ago

      It’s also less likely to happen now. Back when that happened, users didn’t have the ability to block instances and so it was up to the admins to do that for everyone.

      It’s now possible to block instances at the user level

      • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
        5·
        5 days ago

        Not really though - that only mutes communities, while the users are still free to troll you by replying and generating notifications in posts sent to other communities.

        Worse, that protection has even weakened rather than strengthened over time - the notifications used to be blocked. I almost decided to leave Lemmy myself when I continued to receive notifications for WEEKS and WEEKS after accidentally responding to a post that I encountered in All - I hadn’t read the sidebar, I didn’t know about that instance, and so how was I supposed to know!?

        I did that in Lemmygrad, and then again in ChapoTrapHouse@hexbear.net - and after that, I very much understand why people say that we are miserable tankie trolls over here.

        It’s the Nazi bar effect: “We” might be fine, but there are places here that anyone can just wander into without any advanced notice of what will happen…and then they leave. And complain over in r/RedditAlternatives, warning others against attempting the same.

        And since it’s TRUE, we DESERVE this reputation. 100% of the people I’ve ever mentioned Lemmy to have outright chided me for having mentioned it. I can see why, with such bOtH sIdEs SaMe content as this:

        img

    • PyroNeurosis@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      102·
      6 days ago

      What would prevent the same happening in the next wave of rats jumping ship? They don’t know anything about the servers or their niches, so they pick whatever. Listing all the servers and their missions is a good start for those motivated to join, but for those more on the fence, how do we ease the transition?

      • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        71·
        6 days ago

        I personally see three big issues with getting new users to Lemmy use and stat on Lemmy:

        • knowing about it: It is a matter of time before Reddit bans linking to Lemmy. Either by outright preventing their discussion via shadow deletes or full deletes. join-lemmy.org would be well served by purchasing ads on Google and on Bing
        • join-lemmy ux needs to be improved: this goes to your point and I fully agree that there needs to be a better onboarding experience. I am a fairly technical guy and even I had trouble understanding the major concepts behind Lemmy. Many of these concepts aren’t terribly important to a new user though. At least at first.
        • more and better content: this is fortunately getting better but we’re not there yet
      • ApollosArrow@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        6 days ago

        I’ve mentioned a list with info of some nature a few times, with people shutting down the idea. It always boiled down to “the instances may lie about what their instance is about”. In their heads what their write may be the truth, even if it isn’t. This would leave it up to a third party to make summaries of these instances, which may or may not be agreed upon. There may be too many drastic and conflicting ideologies.

        • Amju Wolf@pawb.socialEnglish
          2·
          5 days ago

          It would help of Lemmy had a simple migration option like Mastodon. Then, picking an instance wouldn’t be a big deal.