The only successful example I found the other day was https://old.reddit.com/r/FloatingIsFun/, now [email protected]
If a few other communities could move over there, that would help make the platform more active.
There is a banned subreddit that recently moved here (I won’t mention it to avoid them getting raided, but if you browse All you probably know which one I’m talking about), that was very interesting, and some proof that the current tools (the websites, the mobile apps, the interfaces) could work for people outside of the usual “tech / Linux / FOSS” bubble.
What do you think?
We had a few such attempts in the past, but experience shows that Reddit mods have limited influence on that. Even if they are really trying to move over people it ends up being only a small minority and after a few weeks/months they all go back.
What we need is more homegrown communities that grow naturally by attracting people.
What we need is more homegrown communities that grow naturally by attracting people.
That’s probably the biggest issue.
How are people supposed to hear about Lemmy at the moment?
- a few subs like /r/RedditAlternatives
- a comment that might mention it, but quickly removed or deleted
Reddit got really popular when it started to become the “one place to find answers about anything”. And it still is to an extend. While Reddit is still there, it will be hard for Lemmy to really emerge.
We’ve been stagnating at 48k-50k for the last few months, there is a risk of more and more people leaving over time, leading to the end of the platform
I won’t leave until I am the only one left
Honestly, in a scenario where most of the most prolific poster leave, I don’t give Lemmy a month before the thing becomes completely empty.
Laaate reply, but: 1) it seems to me there’s a big bloc of users who truly despise Reddit, and would go anywhere else but back, 2) there seems to be a pretty big bloc of users who are comfortable with the size and nature of Lemmy, and don’t want to go anywhere else AFAIK.
This is one of those things that I’m planning to work on more actively soon!
I think it can be an effective way to help people find Lemmy, and it will work better if that the focus is on letting people know that the option exists (rather than being pushy about it).
Which community to work with
IMO it’s the best community to work on might be one that you are already familiar or active with. If you have a good reputation with the mods already, they will be more likely to listen to your idea. Similarly, some subreddits will benefit from having a space on Lemmy more than others.
What benefits to highlight
I’ve been busy with some other things for some time, but when I was last working on this with a few subreddits, the main benefits were:
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A lot of users don’t want to have to use Reddit, and many have already stopped using Reddit. Having a similar community without ads/tracking with the same moderation team will go a long way to helping those people stay involved
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A well known backup community is very helpful. Some subreddits serve important purposes and even temporary outages on Reddit can affect time sensitive questions. Meanwhile, there have been cases where entire subreddits were removed in error (ex. automated systems reacting to mass reporting), and users had no idea what happened. It’s helpful to have a second place that everyone knows to check for updates in those situations.
Potential process
- bring up the idea, and offer to help with the set up and day to day moderation
- work with the current mods to make moderation consistent between the platforms, so that the experience is similar
- see if some of the mods want to make accounts here so that they can rest easy knowing they have moderation permissions here, even if they don’t use it day to day
Once both communities are linked, there’s a chance for trust to build and users will feel more comfortable knowing that the Fediverse community is an ‘official’ one. That can be helped by having information in the sidebar, a pinned post, and/or a note on the submission page, etc.
Day to Day
This requires having an account on Reddit and being somewhat active on it. Users are more likely to explore the fediverse if they see content from it. Some ideas could be
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A weekly “here’s what you missed from Lemmy”
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Sharing any major updates about Lemmy / the fediverse community
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If there is an important post that could benefit from reaching more people, then letting the OP know that they can post here as well
Thank you for the very valuable comment!
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I just hope more come here. I miss the actual content. We do have similar communities, but there are less posts / comments.
I guess we all hope, but we can probably also take some actions.
With the natural user inertia, I don’t see people leaving Reddit in mass except if some communities start to actively doing it.
I miss xbox and playstation (all their permutations). Also malelivingspace. The other subbreddits are starting to get vague in my mind. I have been here for a year, so I don’t remember the others.
I posted a bit to [email protected] but stopped, maybe that’s something that would be worth investigating.
Hi! [email protected] mod here. Thank you for the shout out! I’ll try to participate here from now on.
Sub.rehab can show you subreddits that have verified official communities on Lemmy, Mbin, and others. You can import your followed subreddits from Reddit and find their Fediverse counterparts quickly. It’s the best place I’ve found for Reddit users to find communities to follow here, even if a lot of them aren’t very active and their Reddit versions are still active too.
I think Lemmy and Mbin’s interfaces scare some people off. A lot of users don’t know that Lemmy has plenty of other third-party interfaces like Photon, Alexandrite, Voyager, and of course, Old.
Mbin lacks these for now, but makes up for it with the rarely-used custom CSS for magazines, just like Old Reddit, and custom JS too! I use mine to create a two-column layout with big thumbnails! Unfortunately, the CSS doesn’t federate and is only visible when viewing it on Fedia itself. I’d love to have even a Lemmy-like banner image on other instances.
For the daily word puzzle Wordle, [email protected] and /r/Wordle both benefit from having a bot post a discussion thread for each day’s puzzle as it’s released. I go there every day and post how I did on the day’s puzzle. I still post and moderate on the Reddit one every once in a while, but I tell them about the Lemmy one while I’m there. The recently-created [email protected] does this for several daily puzzle games, but I’m not sure if it’s a stronger community or just more cluttered.
Of course, we could remind Reddit users that the Fediverse doesn’t have ads! That was a huge selling point for me.
And when a Reddit community decides to go all-in and move here, they could consider a full screen redirect link like Old Reddit /r/Mei. I thought about using that redirect myself on my old subreddit.
Hello,
Thank you for your comment!
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We’re actually in contact with the r/Medicine moderation team over in [email protected]. We never ended up formally announcing a partnership / official status because everyone got busy, but it’s something I want to go back to at some point. There are a lot of amazing medicine/healthcare communities on Reddit that could benefit from an alternative here
See also this post for other medical spaces: https://lemmy.ca/post/6611650
I also think that Mastodon healthcare people could be interested in a community here, if there is a good way to reach them and let them know it exists
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That’s the goal for the community eventually!
I don’t think there are enough medical professionals making that content yet, so in the meantime I’ve been trying to share news/updates relevant to medical professionals. I’m happy to make any changes to the community to help meet those needs.
It seems to be a chicken-egg situation like other niche communities. While it’s mostly laypeople right now, it might just need a few medical professionals to start making text posts there, and then others can find the community over time.
I can also do more promo for it
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As always, the good old weekly discussion thread might help to engage with people
/r/Cleveland
And
/r/ClevelandGuardians
I miss my friends…
/r/Columbus too. We tried with [email protected] and a few others, but they all died out after a few months.
To be real, the regulars at [email protected] are completely different from the regulars I had at /r/FloatingIsFun. I couldn’t get most of them to follow me to the Fediverse, and the community I built on the Fediverse mostly benefited from the added exposure of a Lemmy bug that pinned all Kbin posts to the top of /new for two hours.
the only reason i visit reddit for nowdays are the fgc subs (stuff like r/StreetFighter & r/Fighters)
i also think gaming comunitys in general are a good fit, because they bridge the gap between IT nerds and a more casual userbase
Pinging @[email protected], really love your community by the way!
You can simply write [email protected]
It is recognized as link to community and not as link to web page.
I usually use links that way because that’s how they come up using the dropdown suggestions from the Lemmy web UI.
Probably something to open a ticket for on the GitHub