Lemmy more social than Mastodon or Nostr
1y 5mon ago by lemmy.ml/u/minyaen in asklemmy@lemmy.ml from lemmy.ml
Having tried all three, its a stark difference in how much more social Lemmy is comparatively. Its not even close. Almost all posts I've encountered on lemmy have interaction; whereas, more often than not, posts on the other two platforms have no interaction. Wonder what the driving factor is behind this difference?
I've never heard of Nostr but Mastodon is a twitter clone and I don't find that style of website suits discussion well since you subscribe to accounts rather than communities.
It's an interesting dynamic!
I find myself talking more on lemmy as others say because it's easier/made for talking about topics. Mastodon and other fedi services center around following the account that made a thing rather than the thing(s) themselves. And that's fine, both have their place.
I think the other aspect is the easy to follow discussion threads. IMO it's the cleanest way to show and follow branching discussions.
I do like how it "looks" the most on topics. I wish mastodon had something similar revolving around their posts/hashtags.
You follow hashtags. It's what I do and it's been a good experience so far.
It's about the same as on Lemmy engagement-wise.
I've never understood what twitter style websites are actually for. They seem to have a tiny niche of celebrities and known personalities making a statement with no reasonable conversation stemming from it.
I don't understand how that structure was once one of the largest social media platforms in the first place.
In my experience Twitter was for modern Seinfeld jokes, mastodon is for monsterdon Sundays at 9pm et, and Lemmy is for commenting on Internet stuff.
the content is github
a distribution / marketing site is pypi
you are interacting with technologists.
The content already exists. And are interacting around that content. Rather than generating more and more content forever in a loop leading to nothing but more noise.
And you have direct access to these people! If a reasonable conversation is lacking it's cuz you are not bringing the party to the bar.
You are the star that makes the conversation happen.
So dial up a person 100x smarter than you. And find something to ask them.
Like a ChatGPT but will actual intelligence and passion at the other end.
I assume because people follow topics on lemmy, unlike microblogging where people have to follow each other to interact (one-to-many vs one-to-one). So it’s easier to interact with many people that you don’t necessarily had to be following prior, which increases the chances of interacting with more people.
Yeah Mastodon seems way less about discussion and way more about surfacing cool shit you wouldn't otherwise see.
you can follow hashtags.
Interesting. Perhaps I should give mastodon another go.
Well Mastadon is good for screaming into the void and hope someone shouts back. Lemmy is kind of like a forum type community where you already know someone is going to like your topic if it's in the right sub.
Well Mastadon is good for screaming into the void and hope someone shouts back.
It's good for small hobbyist communities that get built up from IRL spaces or broader online collaborations. If I've got a school group or hobbyist club and I want a bespoke "members only" social media space, Mastadon works great. Like Discord without all the obnoxious pop-in "Would you like to give us $40/mo for glittery icons?!" nitro ads.
Lemmy is kind of like a forum type community where you already know someone is going to
like your topic if it’s in the right subcall you an idiot for doing things a different way and throwing up a bunch of dumb memes in your technical sub.
Reddit-brain is all over Lemmy. This is a far cry from the technical focused communities you'll find on Github or StackExchange.
[...] call you an idiot for doing things a different way [...]
Reddit-brain is all over Lemmy. This is a far cry from the technical focused communities you'll find on Github or StackExchange.
Have you used StackExchange? It's very much "call you an idiot for doing things in a different way."
It’s probably that Lemmy is communities but mastodon is individuals
rock stars, not individuals
Werewolves not swearwolves
Honestly, I think is the whole ”First Post” mindset.
When you post a reply on Mastodon, it is more intimate, the only people who see it are the original tooter and anyone who actively seeks more commentary. It is a dialogue between two people, or multiple dialogues between one person and many others.
Lemmy is more like a forum, where everyone can see all comments, right underneath the original post. It is more like an open-table discussion.
It is not that Lemmy is more social, it is just less personal.
One of the big things driving interaction is that Lemmy's default comment sorting algorithm is a bit backwards to reddit's. As long as you get upvoted once, newer comments will appear at the top. So even if you participate late in a discussion, you're likely going to get responded to by other latecomers.
The fact that comments are prioritised by simple rules, an not by some sort of monolithic ALGORITHM, keeps the discussion dynamic.
It's still an algorithm.
I am inferring a difference between an algorithm that is based on simple rules, and an algorithm that is constantly being dishonestly modified for commercial, political and financial benefit.
I left reddit for lemmy on the big migration but I though it wouldn't last. Here I am years after. I enjoy lemmy a lot more than I ever did Reddit.
One thing I've found on lemmy that was almost impossible to see on reddit...
People apologizing for being incorrect. Also, people having actual conversations, without the immediate influx of "No, YOURE WORNG!" people.
I think it helps that Lemmy is so small, we know we're going to encounter each other again.
I hope it remains so! Its a big reason why I'm really keen on instance defederating, and such. Make the "island chains" just a touch disconnected, to keep monkey sphere's small.
I came here in the Reddit migration too, right after the API thing. I like that this place is still small - it has the community feeling that you only saw in Reddit in small, focused subs
nostr is yet another twitter, but for "anti censorship" folk, such as cryptobros and "freeze peach absolutists". Also has some crypto integration that lets it have shops and even a tiktok video thingy.
Huh. My experience with Nostr is essentially similar with fediverse. As it was decentralized, everything is depends on each instance and which kind of people you follow.
Not everyone on Nostr are everything you just said. Some people are literally using it the same way as Mastodon. Just making friend and talking about random hobbies.
Yes, and its activitypub bridge Mostr.
I have, but pretty much have figured out its for crypto bros who don't want people telling them not to shill their crypto shit, or fucking fascists who don't like people being able to just... turn them off, for being fascists.
There is no block feature? What the hell.
Lemmy is discussion focused, the bulk of content is the comments guided by posts. Mastadon/nostr are about microblogging, the posts are the focus of content, not the comments.
you are missing out. Which is much worse than just being wrong.
The focus of mastodon is on the people, not the comments.
Deeply care about the other person and then you'll be interacting with someone you admire
The comments are topics they find interesting and want to share.
With coders, when they post something, is usually mostly signal.
Mastodon is so boring for me. Some people boost me because I discuss my research or Linux but rarely any engagement
What really kills my engagement with Mastodon (aside for never being a regular Twitter user) is that posts in undesired languages still filter in my feed (I follow hashtags) even when I set up only two languages... Not everyone is filtering theirs I guess...
Stop with the feeds entirely from randos.
the streaming noise in arabic then French and Chinese is trying to drive the point home that u are doing something obviously wrong
try grabbing that French poster by the Freedom fries and get to know him.
Ask him about his adventures in Africa. Bet his colonial exploits come with some insights
You mean you only filter your two languages then they only come in?
Yeah exactly, I have no language issues while using Lemmy clients.
Doesn't mbin federate with Mastodon? I've been thinking about moving to an mbin server for that reason...
Why are you comparing apples to glass bowls?
Lemmy is a reddit clone, where you create communities.
Mastodon is a Twitter clone, where you share what you ate last night or what political meme you like today while sharing photos of moss and/or windows.
Nostr is its own thing.
You can't really compare them with each other.
Yeah, I get your point. But the question still remains. Lemmy objectively has more engagement/interaction regardless of the category of social media of each medium.
If you compare X to Lemmy, X has more engagement/interaction... And they are separate social media platforms categorically. Yet, Mastodon trumps Lemmy's user count by nearly 10 fold...
It stands to question that with a fraction of the users on Lemmy, why is the interaction/engagement considerably higher?
An average post on Mastodon/X/Bluesky/Threads is "this is what I encounter" or "this is what I believe". Those kinds of posts don't specifically ask for a response. You can respond to it, but it doesn't require one.
That's not how you communicate on Lemmy or Reddit.
That's the difference.
Each platform has its own usages.
So to compare and say "well platform Y is more social, because there's more interaction than on platform 2" is a bit weird.
You wouldn't compare a letter with a message board on a town plaza either. Both can be used to communicate, but they're not comparable to each other.
Or in another way:
On Mastodon or Nostr, when you post something only a small subsection of the userbase actually sees it (only those who follow you, those that follow any of the hashtags that you used, or those that check the full firehose).
On Lemmy the entire community you posted it to can see your post.
Obviously you can get more response on Lemmy! More people get to see it.
Twitter have big interaction because user count is extremely high. For a microblogging platform maybe it requires that it needs lots of users and some "creators" who are followed by thousands of people, unlike communities which anyone can post and everyone joined the community can see.
I also think upvotes and downvotes plays a role too since mastodon does not have them(only boosts but boost actually shares with your own followers which might be very low)
It stands to question that with a fraction of the users on Lemmy, why is the interaction/engagement considerably higher?
I think the answer is fairly clear. Lemmy's topics & votes system funnels condenses the user-base to focus on particular things at particular times. The total number of users may be smaller than Mastodon, but basically everyone on lemmy is looking at the top posts on the front page first, and then exploring to other stuff later; whereas on Mastodon everyone is just doing their own thing.
Focusing people on one topic means that there will be discussion at that topic at that time; and discussion leads to people checking back to read and reply to responses...
I routinely use both Mastodon and Lemmy. I see a lot more varied content on Mastodon, but it is more fleeting. i.e. very little discussion, and fairly short window of interaction with posts. Lemmy has a lot less 'stuff', but a lot more conversation.
I think the difference is interesting, but it definitely isn't something we should use to say which platform is doing better or anything like that.
It stands to question that with a fraction of the users on Lemmy, why is the interaction/engagement considerably higher?
mastodon is another "general interest" social media hub along the same vein of reddit or bluesky or .world or .ee, which means that (excluding its founding group) it takes many forms of long term investments to gain sufficient traction enough to establish a core group of active users (assuming that it ever succeeds at doing so at all) and that core group is a small fraction of its user base (presuming that a reddit post i saw years ago showing that a tiny fraction of users on social media are responsible for a vastly disproportionate amount of content on all platforms is true).
lemmy's political origins pre-included the identities and accompanying pre-built core groups that had already start coalescing in other social media platforms like reddit & tiktok. by the time of the reddit blackout protests those groups already had new online safe spaces in various lemmy instances and their ranks swelled at the same time other reddit users started to fill the ranks of other "general interest" instances like .world and later .ee
that link you posted on lemmy user counts reflects the "general interest" instance's difficulties of retaining a core group of active users that disproportionately create the most content. it's around this content is where you will find the interaction/engagement that characterizes lemmy's considerably higher engagement; instead of the news & link sharing lower interaction/engagement that characterizes the "general interest" instances.
right now; the "general interest" instances have a relatively handful of VERY prolific users expending a clearly excessive amount of time and effort at creating a sea of inactive communities & instances in the hopes that it might eventually serve as a basis for a "general interest" core group and i hope that they succeed; i think that the lemmyverse would be better with politically moderate points of view and i'm sure that the "general interest" instances won't lose all of their users to bluesky, threads, nostr, etc. by then.
So what is Nostr?
Mastodon & others are microblogging (aka shitposting) platforms, while lemmy lets you ask questions in posts that will persist (not get flooded under a megaton of shitpost, hentai) and get answers.
On mastodon what's important is who you are (who you know, who you can interact with), on lemmy your post's content is more important.
On Mastodon, follow and interact with people you admire, not content.
Go to pypi look for packages you admire, find their maintainers, and get chatting with them. Coders make themselves available on mastodon. Not lemmy. Not twitter. Email is passe.
Do a survey. Look up 20 random packages you admire on pypi. What contact info do they provide? These packages must be actively maintained. Otherwise understand if dinosaurs in the past communicated thru mostly hand gestures and grunting.
Published coders are the richest resource of talent in the history of mankind.
Lemmy ... asking questions?! Is that it?
There is more to interacting and collaboration than hit and run knowledge sharing.
Microblog.... I just don't care about other people that much. Specific topics are more engaging and interesting.
i care about other people, specifically coders. They are my rock stars. And that's who i want to keep in touch with.
On mastodon, if have something up your sleeve others want to have access to you. I get access to certified, cuz whats that, geniuses. They have the repos, source code, and unittests to prove it!
On lemmy, not so much.
Or riddle me this, how to build relationships on lemmy?
You don't. I head back to Reddit personals for that.
Then to get something out the opportunities the universe is gifting you, all you have to do is turn on that empathy switch and adjust the level up to max.
The issue is all in your head.
You are surrounded by giants, but you don't notice or care.
Force yourself to care.
Find someone tomorrow and magically decide they are now the most important person in your universe moving forward. And you want to keep in touch with them regularly. And you find what they are up to thrilling.
Then type in this url
github.com
This will be enough to fill your entire lifetime and then some.
Sorry, what?
Mastodon right now is essentially macroblog and/or microblog. Entirely designer for different purpose than Lemmy.
Any group-based social media will have higher possibility of interaction due to easier way to find similar interest, whether Lemmy, Reddit, Facebook Group, Misskey Group, even traditional self-host forum.
The fuck is Nostr? I can't keep up.
Nostr is another fediverse like social media platform that the founder of bluesky created after he realized he had made another mistake like he did in creating twitter.
I know, right? It was very hard for me to grasp the Fediverse when i first heard about it. Now, it seems the protocol is being tapped into from a few different directions, so these new platforms may just be starting to make an appearance.
The format is certainly more conducive to discussion. On the flip side though since communities reside in spaces and are moderated by individuals here, compared to the more 'broadcast' nature of using tags on Mastodon, you end up with some really bad echo chambers on Lemmy. Just a quick look at a basic news community between instances will show a massive slant depending who runs it. With Mastodon people talk more globally and the obnoxious ones just get blocked en-masse rather than so much being at a mod's whim.
On the flip side though since communities reside in spaces and are moderated by individuals here, compared to the more ‘broadcast’ nature of using tags on Mastodon, you end up with some really bad echo chambers on Lemmy
These are two sides of the same coin, one side you called community and the other side you called echo chamber. Whether a particular community/echo chamber is “bad” or “good” is a matter of your interpretation.
To reword using more proper terms for the system, 'communities reside in instances'. A community called 'news' on .world's instance is a far different thing than on hexbear for example.
An echochamber is just a trait of a given community where any dissenting views from the home instance mods are reported and deleted. At least those actions are visible via the modlogs on here so it stays transparent though.
The problem with "free speech" instances is that it supports the dominant narrative, regardless of validity, and in many cases this results in far-right views being dominant as they aren't removed and everyone else leaves. This means some degree of "censorship" is required to run an instance. Further, everyone has a bias, so it's important to make that bias clear. The difference between news on .world and news on hexbear is liberal-domination or leftist domination in views.
I'll generally agree to all that. What I notice though is that far left instances (and I imagine far right as well, though I don't think I've really seen any on Lemmy) are far quicker to delete and ban than a more centrist instance who are more prone to let the argument play out unless it gets outright hostile/personal. When that delete button is too easy to use you get where someone can't have a proper discussion at all.
There's a difference in how "censorship" is conducted on, say, Lemmy.world vs Hexbear.net. Lemmy.world does soft censorship, they outright defederated from the 2 largest leftist instances. In a manner, this can be seen as banning every account from the 2 largest leftist instances, an extreme act of censorship, but it isn't recognized as such because it is soft. Outright removals of comments and posts are seen as hard censorship, as you remove viewpoints and people, which Hexbear does frequently with liberals and other right-wingers.
Lemmy.world uses this curated audience as a "narrative ecosystem," by removing any input from the largest leftist instances, there's no real leftist pushback against the dominant liberal narrative, and when there is, it usually gets heavily downvoted or removed. Hexbear on the other hand takes a more honest approach, and just says outright that liberalism isn't allowed and is bannable.
I wouldn't say the leftist communities are more heavy handed, but that they are more honest and forthright with how they exert control over their communities, it's more transparent.
I'd expect if there was an equivalent of 'gab' or 'truth social' they would be defederated too. I can understand an action like that because people join these places specifically because it's an echo chamber fitting their viewpoints and they're allowed and even encouraged to be hostile to outsiders.
With the way the fedi is set up you can certainly set up multiple accounts, and I'm sure there are more than a couple from those instances cut off that create accounts elsewhere to have those conversations. The difference being that they're expected to behave in a civil fashion rather than just screaming at others.
On my single-user instance I haven't defederated anyone and only blocked a handful of outright spam/troll accounts and a couple who seem to have a single life purpose to push an agenda.
There actually are those instances, they are just broadly defederated, lol.
There are definitely people that make accounts elsewhere to "engage beyond the wall" so to speak, but Hexbear and Lemmygrad for example exist for their own users, not as a "base of operations" for widespread brigading like some claim. It's nice to visit spaces free from liberalism and constant arguing, as a Marxist-Leninist myself. I also think the "screaming" type of behavior is more frequently found on liberal instances than leftist ones, but that's anecdotal and I have no way to prove it, other than the suggestion that perhaps our implicit bias clouds what we percieve as civil and what as "screaming" in the context of comment debates.
See I don't mind a decent conversation with them either. I actually hold a lot of 'leftist' views myself. What gets to be troublesome is when people come in with a perspective that what passes for liberal in the US is violently evil. Our system is very flawed, easily viewed by the way the electoral college allows for a person with less of the popular vote to win. However, it's what exists and without some massive uprising changes are going to be slow at best.
Look at the chaos that came from the George Floyd murder. That went on for a few months and little of major note changed. Or the occupy Wall Street that just kind of petered out to nothing. The media moves on to the next shiny thing and people lose interest. The most recent with the killing of a CEO was just a couple weeks ago and you can already feel the fervor for it slowing down.
People have good reason to want changes, and so many times 'liberal' and 'leftist' people have similar stated goals. It often feels that the liberals are being fought from both sides, one actively against them in principal and the other yelling for trying to work with the system as it exists.
Liberalism is the dominant system, though, and revolution is still the only way we will be able to get meaningful change. Liberal identifying people can be disillusioned with the system they perpetuate, but have yet to meaningfully change the system. Leftists globally have a much better track record at getting change.
A big part of it is Americans at large object to any kind of coercive governance however it manifests. I can't in good faith say that nations like China or N Korea that exercise such tight control over the public media and messaging are a net good to their population. Cooperative social goals for universal housing, healthcare, a decent standard of living are good, but we have a huge portion of 'bootstraps' minded folks that get in the way. In the meantime we get this piecemeal patchwork that we have that over time has lent itself to rights for minorities of various stripes that eventually get adopted as the norm. Right now we're sitting at a spot where the pendulum of progress is being pushed hard back right, how to stop that is the tough question.
Over 90% of Chinese citizens approve of their government, regardless of what you believe about their system they seem to enjoy it. You should listen to others outside the west more.
tags?
do the research to track down exactly who to interacting with.
then what would be the use of tags? Force of habit. Something to do to pass the time?
You can follow tags for a while in Mastodon, that way you don't have to follow a specific person but more a topic.
will try out the suggestion
mastodon is like an oasis in a sea of noise.
Concentrate on the signal, not the noise.
Build relationships with people you care about.
The problem with mastodon might turn out to be having a heart lacking in empathy. Need to be able to care enough to want to be associated with someone you admire.
We live amongst rock stars. How can anyone completely miss that?! The problem is neither the platform nor the rock stars.
Don't need a sea of people. Need 10 or 5 or 3. As long as they are rock stars. I count my blessings daily.
It's clearly how approach to using mastodon. Small tweak to your mindset and you can get alot out of the platform.
Dial up a super hero and tell them they are awesome.
Go to pypi
Find packages you like and their maintainers.
Hook up with them and tell them they are awesome, but found a few things that doesn't make sense in the docs. Whatever the approach. You are in!
Do it now.
It'll take all of 5 mins.
Why are all your comments like poetry? I love that lmao
not sure what poetry does
as long as the ladies seem happy might be something to it
Hey, I don't come into your house and insult you by calling you social media! /s
I think, much like HN or early web forums, we're below the population level where personal attacks get unmanageable. On Reddit voicing a dissenting opinion would always get you dog piled and that makes people defensive and boring as shit.
People here are generally (some exceptions being pro life/choice which is a deeply toxic topic at this point and Gaza which has emotions extremely high) arguing in good faith and even if they're rough initially a lot of times I've appreciated back and forth threads since, even if there's still a disagreement, most people will genuinely work to remove stupid misunderstandings and try and understand who they're talking to.
Additionally, the mods on most communities are awesome and focus specifically on removing things like personal attacks without getting heavy handed in interventions.
The blog style format (post + threaded comments) is a lot more inviting to a conversational style than microblogging. Some Masto instances have very open post character counts but some are much more limiting - as are Bluesky and Xitter. If you're not able to explain your point clearly it hampers the ability to have a decent conversation about it.
explain your point clearly with unittests. Then we are talking.
Prove it's true otherwise it's just conjecture. A missive. A random thought, or G'd forbid, good intentions.
I'll save you the time: "It's just conjecture".
yeah there is a lotta that floating around.
i feel locked in a cage with the proverbial monkey
shiats getting tossed everywhere. Dodging works for a time.
Eventually wanted more outta life than successive rounds of the classic game, space invaders.
People opening their mouths, whatever comes out, should be backed up with something. Even better if can interact with that something
You don't really pay much attention do you Mr "look for the signal"?
u are right
just confirmed my point
either i'm defective or thoroughly distracted by a never ending stream of disjointed conversation threads that just blend together and lead no where.
Was there ever any hope of forming a long last relationship? Or is that never been in the cards?
Are we just thread participants for the life time of this thread?
just confirmed my point
Or maybe you're so used to posting on a platform that's bad to hold a conversation on you don't notice when you're part of one on a platform that is good at being conversational on.
Concur. Love how lemmings bundle up and socialize!
It is fascinating because of how small (relatively) the community is on Lemmy.
I don’t know but that image looks sick
It is, right? I found it here.
I do have and use Mastodon. But more and more I keep thinking that traditional blogs + rss are a better fit for me.
What's the diff? I have a web site that functions like a traditional blog, offers RSS, but it's an ActivityPub application that participates in the Fediverse. Doesn't that describe every Mastodon-alike?
Longer posts. More control over formating. Easier to post more types of media.
And maybe it's less of a "social" media, and more of a "personal" project.
Maybe it's 90s nostalgia talking, but I miss those cool personal webpages.
@minyaen they do federate, they aren't competitors
posted from Mastodon
Yes, objectively. I wasn't intending for that message to be in question.
Tbh I'm a lot more antisocial here
Wondering if it's possible to put this observation into number...
That would be neat, some quantitative data comparing comments / views or the such per post, etc... I'm sure its possible. Maybe someone can make this happen? 🧐
Hey, just to drive some more social interaction, what’s your favorite color? Mine’s a mix of aqua and turquoise.
That didn't sound like a question