It’s easy to make statements, suggestions, and opinions, but it’s really hard to actually do things in practice.

We all want more people here. The question is “How?”, and simply saying “Make good defaults” is easier said than done (what are good defaults?) and “good defaults” is too simple of an answer to a very complex issue.

The conversation has been stuck here for over a year already as very few people are actually willing to develop and test these solutions which takes a lot of resources too.

The irony of the situation is that a lot of these solutions that have been suggested also need a central authority. For example, people have suggested creating a central hub where everyone can sign up to. Another example is creating a little quiz which begs the question “Who decides which instances goes there?”.

The best effort I’ve seen in trying to implement a solution are Reddit mirrors which aren’t well-received because nobody likes talking to bots.

As a personal anectode on “lowering the barrier of entry”:

Since I started this instance (ani.social), my goal in mind was to make it very easy for users to sign up. There’s no manual approval here (except when it’s being flooded with trolls). Only email verification is needed – just like every social media platform.

But sometimes when new users sign up, they comment or post on communities in instances that defederated from us.

Now I have to think about how I’m supposed to explain defederation to people, and the moment I do try to explain, that’s a big turn off for many.

Trying to hide federation is impossible. The Fediverse demands a new kind of usership that understands how the network works.

Again, I’m not saying Lemmy can’t improve (it can in a lot of ways), but it all boils down to developer resources and who’s willing enough to test these solutions to see what works and what doesn’t. On the other hand, it takes minimal effort to say “It needs to be better”.

Apparently redditors who are too dumb to register should stay on reddit?

This has come up on Mastodon as well. Mastodon has a default server, which is mastodon.social. It’s somewhat controversial. I think it’s helped adoption but it’s also putting the ecosystem more under Mastodon gGmbH’s thumb…which is not great. I myself am on mastodon.social because it seemed like a sane default. I’d have chosen differently if I knew what I know now.

I’m not as plugged into what the defaults are for Lemmy or if there even are any. I’m sure there is room for improvement, but it is fair to say there are a lot of people who willfully refuse to understand how federated software works and act like it’s so complicated that no mortal can possibly understand it.

Can we do a lot more to help people who wish to join decentralized social media? Yes, absolutely. Should we give people shit for acting like choosing a server is so hard and confusing that they’d rather be on fascist-aligned platforms? Also yes.

Who’s “we”? I don’t run a lemmy instance. I’m not against new users. I’m also not opposed to a lot of hard work and money going into making the experience better, but since I’m not providing either - who’s “we”?

I support it because I want more people to talk about shows with

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What I’ve seen many times is people stating the opinion that we don’t need to grow. We’re not some big commercial platform and we don’t need to satisfy some investors. Growth will come naturally. Or it won’t.

My opinion is, judging by the numbers… We aren’t growing for quite some time now, so Lemmy will most likely stay what it is. I’d love if it were a super attractive place, though. And everybody would like to join.

Sane defaults are always a good idea. I’m a bit split on the “minimal effort” though. Minimal effort is letting some algorithms dictate what to consume, simple truths, and not bothering with complicated stuff like freedom or privacy.

And what I often see is people trying to solve such problems solely by technical means. And I think that’s not even half of it. We mainly need a nice and welcoming atmosphere, nice and interesting people, good content…

This isn’t a lemmy only thing.

Seen this since the 90’s and the start of Eternal September. ‘How dare we change or help these constant Lusers show up. How DARE we allow for differing opinions. Our way is the ONLY right way! Why should we allow this CANCER to infect us?’

To further emphasize that point: I’m part of a tilde community. I have been working on a migration document highlighting services and other options for social media migrants. The local newsgroup is sparcely populated. So the one technical guy that’s a frequent poster had this to say:

I think these followers and likes counters’ places unleash the wrong attitude. People write stuff to collect these by pleasing the potential reader instead of writing just facts. Fights over points and factually wrong answers that gained a lot of up-votes drove me away from reddit and SE. Some even write BS and get terribly upset if you point them to a man page that contradicts their statements.

Communication media should fit the job. Chats be volatile and fast while mail, mailing lists and news are allowing detailed discussions in long articles.

Sending people from twitXter or FB to Mastodon does not help them evolve. It just gives addicts a supposedly more free variant of their drug instead of getting them away from it.

Less is more!

The isolationists are wrong, and to me would rather watch the world burn for the sake of being proven right in their isolation than to help people.

Check out !fedibridge@lemmy.dbzer0.com … people there are actively thinking about ways to help people migrate. To some extent also !lemmyapps@lemmy.world

I don’t think the barrier to entry is all that bad… if you install Jerboa or Boost you’re immediately presented with Lemmy content without worrying about creating an account… then you can get a feel for whether you like it or not.

It’s only a problem if someone is told they must choose a server and create an account to see Lemmy content at all. Ideally people would just be pointed to a server and told to select “Scaled” to get a sense of the smaller communities…

I found the enrollment pretty straightforward when I joined. The page I found when googling “join lemmy” listed the major instances and shortly summarized the concept of federation. I don’t think even mildly tech savvy people would have an issue enrolling but it’d definitely confuse my eighty year old mom.

I miss being able to subscribe to posts. That’s a good Reddit feature that I think we’re missing.

There’s a lot that can be easily improved when it comes to cleaner default settings and usability. I’m all for what you’re suggesting. But…

We can’t expect people who want a perfect copy of Reddit to stick around here. We can welcome people when they come try out Lemmy, but there needs to be some give and take. For the benefit of leaving the control of spez and co., some jankiness and learning curves is the price to pay, mostly owing to resource constraints, a smaller userbase and the decentralized philosophy.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. When new users arrive here, I welcome them and regularly offer tips to make their experience better. On the other hand, if they aren’t willing to put in the effort to make the experience their own, I won’t cry if they go away either.

My comments in other threads are not intended to be isolationist, and when I reas others I fear you misconstrue many.

We are not saying “let them stay on Reddit and other corporate media”. We are saying “teach them, preach the benefit, and when they want to come, and are ready to come, they will.”

That is how you nurture a growing community, vs “make line go up.”

The more we can do to move people to the fediverse, thereby reducing corporate control, the better.

I’m happy to stay in my weird little corner.

In reality we should.

To many in lemmy are to happy to stay in their special little corner.