A writeup in PCMag!

  • Bucky
    link
    English
    1871 year ago

    I can’t get into calling subs “magazines”. Communities is much better.

    • @Boiglenoight
      link
      English
      481 year ago

      Just call them “clips.” /s Seriously though, the aesthetic of Kbin is its best feature, but the concept behind the threads seems. I dunno. Weird. Lemmy feels janky and basic, like old Reddit. 💗

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        361 year ago

        Coming off years of old.reddit.com, Lemmy felt like major bloat :) I’m used to it now though, definitely nothing compared to regular Reddit.

        And, yeah, the jank is 💗

          • @Pandantic
            link
            English
            61 year ago

            Also for Apollo users, the Memmy app is very close!

            • @LucidNightmare
              link
              English
              41 year ago

              There is also Arctic by CreatureSurvive being worked on which looks promising. I just want my Apollo experience again. 😭

          • GonzoVeritas
            link
            English
            31 year ago

            Old Lemmy is the best thing I’ve seen in a while. I found it last week, and it’s absolutely cured my Reddit cravings.

          • @moistclump
            link
            English
            21 year ago

            Also for Apollo users… wefwef. I added the web app to my Home Screen and it feels like nothings changed.

              • @moistclump
                link
                English
                41 year ago

                Oh yeh! And now you mention it, I remember that naming conversation. Well now I feel silly.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            3
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            Pretty cool, but I assume I wouldn’t be able to get my Subscribed RSS feed to work over there? There’s a login that ask for my username and password :/ No chance I’m actually trying that, does that actually work? I’m on SDFs lemmy, is it asking for those credentials? And, if so, who in the world thought that was a good idea in 2023?

            • Frellwit
              link
              English
              4
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              There are plenty of userstyles and userscripts inspired by old reddit if you don’t want to use mlmym. See [email protected].

              • Bucky
                link
                English
                21 year ago

                shitjustworks seems like one of the few really good instances.

      • Kayn
        link
        fedilink
        English
        71 year ago

        I’d argue that kbin’s UI is no longer a standout feature. Beautiful custom frontends for Lemmy like Alexandrite have been popping up left and right.

        • decadentrebel
          link
          English
          21 year ago

          This looks cool but not my cup of tea. Any other custom frontends we should know about?

          • @garretble
            link
            English
            11 year ago

            If it helps at all, the Alexandrite settings let you change the colors.

      • Flying Squid
        link
        English
        161 year ago

        “Bin” in the UK is where they put garbage, so I don’t know if that’s the best idea.

        • BlazingFlames6073
          link
          English
          191 year ago

          I wouldn’t mind calling subs garbage either lol. Kind of funny

        • R0cket_M00se
          link
          English
          101 year ago

          A bin is just a container when it comes down to it.

        • @scarabic
          link
          English
          61 year ago

          If the word “bin” bothers the Brits, they can just skip it.

    • @scarabic
      link
      English
      51 year ago

      Same. This is just bizarre to me. Paper magazines aren’t as common in the world today as they used to be, but neither are they some ancient thing that has passed out of history, allowing the word to be used for pure metaphorical value. Maybe some people are young enough for it to be so, but certainly not me.

  • BarqsHasBite
    link
    fedilink
    English
    1531 year ago

    I think these long explainations of instances and federation are really not necessary. It should just say “pick a server and start browsing. You’ll be able to see everything*.”

    “*If you really want to get into the weeds, blah blah blah.”

    • @Boiglenoight
      link
      English
      361 year ago

      Yes. Anytime someone starts trying to explain the Fediverse to someone signing up I want to put my hand on their face and tell the newbie right this way.

    • @Corvid
      link
      English
      351 year ago

      For real. Wanna try Mastodon? Make an account on mastodon.social. Wanna try Lemmy? Make an account on Lemmy.world. Once people buy into the platforms they can migrate to smaller/niche instances if they’d like. Simply things at first, active users will then slowly figure out the rest.

      • @yool_ooloo
        link
        English
        31 year ago

        It sucks migrating between instances right now. I’ve found no way to port my subscriptions from one instance to another. All of your subscriptions are saved on your current instance as websites, but to subscribe on you new instance they need to be formatted ![name]@instance Lots of work needs to be done

        • SkaveRat
          link
          fedilink
          English
          21 year ago

          And on Mastodon, you can’t migrate posts, which also really sucks

    • @moistclump
      link
      English
      211 year ago

      It’s like how there aren’t articles comparing email options. We all just kinda picked an email site and stuck with it until something goes wrong and then pick the next one. No one’s really investing time in debating ones over the others or trying to convert others to Team Hotmail or somethin.

      • @Mr_Blott
        link
        English
        201 year ago

        Yeah but we secretly laugh at anyone with a yahoo email address, admit it

      • Dablin
        link
        fedilink
        51 year ago

        Unless you’re crazy like me and host your own email server :)

        I like the direction Lemmy and Kbin has provided in terms of providing a messaging environment on the internet where it is more decentralized much like the internet of old.

        Email on the other hand has taken a serious step in the other direction with email monopolies from the big names such as Google and Microsoft etc that have made self-operated email servers quite a bit more difficult to operate then it really should be, at-least from the perspective of actually sending email to other people using their servers and getting it in their inbox.

        I find it ironic that Google/Microsoft etc use the excuse of spam/malware as the excuse to block self-hosted email servers with little to no email history/reputation yet most of the worlds spam comes from their servers.

      • @Merulox
        link
        English
        21 year ago

        But a negative consequence of that was the centralisation of email providers.

    • @flipthetube
      link
      English
      171 year ago

      Agree completely. It just makes it all sound much more complicated than it is in practice. I’m used to the fediverse now and my eyes glazed over reading all that.

      Another issue I have with the article is that he doesn’t even touch on third-party apps, which are abundant and pretty damn robust considering how new they are. The fact that much of Reddit’s self immolation was directly due to their treatment of third-party apps. At least worth a paragraph in my opinion.

      Otherwise, nice write up.

    • RBG
      link
      fedilink
      English
      81 year ago

      I am not sure I agree. It does not need paragraphs of explanations but something that says the server you sign up for decides what you can see, should still be mentioned.

      I have signed up for multiple servers in the beginning and found quite big differences in what I could see because of what was already blocked. Or servers that have not federated with each other yet. Then I stuck with lemmy.fmhy.ml and well, I guess you know the story.

      So I think it definitely should mention server choice may influence content and one should try out several in the beginning to see whats best for yourself.

      • BarqsHasBite
        link
        fedilink
        English
        01 year ago

        I saw this claim and signed up for a different instance just to see if it’s different. Nope, it’s the same. Unless you really go off and find an instance that curates, it’s really the same.

        They can have an explaination below, but for 99% of people it really doesn’t matter.

        • RBG
          link
          fedilink
          English
          4
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Unless you say what two instances you signed up for we can agree to disagree.

          I signed up on feddit.de, startrek.website and lemmy.fmhy.ml. I saw many communities only via fmhy, which we obviously now cannot test anymore. After that I signed up for ttrpg.network and was missing quite a few communities, and yes, of course I can search/connect to them to get them to federate, but the point is a new user does not know that and will not attempt it.

          This might be different now, a month in after the big move from reddit where there is more extensive federation, so your experience is potentially more valid than mine now, I admit to that.

    • DMmeYourNudes
      link
      English
      61 year ago

      So long as the federation of servers is based on the whim of the few people who own the instances, the server you choose is most currently relevant. The people running these communities need to realize that cutting of groups just because you don’t agree with them or have personal issues with them is going to cause an extremely fragmented experience, alienating new users who don’t understand the landscape this ensuring nothing but monolithic servers and communities exist and no small communities will ever be populated.

    • @ijeff
      link
      English
      51 year ago

      There are also some quirks in how Kbin handles things that differs from Lemmy. Linking to Lemmy instances works fine when viewed from Kbin, but it doesn’t seem to work when linking Kbin communities. All fairly minor though!

  • hitagi
    link
    fedilink
    English
    431 year ago

    Surprisingly a good writeup that details most of the features of both platforms while being forgiving of their flaws.

  • dinckel
    link
    English
    221 year ago

    At the moment, I login on kbin.social and lemmy.world interchangeably, since both are growing, and both are kind of unstable, but thankfully I can read the exact same posts on both. Will probably settle on one of these, or a different one eventually

  • @ChunkMcHorkle
    link
    English
    221 year ago

    I especially enjoy the x-eyed frowny snoos all over the orange background: perfect touch, and exquisitely appropriate.

    -chef’s kiss-

  • RheingoldRiver
    link
    fedilink
    211 year ago

    A little harsh on /kbin given that it’s been released for less than two months and the author doesn’t even mention this. Otherwise seems reasonable.

  • @jsavage
    link
    English
    181 year ago

    I personally don’t like KBin’s UI. It’s an immediate turn-off for me. Text too small, vote buttons look weird. Also I just loaded the homepage and the top posts are “🤔🤔🤔”, “ich🚗iel”, “Every time I leave or enter the house”, and a generic meme. No thanks, there’s enough trash like that already on the Reddit homepage.

    I’m building my own Reddit alternative zsync.xyz. I’ll open source it in a week. Hoping to federate it one day and make it into a pcmag article. I def respect the Lemmy dev(s). To an outsider a Reddit clone might look trivial to build but it’s actually a ton of work, and of course an enormous chicken & egg problem to overcome to actually get any users.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      101 year ago

      What’s unique or special about yours, as opposed to lemmy or kbin or any of the others? Especially if your issue with kbin is just the ui, it seems like making an app for an already established user base might be a better use of your time. If you’re just doing it for kicks that’s fine I’m not trying to bash that, I’m just curious. If you’re planning to federate eventually does it do anything differently to lemmy? What’s the use case?

    • trimmerfrost
      link
      fedilink
      English
      71 year ago

      I agree with low effort posts here on lemmy and kbin. But it’s mostly a end-user problem, not the software

  • Sir_Osis_of_Liver
    link
    fedilink
    161 year ago

    I rather like kbin and feel no need to go back to the other place.
    At least not until it starts randomly logging me off.

  • @gunpachi
    link
    English
    81 year ago

    I have not used kbin yet. Is there any feature that really makes it worth using over Lemmy ? I’m curious as I want to try it out sometime.

    P.S - I use Lemmy through wefwef

    • @M_Reimer
      link
      English
      10
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      deleted by creator

      • Jack.
        link
        English
        31 year ago

        Lemmy had a better backend when I tried kbin the last time. And lemmy has just gotten better since then.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      21 year ago

      I think the main thing that makes its nice is it federates with both Lemmy and Mastodon under one interface. While Lemmy can post to Mastodon instances and vice versa, it’s not a part of the Interface really, you have to manually copy URLs

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        61 year ago

        It’s buggy though and doesn’t seem to work properly. People have reported not seeing posts from Kbin on Lemmy at all sometimes.

    • Brkdncr
      link
      fedilink
      1
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Does lemmy use google or Facebook as an idp yet? That makes things pretty easy on kbin.social.

  • Hyphlosion
    link
    fedilink
    5
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    I chose Mastodon to be my Reddit alternative. For one, I love the change of pace and how different it is. And secondly, I can post on Lemmy through Mastodon, which is the coolest thing ever.

  • HidingCat
    link
    fedilink
    51 year ago

    At least one mistake in there though, since you can definitely block instances in Kbin too. It’s not the most obvious though.

    • rideranton
      link
      fedilink
      51 year ago

      At least one mistake in there though, since you can definitely block instances in Kbin too. It’s not the most obvious though.

      Also:

      • kbin does have an instance wide moderation log in the footer: https://kbin.social/modlog
      • kbin supports markdown, though it does not have a preview feature yet
      • kbin allows you to block users just like you can block magazines and domains, though there is no way to filter specific words (yet)
      • (probably a few more, but those were the ones that I noticed)

      @maxeddy

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    -221 year ago

    Why join trashbin when you can be a lemming! Ha ha ha. I love all the new terms and crazyness.