cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/421803
I was wondering how the pre-reddit lemmy members feel about the influx of ex-reddit. Have things got worst or better? Is there any lemmy etiquette that we are missing?
So I’m part of the reddit influx. However, I’ve occasionally checked lemmy out a few times over the last few years looking for reddit clones. Lemmy had no real users or content (as compared to the bigger online communities, or even usenet of old). From my brief visits, there wasn’t much culture that had been built up yet, and it was mainly open source enthusiasts discussing federation. I think beehaw had been working on a decent community for a while, but they’ve de-federated with some of the fast growing instances. It would be good to post there and find out their perspective.
I think your question is a really good one though, and I’d love to hear answers, but am also getting a feeling that lemmy is a new space that is just now really taking off into its own with this new growth.
I’m in sort of a similar boat to you. I’d been keeping an eye on Lemmy in hopes that it might eventually see wider adoption as it became more polished in development. I think prior to the Reddit migration there were maybe about 10 or so servers running it, and of those 10 maybe a little over half had any semblance of a population and activity.
If memory serves some of the original instances were like:
- Lemmy.ml
- Lemmygrad.ml
- Beehaw.org
- Sopuli.xyz
- Mander.xyz
- Midwest.social
- Lemmy.ca
Of these, I think probably the most populated & active were maybe Lemmy.ml, Lemmygrad.ml, Beehaw, Midwest, and Lemmy.ca. Sopuli & Mander were (& I think may still be) smaller but they were still pretty active and have nice little communities.
Maybe I looked into them a little more closely than you, but I felt even then with their very small populations they had distinct cultures or at least cultural aims (probably most notably Beehaw & Lemmygrad at the time). However, you’re right that there wasn’t as much activity & content being shared by comparison to other networks just a year or two ago, which wasn’t surprising given how few folks were here.
Tbh I wish the Lemmy devs had had more time to polish the software before all this hit, but I’m pleasantly surprised to see folks weathering through its rough edges.
Yeah, I don’t think I explored as much as you. I was in part also looking for some “self-hosted reddit” options to manage some internal communications, and lemmy and the idea of the fediverse was interesting, but just so empty at the time I didn’t poke too deep.
I do wish they had a bit more time to polish things up, but its already really promising as it is. I mean we used reddit for literal years before they ever had a functioning search button though. Love this dive you did though, thanks!
Ooh nice, I didn’t see that one :) Thanks!
