A bit paradoxal but it looks that all central platform (twitter, reddit, facebook…) are helping the spread of Fediverse. Recently we saw the impact with Twitter on Mastodon, myself I’ve discovered Lemmy even if I wasn’t a reddit user. And before that Facebook first spread friendica and diaspora. It looks next step will be around Youtube where Google try to lock more and more its user.
I’m new to the fediverse, exactly for those comments. I’ve tried Mastodon a few months ago, but let it go. Mostly since I wasn’t able to figure myself out there. Like, there were hashtags (yey!) but there was no way for me to follow/store the ones I’m interested in (boo!). Eventually I let it go since it felt like a tiny twitter, so maybe I did something wrong there.
And also now with Lemmy, I feel a bit out of place out the moment. Again, tags that I can see in the app I’m using (Jarboe) but Ic annot find them in the web interface.
Maybe I just need to explore more.
You should use communities, instead of tags, on lemmy.
I figured that much out.
The only problem is, as people have mentioned before me, is that there is a very good chance that there will be running_doom_on_obscure_things on lemmy.ml and “running_doom_on_obscure_stuff” on lemmy.world and “correre_doom_sul_cose_strani” on feddit.it. I believe that adding tags could solve that issue. On the other hand, it would mean that we have a doubled system. Which is not necessarily bad.
I think eventually these alternatives will eat eachother into oblivion, I think this is simply a growing pain.
Hmm… yes and no. XKCD comes to mind.
But yes, evolution will solve this issue.
There should be an option for these two communities to sync each other.
Mastodon does allow following (and pinning) hashtags. It’s a relatively new feature, was added in version 4 at the end of last year. Totally OK to prefer Lemmy though, there is no wrong way to use the Fediverse.
I think that what is scary here is the steep learning curve. For people who has already developed habits/social circles on other platforms, it’s mighty confusing. For new comers, with no expectations it’s much easier.
Much like learning a new language.