I think the main problem here is that there isn’t a really accessible explanation of federation and how these social platforms differ from the other, larger options. There is lots of great documentation for interested users to acquaint themselves with, but it would be beneficial to have a more ‘elevator pitch’ version that can get people moving through the signup process with more confidence. Even just a short message saying: “hey, choosing your instance isn’t as important as it looks right now, you’ll be able to freely use any other instance once you sign up” could go a long way towards making on-boarding much smoother. Once a user is in the system, they can learn what details they care about through osmosis for the most part.

I do think that having a default instance would help with streamlining the on-boarding process, but I don’t think that the idea aligns with the values of lemmy as a whole. It’s important to keep services decentralized in order to keep things free and open.

I’m a new user, so my opinion counts as such. My first concern upon signing up was understanding which communities I was allowed to see from which instance. Maybe a page where people can search by communities first and then show them where they are hosted/federated could solve this issue. Also, improving federations between servers could ease the signup process too. If any server allows communities from most other servers to be viewed, choosing what instance to join will be more a matter of personal beliefs and tastes than else.

I’m afraid that setting a default instance could cause it to experience explosive growth and monopolization of the communities. As someone pointed out in a comment in another post, while users on Lemmy are growing, donations are not, so the bill for a single instance with all the people on it will probably be huge. Also, if all the largest communities are going to be on a single instance, how difficult will be to create new original ones to bring some people to the small servers?

Captchas are bad for privacy. They allow the provider to track users between websites, and they are also bad for people because they are generally hard to solve for people with impairments. Also, automated solutions to bypass captchas exist on the market.

Also, I believe a network with high-quality content is better than a bigger generalist one. A little barrier of entry and manual screening of people may serve well for this purpose, so I’m favorable to keeping it.

I’ve just found kbin.social and find it has superior signup options. It’s just: make an account (email/password), or sign up with Google or Apple. No server talk.

Actually, it is not a superior signup option*. /kbin simply has no other English-language server! (remaining three /kbin servers are Polish-speaking)

*Well, corporate logins being available as an option actually are an advantage - for not-deGoogled users.

While this would get the effect of more users, it goes against what decentralized services are intended to do. One of the biggest things that decentralization brings is that Lemmy does not become another Reddit situation happening now in 7-8 years, if users are spread out over many instances, if Lemmy decides to pull a Reddit or a Digg, you can just go another instance instead of having to abandon it entirely.

Sadly it’s not a problem that can be easily solved by pointing users to a single instance, because then, ironically, you fragment the fragmented community into an “us vs them” situation against the lemmy.ml instance if anything were to happen, with lemmy.ml always winning because that’s where the users would be.

I think having a short list of general purpose instances, maybe 5-10 or so, where it chooses one of them at random and lists the others under an “other servers” button is the best compromise to this, as it spreads the load out across trusted instances, while also not leaving a single instance to become so big that they essentially control the entire network.

EDIT: I’ve just found kbin.social and find it has superior signup options. It’s just: make an account (email/password), or sign up with Google or Apple. No server talk. Upside is the layout is nice and it acts as a Lemmy instance (threads) as well as a mastodon instance (microblogging). Only downside currently is that their android/iOS app is in development and isn’t ready yet, so desktop only.

It could be the fediverse thing we are waiting for, but to use it in the current state as a first entry point has some downsides.

• it is early beta with a lot of features not implemented yet.

• the website still works good, even on mobile.

• in addition to the concept of groups, posts and comments you now have instances, threads, microblogs and magazines. That’s overwhelming and drives people off. The masses don’t care how it is technically implemented as long as it’s easy to handle.

• Edit: as a benefit to be an active part of all those integrated fediverse parts you have to set up several accounts for each part, not only for kbin don’t have to set up an extra account in lemmy or mastodon. You can post from within kbin.

Don’t get me wrong, as already mentioned I would love to see a fediverse browser collecting everything together. But for now that’s future talk.

Oo, I hope this posts gains traction, you’re totally right, although I speak from the perspective of someone who started out not knowing shit about fuck with federated social media, to being exclusively on it now.

As a new user, I think someone with a lot of experience with federated social media platforms and Lemmy specifically should create something that can be passed around which makes it easy to understand for incoming users.

An infographic or short video would probably help a lot.

You can’t have a default server unless someone is ready to pay for it. (Idk how Mastodon does it.)

What I’d do is:

1. have every instance list its most prevalent topics/communities/interests (technology, games, communism, memes…)

2. when the user is signing up, have them select their interests

3. try to find the ideal match. Let the user override if they want to, perhaps let them know if the community is tiny, requires approval etc, but other than that just show a “suggested instance: example.org, change link”

Good point and we should spread the word as suggested.

There are still some hurdles that will lead to problems when mass migrations happen. Not from a technical point, as I understood the servers don’t have any problem handle a lot of people, but from the community aspect.

• FOMO, is always a considerable point when joining a instance. It must be clear that the instance is just the entry point into the fediverse and there is still access to the complete content.

• fragmentation, while this is the whole point of the fediverse it could lead to missed chances when the critical mass for a sub is not reached as the community is spread over 10 gaming subs on different instances. A more easy process for subscription to interest groups that subscribe to all of the mentioned 10 gaming subs collected under language preferences. To solve this the apps used could support these features without the need to perform changes on the server side.

• a standard set of communities should be there for available on every instance. But then moderation will be a problem as there is not one mod but 10 needed for the gaming example.

I think there is still a long way to go. While I am happy with what’s there for now, bringing the people together under a fragmented structure will be the biggest challenge.

Maybe the kbin way will help as it collects the fediverse under one interface, no matter if lemmy, mastodon or whatsoever. The only problem is the account multiplication to join everything.

i like mastodon’s approach - its clean, simple, and easy to understand.

i think the fediverse is just a very hard concept for people to wrap their heads around if they aren’t internet savvy or already knowledgable on these things. i think in general there needs to be an easier way to fully explain what it is and get it across to people.

lemmy should def adopt something similar here to mastodon. i think having a default server is smart and probably the right move (with the “Pick your own server” option or something similar right below, just like what Mastodon is doing, so users easily have the option), HOWEVER i think before that happens, lemmy does need to allow migrating and moving servers, and ik lemmy.ml is being overloaded really badly rn in general, so those issues probably need to be sorted too.

I think the way Mastodon is handling new users is pretty problematic. Not only did this lead to huge amounts of spam on the network because Eugen’s instance couldn’t handle the amount of new users, but also this goes against the very idea of federation.

Unpopular opinion: if finding an instance is too hard for you, maybe the federated internet just isn’t for you. I see people on reddit still complaining about how difficult Mastodon is, and I’m sorry but if that’s too complicated for you, just stay on reddit. Considering the level of discourse of both sites, I think it’s a feature, not a bug.

yes please. This is lemmy’s time to shine. If the servers can handle the load and people don’t understand the Fediverse just yet, i say let people be directed towards one good location.

As far as i can tell, after people join and learn the basic interface they start asking questions about the broader capabilities of the fediverse on their own.

I think Lemmy already solved this problem way better than Mastodon has ever done. The flow of wanting to “join Lemmy” to there actually being a join-lemmy site, and then you click join a server and there’s a recommended one or two right at the top, with plenty of activity and are run well but not neccisarily the biggest kid on the block. i guess the one big stumbling point is that people might get stuck on joining versus hosting a server- maybe the instance list should be the front page of the site and if you know enough to want more info then you can go deeper, and if not you click the first one and go

I think it’s a great idea. Let there be an Ellis Island, accepting the tired, the hungry, the poor. As long as there are signs everywhere letting them know “you probably shouldn’t live the rest of your new life here, try somewhere else!”