Perhaps I’ve misunderstood how Lemmy works, but from what I can tell Lemmy is resulting in fragmentation between communities. If I’ve got this wrong, or browsing Lemmy wrong, please correct me!

I’ll try and explain this with an example comparison to Reddit.

As a reddit user I can go to /r/technology and see all posts from any user to the technology subreddit. I can interact with any posts and communicate with anyone on that subreddit.

In Lemmy, I understand that I can browse posts from other instances from Beehaw, for example I could check out /c/technology@slrpnk.net, /c/tech@lemmy.fmhy.ml, or many of the other technology communities from other instances, but I can’t just open up /c/technology in Beehaw and have a single view across the technology community. There could be posts I’m interested in on the technology@slrpnk instance but I wouldn’t know about it unless I specifically look at it, which adds up to a horrible experience of trying to see the latest tech news and conversation.

This adds up to a huge fragmentation across what was previously a single community.

Have I got this completely wrong?

Do you think this will change over time where one community on a specific instance will gain the market share and all others will evaporate away? And if it does, doesn’t that just place us back in the reddit situation?

EDIT: commented a reply here: https://beehaw.org/comment/288898. Thanks for the discussion helping me understand what this is (and isnt!)

  • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    73
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    On Reddit you also have multiple subreddits on technology. Especially when Reddit was just starting out several people started technology subreddits. It is just that you only visited the one most popular with the most users and most content. Which built up over quite some time. I think it is weird to expect Lemmy instances to be exactly like Reddit is now, when you consider Reddit is 17(!) years old.

    While there will be a few instances which are very niche because they get defederated from anyone else and they may have a technology community as well, for the bigger, federated instances there will be the one big technology community again.

    Currently people all over the fediverse start new communities without checking if they already exist. This won’t go on indefinitely…

    • mainfrog@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      I think the difference is entry points. You’d start with /r/gaming - but you may eventually unsubscribe from that and subscribe to more niche gaming subreddits or even game specific subreddits. The day one Reddit experience is significantly more digestible compared to Lemmy. Content and community discovery isn’t as easy on Lemmy either.

      • Lanthanae@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        It’ll get better with time though. The tech needs time to improve and the ecosystem needs time to grow. Contributing to those two things will be what allows issues like difficult onboarding and difficulty discovering content to naturally solve themselves.

  • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    72
    ·
    1 year ago

    On Reddit there can be multiple tech subs too, and I bet there are. Usually one of them just becomes dominant.

    • EvilColeslaw@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      24
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yep I followed multiple subs with overlapping content, especially with technology, PC hardware, etc etc

      • JillyB@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        25
        ·
        1 year ago

        There are 2 car-enthusiast subreddits. /r/autos and /r/cars. Years ago they were planning to merge because they were so similar. Some disagreement between the direction caused them to not merge and actually differentiate. Now /r/cars doesn’t allow image posts to foster more discussion while /autos can be more about looking at cool cars. I think similar things will happen to Lemmy

        • Enfield [he/him]@beehaw.org
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          I agree that something similar will happen over time. I think there’ll inevitably be overlap between instances and their communities, and that overlap will stymy discussions to a degree. But I also think that instances and their communities will gradually begin to develop their niches and have different strokes for different folks. Beehaw may be more attractive to having a friendlier or more cultivated group and discussion, another instance could lean toward corralling the banter and memes, and another still could be the best fit for media.

          I think the most powerful thing about platforms like Lemmy, even if instances aren’t in federation and even if multiple accounts end up needing to be juggled, is that Lemmy makes creating communities and instances like Reddit so much more accessible. Reddit is no longe the only place to get an experience with a format like Reddit, and I think that’s a big win.

  • sunaurus@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    48
    ·
    1 year ago

    The fragmentation is not inherent to how Lemmy works - the exact same fragmentation can and does happen on Reddit. Just a random example: https://imgur.com/inXBMMA

    On Reddit, it usually works out in the end in one way or another. Either mods decide to team up and combine their communities, or the users just naturally pick one community as the “winner”.

    • lovesickoyster@lemmy.one
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      things are better on reddit because only a single community subreddit can have one name vs on lemmy where every server can have the same community name - but the end result should be the same in both cases.

      • sunaurus@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        30
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I think people will eventually get used to the idea that the name of a community is not just the part before the “@”.

        I mean, even regular people have no difficulty understanding that e-mail addresses like bob@google.com and bob@microsoft.com are two different “identifiers” and, most likely, two completely different people. Given a bit of time, I think there will be a general understanding that “!foo@lemmy.ml” and “!foo@beehaw.org” are different names.

        • lovesickoyster@lemmy.one
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          Given a bit of time, I think the understanding that “!foo@lemmy.ml” and “!foo@beehaw.org” are different names

          I think this is exactly what OP is trying to point out - they are two different communities, when on reddit there would only be one - therefore the fragmentation.

          • Spzi@lemmy.click
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            1 year ago

            on reddit there would only be one

            The person you were talking to started the conversation with a screenshot showing 5 subreddits for “Blue Protocol”, apparently a MMORPG. Similar examples exist for almost any subject big enough.

            The phenomenon exists for all systems where there is no central authority deciding names and categories, which is true for both reddit and lemmy. Individual users can decide to create a new group regardless of existing groups, for a variety of reasons. This naturally leads to some duplicates.

            • lovesickoyster@lemmy.one
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              The person you were talking to started the conversation with a screenshot showing 5 subreddits for “Blue Protocol”, apparently a MMORPG. Similar examples exist for almost any subject big enough.

              they were all different names, there could be only one BlueProtocol.

              • lars@programming.dev
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                1 year ago

                And as sunaurus said, they all have different names on Lemmy too, once you realize you need to count the entire identifier and not just the part before the @.

                On reddit you’d have /r/tech and /r/technology, both serving the same thing but with clearly different names. On Lemmy you’ll have /c/tech@instance1 and /c/tech@instance2 both serving the same thing but with clearly different names. Eventually one will win out and the other will wither away. Or they’ll diverge enough to make subscribing to both worthwhile.

                • lovesickoyster@lemmy.one
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  5
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  1 year ago

                  On Lemmy you’ll have /c/tech@instance1 and /c/tech@instance2 both serving the same thing but with clearly different names.

                  on reddit you have r/tech and r/technology, the analogue on lemmy would be /c/tech@instance1, /c/tech@instance2, …, /c/technology@instance1, /c/technology@instance2, … - the chance for fragmentation is much greater.

                  Eventually one will win out and the other will wither away. Or they’ll diverge enough to make subscribing to both worthwhile.

                  Agreed. This is exactly what I’ve been saying as well.

          • Elw@lemmy.sdf.org
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            And like some other commenters have said: Lemmy is still very new and no standards and a lot of UX features still need to emerge. I am of the opinion that this fragmentation is a symptom of a UX problem and not inherent to anything specific to Lemmy.

            Search needs to be improved to show communities from yet-to-be-discovered instances and provide a way for the user to view them by subscriber, popularity or newest, for example. But right now, it relies on the user to initiate a subscription to a community in another server for server discovery.

            I could see a list of “popular instances” emerging at some point as a means for instance maintainers to prepopulate this in the future.m and Lemmy to support importing such a list to seed federation on new instances.

          • MagicShel@programming.dev
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            We can just subscribe to both though. I think we can even cross post. At least I’ve seen some things that look like cross posts. Frankly, I don’t see any difference.

  • flatbield@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    35
    ·
    1 year ago

    The thing you getting wrong is if you go to /r/technology you are only seeing one subreddit on Reddit. It is not all Technology forums on the internet nor is it even all the Tech stuff on Reddit. You never see it all. The world is big, you never will. You just though you were because Reddit is well known, and the Technology sub-reddit is well known to you. You made a choice just to use that subreddit still and Reddit has no interest in federating with other sites. At least on the Fediverse you can see most things on the Fediverse if you choose.

    • Nonameuser678@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      1 year ago

      This is a good way of describing it. Personally I’m finding that the fediverse is helping me to challenge those old reddit habits of just getting everything from one place. Reddit essentially became THE internet for me and the more I used it, the less I ventured out.

      • flatbield@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        I agree. Even though I always knew there was more then Reddit, Reddit kind of becomes the place. For me included, even though I have used Forums of all sorts for over 40 years. So thinking Reddit is the only place is what they want you to think and it is easy to start thinking that way. Frankly it takes some un-thinking to actually come to one’s senses.

      • 📛Maven@lemmy.sdf.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        the less I ventured out.

        That’s turned out to be a big thing for me, too. When I was younger, I’d spend literally hours a day on StumbleUpon some days, just clicking through niche sites I’d never find otherwise, and submitting new ones I found that I thought other people would like. It was a competition to find the most interesting little-known sites! Now I spend 70% of my browsing time on Reddit, just passively seeing what other people have found.

        It’s time to get back out there!

  • Ghostalmedia@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    35
    ·
    1 year ago

    Give it time. Big communities will form, and unlike Reddit, there will be more competition between them. You won’t just have one group of mods squatting over “Apple” or “Android” because they registered it first.

    • bartera@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      This is definitely a great post. The only thing that I think would help also would be discoverability and user choice, but it’s obviously easy to say without working on it.

      Reddit had relatively consistent discoverability, but the whole “federation” aspect (which is the whole point) makes a very different landscape to wade through.

      Definitely, this is a milestone for a new wave of “early adopters”. It will be interesting to see how it evolves.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      That’s the worst, someone gets the name first and they’ve ruled as mods ever since. Subs never rotate mods or rules and it goes unchecked. Here if you don’t like it, start your own

  • arcdrag@lemmy.sdf.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    34
    ·
    1 year ago

    Possibly unpopular opinion: Fragmentation is good, as it means there are options for leaving a community behind. Fragmentation and competition are synonyms, and generally competition is good.

    Lemmy definitely won’t kill reddit the same way mastodon won’t kill twitter, but I don’t want it to. I just want it them to be successful enough to be a viable alternative when someone like Spez or Elon think they don’t need to listen to their users.

    • Cylinsier@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      I agree with what others are saying, it’s not different than people starting their own subreddits when they don’t like the main community anymore. But I also agree with you, a little bit of competition is good. It may be a little unconstructive at first while the user count is still small but eventually supporting a few communities on the same topic instead of just one will have it’s benefits.

    • Karce@wizanons.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’m also extremely excited about this. Growing lemmy into a thriving community of people across many different instances is the best part about it. I’m hopeful that we have the dev talent required to build interfaces that can highlight that feature.

      Also being able to point to lemmy and say “go here for a better experience” is gonna be fantastic every time when Reddit continues to kill their platform.

    • Fox@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      This is how I feel. I’d rather have things be fragmented than be too big to fail. A lot of people have joked in the past few years that it feels like the internet only has 4 sites on it now; I’m pretty happy to be back to browsing multiple. It reminds me of following multiple forums around the same topics back in the day. Variety is the spice of life!

  • projectmoon@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    33
    ·
    1 year ago

    One feature that might help with this is something similar to multi-reddits, where users can categorize communities into their own “meta communities”.

    • Zak8022@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      1 year ago

      IMO, this would solve the problem, while keeping the benefits of being decentralized. I could go to my “Community Group” called “Tech”, I could see all the aggregated results of Beehaw’s, kbin’s, etc, tech Communities.

      • ojmcelderry@lemmy.one
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        While I haven’t spent time looking at kbin, isn’t that essentially what it does with its ‘magazines’? I believe magazines are an automatic grouping of posts by hashtag, community, keyword, etc.

        • Zak8022@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Oh. I didn’t really realize that. But in looking at a few Magazines I follow, I only see content from my kbin.social instance, not any other instance. It’s also possible that what you’re saying is the intended functionality of kbin, but it might not be working yet since it isn’t a mission critical feature.

        • Taxxor@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Afaik „magazines“ are just Lemmys „communities“ or reddits „subreddits“

    • InfiniteLoop@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      This is the best solution I’ve come up with, but it’s going to result in a lot of duplicate posts (and the comments will still be fragmented). I’m following several technology communities and a lot of the posts are posted to each of these communities individually. This has always been my concern with federation (along with server health/durability)

      It’s not the worst result, but I don’t know how well it will be received by more mainstream users. You also then have to solve discoverability of these “groups/metas”, and THAT has to be hosted on a federated instance so you could still end up with users confused on whether they should follow beehaws tech group or someone else’s….and round and round we go lol

      (Just to be clear - I’m not against federation, it’s just such a starkly different model than the normal web that we really have to adjust our mindset and find truly novel solutions or adjust our expectations)

    • Elw@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      This would be a huge plus, especially if it could be a server-wide multi. Instance maintainers could create /c/technology@instance.com but make it contain content from a curated list of other federated instances with their own /c/technology or lists could be distributed containing popular technology communities and you could import that list as your /c/technology as a personal multi.

    • loops@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I was thinking of something like that too, where if I want to post about a game, I can tag my post in ‘gaming’ as such so others can search for it.

  • jarfil@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    31
    ·
    1 year ago

    It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. Think of it like this:

    • Instances: define some ToS and Code of Conduct
    • Communities: define a theme and a sub-Code of Conduct

    By having multiple instances, you aren’t bound by a single ToS or Code of Conduct, you can pick whatever instance you want that matches the content you want to post to a community.

    For example, the same “Technology” community could be on:

    • an instance directed to kids
    • an instance that allows visual examples of medical procedures
    • an instance that discusses weapons technology

    Having the community limited to a single instance, would never allow the different discussions each combination of instance:topic would allow, even if the topic is technically the same in all cases.

    Forcing communities from multiple instances to merge, would also break the ToS of some of them.

    So the logical solution is for the user to decide which instance:communities they want to follow and participate in, respecting the particular ToS and Code of Conduct of each.

    On Reddit, the r/Technology community needs to follow a single set of ToS and Code of a Conduct. If you try to discuss something that meets the topic but is not allowed, then you will get banned, possibly from all of Reddit.

    • ddh@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      1 year ago

      You could even say it’s neither. Different communities can have different vibes and choice can be good (I’m sure at one point we will be able to define our own multi-communities as well). And Reddit has a similar setup where multiple subs for one topic can be created, so I don’t see it as really that different. It’ll probably coalesce together over time.

    • nd_nb@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      But you could just easily subscribe to all of them. That’s not fragmentation.

    • Contend6248@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Another example, a random game, Overwatch:

      -Overwatch

      -overwatch2

      -OverwatchTMZ

      -OverwatchLFT

      -OverwatchPS4

      -OverwatchLore

      -OverwatchLeague

      -CompetitiveOverwatch

      -Overwatch_Memes

      -OverwatchUniversity

      -OWconsoles

      -OverwatchCollector

      Fragmentation has it’s benefits in this kind of format too, maybe you’re just interested in an aspect of something, not 15 memes a day or drama. You can easily fit everything into one sub, who would want that though.

  • youronlyone@readit.buzz
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    29
    ·
    1 year ago

    Re: fragmentation

    Also, this negative “fragmentation” view is biased. Before the subreddit migration, there were already existing and well-established communities in the fediverse. Suddenly, after the subreddit migration, it’s being called “fragmentation”.

    For example, topics like Star Trek and Books. There are already large communities in the Fediverse before the related subreddits migrated. Yet, you will see people calling it “fragmented”, some even have the guts to call other communities to “merge” with the migrators.

    This is wrong and very rude.

    Having multiple communities is good. There is no one-size-fits-all. Also, we’ve been doing that in the entire history of the human race. That said, even if everyone merged into one mega church, it will still split up like it or not.

    In other words, we need to stop viewing “fragmentation” as negative. In fact, don’t use that word. Don’t even think about it. Just setup your community and build it up. Create your own culture. Your own rules. System, team, and invite people who wants to join your type of community.

    Multiple communities is healthy for everyone. It is a win for everyone.

    And… haven’t we learned what happens when we rely on one service? One central platform?

    A lot can happen.

    1. It suddenly goes offline. We’ve already experienced this in 2023. A lot of large communities disappeared for almost a week because the instance encountered issues.

    2. The instance owner might no longer have the resources to continue. Not necessarily on the financial side, remember, there is the technical side which will take an owner’s time.

    Sure, they can get other admins to join. But, as an instance admin, would you easily trust access? Consider also the trust your users has given you in protecting their data and privacy.

    There were instances who went offline because of that, and instead of transfering management to a new team, or selling their platform to someone, they chose to shut it down permanently because they value the data and privacy of their users.

    So… if that instance that happens to be hosting a one-size-fits-all community goes offline…

    Well…

    1. Or, it can very well be something uncontrollable. Server farm fire, raid, who knows.

    But if we let people build their own communities spread across different instances, then we are building redundancy, continuation, and resiliency. If one goes down, for whatever reason, we have existing communities we can move into and continue our discussions, with minimal interference.

    _

    • kobra@readit.buzz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      Well said, this was all something I didn’t really understand before reddit did what it did. It’s all crystal clear now though!

    • 2deck@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Good points and well written! Would give you gold if i could. The word fragmented in this context has positive connotations of resiliency, variety and freedom.

  • magnetosphere @beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    28
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    If the choice is tolerating trolls and jerks vs. dealing with communities that are fragmented and harder to find, I’ll choose fragmentation every time.

    I just wanna say what’s on my mind (trite though it may be) without all the pedantry, trolling, and hostility. I’m not a mean person IRL, I don’t put up with jerks IRL, and I want the same thing online. Everything else is a distant second. I like Beehaw.

    By the same token, I support anyone who disagrees, and I encourage them to find an instance that’s a better match. I just want everyone to be happy and feel comfortable expressing themselves. I hope people find an instance that suits them; they shouldn’t feel like they need to change to suit the instance.

  • clovis@kbin.sh
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    24
    ·
    1 year ago

    I think you got things the right way, however keep in mind that there isn’t any standard yet. There is indeed multiple communities for the same subjects on Reddit, you just have a principal one. Since things are pretty new on here you haven’t major subs emerging. It will eventually be the case I think !

    • Kir@feddit.it
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      1 year ago

      That’s the point! If you look at Reddit and choose an argument, say for example “pc building subreddit”, you could find dozens of subreddit related to that topics. There are 1 or 2 that have the majority of good contents and users, but this happens over times.

    • pimento64@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Exactly: r/baseball and r/MLB, r/hockey and r/NHL, the 50 Linux subreddits, it goes on and on. Fragmentation is far from a fediverse innovation.

  • 🦊 OneRedFox 🦊@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    1 year ago

    That fragmentation you describe is a feature of the ecosystem. If you dislike a particular instance’s community and/or moderation policy, then there are alternatives that exist on other instances that can scratch the same itch. When a multireddit-style feature shows up on the platform, users will be able to get more posts put in their feeds as well if they wish to grab content from multiple instances. Users have a lot more granular control over their experience this way.

    • Enfield [he/him]@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      Differences in an instance’s culture and moderation is one reason I’m not too worried about fragmentation. If anything, I think it’ll be for the better. Even if there’s a lot of overlap in purpose between communities from different instances, the administration, moderation, and lay users of the communities will lend differences to how things feel. Sometimes it’s going to be obvious, sometimes it’s going to be subtle. Either way, I’m in favor of having more options. I think it increases the odds of finding a place that feels just right.

  • cyberdecker@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Do you think this will change over time where one community on a specific instance will gain the market share and all others will evaporate away? And if it does, doesn’t that just place us back in the reddit situation?

    To the second question of putting us back in the Reddit situation: Yes.

    If you want one platform, that’s what Reddit did for you. How did that work out?

    This discomfort that we feel from many communities paving their own ways I think is temporary. We will learn to adapt to this. I think this is not a fundamental problem with Lemmy, but a UI/UX issue that new UI features will help us handle as the needs are outlined and the “pain points” are made more clear.

    One platform or source is not the answer. Freedom in choosing from many sources of information is where the real benefit lies.

      • cyberdecker@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        More than just tolerate, I think you can find a certain amount of joy in this time of change and really relish something new, unusual and different. Just because it is new and uncomfortable doesn’t mean it has to be unpleasant. Figuring out how to be sensitive to your own emotions and work through change quickly can get you there.

        • Ben Hur Horse Race@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          uh-huh…

          I was kind of joking, really, sorry :)

          I was saying it like the idea of having to to tolerate unpleasant feelings about this is a bit silly to me, as in what we’re talking about is really not something that I would expect to evoke discomfort full stop. I think its interesting, sure, but if it goes well, super, and if coming on lemmy (which I actually have reasobably high hopes for) isn’t enjoyable, then alas, you know?