OpenStars

Some of us already left Lemmy or never joined, for the likes of Mbin or PieFed (or eventually Sublinks?).

Long live the Fediverse.

Yeah, it is untested on a larger scale, and I haven’t tried modding a community on it, but it does hold a lot of promise and capability. As you’ll see!:-)

The search function for content is abysmally bad. Tbf it hasn’t been shown much love yet, and Reddit’s was (edit: hehe, I meant “is”) not great either. Though Lemmy’s is superb, especially newer features will allow restriction to post titles.

Another one: PieFed has a post preview option, but only for posts, not comments. So I either find out about problems (like an image not being displayed properly) afterwards, or I have to open a new tab and try a preview with either Lemmy, or a new post on PieFed.

One annoyance: you can receive notifications for things that don’t exist, or you don’t have access to (e.g. if you block all users from an instance - which on PieFed you can do that! Lemmy’s version is misnamed and so weak as to be misleading to be called an instance block, when it allows content from users on that instance to be displayed, and they can also reply to you, trigger notifications, etc., really it should have been named a community mute rather than instance block, but PieFed’s version is so helpful! - but anyway if you do that, they can still trigger a notification for you, even though you cannot see their actual reply. Another annoyance: if you leave on the default settings for either the auto-collapse or auto-hide features, then it may take you to a space on the page that has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual reply, and you have to hunt it down (which if it were removed rather than just collapsed, you will literally never find it). Also if the post or comment OP deletes their content, then the notification should likewise be removed, but right now it’s not.

So it’s not “perfect”. I maintain a backup Lemmy account for whenever the server has connectivity issues (all Lemmy instances do that too), and for whenever I run into one of these issues above.

It also would be nice to more often be able to navigate to the original location of everything, which often works on PieFed but not nearly as readily as the rainbow colored Fediverse icon in the Lemmy web UI.

Even so, these minor issues of polish aside, PieFed is a strong option, hence why I use it as my daily driver, with (next to) zero regrets, again especially for someone who is familiar with doing searching for content in Lemmy.

And new features continue to be added, sometimes weekly but definitely at least monthly. It’s so FAST! And the main dev Rimu is so helpful and friendly, as are so many others I’ve interacted with. I would suggest to make an account and check it out! The worst that could happen is that you don’t enjoy it enough and want to keep using your old one, in which case you’ll still have seen something new, plus have a not-brand-new account to use later if you ever wanted (e.g. you are prevented from sending someone a DM for the first two weeks, which is appropriate imho). However, even though the learning curve is real (bc having access to additional options offers up new ways to structure your content delivery to yourself to be more fully optimal), I am confident that as you see more what it has to offer, you’ll return the older account less and less often (you’ll still need to for moderation activities, especially since mod activities do not federate even among Lemmy instances much less across from PieFed, but for daily driving it’s quite a treat, really!).

This is the most often cited reason that celebrities, reporters etc. say that keeps them from using Mastodon.

People ignore the needs of the vast majority of the userbase to the peril of us all. Mastodon could have worked to reach out to those content creators to give them what they demanded as a deal breaker, but instead now we’ve lost them to Bluesky and will in all likelihood have to wait for enshittification of that platform to ever have another chance at that.

Likewise the Threadiverse works for us who use Arch Linux btw, and to have conversations with internet randos (we are downright kind here, or at least we can be, although that’s virtually gone over on Reddit, outside of tiny niche subs with barely any content, much as we have here:-), but I don’t know how we can attract the content creators, especially when the audience for their content is not enough for them to bother with (AND it’s “too complex to use” - I mean it’s not, except… isn’t it though? Like where’s the modmail? or a notification if your comment gets removed/locked? why does viewing it from different instances show different sets of comments, and also different upvotes/downvotes?!? why does join-lemmy website want to send me to Lemmy.ml, and why oh why didn’t someone tell me that I can’t criticize Russia, China, or North Korea there!? It would have been nice if that had been WRITTEN DOWN SOMEWHERE!?!? maybe the side-bar would have been a good place to put it, like the “Rules” section?!?).

The experience on Lemmy (unlike Linux, no /s here) is objectively terrible, it’s just that we here prioritize different factors and are willing to put up with its many (Many MANY) inconveniences in order to use a FOSS platform. But others have their own priorities, and that’s okay - everyone should be free to use what they want. The downside to that is that outside of Linux and generic content like memes and news, there is very little content available here, especially for niche interests. Hence why the content creators remain on Reddit bc that’s where their audience is (except the ones who simply unplugged from social media entirely). i.e. fuck spez, but… also, he was right. He really can treat his users poorly, and enough of them will remain to keep it afloat, rather than come here where it’s “difficult to use”, and Lemmy moves very slowly to address those needs (e.g. to allow for account migration, where e.g. messages sent to the old place will be forwarded to the new).

It is nice. I use my older Lemmy account less and less often these days… I am glad that Lemmy exists for people - especially someone just using it as a back-end for whatever app of choice they use as an actual interface - but I am even more glad to have PieFed, which suits so many of my needs (tbf not all) perfectly or at least more so than Lemmy.:-D

The closest I’ve seen to that is PieFed, which offers something like multi-Reddits (categories of communities aka Topic areas), and word filtering where you can limit posts with the likes of “Trump” or “Musk” by either a little bit or all/none. So if you feel like avoiding news and politics (for ten fucking minutes!:-P) then you can go to e.g. Arts & Crafts, or for longer set one of those filters, yet return to seeing them later anytime you want.

Mind you, in some small ways PieFed is not as polished as Lemmy - e.g. there’s a preview feature for posts but not for comments - while in other ways it’s already more advanced, and being written in Python rather than Rust, will continue to move forward with new features much more quickly.:-)

PieFed closes most of those gaps. It’s not quite as fully featured as Lemmy, in particular the search function (but then again, Reddit’s search doesn’t work either?:-P), but it’s super easy to get started on the Threadiverse.

For one thing, you don’t even need an account or to download anything at all to start using it immediately to browse content from all across Lemmy. And the Categories of Communities featuring topic areas, which you can customize yourself and/or share with others, provide that multi-Reddit feel that people, especially from Reddit, really crave. See e.g. Arts & Crafts, and note the subheadings beneath, such as Photography. There is simply no comparison between this and e.g. the default setting for Lemmy being to only show Local content (a setting which lemmy.ml still uses today) for those without accounts.

Then if you decide to create an account, a wizard walks you through various settings, asking the user for their preferences and automatically subscribing to multiple communities based on the answers. Multiple types of News, multiple types of Politics, how many posts do you want to see with the keywords “Trump”, or “Musk” (no filtering, just a little, or block them all), etc. Or just don’t bother subscribing to certain types of (high-volume or stressful) communities at all, so that it doesn’t flood your Subscribed feed, yet still be able to access them immediately with the Topic Category at any time.

It’s not perfect, but it’s damn good:-). And for those who do want it, testing is underway for an app (Thunder).

It is a feature very often asked for on Lemmy, but with the codebase being in Rust, development work on it is very slow. With PieFed being in Python, it is far easier to add features such as that one to it.:-)

Yeah the learning curve is real… but fortunately it’s bc there is so much more that can be done, not bc like it’s “difficult” or anything, just that you get to choose how you want things to be.:-)

Like anything, you get better with practice, so yeah, just start strolling through the posts and enjoy!

PieFed really is the best (most often only) answer that I’ve seen to SO VERY MANY questions for how to accomplish something on Lemmy (usually you cannot, unless some app provides that feature). Like how to see posts that have nothing whatsoever to do with politics: the topics (often if not always tend to) do that, like Arts & Crafts - and another cool trick is that if you ever do want it, News & Politics is always right there just waiting for you, so there’s no longer any need to “subscribe” to those (or maybe subscribe to some of the lower traffic, less contentious communities?), hence you can both have a Subscription feed free of politics (as an example, for someone who wanted that) and still have full access to politics whenever you wanted. It’s a whole new way of browsing the Threadiverse, i.e. even if accessing the same Lemmy communities, you approach it all differently - or, you can, if you want.

It’s so nice to have choices!:-)

It is very much worth checking out, yes!

I use it as my daily driver. Some functions, like searching for posts, are abysmally bad - but thankfully that’s the only one in that category. For me who can hop over to a Lemmy alt when I need to, PieFed is a great main. Another downside is that often I receive a notification for something that I cannot see, for a variety of reasons including that I’ve blocked all users from an instance (but hey, on PieFed that’s actually possible in the first place!).

PieFed is definitely still in alpha, though ironically a better experience than Lemmy in many ways for all of that, even though a more frustrating one in other ways. An API is currently being tested using the Thunder app, which should help smooth the usability issues.

My advice: most definitely make a PieFed account - you have nothing to lose there - and also hold onto your older one. You’ll use it less and less often, you’ll see:-). There is a bit of a learning curve though, since PieFed offers so many new features and you’ll want to try out this and that to see what works best for you. e.g. for some lower-volume communities, I have notifications set up to receive every single new post, rather than have to wait to find that while scrolling Subscribed or All. It really helps! (But can be quite overwhelming for higher-volume communities - the better way now could be to create a custom topic Feed, which I haven’t tried yet but that’s awesome that I now can:-).

A port of Thunder has been made, ready for testing.

PieFed is more advanced than Lemmy in several ways, while less so in others.

Like for one it offers fantastic onboarding to the Fediverse via a wizard asking users what topics they are interested in and then signs them up to communities.

And for another, at any time users can view Categories of Communities, such as all things Fediverse, News & Politics, or Gaming, and now users can even create our own customized Feeds - all of this is in addition to rather than instead of the traditional Subscribed and All feeds.

Users can also follow anything - a user, community, post, single comment, etc. - plus stop following comments that you’ve written but no longer wish to receive notifications for.

It’s REALLY cool! The major downsides revolve around it being newer and so a bit less polished, like there’s now a post preview feature but that is not yet available for comment replies.

The codebase is written in Python, so is possible for more people to help out with making changes than Lemmy, written in Rust. Some people wonder if it might not scale as well to larger number of users, but so far that is not a problem and the speed of updates seems well worth that trade-off.

said in a statement, referring to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. “If you leave now, you may have the opportunity to return and enjoy our freedom and live the American dream.”

So I guess this is the advantage, if someone wanted to return later.

Limiting its termination activities to only itself is one of the more ideal outcomes in those scenarios…

Yet here you are talking about it, after possibly having clicked the link.

So… it worked for the purpose that they hoped? Hence having received that positive feedback, they will now do it again.

One REALLY super nice feature of PieFed is that the sidebar text is shown underneath EVERY single post. Lemmy does not do that, and especially some apps almost look like they are doing their best to outright hide that information for some reason, putting it many clicks away!?

Imagine seeing a post on All, and knowing what the exact and entire set of rules are, prior to posting (including a reply to a post, as you said a drive-by).

To be fair, someone does have to scroll down to see it. But at least it’s right there on the same page, not some whole other page entirely and buried many clicks away besides (going back and forth to writing a message that way, checking specific acronyms in the sidebar area, can get really annoying that way! in those apps that do it that way I mean, while in a browser you basically would need to open up a new tab, one for the post and a separate one for the community).

At least this seems like it would help reduce such effects? Maybe? Alternately, these feeds are basically like meta-communities themselves, created (and maintained?) by a “moderator”, so perhaps if someone did not want their community included (which seems to run counter to how many communities would want to increase rather than decrease their discoverability), they could write to the “mod” to ask that it be removed?

Alternately, perhaps communities themselves should have a “private” setting. Lemmy already has a “local-only” setting along those lines. I remember that Reddit has a bunch of opt-in features regarding discoverability, but all of this in both Lemmy and PieFed is extremely primitive in comparison. At least PieFed is moving quickly with adding new features, so for it even if not for Lemmy, there is a strong hope to see all of this that we are talking about!:-)

Ironically, if Lemmy supported decentralization of communities in this way as PieFed now does, and as I guess Reddit did iirc, then you could post to a smaller community and people who were subscribed to such a multi-community feed would be able to see it.

However, there are many features of Lemmy that are even (far) more authoritian in nature than Reddit. Lacking both a modmail and hiding the account name of the mod who removed something of yours, plus not sending you any notification about the event, are three such examples, and there are many more where that came from.

On Lemmy, as on Reddit, a mod “owns” their community, and that’s all there is to it - there is no decentralization inherent in the system, at least at the community level. Where the decentralization comes from is the ability to pack up and move elsewhere if needed. Or course, you would be able to take none of it with you, nor be able to leave a message at the old place that you had migrated. As you see, decentralization, while nowhere close to a “myth”, is quite constrained - mainly I mean, that functionality is available to admins, more than mods. So nobody can tell you what to do with the communities on your personal machine, running the Lemmy software, which is open source.

Although PieFed allows for greater levels of decentralization in numerous ways, chiefly with the Topics and now the ability for users to create their own custom ones.

Although a caveat is that “cross-posts” - even those sharing identical URLs - between multiple communities are not collapsed in the listing of posts in a feed (yet, although as Rimu said it’s a high priority to add that).

I missed this at first as well, but the “Create a Feed” button (colored almost the same as the background for some odd reason, using the PieFed theme) is accessible to you as a user, not simply an admin. So if you wanted let’s say technology@lemmy.world and technology@beehaw.org but not technology@lemmy.ml, then you could do that. You probably should name it something appropriate like technology2, but mainly I mean that you are not limited to Feeds created by other people: the whole point of this is that now you can create your own (if you want to that is, or perhaps someone will have already done so).

PieFed (and the Lemmy apps Sync and Connect iirc) can already do this, by blocking all users from the instance. It works much better than the Lemmy equivalent that would be better named as a community muting, since it still allows users to troll you in communities located on other instances.

John Oliver fans are the perfect candidates to join the fediverse, hopefully some of them find their way to Lemmy.

Too late - we are already here!:-P