With previous Rexit's like the API debarcle etc. many users were left looking for an alternative, but with decision fatigue and bad UX etc. most did not find the Fediverse a viable option.

What needs to still improve, how can we be ready this time?

we need more hornyposting and leftist infighting

I hate being left wing sometimes
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vHfbUIQeW_A

Probably more NSFW instances? We barely have one.

As a new user (I started using PieFed 2 months ago), the UX can surely be improved, but I feel like the main issue is relative to how users are supposed to use the fediverse: I still don't have a clue on how the fediverse works and how to use it properly.
And I'm motivated in learning to use it.
But for someone who isn't motivated, it's a huge "no thanks, goodbye"

it's weird that, because once you're in it's basically seamless. it's just that first step of picking a server based on your interests that trips people up, because aren't you supposed to pick interests after you get in? more national instances would probably solve that, i think, so you can just go to your local one.

You hear that people? Go set up a camera and show us your genitals! But also, be hot. Or at least interesting. Maybe learn to juggle as you give a blowjob. That'd be fun to watch! If you can do that, the world needs to see it. So why not put it on Lemmy? For the Fediverse!!!

I think we should just hide all of that complexity and just set defaults for everything that the user can decide to change if they want. You don't have to understand how the Fediverse works to be able to use it.
Most people don't understand how email works, they just use it.

BlueSky has 40+ million users, and it's also technically decentralized like the Fediverse.

aka. you can use the eurosky.social or bluesky.social server etc.

more national instances would probably solve that, i think, so you can just go to your local one.

That's roughly how I chose my instance... I thought I'd choose an instance geographically close to me for latency reasons and such. I didn't know anything about different Lemmy instances at the time and didn't (for example) know that my instance actually hosts very few popular communities, so I'd be participating mostly in remote ones. :D

Hehe. Yeah, I don't think we need more content. There's already some out there. And everyone can add more, all they need is 20sec of time and a redgifs link. What we really need is more admins run servers to host that stuff. And a bigger admin team for the already existing instance so it doesn't just randomly go away along with all the content, as well. Maybe one or two lawyers, or someone with expertise in bullet-proof hosting, to set it up properly. (And we likely need moderators as well. Half of the communities on the old server used to be a desert. Claimed en masse by some nominal members who left a long time ago.) But original content is certainly welcome 😆

Still needs infinite scroll.

yeah but, again, it's seamless. my instance only hosts content in swedish, but that's not really a problem. sorting by scaled means i still see things that happen locally mixed in with everything else.

Can BlueSky really be called decentralized when 99% of it is bluesky.social?

No, that's why I said it's technically decentralized.

They have 40 million users though, they focused on UX first, and will now hopefully not be dicks and actually become decentralized

I'd also like this, but I feel you'll get pushback against this on the Fediverse

Perhaps it's a feature instance's can set as default or not themselves

Some mobile apps already have it and with the ruling against Meta and YouTube in the USA, I don't know if having infinite scroll will cause legal problems in the future.

Rexited a long time ago. We must encourage (sensible people) to move to Lemmy and Piefed

I have never understood the importance of choosing an instance, especially at the beginning. Sign up for any one, try it for a while and if you need to change later, you can do so without problems.

On sites like mastodon where followers are essential it can be a problem, in lemmy where karma is not even accumulated, changing servers does not make you lose more than the 5 minutes it takes you to do it

I think it would be nice as an opt-in feature in the user settings

Welcome to PieFed! I see you've got an account and you know how to post comments. What else do you need help with?

Ugh I hate infinite scroll. If some people want it, sure, you can implement it as an opt-in feature. But a lot of people use the fediverse to avoid the typical features of corporate social media

Hey! U r dumb and also I'm jorking my peanor

I don't think anyone actually wants the baggage that ecosystem comes with. Like, when it's working well it has baggage. And you wouldn't like it when it doesn't run well.

Let’s be honest, go to any left wing party and you’ll see most people are dating liberals hahaha

I hate infinite scroll. That said, it's just fancy pagination and if the host' API supports pagination, whatever frontend should be able to implement that

👍

UNACCEPTABLE

I'm on my 4th instance. Dropped my first be cause of old Lemmy's autorefreshand other issues. 2 and 3 died as maintainers went away. I had to start over from zero again each time

It's a bit of a faff to export and import your followed community list

I think so as well. Porn is available in abundance. We don't really need it here. What I think could be nice is people who like to write erotic fiction as a hobby and post their original content. Or people discuss erotic computer games. Or like relationship advice and NSFW questions in case some country abolishes sex ed. Maybe talking about piracy, mental issues, loss... all the things that are deemed "not advertiser friendly" on commercial platforms. That'd be something positive. But it's not easy. And it often all gets lumped together under some big NSFW umbrella and 95% of people want to share pron clips anyway. Mostly with zero care for copyright or the creators' consent.

Not a chance unfortunately, bluesky doesn't work without an all-seeing-eye that brings people the content they want. At best there will be some satellites running on atproto, fully decentralized, but the core will still be bluesky and it will still be completely centralized

More instances with minimal/no defederation would help. That way you can just tell people to pick one of those instances and it doesn't matter which one.

Ooh \↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑ second all of this. Sex discourse will always be better than just a constant deluge of questionable nudes.

That is probably true, I do wish for a future where people can migrate to say https://www.eurosky.tech and alternatives, while benefiting from having so many users already

i mean maybe. i initially chose one of those instances for mastodon, but it turns out when you don't defederate from anyone, others defederate from you because you act as a proxy for the nazis and pedos to reach other instances. so i couldn't talk to my friends. it's a bit of a hassle.

I'm not sure what can really be done about that; the fediverse is, by its very nature, pretty complicated. It's at least as complicated as http or email, and those things are widely used but probably not that well understood by the average person.

I think people are accustomed to using things that they barely understand the inner workings of (car, microwave, computer, etc.) during their daily life. So, I guess my question is, to what degree do people need to know "how the fediverse works" in order to use it?

If anything, we probably have to change the way we talk about the fediverse to make it more streamlined for people. For example, instead of suggesting that people "join lemmy", it would be better to send them directly to a specific instance that we would like to see grow.

Then there's the friction of actually joining an instance. Some instances won't let users view content without registering, and some require you to "apply" for registration, pending approval. Both of those things are reasonable and justifiable, but at the same time I think they do create a barrier of entry that we may not want if we are going to try to attract more users.

PieFed.zip is very new-user friendly (see very minimal instance block list). I don't see the requirement for an endless barrage of new instances being a blocker - the amount that we have now is sufficient to handle far more capacity than the entire Threadiverse is currently capable of demanding from the servers.

Quite the opposite: most stories I see about people talking about the Threadiverse is how toxic AF we are, and elitist leftists, not welcoming to liberal centrists e.g. in the USA. So if the goal were to bring on more people from Reddit (setting aside for the morning edit: moment whether that is truly a worthwhile aim), then more censorship of toxicity is what would more readily make that happen, not less moderation. e.g. one glance at hexbear and your average Redditor will never come back here again:-P.

Those are irl, whereas the toxic AF perpetually online among us here (e.g. hexbear and Lemmygrad and lemmy.ml) are likely not dating at all.

Is there any new development around this or are you just speculating? All I've seen so far is discussions about age verification for the UK, and most of the conversation was more about finding workarounds than leaving.

What needs to still improve?

The community here is what needs to improve the most. The majority here is hostile to new users and too prone to demand purity tests from everyone who is just thinking about leaving Reddit.

What do you think about https://phtn.app/ ?
Sadly the PieFed support is in Beta for quite a while now, but I do like how clean everything looks. You can also hide away a lot of the complexity but I am not sure if that is the default.

I mean, no? Are you all going to constantly screech at people for not hating capitalism? The people and their behavior are the problem.

I disagree, you def would need to block the worst places. A good new-user friendly instance would block far-right and authoritarian content.

I avoid harshly criticising the left, while continuing to do so for liberals (but still being welcoming for the; the wider the antifascist front, the better), and outright rejecting far-right.

Keep in mind that infighting was often initiated by the CIA, in order to undermine the Black Panthers. Likewise we may see such attempts.

i encourage party vanguardists to support anarchists and other free leftists. the stronger the left, the better

Please explain your definition of toxicity. Or maybe you just did

Reddit already requires it in the UK, afik.

But it's mostly speculation form my side.

We need more cat forums.

Well, from a technical standpoint I am more prepared as an instance admin compared to Summer 2023. We're running on powerful dedicated hardware after all.