A proper "beginners guide" shouldn't be this long, IMO. It should just explain what Lemmy is in one sentence (ie, an open source clone of Reddit), and then provide links to one or two large instances with open signups.
That's basically what the first couple of paragraphs do, "Here's a brief overview and how to get started" followed by the other 3/4's of the article which is additional info.
As a subreddit admin considering moving to Lemmy, I stopped reading at:
> If the Sign Up button spins indefinitely after clicking it, the username is already taken. There is currently an issue where the site does not inform you of this and instead stops responding. You can check if a username is taken by searching for that username's profile page at "https://lemmy.world/u/[the-username]" (replace "[the-username]" with the username you want).
You're not wrong that the UX is pretty bad, but I don't think there's likely to be a better open source Reddit clone coming along anytime soon.
The devs are fairly active so I'm hoping it'll be fixed relatively quickly.
At this point, I would still argue that moving to Lemmy is the best option. Some subreddits have moved to Discord, but it's just as proprietary as Reddit, and has the added downside of being a chat room. One can of course stay on Reddit itself, but I suspect Reddit's CEO probably isn't going to start making reasonable decisions anytime soon.
The issue is that this illustrates that Lemmy has any priorities above the onboarding process. My mind will need to be changed about that before I will read any further.
Additionally, I can be quite confident that Lemmy has already alienated so many others just like me who will also need to be won over somehow. You only get so many chances.
Frankly, I think open source advocates are extremely ignorant about the realities of late capitalism and the tasks ahead of them, which serves as the underlying reason for failing to get the priorities straight. I have contributed many hours to open source projects myself. I am no stranger to the short-sighted anarchist mindset that permeates open source land.
>The issue is that this illustrates that Lemmy has any priorities above the onboarding process.
>which serves as the underlying reason for failing to get the priorities straight.
Having different priorities than you doesn't make them have the wrong priorities. As a counter-point to you, I'd much rather have a barely good enough interface on a platform that works than a great UI on a platform that doesn't work. The solution is not having both, because if they could they would have done that already.
Also, I don't think it matters that this reddit alternative isn't perfect because there's no better reddit alternative anyway. You either stay on reddit or you go to Lemmy.
I really don't see a reason to complain about Lemmy. Anything not working is not because of laziness or malice or greed; it's a platform made by a couple of guys, to solve a problem for thousands of people, and they're giving it away for free. It's a reddit alternative for people who want one. I say mission accomplished, and they're just getting started
> open source advocates are extremely ignorant about the realities of late capitalism
That's right, if only the Lemmy devs understood the impending glorious revolution that shall throw off the yoke of the bourgeoisie, they would definitely prioritize their onboarding flow.
Discord has some awful UX patterns, but somehow many communities have slid into adopting it as a general information resource. There are certain kinds of content where barriers to entry aren't that important - people go where the content they want is, and that's that. That's why Something Awful can still exist with a $10 paywall.
The Lemmy software already works well enough to have a critical mass of traction for general-audience memes/pictures/news. The rest is "well, maybe sometime down the road". No big talk about late capitalism needed.
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Join-lemmy.org/instances
> If the Sign Up button spins indefinitely after clicking it, the username is already taken. There is currently an issue where the site does not inform you of this and instead stops responding. You can check if a username is taken by searching for that username's profile page at "https://lemmy.world/u/[the-username]" (replace "[the-username]" with the username you want).
At this point, I would still argue that moving to Lemmy is the best option. Some subreddits have moved to Discord, but it's just as proprietary as Reddit, and has the added downside of being a chat room. One can of course stay on Reddit itself, but I suspect Reddit's CEO probably isn't going to start making reasonable decisions anytime soon.
Additionally, I can be quite confident that Lemmy has already alienated so many others just like me who will also need to be won over somehow. You only get so many chances.
Frankly, I think open source advocates are extremely ignorant about the realities of late capitalism and the tasks ahead of them, which serves as the underlying reason for failing to get the priorities straight. I have contributed many hours to open source projects myself. I am no stranger to the short-sighted anarchist mindset that permeates open source land.
>which serves as the underlying reason for failing to get the priorities straight.
Having different priorities than you doesn't make them have the wrong priorities. As a counter-point to you, I'd much rather have a barely good enough interface on a platform that works than a great UI on a platform that doesn't work. The solution is not having both, because if they could they would have done that already.
Also, I don't think it matters that this reddit alternative isn't perfect because there's no better reddit alternative anyway. You either stay on reddit or you go to Lemmy.
I really don't see a reason to complain about Lemmy. Anything not working is not because of laziness or malice or greed; it's a platform made by a couple of guys, to solve a problem for thousands of people, and they're giving it away for free. It's a reddit alternative for people who want one. I say mission accomplished, and they're just getting started
I don’t care what developers want. I care what the users want.
That's right, if only the Lemmy devs understood the impending glorious revolution that shall throw off the yoke of the bourgeoisie, they would definitely prioritize their onboarding flow.
(/s)
The Lemmy software already works well enough to have a critical mass of traction for general-audience memes/pictures/news. The rest is "well, maybe sometime down the road". No big talk about late capitalism needed.
see: [Lemmy.ml is blocking all requests from /kbin Instances](https://kbin.social/m/kbinMeta/t/104218)
just tested, it's still blocked. And only lemmy.ml does the blocking