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Having tried all three, its a stark difference in how much more social Lemmy is comparatively. Its not even close. Almost all posts I've encountered on lemmy have interaction; whereas, more often than not, posts on the other two platforms have no interaction. Wonder what the driving factor is behind this difference?
shit posters keeping lemmy/mbin alive.
Doesn't mbin federate with Mastodon? I've been thinking about moving to an mbin server for that reason...
The fuck is Nostr? I can't keep up.
Nostr is another fediverse like social media platform that the founder of bluesky created after he realized he had made another mistake like he did in creating twitter.
I know, right? It was very hard for me to grasp the Fediverse when i first heard about it. Now, it seems the protocol is being tapped into from a few different directions, so these new platforms may just be starting to make an appearance.
I've never heard of Nostr but Mastodon is a twitter clone and I don't find that style of website suits discussion well since you subscribe to accounts rather than communities.
It's an interesting dynamic!
I find myself talking more on lemmy as others say because it's easier/made for talking about topics. Mastodon and other fedi services center around following the account that made a thing rather than the thing(s) themselves. And that's fine, both have their place.
I think the other aspect is the easy to follow discussion threads. IMO it's the cleanest way to show and follow branching discussions.
I do like how it "looks" the most on topics. I wish mastodon had something similar revolving around their posts/hashtags.
You follow hashtags. It's what I do and it's been a good experience so far.
It's about the same as on Lemmy engagement-wise.
I've never understood what twitter style websites are actually for. They seem to have a tiny niche of celebrities and known personalities making a statement with no reasonable conversation stemming from it.
I don't understand how that structure was once one of the largest social media platforms in the first place.
Well Mastadon is good for screaming into the void and hope someone shouts back. Lemmy is kind of like a forum type community where you already know someone is going to like your topic if it's in the right sub.
I left reddit for lemmy on the big migration but I though it wouldn't last. Here I am years after. I enjoy lemmy a lot more than I ever did Reddit.
One thing I've found on lemmy that was almost impossible to see on reddit...
People apologizing for being incorrect. Also, people having actual conversations, without the immediate influx of "No, YOURE WORNG!" people.
I think it helps that Lemmy is so small, we know we're going to encounter each other again.
I hope it remains so! Its a big reason why I'm really keen on instance defederating, and such. Make the "island chains" just a touch disconnected, to keep monkey sphere's small.
I came here in the Reddit migration too, right after the API thing. I like that this place is still small - it has the community feeling that you only saw in Reddit in small, focused subs
Why are you comparing apples to glass bowls?
Lemmy is a reddit clone, where you create communities.
Mastodon is a Twitter clone, where you share what you ate last night or what political meme you like today while sharing photos of moss and/or windows.
Nostr is its own thing.
You can't really compare them with each other.
Yeah, I get your point. But the question still remains. Lemmy objectively has more engagement/interaction regardless of the category of social media of each medium.
If you compare X to Lemmy, X has more engagement/interaction... And they are separate social media platforms categorically. Yet, Mastodon trumps Lemmy's user count by nearly 10 fold...
It stands to question that with a fraction of the users on Lemmy, why is the interaction/engagement considerably higher?
An average post on Mastodon/X/Bluesky/Threads is "this is what I encounter" or "this is what I believe". Those kinds of posts don't specifically ask for a response. You can respond to it, but it doesn't require one.
That's not how you communicate on Lemmy or Reddit.
That's the difference.
Each platform has its own usages.
So to compare and say "well platform Y is more social, because there's more interaction than on platform 2" is a bit weird.
You wouldn't compare a letter with a message board on a town plaza either. Both can be used to communicate, but they're not comparable to each other.
Or in another way:
On Mastodon or Nostr, when you post something only a small subsection of the userbase actually sees it (only those who follow you, those that follow any of the hashtags that you used, or those that check the full firehose).
On Lemmy the entire community you posted it to can see your post.
Obviously you can get more response on Lemmy! More people get to see it.
It stands to question that with a fraction of the users on Lemmy, why is the interaction/engagement considerably higher?
I think the answer is fairly clear. Lemmy's topics & votes system funnels condenses the user-base to focus on particular things at particular times. The total number of users may be smaller than Mastodon, but basically everyone on lemmy is looking at the top posts on the front page first, and then exploring to other stuff later; whereas on Mastodon everyone is just doing their own thing.
Focusing people on one topic means that there will be discussion at that topic at that time; and discussion leads to people checking back to read and reply to responses...
I routinely use both Mastodon and Lemmy. I see a lot more varied content on Mastodon, but it is more fleeting. i.e. very little discussion, and fairly short window of interaction with posts. Lemmy has a lot less 'stuff', but a lot more conversation.
I think the difference is interesting, but it definitely isn't something we should use to say which platform is doing better or anything like that.
Twitter have big interaction because user count is extremely high. For a microblogging platform maybe it requires that it needs lots of users and some "creators" who are followed by thousands of people, unlike communities which anyone can post and everyone joined the community can see.
I also think upvotes and downvotes plays a role too since mastodon does not have them(only boosts but boost actually shares with your own followers which might be very low)
So what is Nostr?
Lemmy is discussion focused, the bulk of content is the comments guided by posts. Mastadon/nostr are about microblogging, the posts are the focus of content, not the comments.
Has anyone else never even heard of nostr
nostr is yet another twitter, but for "anti censorship" folk, such as cryptobros and "freeze peach absolutists". Also has some crypto integration that lets it have shops and even a tiktok video thingy.
I assume because people follow topics on lemmy, unlike microblogging where people have to follow each other to interact (one-to-many vs one-to-one). So itβs easier to interact with many people that you donβt necessarily had to be following prior, which increases the chances of interacting with more people.
you can follow hashtags. I follow #opensource and a few other interests and I've found some interesting stuff you don't generally see in other places. but yes, the format is completely different and I find lemmy allows for better discussion than Mastodon.
you can follow hashtags.
Interesting. Perhaps I should give mastodon another go.
Yeah Mastodon seems way less about discussion and way more about surfacing cool shit you wouldn't otherwise see.
Honestly, I think is the whole βFirst Postβ mindset.
When you post a reply on Mastodon, it is more intimate, the only people who see it are the original tooter and anyone who actively seeks more commentary. It is a dialogue between two people, or multiple dialogues between one person and many others.
Lemmy is more like a forum, where everyone can see all comments, right underneath the original post. It is more like an open-table discussion.
It is not that Lemmy is more social, it is just less personal.
Itβs probably that Lemmy is communities but mastodon is individuals
Mastodon right now is essentially macroblog and/or microblog. Entirely designer for different purpose than Lemmy.
Any group-based social media will have higher possibility of interaction due to easier way to find similar interest, whether Lemmy, Reddit, Facebook Group, Misskey Group, even traditional self-host forum.
Microblog.... I just don't care about other people that much. Specific topics are more engaging and interesting.
Mastodon is so boring for me. Some people boost me because I discuss my research or Linux but rarely any engagement
Mastodon & others are microblogging (aka shitposting) platforms, while lemmy lets you ask questions in posts that will persist (not get flooded under a megaton of shitpost, hentai) and get answers.
On mastodon what's important is who you are (who you know, who you can interact with), on lemmy your post's content is more important.
I find microblogging format isn't really great for having any sort of meaningful discussion. Mastodon is good for posting news or memes, but that's about it. Lemmy format allows having an actual dialogue, and that makes it a lot more engaging.
mastodon is like an oasis in a sea of noise.
Concentrate on the signal, not the noise.
Build relationships with people you care about.
The problem with mastodon might turn out to be having a heart lacking in empathy. Need to be able to care enough to want to be associated with someone you admire.
We live amongst rock stars. How can anyone completely miss that?! The problem is neither the platform nor the rock stars.
Don't need a sea of people. Need 10 or 5 or 3. As long as they are rock stars. I count my blessings daily.
It's clearly how approach to using mastodon. Small tweak to your mindset and you can get alot out of the platform.
Dial up a super hero and tell them they are awesome.
Go to pypi
Find packages you like and their maintainers.
Hook up with them and tell them they are awesome, but found a few things that doesn't make sense in the docs. Whatever the approach. You are in!
Do it now.
It'll take all of 5 mins.
I still use Mastodon β as a place to dump intrusive thoughts more than anything β but there is this huge tension between people who want to chat with randoms, people who only want to chat with friends, and people who want to use it purely as a broadcast medium. The protocol/convention doesn't really allow for managing this issue, which is a shame, but I have come to the conclusion that microblogging is just kind of cursed as a medium. It's fundamentally all about building a personal brand, and if you have no social capital you are shit out of luck. And if you have too much, well, enter the reply guys.
Lemmy/the Reddit model on the other hand strikes a good balance between anonymity and being able to vet odd characters. Different people want different things ofc, and that's fine, but I find I have more fruitful conversations here than on Mastodon.
Hey, I don't come into your house and insult you by calling you social media! /s
I think, much like HN or early web forums, we're below the population level where personal attacks get unmanageable. On Reddit voicing a dissenting opinion would always get you dog piled and that makes people defensive and boring as shit.
People here are generally (some exceptions being pro life/choice which is a deeply toxic topic at this point and Gaza which has emotions extremely high) arguing in good faith and even if they're rough initially a lot of times I've appreciated back and forth threads since, even if there's still a disagreement, most people will genuinely work to remove stupid misunderstandings and try and understand who they're talking to.
Additionally, the mods on most communities are awesome and focus specifically on removing things like personal attacks without getting heavy handed in interventions.
The blog style format (post + threaded comments) is a lot more inviting to a conversational style than microblogging. Some Masto instances have very open post character counts but some are much more limiting - as are Bluesky and Xitter. If you're not able to explain your point clearly it hampers the ability to have a decent conversation about it.