Please indulge a few shower thoughts I had:
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I wouldn’t worry about Lemmy having as many users as reddit in the short term. Success is not just a measure of userbase. A system just needs a critical mass, a minimum number of users, to be self-perpetuating. For a reddit post that has 10k comments, most normal people only read a few dozen comments anyways. You could have half the comments on that post, and frankly the quality might go up, not down. (That said, there are many communities below that minimum critical mass at the moment.)
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Lemmy is now a real alternative. When reddit imploded Lemmy wasn’t fully set up to take advantage of the exodus, so a lot of users came over to the fediverse and gave up right away. There were no phone apps, the user interface was rudimentary, and communities weren’t yet alive. Next time reddit screws up in a high profile way, and they will screw up, the fediverse will be ready.
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Lemmy has way more potential than reddit. Reddit’s leadership has always been incompetent and slow at fixing problems. The fediverse has been very responsive to user feedback in comparison.
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And updoot! Quick n easy
Also, please don’t bring cringy Reddit lingo here.
If it reaches that mass, it’s going to bring all of it, minus corporate control. But we could still end up with a corporate host hoovering up all the user base anyways, github style. Embrace, Extend, Monetize.
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Says hitler
Well said, but I will say reddit felt more like being out in public. So you kept your distance and didn’t really interact, but here feels more like being at someone’s house that you know. At the moment. The federation aspect is a different wrinkle but ultimately will lead to a better experience overall. No ads is a huge bonus!
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I still have the community I moderate ([email protected]) set to mod posts only, because I’m the only mod and don’t want to risk someone posting something bad while I’m not on Lemmy. We really need an approved user feature like Reddit so that vetted community members can also make posts in communities where “anyone can post” isn’t a good option.
Couldn’t you toggle the mod posts only option on and off based on your availability? Maybe make a pinned post explaining it and write in the times it will be available inside that post?
That seems like it’d be pretty easy. Basically just like giving someone a moderators role but with extra tier of hierarchy below normal moderator.
Seems like a nice idea TBH … I’m generally all in favour of leaning into lemmy’s ability to create sorta blogging spaces that naturally federate (and therefore are easy to aggregate).
Lemmy and ActivityPub seems to have (nearly) everything to recreate a new blogosphere, but with federation beyond its own border over ActivityPub, comments, voting, aggregation, sorting and search built right in.
i joined and am using memmy, both this week. cant see how to post, only can see how to comment.
If you go to the community page, you’ll see a post button along with subscribe and about.
how do i get to the community page? and is that its name? do i look for “community page” or is it called something else? (i chose a random place to ask, its fine if you’re busy or don’t like to answer such basic stuff, i will eventually figure it all out.)
If you tap on the list button at the top left corner, you’ll see list of your subscribed communities. You can tap on any of them to go to that community page. You can also tap on the community name on a post in the main feed and go to that community. Lastly, you can also go to the search page and search for a community and go to its page. Let me know if you’re facing any difficulties.
than
Agree! that’s what I’ve been doing: Trying to build critical mass for small communities : fediverse
Yeah. Ive picked /conservative. Ive been posting a mixture of fluff and actual posts. Early days, but it seems to be picking up speed. Just post, it works!
I’ve seen that it’s already gotten invaded, and most posts are mass downvoted.
What’s the value of posting “fluff”? If you’re just trying to get engagement for engagement sake, why?
Trying to get engagenent, letting other conservatives know we exist, that sort of thing.
You admit that you’re posting what are essentially lies in order to attract conservatives? Y’all really are just saying the quiet part out loud.
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I’d check his post history before engaging. He’s trying to rebuild a spammy, dishonest right wing space in Lemmy.
He’s free to do so, but it’s just going to bring in trolls, bots, bad faith arguments, and extreme posting to sell shit.
I get that it’s inevitable, but let’s be careful what we’re encouraging.
Russian bot farms need some more ukranian drones.
Thanks! I hope you successfully build whatever community you’re building too!
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My problem with Lemmy is the lack of activity in niche communities. You’re right that there needs to be a critical mass and arguably Lemmy has it, but only for the most mainstream, generic type of content. It doesn’t have the mass to sustain any sort of niche, outside of maybe tech related topics because of the way the userbase is slanted.
I find myself going back there often because of that, but I hope that the userbase for generic content enough to sustain and grow, from where more active niche communities can spring up.
I think things could get a lot more interesting if other software that is more like classic bulletin boards and forums would implement ActivityPub. I mean, such online forums are still able to thrive in their respective niches. If such forums would become compatible with Lemmy, Kbin or Friendica, it could bring a whole new dynamic to this part of the Fediverse. At the same time, it would help these niche forums get more attention (even though I’m not sure if all or even most of them are interested in that).
When I first looked into Lemmy, which was probably well over a year ago at this point, I saw that they had an alternative front end called LemmyBB which resembles the older style phpBB boards of the late 90s and early 00s. It looks like the demo instance is offline now, and it wasn’t federating to begin with, but it certainly looks like an interesting use of the tech.
Someone the other day referred to posting in niche communities as shouting into the void currently, which I thought was apt.
I run one of that niche communities and right now things are quiet, but I’ll keep at it and grow it over the next few years.
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Oh, I see you have zero posts, ever. Well why don’t you go and contribute to that niche community you are nagging about. Maybe that’s what it needs to grow.
Ad hominem
Wait let me do it right so you know I know it’s Latin
ad hominem
Wait, I can’t read your comment because I keep seeing ads.
Ads for hominy? Weird.
Lemmy needs both content generators and content consumers. Not everyone needs to do both if that isn’t what motivates them to come to the site.
I don’t really love comparing to reddit because what reddit became isn’t what I hope for lemmy, but to make the point… What percentage of people do you think made content on reddit? I’d guess it was a fraction of a single percent.
I’m trying to, reached 300 subscribers, but three of them posted once, several commented once and that’s it.
What community is it, maybe I’ll try to plug it whenever it’s relevant to my comments.
It’s rare that it could come up in conversation outside the topic of photography, but here it is: [email protected]
Ah, nice, I’ll be a member and will be an OC poster as well though I rarely bring my sony mirrorless. It’s it okay to upload mobile photos?
I am of the opinion that cameras don’t really matter, beyond a certain technological level. Does it take pictures? Then it’s a camera, capable enough to use. There was a quote in Michael Freeman’s book on visual photographic literacy that I found quite interesting. He wrote that only ameteur photographers obsess over camera technology and settings.
So you’re more than welcome to post on there!
Thank you so much.
I’m sure they’ll get right to it after reading your smartass comment.
To me, the smaller userbase is actually a real problem. I’m willing to stick it out and hope it grows. But for over half of the subreddits I subscribe to, the corresponding lemmy communities have 0 posts this last week.
Yes, I don’t need 10k comments on my posts. But memes or mainstream news was never the big value of reddit for me - I can get these anywhere. Instead it is about the niche communities with a few thousand subscribers. And for now, I still have to use reddit for them.
Yeah the very top post on hot right now has 9 comments lmao.
There is no one here. I mean I love the platform and the apps. I don’t go to Reddit anymore on my phone. But there’s no one here.
If I don’t go to Reddit at least once per day I’m going to miss news and events that are important to me.
Just FYI hot is probably the worst way to browse for news and events, I’ve found top of 6h is far better if you check often, Active if you check every 24 hrs ish.
That’s been my experience as well. I usually do top 6 or top 12.
That’s mostly on the sorting algorithms being slightly fucky wucky. Lemmy has enough activity to satisfy me, but lacks niche communities.
I’ve noticed that “Hot” turns the front page over pretty quickly, which means you see more in your feed, but posts are bumped down before the comments start piling up.
Whenever I’ve posted anything that has made it to the top of Hot, the majority of the comments come in after it has dropped down (which happens after like, 1hr).
If you sort by “active” there should be posts with more comments. The “hot” sorting is not really representative for how active users on lemmy are, since it favours younger posts over older posts with lots of comments. You can read the details of the reasoning here .
I swap between active and hot. Seems to work well
Reddit has a lot of international subreddits which don’t really exist here on Lemmy (they have like 10 users and they almost never post).
Reddit has huge lively communities. I’m having a ball here on Lemmy, but I too must check Reddit once a day to know if important stuff happened.
Sure, someone could say I should work on jumpstarting these Lemmy communities, but I’ve only been able to to what I can so far (that is, replying to posts and joining the conversation)
Ninja edit: fixed grammar
Yeah the issue is that with large online communities, your largest user group is always going to be that of least engagement.
So users who just read stuff is your biggest group. Then comes users who made an account. Then comes users who up and downvote. And last comes users who post.
It makes it very hard to grow a new social media platform.
I’m in the same boat, but rather than just going back to Reddit for those communities, I’ve opted to lose those communities, conversations and information entirely. I will not support their platform.
And I resent Reddit for that in a major way. Fuck them.
Yeah, you need people to post and comment to develop a community. I’ve got one community where I post five times a week, but I’ve only had two posts from other people and only one person commented on a post.
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Lack of posts is one thing, but lack of comments is something else. People seem to be engaging with the posts with the like button, but that is all that is happening for now.
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: [email protected]
What about now?
Still visiting several subreddits that don’t have corresponding active lemmy communities. Once of them actually has an “official” lemmy community (run by the same mods) but none of the people moved over, so it’s empty,
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Firefox + ublock (it has filters that block the “install app” on mobile, but need to be enabled from the settings) is useable.
I follow damn near every community on lemmy that I followed on reddit. I follow 97 communities on lemmy with all communities active and none with 0 posts. I left reddit immediately and haven’t looked back. All the news, whether political or tech related, I get from lemmy. I think people just haven’t found the right communities. You have to put in some time to find them since you may have 5 or 6 with the same name. But, once you do, you should be good to go.
Comparing the two communities, reddit nearly always has way more quality content and news for me though for the time being. Often even with big news it’s just not here on Lemmy at all. Many posts also have 0 comments and you just wouldn’t see that on Reddit. Once Sync can create posts I will probably start x-posting more from reddit to lemmy for communities I am most interested in.
For now I think I will start browsing Lemmy and then visit Reddit for anything I missed. Keeping my posting and commenting over here mostly because I’d like to see this place grow.
for me, reddit nearly always has way more quality content and news for me though for the time being
It’s not just you.
As constructively as I can put this, reddit has been building community and goodwill for many years. Lemmy has only recently become an option and it’s done wonderfully in the short time it’s had.
The challenge is the catch 22. People go where there is more content, they produce content there, and then there is more content there. There no vacuum, reddit didn’t disappear. It became toxic and people apparently care less about avoiding toxicity than filling up on dank memes.
All I can say to that is we all need to be the change we want to see in the world. Adopt a Lemmy First mentality, and go to reddit only to pick up legacy slack. Continue the conversation from there over here. Link it up.
This is a good comment. There is no vacuum. Well said.
Yeah, I wish there was more reposting from Reddit, because that’s what a lot of communities need tbh
Well it sounds like you weren’t into subreddits like sewing, knitting, or plant goths… Little less userbase there…
The key there is that it takes some effort to go find all the stuff. People are generally lazy so it’s hard to get them to do it.
So, what do they want, lemmy people have to do over time in posting so the lazy people get what they expect from lemmy. If they are lazy, they can stay with reddit.
Next time reddit screws up in a high profile way, and they will screw up, the fediverse will be ready.
And it doesn’t seem entirely impossible that our Elon Musk fanboy Steve will screw up again.
I won’t be surprised to read in the future:
- Reddit Introduces Its Own Version of X’s (Formerly Known as Twitter’s) Blue Checkmark
- Backlash After Reddit Strikes Exclusive Deal to Provide Trainingsdata to OpenAI
- Reddit Introduces Paid Membership Options for Communities
- Something Money Grabbing Reddit Related
Reddit charges a subscription for people to mod a subreddit.
That will be when they remove old.reddit
I’ve been wondering if the API change was actually a move to prevent anyone but themselves from using Reddit’s data to train AI.
Likely so, though scraping will still yield the data. Maybe they will make scraping harder too.
Maybe that’s why their mobile app and new website sucks lol
Yes, they specifically have said they don’t want AI companies to get their user data for free. What’s interesting is that we as a culture have internalized and accepted the idea that our user-made content is something only tech companies have the right to profit from and fight over.
That’s what I assumed from the beginning: think of the gold rush for generative ai and they are using Reddit data. Actually, it even seems fair to share in the potential (but what about the users who created it all?).
However if that was their intent, they sure screwed it up
Reddit has always had changes that made people want to leave. Removing CSS was the first that comes to mind. Now that lemmy exists it could be seen as a new platform to jump to every time reddit does something dumb or anti user. I have high hopes for lemmy
For me, getting rid of the old reddit design as default was pretty egregious. Usability tanked if I wasn’t logged in.
By design sadly, to collect that juicy, juicy user data.
When i.reddit.com was gone, that did it for me.
Lemmy has enough user activity to fulfill my time-wasting needs.
There doesn’t need to be one website that EVERYONE is at. The Web didn’t used to be so damn consolidated.
I don’t give one shit about “Lemmy vs. Reddit”. I care about Lemmy having active communities to engage in, regardless of what is happening on some other website.
Yes this is my thinking as well. Before reddit I was more than happy participating in forums on subjects I enjoyed. I had want I wanted. I almost have that here as well. That’s success in my eyes.
I think so too. I used reddit up until rif stopped working about a week ago (for me at least). Ive always been a reluctant participant in social media largely because of how consolidated everything is. Which, at the end of the day just means we’re easier to market to or monetize. I’m excited about the possibilities of lemmy in a way I’ve never been about social media before. The content is currently a little sparse; you have to go looking a little, but that’ll improve quickly I’m betting. There’s no shortage of content to be had. In a small way it feels like the Internet 25 years ago
Honestly, I don’t know if it’s the fewer users, the lack of trolls, the newer apps I’ve been forced to use or the topics that I’ve been getting into since joining Lemmy. But I have been considerably more active here both commenting and posting, than I ever was on Reddit.
It may have started as a way to do my part for the growth of Lemmy, but it’s not been about that for me for some time now.
For me it’s the smaller number of users. It is very likely that your comment will just end up at the bottom and nobody will see it if you comment on a reddit post with thousands of comments. If you comment on a Lemmy post with 25 comments or less it is way more likely to actually be seen by people.
Others have touched on it, but for me it’s like the difference between speaking up in a conversation between people I don’t know at a house party, and speaking up in a giant auditorium when the person on stage is asking for inputs. The smaller scale makes it a bit more comfortable and I feel more like what I have to say isn’t already being said by a hundred other people.
Totally agree although sometimes Reddit was a lot more like speaking up in a bar full of angry drunks right after a group of neonazis burst in and started slap fighting everyone.
Yeah, this is a great analogy, definitely agree here.
I tend the comment more on posts with less comments. So if a post has thousands of comments already I’m not to going to leave a comment and will probably just read the top couple comments
“You could have half the comments on that post, and frankly the quality might go up, not down.”
This is probably my favorite part of Lemmy. The comment section feels more meaningful, and not a landfill of garbage posts. Additionally, if I make a comment, there is a higher chance that it will be read and responded to, so it feels like I am actually engaging with a community, and not just chucking my thoughts into space and hoping they land on a planet.
People actually talk here instead of racing to make an one-liner based on an in-joke to maximize karma usually. It’s nice.
Absolutely. It’s nice a solid portion of the silly Redditness is relegated to Lemmy Shitpost and Meme communities.
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I think the biggest value Reddit had to humanity was its original content. The kind of stuff that has people putting “reddit” in their Google searches for myriad topics.
As such, I’m not hung up on the numbers. If one really looked at it, that content generation is such a small fraction of what activity goes on over there. I’ll take quality over quantity here.
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No surveillance capitalism. unlike reddit, lemmy isn’t trying to monetize/track you.
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Freedom/openness. Already, someone can use a third party app to use lemmy. Moving forward, I think, people will come up with new ways to utilize lemmy/activity pub.
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Difference is: when that happens, it will be forked and will live on!
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Reddit has now checkmark/verified or whatsoever they call like any other centralized social media. Extreme cringe
twitter has transformed my view of people with verification checks to “most likely to be an idiot”
It could also be that they are forced to be an idiot, like for content creators (MKBHD, Tekking101)
i did say “most likely” :P
Paid speech.
Those people should be double and triple posting to different platforms.
There’s no reason MKBHD can’t post to both Twitter and Mastodon. You get the reach, and you enable an alternative.
Yes, it went from “person of influence” to “dumbass pays for attention” rather quickly.
That’s why musk now allows people to hide their check
Lol I didn’t know, I haven’t been there in months now. That’s awful… But good for us. :)
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Success is the best revenge.
R*ddit is a swear word now lol.
To me there is no vs. My web browser has tabs and I can have multiple ones open at a time. It is cool to have more things, I don’t need to commit to anything like an app or website.
Get outta here with your rational thinking! /s
- Lemmy is now a real alternative. When reddit imploded Lemmy wasn’t fully set up to take advantage of the exodus, so a lot of users came over to the fediverse and gave up right away. There were no phone apps, the user interface was rudimentary, and communities weren’t yet alive. Next time reddit screws up in a high profile way, and they will screw up, the fediverse will be ready.
I definitely think having mobile apps is an essential step. I was looking at alternative platforms such as Raddle.me but using a mobile browser was an extra hurdle (similar to using the official Reddit app) that kept me from regularly checking in.
- Lemmy has way more potential than reddit. Reddit’s leadership has always been incompetent and slow at fixing problems. The fediverse has been very responsive to user feedback in comparison.
I could see this causing issues later. We’ve already seen issues arise with some instances using the .ml domain or not being updated immediately.
Defederation is another beast all together. Most of an instance might be fine but a few problematic communities could create problems leading to arguments and, as much as I hate the term, drama.
I definitely think having mobile apps is an essential step. I was looking at alternative platforms such as Raddle.me but using a mobile browser was an extra hurdle (similar to using the official Reddit app) that kept me from regularly checking in.
I agree. Some of the alternatives to Reddit are vehemently against mobile apps (ahem, tildes), so I doubt those will ever take off. Not everybody sits in front of a computer all day. But I think some of those don’t actually want a big userbase, which seems counterproductive for a forum, but whatever.
Lack of an API is what’s keeping me from using kbin, honestly. I know they’re working on it, but Lemmy already had an API long before the Reddit protests started.
I agree. Some of the alternatives to Reddit are vehemently against mobile apps (ahem, tildes), so I doubt those will ever take off.
Didn’t the RIF dev just release an app for Tildes?
Yes, there are apps for Tildes, but there isn’t an actual API for developers to use, and the owners of Tildes don’t seem to want them around. I’ve read in multiple places that they believe mobile apps go against everything they stand for.
the owners of Tildes don’t seem to want them around. I’ve read in multiple places that they believe mobile apps go against everything they stand for.
It might not be intentional, but you’re spreading misinformation that could be prevented with a quick search.
The (sole) developerbof Tildes specificlly stated that Tildes will have an API and that they don’t want to discourage apps. Their philosophy is just that the official way of visiting Tildes should be the same lightweight website as the desktop. A solution that works on every device. To me, this makes a lot of sense. It fits the philosophy of Tildes, results in less code to maintain and ensures the experience is the same on every device.
Source from the Tildes Documentation:
The site is the main mobile interface, not an app
Tildes is a website. Your phone already has an app for using it—it’s your browser.
Tildes will have a full-featured API, so I definitely don’t want to discourage mobile apps overall, but the primary interface for using the site on mobile should remain as the website. That means that mobile users will get access to updates at exactly the same time as desktop ones, and full f
I stand corrected, but that still doesn’t lead me to believe they really want mobile apps to take off on the platform.
it’s more that they believe the mobile site should work well enough that an app shouldn’t be needed. also the one person behind tildes is doing it as a side project next to a full-time job (after experimenting with donations in the early days of the site). the fact that there isn’t an api is mainly due to time constraints (and to make sure when there is one it is done properly)
Fair enough, I didn’t know that.
I’m using the Artemis app for kbin right now. They have it all ready to ship they just need to tie some stuff together before the main instance kbin.social is upgraded to support the api. The public beta for artemis just came out and has the api features enabled through the “test” instance artemis.camp, which still federates with everyone else. With the pace being made they should be done in the next week or two
I was one of the first batch of beta testers, but being required to join another instance to use the current version of Artemis is not something I’m willing to do at this time.
One problem I see:
You can google
site:reddit.com whateverBut if you googlesite:lemmy.world whateverthen you’re losing a significant amount of results. To get good results, you need to know which Lemmy instances is likely to have your answer, and with communities duplicated over different servers, that can be tough.In the end I find I prefer this federation model, although I’m not sure although I’m a bit concerned about funding it if it scales up to the size of Reddit (same with Mastodon vs twitter).
Google should be finding searches with “lemmy” keyword, but it isn’t at the moment.
Lemmy needs some SEO people.
I don’t think lack of SEO is the issue. There’s just not enough content and brand/domain authority to get results from here high in SERPS.
There might be something fediverse related that would affect performance in search, but I’m not knowledgeable enough about this setup to speak to it.
I think it’s just lack of content, general awareness/interest, and longevity that’s keeping Lemmy low in search
Lemmy contents are replicated by federated servers, so you might find what you want by using
site:lemmy.worldor other big instances because they might also has replicated contents from other smaller instances.This has more to do with how bad Google has gotten, such that you’re forced to add restrictions like Reddit to get rid of SEO sites and get useful answers. A proper working search engine would show these (and any that are found in Lemmy) high up by default.
I’m sure the search problem will be solved somehow. Like all the content is on each instance so its just a case of it being accessible and indexed by google I guess?
I’m sure it’s already being indexed by Google. But people like to add site filters like
site:Reddit.comorsite:stackoverflow.comto prevent google from barfing up a bunch of garbage results on the front page, when they know that’s probably where the results they want will be. There is no way to add a Lemmy-wide filter to a Google search, because Lemmy instances are all different sitesDoes it actually matter though because Lemmy contents are replicated by federated servers, thus big Lemmy instances such as lemmy.world might have contents from smaller federated instances as well. Try using
site:lemmy.worldnext time and see if it’ll improve the search result, though Lemmy.world is just 2 months old so maybe Google hasn’t indexed it allThat’s a good point. If you filter by a major site, then it’ll have content from all the major communities.
That won’t help if you’re looking for niche content, but that’s not as important.
I wonder how replicated data shows up to the indexer. I don’t know enough about search engine indexing or SEO. Will google index replicated data? Presumably it won’t index feeds or searches, it’ll index the actual posts, and I wonder if replicated posts are considered posts for the purposes of indexing or if the indexer will only look at local posts.
Google isn’t thrilled with duplicate content. Following this thread here, it sounds like identical content might be hosted on multiple servers? If that is so, it’s not going to be high value in Google’s eyes.
If it’s indexed, you’ll be able to search it with Boolean modifiers, but it might not get priority in organic searches.
Yes, contents are replicated across federated instances. For example, here is the link to this thread on my instance: https://lemmy.institute/post/49173
If you check the html source there, there is a canonical link in the header that points to https://sh.itjust.works/post/2334723 , which is in the OP’s instance. I think google will respect canonical links when indexing duplicated contents, so maybe the SEO aren’t affected too much?
Presumably how it should work is that that even if content is duplicated, the crawlers would only index the “local” for Mastodon/Lemmy/etc servers, so they wouldn’t see the duplication.
But idk how it actually works, and we’re right back with my original concern of
sitefilters
Ideally it would be popular enough that you wouldn’t need the site modifier. Google would see that Lemmy has the most seen and perpetuated answer just like it sometimes does with Reddit now, whatever the instance.
In the eyes of a search engine, yes.
But once a site is popular enough for traffic and engagement to influence it’s position in search, it’s def going to be popular enough for bots, trolls, bad faith actors, grifters, etc.
People still often out the site modifier on just to prevent google from barfing up a bunch of crap they don’t care about, even if they know that Reddit results will be near the top.
Welcome to the old Internet. Decentralization is good in a way, people will have to try harder instead of having everything spoon fed to them by Google.
I’m not personally a fan of that brand of elitist gatekeeping. Having it be harder to keep out the plebs is not a look I think we wanna get behind.
Decentralization is important, but the goal isn’t to keep people out.
I guess I didn’t exactly mean it as elitist gatekeeping, I see it more like people are being abandoned by major websites and this is the result.
People having to work harder is good? No I disagree with that entirely.
Part of what makes reddit so amazing is the amount of amazing knowledge and answers you can find from google.
