this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2023
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Fediverse
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Registration and discovery needs to be simplified tremendously for long term viability. But it’s a good start.
I keep seeing people say this but honestly registering is really easy. It took me 5 minutes to figure out how to create an account after leaving reddit
Well, sure, anyone posting here at the moment figured it out. But I’d bet there’s tons of people interested but intimidated.
You literally click the sign up button, fill out the form, get an email saying your application was accepted and then log in. What is complicated about that?
Genuine question.
The complication comes from things aside from the sign-up process. It’s understanding instances and navigation. People don’t know how it works. I.e. what is the equivalent of a subreddit? Who hosts it? Is it someone’s personal server? What if it goes down suddenly? Etc.
But that's not an issue with the sign up process, so why are people complaining that it is difficult and complicated to sign up?
I agree there definitely should be somewhere that shows an infographic of how the fediverse works. I've seen this one that can be handy for people to understand.
This is great. This is what should be on page to choose an instance . A no nonsense guide that people can just read and get the concepts. I think content such as this is the way to go. People don't know or care why it is better in most cases but this gives them the gist in a minute.
Coming from https://join-lemmy.org/, you need two clicks before you even see a signup button. That is two clicks on pages filled with technical talk about servers and other mostly irrelevant details. In total, you need to visit three pages with different looks, and find one specific button on each.
We don't need to agree wether it is complicated or not. We should note it's a perception many newcomers have. If we want to make life easier for newcomers, this is one area to work on.
I had heard about it for a week, but finally signed up when a mod I trusted on a reddit sub I used posted a sign-up link to lemmy.world. I'm somewhat tech proficient, but that extra step of figuring out a good instance to join was enough to stop me for a while. I didn't want to join a dud and have yet another dead login somewhere. YMMV, of course!