https://gist.github.com/MaximilianKohler/3bdedd0185283ac30c1f1422f9626947
If you have a Reddit account please post this to /r/RedditAlternatives.
Why move from Reddit to a forum?
Reddit has been going downhill on the path to enshittification for many years. But recently, they really s**t their bed. They've made communities no longer autonomous, and completely ignore their Terms of Service. Meaning there is no guarantee that any user or community can freely participate under the ToS without fear of the admins randomly stepping in and asserting their power -- whether that be via banning users or communities without cause, or turning over the community to complete outsiders or hostile entities.
Reddit showed that you can't trust a 3rd party. They can rapidly and drastically change their policies to screw you over after you've put in a decade of work hosting & growing your communities on their platform. With hosting your own forum, there is no such risk; you are under complete control.
Hosting your own Lemmy instance is a similar possibility, but Lemmy is early in development, and has various issues and more limitations currently. For me, adding a traditional forum to my existing website seemed like the best option at the time.
I wanted to move away from Reddit ASAP without losing any of the functionality/features, and I was able to accomplish that.
Pros & cons of Lemmy
I posted this to lemmy.world/c/reddit https://lemmy.world/post/3125497 and it was deleted without any reason/notification and I don't see a modmail feature. They have a modlog but it just shows an endless loading icon. There is also no access to your content after it's deleted, unlike with reddit.
There was another thread where people were discussing the need for attracting more niche communities & content creators to Lemmy. Well you're not going to attract them like that. As a content creator that hosted a handful of niche communities on reddit, my /c/reddit experience seems to confirm that making my own forum was the right decision.
I made the below comment about some of the drawbacks of Lemmy and I guess these are more to add. Perhaps Lemmy would be the best option in the [near] future. Unfortunately, forums lack the networking exposure of the fediverse.
I've seen people complain about the phpBB UI, so that made me shy away from using it for my website even though I personally like it.
I started looking into forums some months ago, and in that time Lemmy has already come a long way, to where I think Lemmy would possibly be the better option soon. But I wanted to get my site up and running ASAP.
A few things that factored into my decision:
- I think Reddit and its alts need the features of /r/enhancement and /r/Toolbox.
- I don't like the default UI of Lemmy. It's too bloated. I'm using old.lemmy.world now but it's definitely lacking in features and a bit buggy (IE: I had to switch to the "regular" site, and log in separately, to edit my post).
- I saw beehaw defederate due to lack of mod tools.
- lemmy.world showing Lemmy's vulnerabilities (ddos, security, etc.).
- I'm still familiarizing myself with Lemmy and the fediverse. It's a bit complex.
- The voting system has its upsides and downsides. I think no downvote button is the best option.
- I don't like the time-based nature of reddit-type sites. With forums, you don't need to always be there to answer right away. Discussions can take place over longer periods of time.
- As you say, a full step-by-step guide is essential.
- I'm now very hesitant to trust any 3rd party. I'd have to trust that the Lemmy instance I choose won't do the same thing reddit did to me.
I wasn't really considering hosting my own Lemmy instance at the time. But I think it can be installed onto a subdomain of any website?