this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2023
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Asklemmy

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Please, help us to better understand how we can effectively funnel reddit users into Lemmy across all demographics, leveraging the average Lemmings advantages like expertise in automation, ai and bots?

What tactics/strategies do you propose? Can we automate the process? Can we somehow add ai to make it more fashionable?

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[–] [email protected] 236 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Create content and participate to make Lemmy more attractive.

[–] [email protected] 160 points 8 months ago (13 children)

Best I can do is talk about Linux.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 8 months ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 38 points 8 months ago (4 children)
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[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The archetypical answer should be obvious

[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago
[–] [email protected] 23 points 8 months ago (2 children)

All my homies use Hannah Montana Linux

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I never have anything interesting to say

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[–] [email protected] 144 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Don't worry about user numbers. Worry about developing niche communities here. With different personalities. That's the magic to make a garden grow.

[–] flames5123 57 points 8 months ago (4 children)

It doesn’t matter how niche, it matters how active we are. I’ve been bored by β€œhot” for a while since it’s just 1h old trash, and β€œactive” just leads me to day old threads. I want to participate in 4 hour old threads that have a lot of comments and a lot of activity and people still replying.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] flames5123 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Top 6 hours will only bring me the most upvoted across the site, not the most active for a community or anything like that. On Reddit, I used to get posts with a couple dozen comments for super niche communities that I’m subbed to on the hot filter. It was fun seeing those pop up and be active and highlighted on my feed.

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[–] [email protected] 107 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Users don't care if Lemmy or the Fediverse is more "free" or which technical features are superior to what Reddit offers.

Most users want a place to find content and basically doomscroll. You want users that will submit new content, not just lurkers. So in order to attract people here, the best way to do so is to submit new content.

[–] xylogx 24 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I would focus on getting top posters from Reddit to move over or at least cross post.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago

Doing that requires them seeing someone else getting attention that they are not. Anyway you slice it, the answer is more posts being made here.

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[–] [email protected] 94 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Please, help us to better understand how we can effectively funnel reddit users into Lemmy across all demographics,

Who is "us", who is "we"?

And who the fuck thinks anyone should be funnelling (no less) the toxic cesspit that is reddit over here?

This post sounds like some bullshit written by the marketing department of a clueless corporation trying to find ways to exploit the latest "thing".

[–] [email protected] 23 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Please get some redditors here, the narwhal isn't bacon enough

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[–] [email protected] 73 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Flawed premise.

Lemmy is not reddit nor should it aspire to be.

We don't want to attract reddit users, we simply want vibrant communities.

This type of attitude results in turds that won't flush like lemmit.online et al - a blight upon our fertile landscape.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Wow, do so many people believe Lemmy user are that much different than Reddit user? I mean I can totally forego all the bots, incels and astroturfing, but I do believe they migrate automatically once a platform got big enough. I don't think there's any way to stop that unless you want to keep Lemmy small forever.

Lemmy needs to grow because Reddit needs to go. Reddit has become too powerful for a greedy company like that.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 8 months ago (3 children)

You've missed my point.

I'm simply saying that migrating reddit users en-masse is the wrong objective. Just make lemmy awesome and allow users to come organically.

I couldn't care less what happens to reddit. Let them hang around and soak up all the idiots.

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[–] Dran_Arcana 17 points 8 months ago

I would be very interested to see the percentage of lemmy users that were reddit users right up until the point they switched primary platforms. I have to imagine that number is near 99%.

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[–] LesserAbe 50 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I see some people here saying they don't want Lemmy to grow. They're right as far as growth for the sake of growth. That said, there's value in a bigger user base because it allows for niche communities that otherwise wouldn't have enough activity to be worthwhile.

So in that spirit, I think actively posting and commenting about the subjects you're interested in is the best way to help develop active communities. If in conversation IRL we find ourselves saying, "I heard about X on lemmy" or "This tutorial on lemmy helped me figure out an issue with Y" then that's the best advertisement for new users.

Likewise I think reddit posts are favored when people do web searches because it's humans having a real discussion, not seo trying to sell something. As there's more content on lemmy I'd hope web searches will start bringing people here. (And as platforms like reddit make their product worse to make more profit fewer people will go there)

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago

Yup. I don't post on reddit anymore but lemmy is still relatively empty so I still search for stuff on reddit.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 8 months ago (2 children)

By not allowing bots to crosspost from Reddit. Unique content is thexanswer.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] Subverb 16 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This was my thought too. Organic growth is better. I like the vibe on Lemmy far more than Reddit which has turned into a Instagram clone.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (7 children)

The problem with Lemmy is that the demographic is so skewed. Its mostly hyper-tech nerds mixed with political activists. I like tech and politics but its a bit of a toxic brew and I haven't found myself having that much fun over here. On reddit, there's comedy and people not being angry because someone isn't using linux. Lemmy often feels like a glorified arstechnica link aggregator. Its just kind of a sad place compared to reddit. The other day u/shittymorph made some posts that made me laugh super hard. I haven't laughed at anything over here, because well most of you aren't funny, haha me neither so don't feel attacked. But lemmy not attracting comedians, and having the top post in here be "Dont" really makes it seem like the people here prefer being sad and lonely. sorry its not a direct reply to your query, as some actionable advise your seeking, just me attempting to articulate what i enjoy about reddit that I feel like i don't see here yet. I don't how to get someone like shittymorph over here. I don't know if there's anything that lemmy offers that appeals to a person like that, that's enough to make them start creating content over here. Maybe we just need people to stand up the sort of communities commedians would be attracted to, even if its a bit out of our wheelhouse, but idk. Authenticity is important and faking it is easily seen through.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Just stop going to Reddit and start contributing valuable content on Lemmy. If Lemmy is a good network, people will come here on their own.

Using AI bots to spam outsiders with Lemmy info is very likely to have the opposite effect.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Post more from humans, no ai content

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

As an AI language model, I concur with this assessment.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I don't really understand why you would want to. In order for the fediverse to be strong it has to grow organically and scale up, not face an eternal september of clueless people who aren't particularly interested in it.

The corporate/political shills, scammers, sealions and such are attracted to reddit by its size. Not having all that crap here is a good thing. Let's enjoy it while it lasts.

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[–] Harpsist 30 points 8 months ago (3 children)

The reddit posts I saw made it seem WAY more complicated then it was.

It made it seem I was going to have to make dozens of different users. That it was going to be an issue posting to different instances. That I was going to need several programs to talk to eachother..

Mean while. I signed up. Sync told me. 'hey! You just got lemmy - I already work for that!' and here I am. Sometime I forget this isn't reddit.

Seriously. Whatever flyers you want to spread for reddit needs to show how EASY it is to come here.

Speaking of that. Do we lemmings have a dedicated post we can share to redditor who are ready to switch?

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago

Hey, let's not!

[–] [email protected] 24 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Cross post from Lemmy to Reddit. But we must raise the question if we really want that. Reddit became toxic over the past few years, and I think people on Lemmy right night are in general different. Do we want to turn Lemmy into Reddit?

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

how can we funnel reddit users to lemmy?

Spez is already taking care of that:

'Reddit can survive without search': company reportedly threatens to block Google

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago (4 children)

At this point, anyone who was part of the 3rd party app protests who stayed and didn't make the switch clearly didn't want to jump here, so they'll probably be on r€dd!t for a long time.

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[–] hikarulsi 20 points 8 months ago

Not required, reddit had since activated self destruction mode and still on going

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

You don't. There just isnt enough content. I stopped using reddit for months but now use it again when I am using my PC. Reddit for PC with RES and lemmy for phone is a good balance I found out. At least until they kill RES

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (2 children)

More and better NSFW content isn’t the answer, but it certainly helps!

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[–] Red_October 18 points 8 months ago (6 children)

If you just funnel reddit users onto Lemmy, you're just going to get a shittier version of Reddit. You'll be selecting for people who are tired of, can't use, or rejected from reddit, but didn't make the move on their own. That will result in growth, but at the cost of quality. Specifically reaching out to reddit users sends the message that you just want to be reddit for people who can't or won't use reddit anymore.

Expansion should come naturally. As Lemmy grows and improves, new users will naturally gravitate over, but because it wasn't some sudden influx of reddit users they'll be less inclined to just bring Reddit's culture with them.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Mod tools. Steal the moderators and the communities will follow

[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago (2 children)

The true answer... get all the only-fans folks here and everyone else will follow. We need the content people crave and people crave bewbs.

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[–] theragu40 17 points 8 months ago

Don't focus only on reddit users. That unnecessarily narrows the scope of the issue.

Lemmy has significant barriers to joining that other sites or services do not have. And then once people manage to join there are basic usability issues with simple things like finding communities.

Until these core issues are solved it feels pointless to try to target users from a specific site.

[–] systemglitch 17 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Please don't, we don't need to ruin this site as well.

[–] BigBlackCockroach 26 points 8 months ago (12 children)

Stop pulling the ladder up behind you. Don't lock the door once you are in. Don't advocate for Anti-Immigration when you are fresh off the boat yourself. πŸ˜‚

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Dear Lemmings, how can we funnel reddit users to lemmy? Please, help us to better understand how we can effectively funnel reddit users into Lemmy across all demographics, leveraging the average Lemmings advantages like expertise in automation, ai and bots?

This almost reads like an AI generated prompt from a company. Personally I don't think it makes sense to coordinate something artificial because people will see right through that.

Lemmy and the Fediverse at large IS better than the other platforms. With time it will grow for that reason alone.


What tactics/strategies do you propose?

Post content about things you know about and follow. It could be stuff you see on other social media, local news, anything really.

If you want to get more involved, pick a specific community or subreddit type and see what it needs. How can Lemmy serve that topic as well or better than Reddit could. If it makes sense, see if you can work with the moderators for the subreddit to get an official parallel community going (link to eachother, update rules, add the subreddit mods as mods here).

Can we automate the process?

Only in some cases where it makes sense. Lemmit exists for those that want a feed from a subreddit. Otherwise Time sensitive content, such as deals/sales?

Can we somehow add ai to make it more fashionable?

I think the opposite is needed, don't do any of the random "fashionable" things companies are doing, which actually end up making the experience worse. Areas where it might be nice to have AI might be:

  • improving the summarizer bot (it's broken sometimes, not sure why)
  • local translations when content is in another language
  • can't think of anything else?
[–] systemglitch 16 points 8 months ago

I'm arguing against recruiting people over en mass. I feel natural growth is a healthier alternative, as a stagnant environment is also unhealthy.

[–] comrade19 14 points 8 months ago

I find theres enough content here to satisfy my needs without it becoming an unhealthy addiction. Also it feels like my comment is actually noticed and sometimes replied to by a real person like me. Reddit relt unhealthy in those ways.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Don't want to. This is good as it is. There's already a fair crack of wowsers here, and that's already too many. The discussion here was pretty amazing a while back, but it's already dumbing down as this place grows.

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