I’m a Reddit refugee who was on that platform for 10+ years. I saw not just a tremendous amount of controversies, but attempts at introducing alternatives to Reddit during all of them. The 2015 blackout saw a ton of alternatives suggested, and if you go back and look at them many have either not survived or never achieved their stated goal of serving as a viable alternative to Reddit. Places like Voat, Ruqqus, or Parler promptly turned themselves into extremist shitholes and imploded. The truth is most internet communities which found and advertise themselves as an alternative to Reddit die.
However, I think this newest wave of searching for an alternative has more legs than I think I’ve ever seen, and the key to that is the kind of users who are moving. The people who were pissed off by the recent changes are the old guard of the internet. These are the people who still remember searching for and finding RIF, Apollo, or AlienBlue (before it was bought), and have the technical know-how to care about the quality and usability of their platform. I think you all are people who engage with their online spaces with intention, and because of that I believe that we have more of a shot at making this work than I’ve witnessed since I joined Reddit all those many years ago.
In order to make this all work out though, I think it’s really important to cast our thoughts toward what made the websites that have come before us successful. Every single one of these spaces have distinct ways of interaction that indirectly communicate their ideologies. Memes, in-jokes, and lingo form the backbone of online communities and help to direct users back to the source, but they never gain real purchase without a unique viewpoint. I’m pretty sure I can confidently suss out whether a meme comes from 4Chan, Reddit, or Tumblr, just through the message conveyed and the template used. For an online platform to have relevance and draw, I believe it absolutely needs to have an individual and communicable perspective.
Now I am aware that much of this is organically generated, but I think we underestimate how much of it isn’t. The structure of a website clearly communicates to users its core values, and users almost certainly respond to that. The fact that users are by default anonymous on the Chans absolutely contributes to the unique “flavor” of those websites, and the subreddit structure of Reddit allows it to contain a greater variety of clashing values. We can already see some of this on the Fediverse, the tension engendered by the federated instances I think places greater emphasis on building consensus. The fact that an entire server can be excised at will from a group of other like-minded server owners means that one has to always have an eye towards the common consensus, and I think we will see many fights over this in the not-so-distant future.
So as we go forward, and while we are in the most nascent part of this website’s lifespan, I think we should be discussing and commenting on what we think is most important about this space. I’m already seeing that people think that Kbin is “nicer than Reddit” and you’re more convinced that you’re interacting with real people. I think this is all good, and I think that while we’re making content, we need to have an eye on putting that particular spin on all the things we brought over from where we came from. Eventually, we need to get to the place where we’re creating unique meme formats, and having our own slang, but for right now we need to be thinking hard about what we want out of our online lives and how this website can be built to serve those purposes. I think the risk of not doing that, and forever being only a federated Reddit clone is going to leave people forever jonesing for the experiences they had on Reddit, and this space is going to die just like every other attempted alternative has before.
TLDR: Now that we’ve all left Reddit, for this new place to live my opinion is that we need to have more discussions about what our principles are, and we need to make unique content that brings people to this website.
The truth is most internet communities which found and advertise themselves as an alternative to Reddit die.
To be honest, there were damn good reasons why Voat, etc, died in a massive fire. The Reddit exoduses in question were from huge chunks of the userbase effectively being kicked out for being massive bastards/racists/bigots, etc. The communities that they spawned after leaving were absolutely horrific and nobody else on the internet wanted to go anywhere near them.
The current exodus is made up of actually normal people (at least, normal enough), and the reason we’re here isn’t just because we’re all joined by hatred (weeeelllll… maybe a hatred of u/Spez in a lot of cases, ha!), but because we’re genuinely looking for a better forum-space than what’s been available recently until now.
Sure, there are similarities, we’re still here because we find corporate control over the forum-space to be “oppressive” (just what an incel/racist would say, right?), but it’s not because our views aren’t tolerated there, it’s just because we’re really fucking tired of the cost of having somewhere to actually discuss things is that we’re endlessly sold as a product, followed by our discussion area being destroyed by corporate greed. Over and over again.
The reasons why this place is getting busy is fundamentally different than the reason why the previous migrations created places like Voat or Parler, etc. We’re already in a massively better position due to that alone.
Eventually, we need to get to the place where we’re creating unique meme formats
I agree with what you’re saying in general, but I really hope that all of the interesting discussion here doesn’t eventually get buried by memes like back on Reddit. Memes can be fun and all, but sorting a lot of otherwise really great niche-subs by top of all time back there was often a case of finding nothing of value at all because there were 50 pages of fucking memes at the top of the list. Personal preference, of course.
crossposted to https://kbin.social/m/bestof
Well, don’t I just feel all special now. :D
Eventually, we need to get to the place where we’re creating unique meme formatsI agree with what you’re saying in general, but I really hope that all of the interesting discussion here doesn’t eventually get buried by memes like back on Reddit. Memes can be fun and all, but sorting a lot of otherwise really great niche-subs by top of all time back there was often a case of finding nothing of value at all because there were 50 pages of fucking memes at the top of the list. Personal preference, of coarse
It sounds alot like your telling people how they should talk and act, thats not how the internet or social media works. One of my favorite boards right now in the fediverse, especially after a long day is 196. I would rather see 100 posts from 196 then another post about leaving reddit. And i can do that by filtering and subbing. thats how this all works,
I’m not telling anyone to do anything, I’m stating my opinion about what I think works and why.
Different things.
And since you mentioned 196. It’s still a decent example. I have 196 blocked because for me it’s just noise that I don’t want to see, because for me the content there has zero value.
The fact that I can block it completely (for me), get the result that I want and yet have that not effect anyone else’s use of it at all is literally a good thing.
I personally find the entire sub worthless because of the almost total noise to signal ratio problems there, but that’s personal preference on my part only, which I’m entitled to and merely means that I don’t personally find the place useful. Having these sorts of things separate means that it works for everyone regardless of their preferences.
Also, If I did still wish to see 196 occasionally, I can choose to either just go there, or unblock it temporarily, and nothing I’m doing effects anyone else at all.
None of this is telling others what they’re allowed to do, it’s the opposite.
196 is a practically random community anyway, it’s chaos and there’s no real way to “drown out” the content internally with memes or anything because the memes are just as much the content there as anything else could be.
we’re still here because we find corporate control over the forum-space to be “oppressive”
It’s bad when any corporation does that to anyone, regardless of respective points of view.
Yeah that’s a fair point. For me it was the constant twitter screenshots/ tiktok reposts and repeated and shallow discussion of whatever bullshit fill in the blank political figure/ tech billionaire was doing that was killing the fun for me. I really think memes were more fun back in 2012-~2018 or so, mostly because there seemed to be more emphasis on novelty, but the endless soyjack reposts or dead tv show memes (cough the office) were definitely getting stale. I think it works better when memes are on hobby/niche subreddits because I think they invited discussion in the comments, but man are they useless on anything related to current events. Some subreddits did it really well though, places like noncredibledefense (that’s the only one I can think of rn) really had a unique voice and were making new formats.
I found that, for me at least, memes on reddit were generally a negative aspect in most subs focussed on discussion.
They worked really well though when you had the main sub basically ban memes, but spawn a secondary sub specifically for them.
You get the best of both worlds there, where people can either take them or leave them, and the main sub doesn’t end up with a massive noise to signal problem.
Yeah, /r/AnarchyChess wouldn’t be anywhere close to where it is now if memes were allowed on /r/chess. Splitting the memes and discussion apart is definitely the best way to go.
Anarchychess is a really great example of this, actually.
Holy Hell.
There was a fascinating point on fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu where it felt like a narrative type was getting created. New characters and kinds of story lines were popping up all over. It was kind of amazing.
I have really fond memories of those old rage comics, they’re part of what got me to make an account in the first place. I know they’ve grown corny as they’ve aged, but gee so have I. I think most places online can’t really replicate the kind of communal rush to engage in the community, I think we’ve all grown a mite cynical.
I think we’re at the point that we need to stop thinking of things as “ex-redditors” and now as “kbinauts”. While it’s true that many people have come here from reddit, it’s not “people from reddit”, it’s “people on kbin”.
One thing I’ve noticed about the fediverse is that different instances have different ‘feels’ to them, and I think kbin is uniquely positioned to emphasize this a bit, since kbin differentiates itself almost ironically as “not a lemmy instance”. It pops up in so many threads of lemmy users discussing things, and then the random “oh this is a kbin thing”.
In sharing communities, it’s common to have a “for kbin users” link.
I see quite a few lemmy users differentiating themselves “as lemmy” as well. It’s an interesting phenomenon.
ultimately I think you’re right though. the sooner a proper culture can take root, and a particular “way of doing things” is cemented, the more likely it is that kbin will stick around.
Yeah I think this is a good point. I’m still getting used to the interface, I wish there was a bit more salient of a way of discerning what is a kbin post on the all feed? I know I can look underneath the title of the post, but maybe having an icon (like whatever the logo ends up being) on the right side of the title might be a good idea to privilege kbin’s posts for kbin users over lemmy’s without exempting those posts from the feed?
Get the kbin enhancement script and it’ll extend all the names to include the host instance.
I think we should be discussing and commenting on what we think is most important about this space.
One of the biggest tensions is going to be that as a community grows, it’s going to attract the attention of (a) advertisers who will develop “organic marketing” campaigns, (b) political messaging campaigners for international as well as domestic concerns, and © “influencers” who want to market their brands. Each of these will use high-engagement ragebait and awwThatsAmazing-type posts. Reddit’s r/all was full of these.
Kbin and lemmy seem nice and refreshing because a lot of those posts don’t exist here yet. But if we continue to grow, they will show up. How will we handle this?
That’s one trend I hope doesn’t spring up over here. I hated the fact that 95% of the subs on /r/all were literally the same thing. Like, what was the difference between MadeMeSmile, DamnThatsInteresting, NextFuckingLevel? Just all the same clickbait trash, and then, as you say, some “organic” marketing campaign for the latest Marvel movie.
Edit:
Mastodon handles this by not having an algorithm. In order for a toot to gain traction, it actually needs to be boosted around so that people can see it. A great example of how this prevented “organic” marketing was with @Raspberry_Pi.When they first joined, their SNS team tried the same easy brand tactics that they used on Twitter, trying to force engagement. It had the opposite effect, and the community backlash was fierce. They have since changed their messaging and become more genuine.
Since link aggregators usually need some kind of algorithm for a “front page,” I think the most important thing is to have it be transparent and static. No changing it every 4 months to increase engagement.
Most importantly, the community should also have a shared opinion on what kind of stuff they are okay with, and this can be more localized per instance.
Recently, I’ve visited r/all out of curiosity. Prior to deleting my Reddit account I can’t remember the last time I had visited r/all. I was always on my home page, and r/all didn’t even enter into my sphere. I would only catch brief glimpses of it as my home page loaded (I don’t know if this is because I used RES or not). My wife and I would talk back and forth about things we’d see on Reddit, and they were vastly different experiences.
Considering the minimal content so far on kbin, I do peruse “all” frequently, however my default viewing is on subscription. I don’t know how many users defaulted their home page to r/all on Reddit, but my wife and I did not. It seems to matter on how you curate your own experience. I’m glad these choices exist on kbin.
Reddit also had an aggressive recommendation system, where posts from your most recently interacted subs would show up more often. I would literally only open one sub via a post on the front page and the next time my /all would be filled with trash for that sub.
That’s interesting, and it makes perfect sense the algorithm would work that way. YouTube’s algorithm is much the same.
My Reddit home page was default, and like I said I don’t know if that was a function of RES or Reddit itself. I didn’t see much r/all content at all.I can tell you one thing about kbin, I already had to unsubscribe to “Cats” here. My feed was inundated with nothing but cat posts after I subscribed to the magazine. I love cyoot kittehs, but I also like to browse more than just cat content. I am however, glad the new participants are introducing all their fur babies though.
I used rif and I took the approach of blocking subs and using the front page rather than subscribing to specific subs. I don’t think the algorithm worked through that app since it relied on the developers API key to load content.
I would get a lot of niche content showing up without a lot of the annoying subs spam.
I think you’re both spot on. What I hope is that by voicing this people can “get with the program” and not reward that kind of content. After all, we can still see downvotes on here ;).
Like, what was the difference between MadeMeSmile, DamnThatsInteresting, NextFuckingLevel? Just all the same clickbait trash, and then, as you say, some “organic” marketing campaign for the latest Marvel movie.
@asteroidrainfall @bttoddx I think these two were related. I believe most of those UnexpectedInterestingSmile reposts were made by bot or semi-bot accounts, which were then used to upvote the marketing posts, and this worked because the front-page algorithm promoted things that high-karma accounts upvoted.
So the question is: will a combination of server policies and user actions counteract the effect of advertisement bots?
As you say, part of the answer relates to transparency in front-page algorithms and in up/down votes. Reddit avoids transparency because Reddit is pro-advertiser. Another part relates to user standards. The example you give from Raspberry_pi on Mastodon bodes well. And even on Reddit, I saw users call out “comment-stealing bots” which reposted human-authored comments for karma.
So the future issue will be: will the companies and advertisers try to engage in more genuine ways or will they just find ways to circumvent the transparency and user standards? And if so, how will the community adjust?
I think one thing that might help is to distinguish bot accounts from user accounts. This would make it obvious the intentions of the post.
I’ve been watching Lemmy since it was first announced. And it always seemed ‘not quite right’ to me. I am on Mastodon and Pixelfed, and now Misskey. Love all of them. Lemmy always felt… sketchy. But when I recently heard about Kbin, I was in immediately. This is a winning format and feels like the internet used to be.
There are things I would love here, like the option to mute or block, users or Magazines. Mastodon has that (mute users and block instances) right now and it’s utterly amazing.
I would also like a better choice of themes (not a priority). And although the navigation is a learning curve, I would like it better organized.
I think Kbin will continue to be a very popular platform.
I’m honestly not fond of the name because I use KDE (Kubuntu), and everything in the KDE world starts with a K. I thought Kbin was a KDE development tool at first. LOL!!
Anyhow fellow “Binners”, carry on!Just chiming in to say Kbin does appear to have a block feature - it’s the little circle with a slash through it next to the “subscribe” or “follow” button for a magazine/user/instance. I only found it recently, so spreading the knowledge around.
Thank you, how obvious!
I’m on Kbin and a few Lemmy instances, and I’m curious as to your thoughts on what the functional differences are that make this a winning formula while Lemmy is not. It’s almost the same as Lemmy. Don’t get me wrong, I like it here, but I don’t get much of a different vibe between here and sh.itjust.works for example.
It just feels like a really cheap Wordpress template. I hate the UI, Kbin feels like a user designed it, Lemmy feels like a DOS user designed it. The main page feels like Google or DuckDuckGo search results, where Kbin feels like the placeholders for each Magazine are purposeful. And I really hate the name. I have a pet peeve about any company, organization, etc naming things after animals. Be more original (yes, Mastodon could have a better name). At least Kbin is unique.
Kbin feels more like the forums of yesteryear when web design was really taking off. And again Lemmy reminds me of a DOS forum with the way it’s nested threads run together, it’s harder to read through than Kbin. Not to mention that websites should take full advantage of screen real estate, which Kbin does on desktop.I have nothing against Lemmy, I’m glad we have a ton of options in the Fediverse and encourage everyone to find what works for them. I am really digging the design of Misskey right now. I just have an instant dislike for the Lemmy interface, name and mascot.
It’s just my opinion, everyone should find their own workflow.Have you given apps like wefwef.app a go? That might fix your UI issues.
I have not because I use Desktop instead of mobile. But thank you for the suggestion.
