I gotta be honest...I am hanging on by a threat. The communities that I was engaged with on Reddit before the Snoopacolypse were pretty niche. I wasn't there for r/funny or r/videos, etc. I found similar communities on Lemmy, but they have soooooo little activity. I have to modify my sort just to see content, as its so old. When there are posts, they typically get very little discussion.

I am on Lem.ee, and I have the hardest time posting anything from mobile. It looks like it fails, and if I sort by new, it isn't there and never shows up - HOWEVER, I start getting replies, so someone is seeing it somehow.

I detest what reddit did and is still doing - but Lemmy is not filling that void for me, and its frustrating.

[–] rip_art_bell@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I feel you. The Network Effect is real, and the niche subreddits need a HUGE overall userbase to work at all.

The total population of Lemmy + Kbin is about the size of a medium size city subreddit.

I'm staying here for now. I sometimes cheat and browse reddit not-logged-in. I don't know what the answer is.

[–] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think it’s fair to reply to niche-sub threads with a little PS:

BTW, I've recently shifted my online engagement to Lemmy, as I find it aligns more with my values and the way I like to share content. The community there is very welcoming, and they’d be incredibly receptive to the insights shared in this thread. Hope to seeing you there!

[–] rip_art_bell@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Good idea

[–] rglullis 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The mirrors from alien.top are perfect for this use case. I had about 40 subreddits which I followed but didn't participated much. I had them all mirrored to different communities and now I don't need to go to reddit anymore.

(Unfortunately, LW has blocked alien.top, so if you want to do something similar you'll need an account on a different server)

[–] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Promising, have to check this out!

Not sure if I’ll want to start with dummy accounts to test… by connecting my reddit account, am I actually potentially triggering more mirroring?

[–] rglullis 2 points 1 year ago

No. The mirroring is configured by the instance admin.

[–] rip_art_bell@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Very interesting; thank you

[–] imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

Try fiddling around with your language settings maybe? Sometimes the language filter can hide posts in a weird way.

Ultimately, if your only interest is in a handful of niche communities, then Lemmy isn't quite there yet, I agree. I am also missing a bunch of niche communities, but I enjoy most of the popular content that's on Lemmy anyhow, so I'm not too bothered by the loss of the niche stuff for now.

[–] OpenStars@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

I hear that, but also...

Well, I was doing the same, but noticed that even in the niche subs, the conversations seemed to be getting more and more... juvenile? Like prior to the Snoopacolypse (as you called it, and I love it! The term not the event in case that needs any clarification:-P), it was a point of pride for me that I had never blocked anyone in my life - whereas now I don't think twice before doing that bc who has time to waste on someone not engaging in good faith!? Especially if they lack enough self awareness to even realize that fact about themselves while they are doing it. (Tbf, possibly watching Innuendo Studios' analysis of GamerGate that uses many tactics of the Alt Right in America had something to do with my changing views as well:-).

Ymmv ofc, bc different subs means entirely different people & thus experiences interacting with them, but I'm just saying that rather than stick with the subset of that community that remained after Rexit, I eventually just find myself going or even wanting to go there less and less, instead enjoying engaging here more, even at the expense of not being able to talk about those matters. I haven't posted there for months, nor even commented for a month, and barely go once a week to read. Bc I use Kbin and the mobile browser experience here is so horrible to write a comment, I find myself not commenting here often either - but when I do I have much more fun doing so, not having to be anywhere near as defensive as that other place that shall not be named.

I hope you find something that works best for you as well, wherever that may be.

[–] rglullis 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Please take a look at https://fediverser.network and let me know what communities you are missing.

[–] Thanks4Nothing@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I think you may have misunderstood. I have FOUND communities, but there is not much engagement or activity. I have resorted to discord channels for most of them, but it is not the same.

Some of my most active subreddits were different 3d printing and 3d modeling groups, groups for games like Overwatch, and Payday. Different AI focused groups, but specifically groups like the Stable Diffusion sub, Subreddits that discuss my favorite shows, or styles of music. None of that is active here. It isn't that they don't exist on Lemmy, they are just ghost towns. I joined multiple instances and am very active and engaged on multiple accounts, on some of these groups - but there is not response. I was in the top 3% of karma earners on Reddit - and I did that by submitting and commenting a lot. That just doesn't happen here (yet).

[–] rglullis -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Let me put this another way: if I create an overwatch community on https://level-up.zone, would you be willing to contribute there?

Also: If I set up the alien.top bots to mirror content from the overwatch sub, could you use that as a hook to reach out to redditors and tell them how to migrate to Lemmy?

[–] Thanks4Nothing@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have tried to jumpstart a few communities by posting and commenting regularly . I would try a new one, but if people do not find or join, it will get caught in the same cycle as the existing groups. I like participating, but am not interested in being the single driving force, or moderating.

To answer your other question, I cannot stand when I see auto mirrored content from Reddit. I usually ignore those posts, as I have rarely seen comments happening. When the content wasn't created by somebody here, I don't think anybody is invested in maintaining or participating in the discussion.

[–] rglullis -4 points 1 year ago

We need to start somewhere. The mirrored content (and by content, I mean posts and comments as well) is meant to be a way to help bootstrap the communities. I can help as well, but only by giving you the tools to make this easier and in avoiding the feeling you'd be talking to yourself.

[–] Aielman15@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Same for me. I browsed Reddit exclusively for a bunch of small but active communities about books and niche games or shows. Most of those either don't have a place on Lemmy, or the place they have is a ghost town. Too little posts, and even fewer engagement. I frequently see posts with upvotes in the single digits and zero comments.

I don't plan on going back to Reddit, but at the same time I don't think that Lemmy is a valid substitute yet. Maybe it's also a problem of discoverability? Like, I heard of Lemmy during the APIcalypse, but I've never seen it mentioned anywhere else, and I don't know how a normal person looking for a community online is supposed to find Lemmy, or even learn the existence of it.