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.

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.

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 (c) "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?

Old guard... I was expecting further back than using AlienBlue before it was bought.

I suggest that there is, indeed, a facet of the old guard present. Those of us that remember what Reddit replaced, and it wasn't just Digg...it was all the other niche forums, usenet, webrings, and everything else that represented the early soul of the internet slowly faded due to costs or commercialization. Reddit replaced all of that, even the dirty underside of the internet, for quite a while. Then they came through with quarantines, and there was the whole Pao/Taylor event of 2015, and now this. Reddit corp has sold its soul to the modern commercial internet bandwagon, and the site already seems to have lost a lot of the user content that normally comes in with the shutdown of 3rd party apps.

lemmy/kbin is great. Already feels more open, content flow is there, and people are talking. Maybe we can get that old community web board/forum feel again. Way better, JMO.

Well-said! You are right on the money. The kinds of people Reddit upset are the ones who have the will, the motive and the know-how to build something better.

There is definitely a sense of community here based on me lurking for about a week and the number of apps being developed, but at the moment I don't think any have done a great job at attracting ordinary people outside of reddit migrators. To be fair, this is a really difficult problem, and I'm not even sure if there is a good solution that wouldn't involve changing common terms about the fediverse works. Where it gets really weird is when federation allows me to interact with Mastodon content on a completely separate platform, and I can't imagine an average user just understanding that immediately.

Of course, this also involves a change in some UX patterns in existing apps. For instance, I have to hit the "Add comment" button on Kbin in order to see how this comment will look in reality. While this editor that I'm typing in has the ability to bold text, it just wraps what I'm typing in the actual bold markdown tag. This is fine for technical users, but to an ordinary person this doesn't make any sense, especially when other apps already give you a WYSIWYG experience. Granted, this of course is not an easy thing to implement either, but I think it's necessary for winning over non-technical users.

Right now, it feels like a lot of apps (at least on iOS) are creating an "Apollo for Lemmy/Kbin" type of experience, and that's great in its own right as all of these apps feel very intuitive considering the platform's age. However, especially with Kbin's microblogging feature in mind, we should try to differ from Apollo while still using aspects of it like its swipe actions and the amount of customization it gives. Otherwise we inherit many of Apollo's flaws (that may be even worse on fundamentally different platform), which is what led to others using apps like Narwhal or even the official Reddit app.

TLDR: In general the initial direction seems good (especially with the many good apps being developed), but the next biggest hurdle is becoming mainstream and that requires intuitive UIs to attract ordinary people. We don't get good and diverse content otherwise.

that brings people to this website.

These websites.*

Kbin isn't a website at all. Kbin is software that allows anyone to spin up a content aggregator website. It's what WordPress is for blogs or quasi-static websites.

Being federated means there will be hundreds, or even thousands, of independent kbin websites sharing content with one another.

Choosing a single set of values isn't going to work in this environment. Instead, value-compatible networks are going to form, and the vibe on different sites is going to end up being somewhat distinct to each site.

There will be a kbin for everyone.

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!

Well, i’m here since the black-out, and i’m pretty sure that peoples who come and stay here are more than lambda people browsing internet. It takes some times to be used to it and most peoples don’t take/have that time.

I see it with a lot of my friends and family, they just don’t give a shit about what they do or how they use internet. I was the nerd guy when people use to call me a geek as a slur, when it was weird to find love online. Now i’m the only one in my circle who take the time to refuse all the cookies when i come to a website (thanks RPGD), i’m pissed if i have to Watch an ad just to see a video from YT, etc. because i care about how i use internet and what trace i left behind me. But for Mr/Ms everybody, these kind of things are normal, because they were not surfing the web when all of this didn’t exist.

I agree with what you said but i’m also pretty sure that we are now loosing the battle with big corporate and people who are used to these kind of manners, because we, the « old guard », are a minority now. It’s sad.

I hope kbin develop itself like i used to dream the web back 25 years ago, a big sharing place where there is no place to greed and corporate marketing. And i really hope that the difficulty to aprehend the fediverse keep us far away from what i’ve cited.

I’m really excited about what kbin will became and i agree that we need to build something that is not like the old social media. Something more like the spirit of phpbb board communities back in the days…

Sorry if my english isn’t perfect, i’ve learned it essentially through my 25 years old journey here on the web.

I have been trying to work out how to write a post like yours for a while, but I don't have the insight or experience to make it nearly as good. So thank you for putting this out there.

Many of the differences are what makes this place great. The tension that leads to seeking the common ground. The threat of being disconnected that keeps things civil even when there are disagreements. The way memes are enjoyed but as a side. The distinct lack of monetization.

Some of the "faults" that newcomers complain about are important features that align with the core beliefs this place is built on. Some are unfortunate side effects that aren't going away as long as the values stay the same. Some are just issues that someone meant to get around to but for whatever reason they haven't yet.

I feel like there's a bit of cart-before-the-horse thinking here; as you acknowledge, a lot of it is organic. What makes a social site like this is the people, and specifically, the dynamic/active people who become the hubs of content or who are known characters - for instance, shittymorph (with their incredible talent for weaving fabrications before the inevitable twist) or poem_for_your_sprog who had a natural flair for both poetry and snark. Without individuals with personality, a place just becomes a noticeboard for the posting of memes or information, driven by algorithmic calculation rather than human spark. The downside is that one can never really create such a place from the ground up (hence the collapse of GooglePlus). It emerges over time from the cascading actions and interactions of diverse individuals who come and go over time.

We can certainly set standards and rules and metrics, but to actually ensure community survives and flourishes is an unknowable alchemy. Anyone can say "this will be our official meme format", but whether it takes off or is replaced by one throwaway line from a random person can only be known after the fact. All we can really do is post and interact and try to be the people who would live in a constructive community.

An old internet saying is "if it's free, you're the product", and that's exactly the problem platforms like reddit are currently encountering. Users leave, delete their old posts, and move elsewhere.

It's also a problem Lemmy/kbin see, from the other side: you need a critical mass of users to generate enough content to keep running and attracting and keeping users.

Given enough time, the corps will just continue going down the drain, since they're 100% profit-driven, and short-term gains over long-term sustainability. We here just have to keep going, and preferably in a way that minimizes drama. If one of the big 5 shits the bed and takes a lot of communities with it, the now homeless users might be hesitant to just join somewhere else, at least partially.

That's why I found it very unfortunate that beehaw defederated from .world and .works -- it also happened at a very bad point in time, in the middle of a boom.

If the platform matures enough, and the userbase is stable, it will most certainly grow over time, as the corpo options get worse and worse over time.

We also have to be vigilant and isolate all bad actors immediately. The extremist instances, like lemmygrad and exploding-heads, and the corporate assimilators, like Meta. Else people will not join here, either because we have a bad rep, or because we just get swallowed and spit out again by a tech giant.

I believe a "unique identity" will develop organically, given enough time.