New to Lemmy. Why did you choose Lemmy when there are bigger alternatives such as 4chan and reddit.

You're really asking why people prefer Lemmy to 4chan? To 4chan!? Really?

nice answer, exactly what I feel about 4chan 😆
now is this the hacker 4chan or his brother?
- Does anybody know why the Chans named their kids 4 & 8?
  Are those names more common where they are from?
...

I left Reddit because they killed my favorite app and theirs was trash.

4chan is a cesspool.

There's not a lot of activity here, so you can't endlessly scroll new content, but you see a lot of the same names in the comments, and that makes people seem more "real" than Reddit.

4chan is a wretched hive of scum and villainy, and I moved from reddit after 15 years.

Why did you leave reddit? Mind sharing?
- They took steps to kill the app I used to access the site without providing a functional alternative.
- Because Reddit is only remotely useful with apps and lied to, screwed over, and slandered all the app developers who made Reddit functional.
- Got banned for "report abuse" because I reported a pro genocidal comment on r/worldnews.
  They banned me from the sub then successfully petitioned Reddit to ban the entire account.
  If I can't even report the genocidal content on one of their largest subreddits without losing my account, I'm not going to fit in enough to stay.

I don't really like 4chan. I moved here from reddit when the whole API thing started because I did not like the way thri started treating their users (and even worst, how they treated their mods) and never looked back.

Were you a mod?
- yes, I was

4chan is a wholly different type of site. It's an image board, not about link sharing. Use of screen names is discouraged.
Also why would you go to a site labelled the asshole of the Internet if you're looking for actual discussion and conversation. If you want porn or want nazi-adjacent discussion or great wallpapers, sure, go there.

From my experience 4chan is not a place for any sort of serious discussions. From what I saw there it's about trying to shock, disgust, and/or troll people as much as possible.

Reddit lost what little interest I had remaining when they announced they would be selling our content to train LLMs. To be clear, they were already on a downward spiral before then with their ever increasing focus on monetizing the platform as much as possible, but the "AI" business was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

4chan is a bit too racist.

I left Reddit because of mods in certain subs I frequented. It seems like they just decide someone broke a rule and you get banned from several subs at once with no explanation. I never had any warnings or contact with the mod team until after they banned me. I appealed to the platform and was accused of harassment so I deleted my account and never looked back. I was honestly shocked when it happened.

I spent some time Googling and settled on Lemmy because it had a familiar feel to it. I chose Mastodon because of its similarity to the old bird site.

Seems like you were disappointed on mods just like me. I am personally shocked to see you and I are the only one in thise post.
- Lemmy isn't as big as Reddit yet, but I'm confident it will grow with time. I like the concept of the Fediverse and I'm starting to understand how it all fits together.

I like FOSS and I like it don't being easily censored..

I left reddit last year during the API bullshit. 4chan is full of cancer, and Lemmy is pretty much the next biggest community that I could find. I'm also on a couple of smaller sites like Discuit and Tildes.

I always wanted to be in the fediverse but I didn't like Mastodon at all and Lemmy (or his alternatives) didn't have almost no users... When the massive migration of users from Reddit to Lemmy happened, I took advantage of it and I've been here ever since (using other accounts).

But why did you decide to choose fediverse when reddit and 4chan are much bigger and popular? What did you not like about reddit and 4chan?
- I have never liked 4chan because I consider the lack of moderation to be a very very bad thing, but honestly I have never used it nor have I been attracted to it, on the other hand, I used Reddit for many years and I consider it to be ok (leaving aside the API abuse and training AI with your users posts), but I'm on Lemmy because I like the open source philosophy and I tend to use exclusively open source software, and since Lemmy is an open source project I really enjoy being here. I always wanted to use Mastodon but as I said, I don't like Twitter, so Lemmy is my paradise.

I prefer open source software and was really glad to see that Lemmy was a thing. I tried it about a year before the whole Reddit API debacle went down and left because there was just too few users at the time, but then when the Reddit API thing happened, I came back, deleted my Reddit account, and have been here ever since. I was a moderator on a sub, and now I moderate a community here. !t_mobile@lemmy.ml because i enjoyed the discussions on /r/tmobile.

They are all platforms that allow a variety of political views, as opposed to Xitter, which has taken to suspending the accounts of civil rights advocates.

I like owning my posts but I'm banned from Reddit so yeah that's why I'm here. Besides 4chan posts get deleted after like a day or 2

Was looking for something similar to Reddit where links can be shared and voted. I also wanted a more general instance hence why I'm on lemmy world.

What do you mean by general instance?
- A instance that isn't geared towards something specific like piracy or development.

I left reddit for Lemmy because 4chan, twitter, Facebook, etc are most assuredly not alternatives to reddit in the sense I am looking for. The only other alternative I might have chosen was Tildes, but it was (and still is afaik) invite only.

I like this format over any other besides maybe a good ol' fashioned forum (like PHPBB).

Mind sharing why you left reddit?
- Literally nazi supporting admins
  They killed the only tools that made the site layout bearable
Tildes is alright but it's not something I could ever regularly participate in like Lemmy, which is by design and I respect that, but it's never going to fill the reddit niche for me.
I probably have an invite if you want.
Testing 123 (sorry for all the replies)

I picked Kbin because the federverse is a lot better about icing out nazis.

4chan always was and Spez has made Reddit lightning rods for nazis.

Reddit's CEO offends me, and I've heard bad things about 4chan too.

that's a Moot point

Lurked on reddit for years before quitting altogether bc the mobile app was hostile and web was basically gated off. Then was exclusively read-only on Hacker News and Lobsters for a while until I realized I didn't want to think about only tech all day and now I am here.

I think the nice thing about Lemmy for me is the size. It feels active enough that it's not dead but not so big that I feel compelled to just stand and watch on the sidelines.

reddit, and indeed the entire internet, is most active in my off timezone. I would always open a thread with an idea for a reply that ended up being the top 5 comments with a billion updoots.
The fediverse is still small enough that I can drop bombs and have actual discussions that aren't trying to be memes.
- Yea some people complain about the lack of content and yes this is slower, but you can actually have a discussion with another human being.
  This post is 8 hours old, your reply is 5 hours old.
  On reddit, there would be it'd be filled by one liners, puns and various inside jokes.
  Joining a thread this late was like casting a bottle to the sea, knowing it'd be lost in the void.

I'm banned from Reddit. Something Something about violent language towards orange wannabe dictators idk didn't really make sense to me.

I’m a 4chan anon and have been for a long time. It’s a Wild West situation still due to the anon culture. A LOT OF STUFF ON THERE IS EXTREMELY OFFENSIVE AND WRONG. Oddly enough I’ve interacted with some awesome anons and that’s what keeps me going back. Highly DONT recommend anyone check the site out.

Reddit used to be fucking dope when I joined in 2012. I was a Digg enjoyer in my youth and Reddit was even better for me. Over time the culture changed, not necessarily a bad thing either just different. Helped me a lot actually become a better more inclusive human. The Admins however have made a string of terrible decisions and I can no longer support the site. They hung the redditors out to dry and I’m so thankful for Lemmy for giving us a link aggregator with a comment section sans the bullshit.

I think most people here left Reddit when Spez started the thing with the API and asserted his dominance during the protests. That's when we learned it's not our platform, but his. And he has a very different vision for the place.

People who properly like 4chan don't really mix with other people. It's for trolling, shitposting, sharing porn and gore amongst random stuff or shouting at each other. More anarchy than other places. And filled with incels and 14 year olds. I mean it's a bit more than that and it has it's unique culture. But there isn't really an overlap with people who like places like this one. This is less anarchy, you can discuss your Linux server adminisration woes here without getting yelled at. Or share pictures of your crocheting pieces. Of course also memes and pictures.

So in summary: Where else would I be? I'm not 14 anymore and Reddit gave me the finger.

Lemmy IS the alternative. I love the concept of the fediverse, and I prefer forum discussion over microblogging, so Lemmy was the obvious choice. Discussion is more meaningful here because people don't race to comment a joke or pun just to farm upvotes. Comments also do not get buried here unlike on reddit where there's no point in commenting on popular posts once they're over an hour old because no one will see it anyway.

Not allowed on Reddit and 4chan is a cesspool

I don't want bigger. Bigger is half the problem.

No social forum is without its zealous rule enforcers. Reddit at some point went past that straight into oligarchic authorianism. Or in less pretentious words, reddit mods were more and more often huge cunts.

Lemmy is more partitioned. Mods only get cuntish on topics they get invested in for now, which is normal, because they're not robots.
It's better to walk away from conflicts here and skip what doesn't fit your views.

I chose federated networks, not Lemmy per se. Right now I use:

Firefish (Mastodon with a better kit)
Kbin (Developing Lemmy alternative w/o problematic devs)
Pixelfed (Instagram alternative, good except export tools lacking)

Federated is awesome because its more open and encourages choice, and I actually feel like there are friends to be made.