5mo ago

Lemmy Sorting Hat

There should be a kind of "sorting hat" personality test to attract the interest of prospective Lemmy joiners. People who love solarpunk stuff, for example, would easily find their home in slrpnk.net. Set a link to it on sites like join-lemmy.org to make the fediverse more approachable to casuals.

34 comments

I completely agree on principal.
But also think that the rule of Lemmy is that all algorithms end at porn.
But it’s our porn and has unique surroundings of anime, politics, and Dutch.
- But also think that the rule of Lemmy is that all algorithms end at porn.
  Huh? I don't see any porn, regardless of what sort I choose. Ah, that's because there's a checkbox in your settings to let you choose whether to see NSFW posts or not. I guess turning that off works really well.
  
  Turning it on doesn't work well either. I have enabled NSFW and never see any of it. Yes, I have subbed to everything on lemmnsfw, and none of it shows up in any feed
- And Marge Simpson, don't forget her!
  
  already said “porn”
  
  I literally just saw a merge sort meme with marge
- I don't rlly wanna see straight porn (no hate, just not my thing xd) and honestly, I was in a pretty good spot. Then someone told me I was scrolling active instead of hot and OH MY- that's a lot of porn
  
  that's a lot of porn
  You're sorting by hot, shouldn't it be only porn? /s
  
  All good in the hood.
  I live in /All sorted by New.
  Many reasons, but I just like… seeing the whole gooey blob and sticking my hand in it.
- I have no idea what you are saying but I upvoted because porn
I'm Hufflepuff or I'm NOTHING
- i saw a bird once
I feel like the functional differences between instances are:
Interface and mobile apps (Lemmy vs mbin vs Piefed vs other)
More populated instances are going to have more "extra-instance" content federated to them, because more users means more subscriptions to comms/mags/whatevers at foreign instances
Instance uptime and reliability (which depends heavily on the number and attentiveness of instance admins)
Different instances will choose to defederate with other instances in different ways
When I first immigrated here, the most popular platforms were Lemmy and kbin. I liked the kbin interface more, so I started on kbin.social - which folded after a while. So I switched to fedia.io, which runs mbin, a kbin fork.
None of this has anything to do with "aligning a personal identity with an instance."
- None of this has anything to do with “aligning a personal identity with an instance.”
  well… yes and no. you want an instance whose federation and moderation policy aligns with your personal philosophy on those things (and may require you to run your own). so when people see your username, they see the server you're on, which communicates to them your philosophies on those things.
New user puts on hat
“Tankie!”
Next person tries on the hat
“Furry……I mean Linux user.”
Final user puts on the hat
“German!”
“But I don’t speak German.”
Doesn't join-lemmy.org have that?
When you click to join a server, it asks about interests and language and suggests servers.
- They list lemmygrad under general purpose lmao
  
  General Purpose (of Destroying the Capitalist Pig Dogs By Siding With... Fascists?)
- Unfortunately, that seems to be about local communities, which aren't really important. In fact, due to federation, that's the least important aspect of an instance.
  By default, Lemmy is wide open to anything and everything. You need to see what they have turned off/blocked/removed, to see if it's what you want.
  
  Yeah I see your point. How easy would it be to sort a thousand instances automatically? Sure you could limit to the top instances, but smaller ones can be niche and I think you still need a way to recommend them. New instances also need a way to work their way up to being recommended.
  A sorting hat would be cool but sounds like a lot of manual work!
- It is run by the Tankie devs so I would be careful.
  This is better: https://lemmyverse.net/
  
  I'm not quite sure what part of that Lemmyverse.net page is like a sorting hat. I would say the official one is a gentler entry point than a big list of instances.
  Though I am thinking another page with a better sorting hat would be better. It's kinda crazy a place like Hex-bear gets suggested when you want a general instance. The Fediverse Observer recommends servers but it always recommends Hilarious Chaos to me, which is crazy (it's Exploding Heads reincarnated).
Lemmy could really use some differing opinions and backgrounds.
I love it, but the test would need to ask our preferences about federation and if that's a priority. In my case, I'm in this instance because it lets me read a lot of other instances (even the infamous triad). I don't know if we have a certain personality; I just like to lurk diverse communities.

34 comments