User Sentiments and Dynamics in the Decentralized Web: Reddit Migration's Impact on Lemmy
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Hello, My name is Thatiany Nunes. I hold a master's degree from the Department of Visual Contents at Dongseo University, South Korea. I would like to invite you to participate in a research survey. This survey is entirely voluntary, and there are no negative consequences if you choose not to participate. If you start the survey, you can always change your mind and stop at any time. All the information gathered will remain strictly confidential and will be used for academic purposes only. If you have any questions about this study please feel free to contact me at thatiany.nunes01@gmail.com Purpose of the Study: The aim of this study is to gain understanding of the impact of the Reddit migration on Lemmy and its community. It explores user sentiments, activity, and interaction within the platform, focusing on how the migration has influenced the community environment. What Will You Do? Participants will answer a series of questions related to their experiences and perceptions of the Reddit migration on Lemmy. The survey will include topics such as community interaction, content sharing, and user sentiments. The survey is estimated to take approximately 5 minutes to complete. Risks: No risks or discomfort are anticipated to be associated with your participation in this survey. The questions are designed to gather your opinions and experiences on Lemmy and do not include sensitive or personal topics. However, should you feel uncomfortable answering any question, you have the right to skip it or withdraw from the survey at any time. Possible Benefits: While there may not be direct benefits to you, your participation will contribute to a better understanding of community dynamics on decentralized web platforms, potentially informing future platform developments and user experience improvements. Agreement to Participate: Your participation is completely voluntary, and you can withdraw at any time. To take this survey, you must be at least 18 years old. If you meet these criteria and would like to take the survey, click “Yes” to start.

Hello everyone!

My name is Thatiany Nunes. I hold a master’s degree from the Department of Visual Contents at Dongseo University, South Korea. I am conducting a research study to understand the impact of the Reddit migration on Lemmy and its community dynamics.

Some of you might have already received a private message containing open-ended questions. However, I am now reaching out to extend a warm invitation to the entire community to participate in a short, multiple choice survey. This survey aims to gather your experiences and perceptions of the Reddit migration on Lemmy. It will take approximately 5 minutes to complete, and participation is entirely voluntary. Rest assured, all responses will be kept strictly confidential and will be used solely for academic purposes.

Link to the survey:

https://forms.gle/mZ2DgnxdR5KLJxfA9

Mods, if this post violates any community rules, please feel free to remove it or contact me, and I will promptly delete it.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration. Your participation is greatly valued!

  • English Mobster
    15•8 months ago

    Posting this from my Lemmy.ml account so you can see the account age - it’s from 2020. When taking the survey, I noticed the phrasing/answers on some of the questions could maybe be improved if you want to find out what Lemmy was like before Reddit came over.

    I am a long-time user of Reddit. My Reddit account is well over a decade old at this point, and I’ve disliked the admin team since about 2013-2014 or so. I continued to use Reddit because of its scale and the ability to have niche discussions on it, but I have always taken any alternatives seriously. Over the last 10 years, my trust in the Reddit admins has continually shrunk; bear in mind that I am also a moderator of a medium-large subreddit (600k subscribers).

    I discovered Lemmy from this post on Reddit. At the time that post was made, Lemmy didn’t really have any federation yet. Lemmy.ml was the only real place with any activity (although Lemmygrad was founded and beginning to grow).

    I used Lemmy for a while, but left for a couple reasons:

    1. Conversations were slow, with 1-2 weeks between a post and a reply

    2. People on there had unsavory politics that I disagree with, including the creators of Lemmy itself (who ran Lemmy.ml, which was - again - the only instance with any notable activity)

    I also was frustrated with the lack of an Android app; I was recommended one at the time but it has since stopped development and is now abandoned.

    These factors drove me to Reddit again, although Lemmy stayed in the back of my mind. But I checked in every 6 months or so, just to keep an eye on things. Which brings me to my real point here:

    It’s really hard to talk about “Lemmy” as a whole. It’s not quite like Mastodon, where there is very much a culture that’s shared across instances. Pre-migration, there were politics between Lemmy instances and these politics have always been dividing lines.

    People federated with Lemmy.ml because there was no alternative. That’s the “stock” place people go to sign up. It was the only place with activity, and thus if you didn’t federate with it you didn’t have anything in your feeds. (Not that there was much going on anyway… there were maybe a couple dozen active accounts per month.)

    Despite this, you still had places like Beehaw which had a very strict moderation policy (basically a safe space for people who disliked Reddit and Lemmy.ml), but Beehaw still federated with Lemmy.ml. You had Hexbear, which technically turned off federation altogether and used Lemmy as a traditional forum after their subreddit got closed (like Truth Social is to Mastodon). Etc.

    The way the survey speaks about all these places as a monolith sort of ignores a lot about what Lemmy was like before the migration from Reddit. Each instance was very different from the others; now they’ve sort of run into one another but prior to that you had very specific “look and feel” for individual instances.

    Because of this, questions like “How do you feel was the response from the existing Lemmy community towards the migration?” will get very different answers based on what instance you joined. Asking how Beehaw reacted is very different from how Lemmy.ml reacted, and Lemmy.world didn’t exist at all before Reddit came over.

    Another confusing question: “Which platform’s user interface do you find more user-friendly?”

    This can give you very different answers based on whether people are coming from New Reddit or Old Reddit. I very much dislike New Reddit (and have since it was launched). Old Reddit is much more functional, but I have no way of indicating what I’m comparing Lemmy to.

    • English MobsterEnglish
      4•8 months ago

      This is my “main” account nowadays; I still keep that older account around because more places federate with Lemmy.ml than Lemmy.world, so it’s handy to have accounts on multiple instances (I also have a Beehaw and a Kbin account).

      Of the 4, I actually prefer Kbin, but it doesn’t have an API yet and thus doesn’t have mobile apps. I avoid Lemmy.ml because of who the admins/maintainers are, and Beehaw - which used to be quite good - has gone downhill since they can’t keep up with the growth of Lemmy. (Which again sort of adds to my point of “it really depends on what instances you cared about before the migration”, which that survey doesn’t quite capture.)