[Help Design Lemmy] How to describe Lemmy in a single Sentence?
On join-lemmy.org, the project is described as "A forum and link aggregator for the Fediverse". In the previous post, multiple people mentioned that this is not a good description. However I have a hard time coming up with anything better.
So please post your suggestions below, and upvote the ones which are both accurate and easy to understand for new users. Later I pick one of the most upvoted options for the website.
By the way the second title "Follow communities Anywhere in the world" will likely go away (see the pull request for frontpage redesign). After this is decided I may also make another post to get suggestions for the longer description text below ("Lemmy is a selfhosted social link aggregation and discussion platform. ...").
Edit: Please only post concrete suggestions in top-level comments, and use replies to discuss. And here you can see how a few other Fediverse projects do it:
- joinmastodon.org/
- joinpeertube.org/
- pixelfed.org/
Mastodon - Decentralized social media
Learn more about Mastodon, the radically different, free and open-source decentralized social media platform.joinmastodon.org
[Help Design Lemmy] Joinlemmy website and New User Onboarding
When people are told about Lemmy and look for it in a search engine, join-lemmy.org is one of the first pages that comes up. Here they should be able to find out what Lemmy is, and be able to register an account to start posting.At the moment this still seems too complicated, so I'm looking for your suggestions to improve it:
- On the main page, is the text relevant and up to date or should anything be changed?
- How about the instance selection wizard (click "join a server" on the homepage), which lets you select topics and languages to select instances. Do the current options make sense?
- The instance list itself, is there any information missing, or potential design improvements?
- And the list of apps, what can be done here? For one thing the data is rarely updated, so we would appreciate pull requests.
- Any other suggestions you may have.Since yesterday I already made a couple of improvements:
- Use biased random for instance list, so large instances are always near the top
- Rename Join to Sign Up in instance list- Fix icon overflows by using inline-flex (by @dessalines)
- Add button to visit random instance (not merged yet)Edit: Here is a draft for some changes to the frontpage:
github.com/LemmyNet/joinlemmy-…Use biased random for instance list by Nutomic · Pull Request #508 · LemmyNet/joinlemmy-site
Having the instance list completely random is not great because it often shows very small and niche instances at the top. In the past we used biased random sort for this, dont know why or when this...GitHub
Dessalines likes this.
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Björn
in reply to Nutomic • • •Nutomic
in reply to Björn • • •anothermember
in reply to Nutomic • • •I think the main problem is "link aggregator" which doesn't make a lot of sense as the main function is discussion. For a minimal change you could go for "a discussion platform for the fediverse".
If "fediverse" is too obscure; you could try just "a decentralised discussion platform". Decentralised isn't technical, you can't fully describe the fediverse in a sentence but "decentralised" gives a clue.
Nutomic
in reply to anothermember • • •ambitiousslab
in reply to Nutomic • • •It's really hard. Here's my best shot:
Nutomic
in reply to ambitiousslab • • •harmbugler
in reply to Nutomic • • •Nutomic
in reply to harmbugler • • •FrostyTrichs
in reply to Nutomic • • •Lemmy is an open-source social network that functions as a global web of independent forums, allowing you to interact with a federation of sites where no single entity holds total control.
Edit: I think it flows a little better without "next-generation" so I removed it.
Nutomic
in reply to FrostyTrichs • • •This one is too long, I would only use the first part:
snek_boi
in reply to Nutomic • • •The best sentence will depend on the target audience. Is there a way to know who would be that audience?
Also, responding more directly to your question, I've got a frame challenge: What about two or three short sentences, like what Mastodon does?
That third one I like, because it's a differentiator that Lemmy has in comparison with ButterflyX or whatever Jack the Twitter Guy is working on right now; Lemmy is not at risk of enshitifying, unlike ButterflyX.
Also, if it's important to differentiate Lemmy from Mastodon or other Fediverse platforms, the sentences could start with "A discussion platform".
Also, here's a take where I tried to make no reference to electronics:
... mostra di piùThe best sentence will depend on the target audience. Is there a way to know who would be that audience?
Also, responding more directly to your question, I've got a frame challenge: What about two or three short sentences, like what Mastodon does?
That third one I like, because it's a differentiator that Lemmy has in comparison with ButterflyX or whatever Jack the Twitter Guy is working on right now; Lemmy is not at risk of enshitifying, unlike ButterflyX.
Also, if it's important to differentiate Lemmy from Mastodon or other Fediverse platforms, the sentences could start with "A discussion platform".
Also, here's a take where I tried to make no reference to electronics:
or, more succinctly,
Also, I just realized that every time that I edit this post you get notified becase I @ed you. Sorry!
And, finally, happy cake day, @nutomic@lemmy.ml!
Nutomic
in reply to snek_boi • • •The target audience is basically anyone who comes across Lemmy somewhere, looks for it via search engine and ends up on join-lemmy.org. So in other words, anyone really. Including people without any prior knowledge, nor technical knowledge.
On joinmastodon.org I only see a single sentence at the top: "Social networking that's not for sale."
Btw I didnt get any extra notifications from this comment, so no worries. And thank you!
snek_boi
in reply to Nutomic • • •Ah. Thanks for the target audience explanation.
What I mean with Mastodon is that, immediately after "Social networking that's not for sale", you see more sentences: "Your home feed should be filled with what matters to you most, not what a corporation thinks you should see. Radically different social media, back in the hands of the people."
I think the technical details, such as open source and federation are not going to click with people who don't know those ideas. However, open source and federation can create something that, for those people, is valuable.
So the question is: what does Lemmy offer that clicks with people who don't know technical details?
This is up for discussion, of course. But I'd argue there's "freedom", "choice", "human (and not corporate) communities", "made for people, not for profits"…
That leads me to my suggestion:
... mostra di piùAh. Thanks for the target audience explanation.
What I mean with Mastodon is that, immediately after "Social networking that's not for sale", you see more sentences: "Your home feed should be filled with what matters to you most, not what a corporation thinks you should see. Radically different social media, back in the hands of the people."
I think the technical details, such as open source and federation are not going to click with people who don't know those ideas. However, open source and federation can create something that, for those people, is valuable.
So the question is: what does Lemmy offer that clicks with people who don't know technical details?
This is up for discussion, of course. But I'd argue there's "freedom", "choice", "human (and not corporate) communities", "made for people, not for profits"…
That leads me to my suggestion:
or
The bolded text is like Mastodon's first sentence. The rest of the text is like Mastodon's other sentences.
The technical details can be explained later in the page, just like Mastodon does it.
Nutomic
in reply to snek_boi • • •Ah yes there is the short description at the top. At the moment it talks a lot about "it", good idea to make it more focused on "you". How about this?
ex_06
in reply to Nutomic • • •I would rework the other stuff, like the whole branding because all that hacker green doesn't help in feeling the communities. And the images for the same reason... Also there are some features that are worthless listing like "you can have an avatar"
Also the censorship thing...
Let's say that the homepage kinda reflects the state of lemmy people as a group right now and it's not so nice imo
Focussing on being a clean forum with nested answers and human curated algorithm and idk, just pointing some low hanging fruits
On a side note I wonder if having the page as onboarding for users instead of explaining the software is the right target. Ideally it should be communities trying to outreach to have people on their servers, not the software asking to join people who use the software (?)
But I digress.
On a marketing level point of view, while we are clearly the small fish, it's not bad to leverage being enemies of Reddit. Like in the past we've seen much more Apple vs Microsoft while now they ignore each other.
"Reddit if was not owned by ven
... mostra di piùI would rework the other stuff, like the whole branding because all that hacker green doesn't help in feeling the communities. And the images for the same reason... Also there are some features that are worthless listing like "you can have an avatar"
Also the censorship thing...
Let's say that the homepage kinda reflects the state of lemmy people as a group right now and it's not so nice imo
Focussing on being a clean forum with nested answers and human curated algorithm and idk, just pointing some low hanging fruits
On a side note I wonder if having the page as onboarding for users instead of explaining the software is the right target. Ideally it should be communities trying to outreach to have people on their servers, not the software asking to join people who use the software (?)
But I digress.
On a marketing level point of view, while we are clearly the small fish, it's not bad to leverage being enemies of Reddit. Like in the past we've seen much more Apple vs Microsoft while now they ignore each other.
"Reddit if was not owned by venture capitalists who keep ruining your life" lol (too long)
Anyway, is there any kind of data to know if people actually join lemmy by joinlemmy site?
A community poll for Lemmy users would be good.
Nutomic
in reply to ex_06 • • •Youre right, the whole website could use an update and redesign. As none of us Lemmy maintainers are designers, its very hard to do this well.
There is no tracking/statistics on join-lemmy.org, but some new users mentioned it, and mentioned that the site could use improvements (which I'm doing now).
Kierunkowy74
in reply to Nutomic • • •Kierunkowy74
in reply to Kierunkowy74 • • •... but actually one cannot describe Lemmy's pitch in one simple sentence, because its main difference is:
Reddit but no Spez, fora but connected to each other (and we call this "federation"), and Mastodon but with better topic and content discovery. Any attempt to shorten this will be more or less inaccurate.
So, main Lemmy features, listed under the "Join an instance", "Apps", "Explore random instance", etc., IMHO should look like this:
No ads. No tracking. No meddling.
(we are practically saying Reddit without Spez)
No single overlord. No isolation
... mostra di più... but actually one cannot describe Lemmy's pitch in one simple sentence, because its main difference is:
Reddit but no Spez, fora but connected to each other (and we call this "federation"), and Mastodon but with better topic and content discovery. Any attempt to shorten this will be more or less inaccurate.
So, main Lemmy features, listed under the "Join an instance", "Apps", "Explore random instance", etc., IMHO should look like this:
No ads. No tracking. No meddling.
(we are practically saying Reddit without Spez)
No single overlord. No isolation
(fora but not siloed. Discussion viewable regardless of where you are logged in)
Know the entire discussion on the topic
(Mastodon but actually not fragmented)
All three "features"/"upsides" of Lemmy are related to each other, somewhat like rock-paper-scissors. All form one pitch of a platform which combines the best features of Reddit, fora and Mastodon solving downsides of these at the same time.
It would make sense to display these on the carousel.
*does the search on Lemmy work better than on e.g. Reddit? A "better search than on Mastodon" claim would be plausible, anyway
Nutomic
in reply to Kierunkowy74 • • •Nutomic
in reply to Nutomic • • •Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I collected the ones which subjectively seem best, here is the list for a quick overview:
Based on these suggestions and the discussion, the best option seems to be: A decentralised discussion platform for communities.
I will keep making more updates to join-lemmy.org based on this post and the previous one. Once that's done I will likely make another post to show the results and gather additional feedback.