I’m really curious where else everyone here hangs out on the internet besides Lemmy.
I myself am frequently on discord with my wife and friends playing games. I’ve also found myself in and around smaller blogs spaces like Kev Quirk and related people. Reddit used to be a place for me to hang out but I never found a community that I felt connected to. I don’t know if YouTube would be considered a place to hang out, but I frequently spend way more time there than I should. IRC used to be a great place for me.
So, where are your favorite places?
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I like Mastodon, but I gotta say, Lemmy has basically taken over as my go to boredom relief app. When I’m not on Lemmy, I’m probably on YouTube.
Then there’s work: GitHub and email.
And play: Steam.
I don’t get the whole twitter-like microblogging thing. Mastodon feels kind of strange to me because it’s similar to that. I try to find a cool place to hang out there, but it always feels like a waste. But YouTube… the amount of time I give YouTube… lol
Agreed, YouTube first, Lemmy next, then either Steam or Xbox
I’m still on IRC! There’s a raw simplicity to it that I appreciate. You don’t have to use a bloated Electron app to connect to a proprietary service, you can just go straight text on the protocol-level in terminal (if you’re nuts), and the protocol is open and simple enough to understand that you can easily make your own client even if you’re a lazy or mediocre dev.
So IRC, Lemmy, and I guess Instagram (if that counts)
What IRC servers still exist that allow random people like me to just join but have interesting people and channels and not just trolls and spam?
I second this question! I’d like to know some good servers with healthy communities.
Probably should not post those publicly, even on Lemmy.
Alternate question: how can we find interesting discussions on IRC?
Sad. Guess we just have to go through them
Do we though? We can just leave them alone and do something else.
Sorry–it was sarcasm.
Follow-up question: Are there any IRC channels where people don’t just talk about compiling their favorite IRC client on their favorite linux distro?
Yeah it’s feels really nice. I’m not on it now but I remember loving the feeling of it because it’s not fucking big tech shit.
Cool, Im going to see how I can sell ad space irc channels this week and then sell it.
Ever since Reddit killed itself, the only places I really lurk are Kbin (and therefore Lemmy by proxy) and Discord. That’s pretty much it.
I have ignored Discord for years until recently. It just seems like IRC with a lot of flashiness and emojis. Is there more to this experience? I don’t intend to be disparaging, but I looked for some specific topic servers and just found the quality of discussion to be low and the experience to be chaotic.
I’m willing to be told I’m doing it wrong though - is there a “here’s the right way to get into discord” approach I’m missing?
Discord shines when you use it with a tight-knit group. A RL friend group, a gaming clan, etc.
But there are a ton of these big public servers that are essentially just spam, because that’s what happens when you collect a load of random people in one place who have one minor interest in common at best, and then try and get them to hang out socially.
It’s a group chat app, not a forum. And being thrown into a group chat with 100 strangers is kind of the worst.
Discord shines when you use it with a tight-knit group. A RL friend group, a gaming clan, etc.
I have barely ever used Discord. What does it offer that you couldn’t find in, say, a Signal Group?
Discord is built for gaming. Discord allows you to stream a game directly to a channel with one click. Discord allows for fine control over users in the server and what they are allowed to do. Signal doesn’t really have these features, and I’m guessing it’s becsuse the purpose is slightly different.
The closest privacy focused alternative to discord that I know of is Matrix. I’m thinking of moving my discord server where my friends and I play together over to Matrix. We will lose some features but gain some privacy.
I think there are discord clones that work very much like discord, but I’m not aware of their privacy focus. Revolt comes to mind : https://revolt.chat
Thank you for the detailed answer!
I’ve never used Signal, so can’t really answer that. But really assuming it’s the same sort of thing, which group messaging app you’re using isn’t as important as the people you’re using it with.
Personally I don’t do group chats on a lot of other apps due to them being quite all-or-nothing in terms of notifications. My favourite thing about Discord (been using it since back when it was in alpha) was the ability to separate out different channels and have actual granular control over what’s worth being notified about.
I don’t use voice / video chat much at all but it’s so handy to, for example, have it for the annual fantasy football draft in my league server even though we literally don’t touch it and just stick to 100% text chat the rest of the year.
If signal does all those things too, then they’re probably pretty similar.
OK, thanks!
It’s a group chat app, not a forum. And being thrown into a group chat with 100 strangers is kind of the worst.
I do appreciate that nuance but IRC (as of last I checked - admittedly it’s been about a decade since I was habitually connected to IRC) is not really like that despite fitting essentially the same description.
Discord shines when you use it with a tight-knit group. A RL friend group, a gaming clan, etc.
That makes sense, I can see that.
Yeah I expect given how long ago IRC’s heydey was, we’re talking about quite a different demographic. Everyone I know who used it was on the nerdy side (this includes me, it’s not an insult!), whereas things like Discord with their modern interfaces make things easy enough that for example I run a crafting community on there full of old ladies sharing their cross stitch.
Anything that attracts huge numbers of regular folks like that is gonna be a target for trolls and spammers and suchlike, so without good moderation a public server can spiral down quite fast in my experience. Add to all this the ever-increasing hostility and us-vs-them of people on the internet in general, and ugh.
I’m sure there are plenty of lovely spaces out there too ofc, it’s just finding them that’s the trick :)
I’m sure there are plenty of lovely spaces out there too ofc, it’s just finding them that’s the trick :)
Thanks for the followup - I have to agree and I suppose the takeaway is I (possibly) picked the wrong servers so far.
I personally think the best way to use discord is to create a server and invite people to it as you meet them online. For me, it’s gaming that connects me with people. My wife and I meet people that we like and want to play with more, and so we invite them. This usually results in getting invited to other small community servers.
Yeah seems so, it’s pretty ok though. It tracks what is new and your mentions so it’s vaguely like a messaging app instead of IRC.
There are a lot of game development communities there. It’s basically a cheap, more public alternative to Slack.
I can’t even get past the user interface at Discord. Rarely have I felt so uninvited to participate, even as the site aggressively invites me to participate.
Mostly the same for me. I’ve been poking around Bluesky too but I’m having trouble finding content/follows I like.
Feeds are the secret at Bluesky. Once you have a few of those you like, look at deck.blue.
It’s interesting that you say that because I have trouble finding content that I like on all microblogging platforms : Mastodon, X, threads and all. If you crack the code, let me know.
Reddit is doing great, actually
Maybe (though this is not the description I typically see about reddit these days) but a great many of us are here because we refuse to be there.
Ditto.
Same!
98% YouTube and 2% Lemmy
If rest of the internet dissapeared it would take a while for me to notice.
I’m like 90% YouTube, 2% Lemmy and 8% just googling random stuff. Celebrity facts, historical events, programming problems, stuff I want to buy. YouTube is king though. Kinda hate that I waste so much time on it.
What do y’all do on YouTube? I have a couple of subscriptions, but after I watch those, YouTube only recommends garbage to me…
I have a couple of subscriptions
That is why, you need to ‘tune up’ the algorithm 😂
Many of us have been using YT a lot since its conception, that is why the big devil knows us even better than ourselves… Most of the time.
Educational stuff mostly. I will learn about mostly anything even it’s not applicable in my life or a topic of fancy.
I avoid every bit of pop culture and drama that fills the site but I will watch a three hour video on the varieties of algae.
That sounds right up my alley. Do you have any good educators you could plug?
I have almost 600 subscriptions. I’ve been on YouTube since the beginning, pretty much.
Kinda hate that I waste so much time on it.
You watched some learning materials—programming problems, historical events, etc. That’s educative. At least you learned something.
Also, time you enjoy is not wasted.
The problem with YouTube is that is so easy to just default to letting it feed your brain. Frequently it’s not even enjoyable, it’s just straight distraction from anything meaningful. On the flip side, YouTube can be the absolute best place to learn anything.
The problem with YouTube is that is so easy to just default to letting it feed your brain.
True, a typical example is YouTube Shorts. I hate that 15-second trend.
I literally had to disable YouTube shorts. My life improved significantly when I just didn’t have shorts thrown in my face constantly.
How do you do that?
I used this video as a guide and it worked: https://youtu.be/WtFBrB4XqBc?si=635fN0fa7jN77evj
This disables the YouTube shorts suggestions, which is how I would get sucked into watching shorts all the time. You can still go to shorts if you want, but I guarantee you will mostly forget about them with the suggestions disabled. Shows how little value they really give.
Honestly, I read more, do more gardening, play more videogames. Kinda a weird benefit, but I joined two book clubs and a walking group. Started going to a parenting group on Sundays so my kiddo and I are making more friends. I guess reddit just pissed me off enough to go out and be more in my community. It’s kinda nice.
I think some of us are intentionally avoiding big tech now and try to find places online that doesn’t feel completely dead soul wise.
Lemmy feels good for me, but I’m also looking for web sites where I feel connected to people.
I’ve found that small blogs are excellent for this. I started my own and reached out to a few smaller blogs from some really interesting people. I instantly felt at home in the community.
Thanks, yes, I guess it’s time to go back to following blogs and interacting with real people again on the web. Before big tech, that’s what the entire internet was. Just lots of original web sites from individuals wanting to show their web design skills or talking about random topics.
It just feels like it’s harder to find those now, and also a bit inconvenient to remember to go to each site every now and then. We got lazy with centralized services, with everything under one centralized controlled roof owned by an insane billionaire with mommy issues.
An RSS reader is the ideal tool for that. No need to remember to go to every site when all of them are in one place. And most blogs have an RSS feed as well.
How do u setup RSS?
I use a service called Inoreader. It’s an RSS reader that can be used on the browser, iOS and android. The free version allows you like 150 feeds or something like that with a lot of functionality. There’s really no reason to buy the service.
You just either search the blog in the inoreader search bar. Or, in the case of smaller blogs (which is where I like to spend most of my time), you just look for a link to their RSS feed somewhere on the website. Below is a screenshot of what an example RSS feed link looks like.
Often, if an rss link isn’t on the page, there’s still a feed available. /rss and /feed are the most common places to find it.
I know some websites with single moms looking for connections…
Already found my girl. :)
Reddit (only subs related to living in Japan since those didn’t migrate here), kbin/lemmy, fark (though I almost never comment anymore), and an old-fashioned forum/bulletin board (more stuff related to living in Japan).
Edit: and I guess YouTube? 99% of the time, I’m watching from my TV which doesn’t have comments or anything.
Off the internet, on my intranet, and if possible, IRL. Most of my internet usage is checking specific YouTube channels like an RSS feed, which barely takes time or effort. Keep a tab on weekly top posts of headphones, datahoarder, piracy and VPNTorrents on Reddit. Rest is on Lemmy, trying to create engagement and moderate privacy and technology subs. Keep a monthly tab on data compression and archival. Updating my Brain.exe knowledge base is easy, passive and quick.
Truth be told, I am getting tired of the internet itself, as I get old. Always feels like I have seen it all, repetitive discussions, same comment chain jokes, tech or entertainment is no longer progressing enough for it to be worth to keep up with the snail speed. That is what happens when you are on the internet for 2 decades, during the Golden Age around 2007, post Golden Age and now into the death of the internet and its backbones. The soon to come change of international geopolitical dynamics with a split between west and rest of world, happening in parallel to distrust and disengagement with Big Tech fueling the growth of Fediverse, just means that we will no longer be a “global” community, going back to either small federated networks or our own good old walled off forum villages/kingdoms.
Hacker News, mainly.
Sometimes I log on to Reddit to help travelers to my country or hobbyists trying to learn engineering. I try to avoid discussion on Reddit as the quality is often not high, e.g. lots of tourists asking how to commit crimes in my country – better to just not answer.
For discussion I go here, it’s much more interesting.
IRC has always been pretty cool. I might go back to that one day. For now this is just the part of my life where I try to make money and don’t have much time to socialize.
Which IRC servers are worth some time?
Oh that’s ancient history. I don’t think they are around anymore. Used to be on the one for the local hackerspace before they moved to Mattermost.
Then a few for technical assistance with various tools.
Primarily mastodon. Really enjoying that.
Facebook for relatives & friends from the real world.
I find the Mastodon/Threads/Twitter medium to be kind of hard to love sometimes. You must have found a great community! Where/who do you interact with on Mastodon?
Retrocomputing, film & art crowds.
I’ve been posting a lot of silent film stuff recently.
On the big instances or some niche ones?
hachyderm. Medium-big?
Discord
Yeah I’m on like 6 discord servers.
I’m in dozens, but frequent about 6 as well. I find it’s pretty good for finding communities about niche subjects which helps replace reddit. It also feels less like yelling into the void since there is that “live chat” feeling, and yet I never feel pressured to answer immediately.
6? I’m on… 90? Oh lord.
Congratulations! I can’t deal with that amount of notifications.
I don’t really get a lot of notifications from discord. Sometimes a “server” will @everyone but that’s rare. I usually just disable that feature when I join new servers anyway.
I have too many servers that use @everyone. Annoying.
At this point it’s mainly Lemmy, Imgur, and Discord for me.
Do you just look at pictures on Imgur? Are there actual communities? I’ve only used it as a place to upload pictures to link on Lemmy or Reddit.
You can look at images/posts sorted by tags, but there’s generally not a huge community there.
XMPP MUCs, IRC, some Matrix Spaces. Lobsters, Mastodon.
I refuse Discord. I really wish I could refuse Microsoft GitHub—source code doesn’t need to be a proprietary social media plaform.
Soon. https://forgefed.org/
I mean federating is nice, but honestly a lot of the social features need to go
if it isn’t for work related stuff, there are some self hosted github alternatives like gitlab, gitea and gogs
they might have less features tho
Oh I don’t use Microsoft GitHub for almost anything personal, but some language ecosystems only allow packages on the platform …& the issues, discussions, pull request model has lock-in to where you can’t submit a bug, propose a new idea, or even submit a patch unless the maintainer set up something third-party. Due to so many projects with lock-in, to generally participate in free software you must have an account.
Those alternatives are good, and they are more than feature complete. I sometimes choose alternative DVCS for non-work stuff as well. Can’t be forced or forked to Microsoft GitHub if you are not using Git. 🫡
Since leaving reddit with the migration, I’m now on Kbin, tumblr, Tildes, and playing somewhat more regularly on Subeta and Dappervolk.
Would you be willing to invite me to Tildes? I’d like to join.
I haven’t had any invites to give out, I would otherwise!
From what I’ve read they’re given out randomly to Tildes users but I’m guessing there might be an upvote/comment/post threshold that has to be reached first to be eligible, and it’s unlikely I’ve come close to that yet.
I got invited by someone on Kbin tho, so keep asking in threads like these and hopefully you’ll get one soon!
Got it. I’ll keep asking around. Thanks!
Every time a site update/announcement/whatever happens everyone with an account older than like a week (iirc?) gets topped up to 5-10 invites. You can (could?) also just go to r/tildes or email and ask. They use invites more as a way to slow registrations down than to be an exclusive club so it’s really not that hard to get your hands on one.
OK, thanks for the tip. I’ll try sending an email.
Where are the invites kept for tildes users to give out? Like how do I find them on the site?
https://tildes.net/invite should let you generate some
Thank you! I had no idea.
Do you still need an invite?
(Also is there any way to DM across instances? Not sure how to send you the link ontherwise)I would love one! I emailed the site admin as instructed in the announcement blog post, but haven’t heard back yet. Let me try to DM you (my app shows me the option, although I’m not sure whether or not it’ll work…). I’m going to send it right away, so if you see this reply but no DM, it’ll mean the DM didn’t work.
https://tildes.net/register?code=6BSGR-R8QLT-QK7M8
Let me know if it works! I’ll send you another if someone’s used it before you got to it.
Got it! Thanks a lot!
Tildes is a new one to me. It looks quite a bit smaller. How do you like it there?
I read through the top pages every few days and there’s some interesting people there.
It’s a very small community though and not a place for memes or silliness, so it’s kinda intimidating and I don’t commemt much.
I’m on Kbin but I’m not really sure what the future of the project holds, and the lack of an app (except as PWA) makes the experience less enjoyable than Lemmy IMO. Also on Discuit which is smaller and feels pretty organic and relaxed; I tend to engage more there.
YouTube has kicked the wasp nest by blocking Adblockers. Lots of drama over there
What’s weird is that you can still use ad blockers just fine while you’re logged out. So I just open the videos in a private browsing tab to watch them, but in a regular tab to rate or comment.
