Yep. Certified non-tech nerd here. And not quite 30, either.

I was awfully close to not figuring out Lemmy enough to make an account and participate.

I still don’t understand exactly what’s going on, but I can confirm that my first time visiting was extremely confusing. So many terms I was completely unfamiliar with, and no clear way for me to jump in easily (like you were describing with having to make important decisions before signing up/understanding). Truly the only reason I ended up successfully making it here was that I saw a post on the instance I ended up joining, welcoming reddit refugees so I figured - well, I guess I could try this one. And that was after I had searched around online to figure out what the heck the fediverse, instances, etc, were.

The barrier to entry is really high for those of us with little to no tech knowledge. And I was really motivated, I reeeeally wanted to commit to leaving reddit. I imagine those who are considering joining but aren’t quite as motivated just won’t make it. :(

But, I think part of the issue is that communities that folks are interested in being a part of, about certain topics/etc, just aren’t active enough here yet. I’m glad to see some are growing, and my personal experience is improving over time, but I keep finding communities that look like something I’d love but have zero activity ir content in them. So I do understand folks wanting to fill parts of this with content in general, even if it’s content similar to what they would’ve gotten on Reddit, because content and activity is what will help build those cool communities over time.

I only wish I had interesting or important things to contribute to the communities I’m interested in, I never know what to say or do to help build a community that’s nonexistent or essentially so. 😥 so far I’ve just been commenting wherever I can, for the most part, hoping that helps.

I don’t know anything about the number of users they’re expecting to have with this, but I’ll be very surprised if it’s a significant number. I just don’t get why anyone would want to join it, not only for what it is, but also for the whole facebook/meta nonsense. But I suppose some folks still actively and frequently use Facebook, so what do I know!

I can’t see any reason for me to ever try it. I’ve got plenty of social media to deal with already, and this doesn’t seem to be offering anything new or interesting for me. Plus the creepy permissions even keep me away from joining temporarily out of any curiosity I might have.

What! I didn’t know that, and I just gave one of my cats a little crocheted ball yesterday. I hadn’t made it for them, but one of them was obsessed with it quickly so I figured I’d let him have it. BRB going to find it and take it away, I had no idea, thank you for mentioning this!!!

Oh, I guess today is a good day to become anxious that it might be my last day with 10 fingers. 🙃

Got it! That makes sense, thank you.

<3

Glad I wasn’t the only silly one!

To add to this, I think people often underestimate how “easy” it can be to function in society without being able to read well. I know that some folks who either don’t read at all or read at a very low level have just gotten used to interpreting the world around them without the language part. For example, visually recognizing a username and password field on a website and knowing what they’re for, or recognizing the symbols and colors used for certain objects or meanings, all without the actual words needing to mean anything to them for them to understand what it is and what to do with it. And for those who can read at a 5th or 4th grade level (and would thus be included in the stat mentioned in this post), they’re likely then very capable of reading and understanding the majority of text they’re going to come across in their day-to-day lives.

Of course, I don’t want this to sound like I’m saying being illiterate is easy, I’m sure it creates MANY barriers and difficulties for the person, but I do think humans are also flexible and resilient, and are able to survive using other cues.

Thank you!!! That makes sense - so just checking, Top X is like “Hot”, but over a certain time period instead of “recent”? (In that it cares about rating instead of how many comments are being posted?)

Seems like bouncing between Active and Hot is still a good thing to do then maybe. To see whatever people are discussing as well as whatever the most upvoted stuff is.

Wouldn’t that in return cause the subs without those restrictions to end up receiving larger amounts of low-effort/value comments, from folks just throwing out comments randomly to try and bump their karma up enough to comment in the subs they actually want to participate in? Which means more subs instituting comment karma restrictions, and so the cycle continues?

To be fair, I don’t know what the correct answer is when bots and trolls are such a problem, but I do think it was super frustrating from a user’s perspective and discourages participation from people who would otherwise want to participate.

I played Spiritfarer a while back after seeing all the positive reviews, but only made it an hour or two in before I fell off and stopped playing. I think I just got bored by the pace? Is it worth restarting and pushing through the early parts of the game, or is it pretty much the same throughout?

Same! Loved Before Your Eyes. It was short and not necessarily replayable many times, but very emotional and unique. I’d love to find other unique games like this, where the main game/mechanic is new or different in some way like the blinking control was, but not sure how to find them!

Honestly, the loss of Reddit is Fun. I’d say that roughly ~95% of the time I spent on reddit was through mobile, I hardly ever used it on the computer anymore (although funnily enough, years ago it was the opposite, I almost exclusively accessed it via computer). Opening up RIF repeatedly on the day it died, just from muscle memory, is what made me finally decide to look up how to join Lemmy. I had been considering it for awhile, but sticking with Reddit was juuuust easy enough to keep me from doing it, even with the drastic quality drop in reddit over the years. But by blocking RIF/etc, they removed that “easy enough” part, which meant nothing was really keeping me from deciding to finally make the jump.

Still can’t say I fully understand the fediverse, I definitely don’t. But I do understand it slightly more than I did before, and certainly enough to at least try to interact and comment!

Forreal, what’s going on? Why does it seem like so many separate sites are suddenly so much worse/going downhill quickly?

That’s one of the things I’ve been most excited about so far - it sorta feels like I’m back on an old ~2005 forum again, it’s weirdly nostalgic and nice!