A well known feature from Reddit, default communities (subs on Reddit) are communities that newcomers are subscribed to by default. Lemmy, and specifically lemmy.world, could use some of these, I feel. At the very least, communities like lemmyworld, general, and newcomers are good ones to include, if we’re still somehow sticking with the old Lemmy ethos of less guided interaction. Aww, pics, videos, memes, news, etc, are good ones if not. This massively sped up the integration of new users on Reddit, and I believe it’s a good addition to Lemmy.
Added on to this is a capability that Reddit had and lemmy doesn’t yet, which is multi(reddits) communities, or Collections is probably what we’d call them here. I could see a ‘default’ collection being applied to new users, for example. The pie in the sky version of this would be publicly browsable and shareable collections, so you could send your friends a link which allows them to subscribe to multiple communities at once and create a new personal Collection automatically based on it.
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I agree with you, but I would say that’s a good thing. It should probably happen at the instance level and be fairly transparent.
When I joined, I subscribed to my instances local notices communities. Arguably redundant with the local filter, but it lets me increase focus on instance admin.
I think a minimal default subscribed list is appropriate. If an instance is geared towards general interest some more handholding might be appreciated. One aimed at more experienced users can reduce our eliminate the default list.
Agreed
I can’t see the idea of the coms where more people gather having larger sway as a bad thing, I’m sorry. However, taking into account opinions like yours is why I suggested a simple server news, server discussion, and general catchall com collection as the starter default.
I would LOVE something like multireddits on Lemmy. I actually do not like the idea of default subscriptions (unless it’s optional), but making custom multis is something that I’d really love to have on here.
A toggle in the signup process, checked by default, which says “subscribe me to default communities” wouldn’t be too bad a compromise.
This suggestion is intended to streamline things for the average user. People who do not care about ideology, ethos, what’s problematic or not, and just want to sign up and see stuff and immediately get involved in basic discussion.
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Unfortunately as is the reality of UX, opt in functions are rarely used.
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Presented is not the same as actually used by users. You are not the average user, nor am I.
This would be excellent. Even a non-general interest instance could probably benefit from having the local instance news on it’s default list. Kind of useful to know when updates are scheduled.
Definitely something instance owners could define, but a specific list is not something I think needs to be defined at the code level.
I have to disagree. So far I’m finding the Lemmy experience very pleasant, mostly because I am looking for communities that I am personally interested in and nothing else. Any “default” that I actually miss, I can just sought them out.
Hard disagree like others. Going to an instance already takes you to “Local” and “Active”, which is literally the “Default Communities” because it’s what’s active on that instance. Quit trying to fit Lemmy into a Reddit box because it‘s not always necessary.
Quit trying to fit Lemmy into a Reddit box
You mean the model that is easier to understand and helps get users to stick around? Defaulting to some local only view would be terrible for retaining people who are seeing kbin or Lemmy for the first time. Depending on what instance they ended up on, they might mistakenly think that kbin/Lemmy doesn’t have much to offer or that it’s specialized.
I mean, how many actual users are viewing local only? I’m skeptical that many people would purposefully be doing that. So why would we make it the default?
(As an aside, for comparison, I believe kbin defaults to “all”, which is great for showing the breadth of posts, but shows too many niche things. The point of defaults is to try and make the default view more general as a starting point that applies to more people.)
You and I both know your average Redditor isn’t going to stumble upon exploding heads, dbzer0, or some other niche instance. They’re going to end up at lemmy.ml, lemmy.world, shitjustworks, or kbin.social. If they don’t like what they see on one of the generalized aggregators, then how would a “default community” view be any different?
Please note it’s not a default community VIEW I propose. Just an initial set of subscriptions. Everything else should still be visible.
Agree with the general consensus saying no to default communities. Maybe a “recommended” list that it displays for you while you’re still new (like… maybe until you have 5-8 communities subscribed to) but I don’t think you should be forced into certain ones at the start.
This is acceptable. My point is to have a streamlined new user experience. How we get there precisely isn’t quite that important to me.
Not the default, but ask to subscribe would be good for general users.; this way power users can still benefit from the vanilla experience
Good idea!
I feel like the ease of use is not an issue. I would like users to actually think about the content they want to consume and perhaps find new ideas in the process through engaging. Sorting by all > active as a default is not a bad thing, and I quite enjoy it. I think this is a great place to start giving people full autonomy in the content they consume right from the beginning, we dont need training wheels…
Hard disagree
I agree, it should be transparent and decided on by the instance but think even a few beginner oriented defaults would be helpful. I think the onboarding and default lemmy experience is quite poor and anything to reduce friction for new users should be encouraged if it can be done transparently.
A middle ground might be a somewhat filtered front page without an account. Maybe suggested ones based on popularity with some filters to avoid suggesting NSFW subs.
