Recently, I made a post here, which gained some traction in support of the cause. However, I mistakenly used an outdated screenshot of Photon. It turns out that photon.lemmy.world is running an older version of Photon, which caused some misunderstandings.
For those who saw that post and were misled or disliked Photon because it appeared to display only 2-3 links on-screen, similar to new Reddit, let me clarify. While Photon is modern and intuitive, it is not like new Reddit in this particular aspect. This outdated screenshot gave the wrong impression, which I’ve since updated, but I wanted to create this new post since many people may not revisit the previous one to see the corrections.
The latest version of Photon, which can be seen at phtn.app, is a big improvement over what’s on photon.lemmy.world. Photon is modern, intuitive, and, speaking as someone with years of Reddit moderation experience who has also started moderating a few communities on Lemmy, it offers a far superior moderation experience. For example, Photon allows you to view the mod queue for all communities at once, making moderation much easier compared to the base UI or other alternatives.
Photon’s modularity and customization options are comparable to, if not better than, Kbin’s UI. You can easily change fonts, reposition docks and panels, apply custom themes, adjust sorting, and customize the modular side panel to arrange and pin items in any order you like. All of this can be done without needing CSS or additional technical knowledge. It’s probably the most modular yet user-friendly UI available right now.
Here’s an example of the latest Photon interface settings:
Here’s a more customized version I created in just a few seconds—it can be personalized even further:
In my previous post, I emphasized the need for a modern, visually appealing, and intuitive UI to help the Fediverse grow and attract mainstream users. Currently, Lemmy remains dominated mainly by discussions of political topics and critiques of Elon Musk, while its user base is still relatively small at around 40k+ users. For Lemmy to thrive, it needs to expand beyond its current niche and cater to more general topics and interests.
Personally, I use Reddit for far more than just shitting on Elon Musk, discussing politics, or even tech, especially FOSS. For example, I frequently engage with communities about cars, gaming, TV shows, entrepreneurship and general topics that are largely missing or underdeveloped on Lemmy. These general-interest communities are what make platforms like Reddit so versatile and appealing to a wider audience.
If we remain in our current comfort space, Lemmy will likely continue to stagnate as a niche platform. Meanwhile, other alternatives could grow and potentially replace Reddit one day, and it may not be decentralized, open source or community-funded rather centralized and driven by investors/VCs, Just as we’re seeing with platforms like Bluesky gaining traction over Mastodon to replacing X/Twitter. By embracing a UI like Photon’s, which is both modern and user-friendly, we can create a more inviting experience for mainstream users, helping Lemmy grow into a platform that caters to a broader audience.
After your first post, i’ve thought about your points, and i’ve changed my opinions a little.
I agree, we should replace the default lemmy UI as a whole. Out with it. But photon wasn’t designed to be a “default” UI. It was designed as an alternative.
The point of a default UI is to be as accessible as possible, yet still functional. That’s why most users on the fediverse usually use a 3rd party client (Including me, i use photon + raccoon on mobile). While the current lemmy UI checks the “performance” box, the functionality box? not so much. It feels like everytime i use it i am overwhelmed with information density, and the auto expand feature implementation is just bad. Photon does the opposite. It checks the functionality box, but scratches the performance box. Even on a modern PC, photon is choppy for me, and the frosted glass effect is not helping.
I don’t think we should have a default lemmy UI, as in, every instance uses the same UI. As i said in the first post, it should be up to the instance maintainer to choose their own UI. This comes with its own problems. Lemmy.world’s photon is outdated, and so is lemdro.id.
Ultimately, this is in the hands of the instance maintainers, and Xylight himself. He is rewriting photon for more performance, so my answer may change.
I’m kinda the opposite. I love the information density of the lemmy ui and as a text first user I dislike auto expanding pictures with a vengeance. Now I don’t really care what the default is as long as I can choose my poison.
Where did you find statistics on client use? I browse lemmy using firefox/mull whether it’s on desktop, laptop, tablet or phone.
Honestly, I can’t understand why people like compact mode instead of cards. Then again, I’ve always been bad at handling multiple information at once. To each his own, i guess
As for the statistics, those came from my own bias, but I see there are a lot of people that love the old lemmy UI, so it’s false. Sorry.
It wasn’t meant as a “gotcha!” as I was curious to see the stats, I think that your bias is correct and that those like me that prefer the compact format are a minority.
Seems that there are unusually many of us perusing Lemmy though.
I believe having a poll where people choose their favourite Desktop UI, their favourite way of consuming lemmy content on their mobile devices as well as ask them if they consider using an alternate UI a hassle. That would be a great first step when it comes to deciding on where the UI should be headed. The next problem would be getting the poll to those that chose to leave lemmy and those that never tried it.
We definitely should make a poll to understand our demographics, eventually. Maybe i’ll do it one day. It would be a huge benefit for us users and developers.
As for reasons why people don’t choose to try lemmy, i remember before i joined lemmy that i heard warnings of the developers and community denying genocides, making up false information, and being toxic in general etc. I also couldn’t wrap my mind around instances. That definitely soured my opinion, to be honest. Of course, now i know those are only a couple of instances that could easily be blocked, but the average user isn’t going to understand instances, federation, etc.
The reason why bluesky was so successful was because it’s easy. It has pseudo-federation, but it ““conveniently”” chooses the main server for you. That’s why most users are on bsky.social. Simple, but incredibly centralized. It defeats the point. Also, the UI is very similar to old twitter. Lemmy/mbin are more radical in terms of differences, this makes it more niche.
I just don’t think people are ready for the fediverse, yet. Maybe in a couple of years, people will start joining us, but for now, we’re the minority.
https://old.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/1fmuk7o/post_to_address_the_usual_criticism_about_lemmy/
Good read, thanks for sharing. But i think both of us are over estimating the tech literacy of the average user. Many of them look at software, or ideas, or platforms at surface level, and don’t care much about how software works internally.
The average user isn’t going to care about federation, and might not even understand it. To us and the OP of the reddit thread, we’re familiar with federation, and have gotten used to it. It seems easy for us.
This is why i think the bluesky exodus is going to be useful, because it may inspire new users to learn about federation, and later on, the fediverse.
That’s why nowadays it’s recommended to not talk about federation anymore. Just as in the Reddit post, (by the way, I’m the author) give them two links
And that’s it. No schema, no picture, no federation. Just two bullet points, and people can already have a look, using an instance that defederates hexbear and lemmygrad, and with a nice app
Hm, good point, It seems I over complicated the whole process.
Thanks for sharing your post by the way, it’s very well written.
I suggested the official adoption of Photon a year ago. Xylight was tentatively on board with it.
Even more important though is this change which would allow an alternative frontend to be used as a default, instead of having to be relegated to a sub-domain.
woah I hadn’t seen this thread. this would be massive
It seems you’re uncomfortable with the term “default,” and I can understand why. However, when I use “default UI,” I’m referring to what users see when they access a server through its primary link (rather than alternate UI links like those offered by lemmy.world, for example). My proposal to replace the current base UI with Photon doesn’t take away the option for users to continue using alternative UIs if they prefer. That flexibility remains intact. However, the average user, especially those new to Lemmy, is likely to access and evaluate the platform through the default link.
Unless every single server admin changes to alternative UIs manually on their own, “default UI” will exist because a lot of servers, atleast to begin with, settle on whatever Lemmy comes with.
This proposal is aimed at both server admins, particularly those managing “general-purpose” servers where average users are most likely to join, and Lemmy devs themselves. A modern, intuitive default UI could significantly improve first impressions and help attract a broader audience.
In my experience, Photon has been responsive and largely glitch-free in terms of performance, especially compared to Reddit’s new UI, which I personally find horrible. That said, hearing that Photon is being rewritten for further performance improvements is encouraging and only adds to its potential as a suitable base UI.
Photon came up in this discussion amongst the Lemmy developers.
I’m pretty sure we agree at this point. My end point was that it is in the hands of the instance maintainers and Xylight (he has agreed) and that is what you are saying here, too.