Now that some time has passed, what do you like and dislike about kbin?
Now that some time has passed, what do you like and dislike about kbin?
I like that kbin is smaller compared to some lemmy instances. I also prefer the UI. Bigger communities tend to feel a bit overwhelming for me. I also appreciate how transparent Ernest has been regarding kbin's development. That said, it's been a bit challenging to figure out how to utilize some of the federation features that kbin has to offer--microblogging in particular. From what I've seen, people don't generally seem too interested in this feature, but I think it's nice to have.
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Things I like:
- The interface is great, and it's the main reason I chose Kbin over Lemmy. The UI is just much more aesthetically pleasing, especially with the Tokyo night theme and with custom userstyles.
- Microblog integration is really convenient. I don't use it a ton, but it's nice to be able to view Mastodon content from the same place as all the stuff in the threadiverse. Magazines being able to collect microblogs with certain tags is also great (e.g., the !pixelart microblog section collects anything with the #pixelart tag). Being able to follow tags to have in your subscribed feed would be awesome.
- The community on kbin magazines is really nice. I do wish there was more activity, but I love the interactions I have here.
Things to improve:
- Activity is lacking in most magazines. I try to post and comment—I'm doing so a lot more than I did on Reddit—but not a lot of people are doing the same.
- There are quite a few annoying bugs. Posting brings you to an error page (even though the posting still works), image uploading doesn't have any visual feedback, and blocking any domain causes comments to disappear.
- Federation is far from perfect. Some stuff doesn't federate for seemingly no reason, and downvotes don't federate at all.
- This is a general issue throughout the fediverse, but there isn't really a built-in guide explaining federation, yet understanding federation and its intricacies is kind of a prerequisite to using the fediverse (since federation is far from seamless and can be quite inconsistent). What doesn't help is the attitude that people who don't get federation are dumb or should just try harder.
There are other issues I have, like the lack of a subscription panel, but these can be fixed with userscripts. Even so, stuff like this should be part of the base functionality, or at the very least there should be prominent links to these userscripts until it can get added.
I agree with pretty much everything you mentioned. Regarding the activity, I wish there was a bit more effort from others as well. I can understand why they don't though--I was typically a lurker as well. It's just unfortunate when I see posts from users that want to see more content as well before they feel incentivized to contribute, which unfortunately serves to perpetuate the problem. Not saying this is you (also not trying to antagonize any lurkers, because again, I understand), it's just something I've observed. That said, I appreciate what folks like Ernest are doing. #Kbin and the rest of the #fediverse resonate with me conceptually, so I'll continue trying to support it how I can.
Of course, it's fine for people to be lurkers—I was one in the vast majority of the subreddits I joined—but the advice I'd give to everyone is that if you're upset that there's not much content or that something isn't being talked about, make that content! That's been the approach I've been using. If I think, "Man, I wish there was a post on this," I make that post. Again, it's understandable for people to lurk, but I do wish more people who were dissatisfied with activity tried to help fix the issue as opposed to abandoning the concept of the fediverse or using it much less.
I could not agree more--I've also been trying to engage with content by sorting through "New" more regularly. It's now my preferred method for discovering content.