With Twitter and Reddit the way that they are, many people are turning to federated servers as their online home, kbin among them.
How are you using kbin? As a Twitter replacement? Reddit? As something new entirely?
Personally I’m trying to follow multiple types of federated content, magazines, and people.
I think kbin has a lot of growth to go through before all that content can become streamlined and look nice - but it’s all there, and that’s what counts.
If there’s one thing I would change, it would be putting the comment box at the top, or in a drop-down instead of at the very bottom of a thread. But, I’m also just happy that the site is more stable and people are posting!
Kbin, like Reddit, is more about following topics and conversations rather than people. I have a Mastodon account but I never really got into following people and posting whatever on my account - I vastly prefer the forum-like nature of browing by topic, responding to interesting conversations, etc.
I think somewhere in KbinStyles you may be able to find a script which places the comments above the replies, but honestly I kind of like the way the comment box at the bottom encourages you to at least skim the existing replies first.
Just to follow up on this KES has a magazine https://kbin.social/m/enhancement with install instructions. If you’re able to use addons with how you browse kbin, you can rearrange it using this under Threads -> Rearrange post order. The suggested order has the reply box at the top
Kbin, like Reddit, is more about following topics and conversations rather than people.
This may be true for you, but it’s not an objectively true fact. If that’s how you wanna use it, that’s cool, but from the start, kbin has allowed finding and following ppl. You can use kbin just like any other microblogging service if you want.
Right now, it’s threadiverse features are more easily available than its microblogging features, but I think kbin could be an awesome combination of both sides of the fediverse without sacrificing features or usability.
Similar opinions as for lemmy tbh, it’s basically an inferior reddit for now. Fewer active members, fewer tools, features and customization options, worse stability and performance. The idea is sound but the implementation is far from ideal, but it works well enough for now.
And before everyone goes for my jugular, yeah I know. FOSS, early development, few people working on it, new experimental tech, etc etc. That doesn’t help with any of the actual issues or widespread adoption though.
Integration with mastodon is a neat idea but nobody really uses it, if it even works. Some posts are visible from there but most aren’t, some communities have like a dozen people checking microblogs but most people have no idea that it exists… or it’s unusable if it’s a generic hashtag like gaming, full of foreign submissions because language filtering doesn’t work, and breaking conversations because it can only render first-level reply.
So I dunno. I hope it takes off and gets better but it will be quite a while until that happens I think.
I’m using kbin as a Reddit replacement. I had only just really started using Reddit when the Great Blackout happened, so it was easy enough for me to switch over the kbin instead. I use Mastodon as my twitter replacement, since I’ve been on it for longer, and I like keeping different kinds of content separate. Federation is great, but I like using Mastodon for Mastodon and Kbin for kbin/lemmy.
The only real issue I have using kbin is how rough it is around the edges - for example, block is an absolute mess, and works less like a block and more like the worst possible version of mute, and people have been able to get around moderation by blocking magazine mods. Hopefully a complete overhaul of block is in the works.
I’m definitely looking forward to when apps start getting released.
Same! I was a long time Reddit user and decided to leave after the whole spez thing. I’m hoping to build up some of the same communities that I really loved. The apps will also make a huge difference imo
Like Reddit. Doomscrolling through, having conversations, sharing memes and oddities. Feels nice, though, a little like older forums in the sense of community that forms.
Reddit, since I never got into twitter. Also I don’t think kbin currently has a way to just see microblog posts by people you’re following, you end up seeing all the content from the hashtags of the magazines you’re subscribed to. I think that would need to be separated to allow for twitter-like usage.