Reddit never had to compete with a musician in search results.

  • Onno (VK6FLAB)@lemmy.radio
    78·
    7 days ago

    I confess that it is always odd to see a musician, now deceased for a decade, when searching for this platform. Mind you, that is an ongoing tribute to their legacy, which is how it came about.

    In a 2020 post, Lemmy’s co-creator Dessalines wrote about the origin of the name Lemmy. “It was nameless for a long time, but I wanted to keep with the fediverse tradition of naming projects after animals. I was playing that old-school game Lemmings, and Lemmy (from Motorhead) had passed away that week, and we held a few polls for names, and I went with that.”

    Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemmy_(social_network)#History

            • WraithGear@lemmy.worldEnglish
              10·
              7 days ago

              It took me three hours to decide upon mine, this was back when i needed one for the xbox 360. I literally sat there on the set up screen, and thought. You should see me struggle with character gens.

              • golden_zealot@lemmy.mlEnglish
                3·
                7 days ago

                Way back in 1997 or so, I was not sure what to use, so I just chose “Foxtrot” from the phonetic alphabet because it sounded a little neat, and it has my favorite animal in it. It was not such an issue because you could still get that name everywhere at the time of course. Since then, I have mainly used variations of that, but at some point branched out into some others such as the one I use here.

                It’s always kind of funny to me though, when I go through some old backup and see one of my forum signatures with my original name on it.

                • WraithGear@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  3·
                  7 days ago

                  For me i went with WraithGear because i personally feel that i am not here, or real, that i am just piloting my corpse around. It crossed with my thoughts on gaming due to making an xbox account and all, and i have a framed art cell of metal gear acid on my desk, and it all kinda clicked. Its gear as in metal ‘gear’ more so then a cog.

  • Hanrahan@slrpnk.netEnglish
    83·
    5 days ago

    It’s indeed an odd name but holding it back from what ? Its not a popularoty contest . Why is “widespread adoption” seen as the metric for success? That onky needed for shitty commercial products, to me it’s great right now…

    • 3dmvr@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      1·
      5 days ago

      its a link aggregator based off reddit, showing up higher in the resulrs when it’s own name is googled would be nice

  • wuphysics87@lemmy.ml
    51·
    6 days ago

    How dare you besmirch the name of the frontman of the greatest band that has ever existed!

  • paequ2@lemmy.todayEnglish
    37·
    7 days ago

    Eh, names may sound stupid at first, but after saying it a million times it’ll start to sound normal. “Google” sounded stupid and silly when they just first started, but now it sounds formal and makes you think of dystopia and dread.

      • redhorsejacket@lemmy.world
        3·
        6 days ago

        Just anecdotal experience to relate, but the opinion I see most commonly in various threads is that being concerned about SEO and growth metrics and the like fundamentally misunderstands the opportunity the fediverse provides.

        At least for me, it’s nice to have a corner of the internet where, for the most part, discussions don’t escalate to the polemical levels that occur when everyone needs to shout to get a word in edgewise.

        I admit that my logic stems from the impulse to gatekeep, but my intent would be that we tend to our gardens, as it were, and let the folks who are seeking that kind of experience filter in at a natural rate. For example, while I don’t think that Lemmy needs to juice it’s SEO, I do think it would be a good idea to continue to improve the onboarding process for folks that don’t give a rip about the tech running their social media.

        I’m willing to entertain arguments to the contrary, but I think that this approach encourages growth by improving accessibility, while not overwhelming the aspects of the culture that has gotten folks to stick around here at all. The assumption I’m operating under, and I acknowledge its optimism, is that a person who finds themselves on Lemmy is clearly looking for a different experience than what traditional social media offers them, even if they can’t articulate what exactly it is that they’re missing from corporate owned platforms.

        To that end, I don’t think it’s necessary to try and ensure our Lemmy beats out Lemmy Kilmeister, who is the singer I’m hopefully correct in assuming people are talking about lol

  • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
    431·
    7 days ago

    when I say ‘fediverse’ people think I’m saying ‘fetiverse’ and sometimes they ask if it’s like open source fetlife. 🫠

  • remer@lemmy.world
    79·
    7 days ago

    I think the political culture is holding it back more than the name. People poke their heads in and see an environment that is far more left than they’re used to so they head back to Reddit. It can be a shock to see all the moe/loli and communist stuff when they aren’t used to it.

        • PirateKingLuffy@lemmy.mlEnglish
          3·
          5 days ago

          It’s a TikTok-like from the creator of Pixelfed (Instagram-like). It’s in beta right now. There are a few communities on Lemmy that are dedicated to sharing the content from it.

          • Zagorath@aussie.zone
            2·
            5 days ago

            Oh neat. Yeah I think I’ve seen content from it, but I always interpreted it as just a video host, like Gfycat was, or how catbox is sometimes used.

  • LiamTheBox@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    7 days ago

    Perhaps. First name that came to me was remmy but the real nane is remy from the movie

  • MyRobotShitsBolts@lemmy.world
    34·
    5 days ago

    Lemmy needs better marketing. The name is lame an non-descriptive of what it is. The UI, while awesome to the tech savvy is not modern enough to compete with alternatives. For Lemmy to succeed it has to become “cool” and it’s not there yet and seems to lack that sort of direction.

  • Elise@beehaw.org
    11·
    7 days ago

    What’s holding it back is not having a button to filter out all the US drama. Eternity had it, but that app isn’t working anymore.

  • mtchristo@lemm.ee
    9·
    6 days ago

    I don’t think it has that big of an impact. But most open source developers forget that it might end up being used by more people than just them .

    Mastodon. Lemmy, do a web search especially for Lemmy on reddit and you are more likely than not to end up on threads about the singer . and don’t get me started on the many unpronounceable names of open source projects.

  • wuphysics87@lemmy.ml
    72·
    6 days ago

    Things we have no interest in changing. The topics of the most popular threads (linux, privacy, open source, niche diy, programming), the makeup of the communities (occupation, gender, political alignment, etc.), non-mainstream opinions (privacy, dangers of AI, how to best spend one’s time).

    Lemmy will never grow as it stands. The public won’t change and neither will we. Our best shot is to pitch it to somewhat technically minded folks while could operate an instance if it is set up for them. Most of us could do this pretty easily with Ansible.

    The harder part is the pitch. ESPECIALLY when persuading someone to manage an instance, we need to lighten any of the opinions in the first paragraph. Something we don’t historically do very well.

    We also need to make things more “fun/useful”. Sports trivia, more cat/animal memes, substantially less cynical comics/more “funny ones”, more mainstream hobby communities (e.g. cooking, rock climbing, active D&D), random/communities with no “real purpose”, communities for differently abled/neurodivergent folks with a large enough user base to provide real support.

    Creature comforts. A lot of people are going to find Lemmy to be primative. Something we take for granted is we will happily embrace something “inferior” but belonging to us rather than the bleeding edge proprietary offerings. I’ve come to find I “love” my freedom oriented software and hardware to the point I don’t even care if it shits the bed. It’s like my puppy. Sure it will do things I don’t like, but I’m patient with it. Most normies won’t feel that way. We’d need to polish and grow the code base to include the things people expect in a modern app, but most of us don’t have the skill or the time. And these additions may be things we don’t want anyway

    I don’t see this as insurmountable. Less so as folks are becoming more aware of the invasive nature of AI. We just need to balance that et. al with the above.

    • menemen@lemmy.ml
      6·
      6 days ago

      I am uncertain what I want. I kinda like what lemmy is now. I don’t really want it to become mainstream. On the other hand I want the corporations to fail and lemmy is the best chance we have.

      • wuphysics87@lemmy.ml
        2·
        5 days ago

        I don’t doubt it, to the extent some want more people on lemmy, do you think what we have is sufficient in quality or quantity in the eyes of those who we would attract? That was my point