I’m not new to link aggregators/communities, but new to those outside of Reddit. About a month ago I joined Lemmy and today my curiosity led me to Piefed, although I’ve come across the name before.
My research told me Piefed is developing at a much faster pace than Lemmy, is that true? I like the onboarding of Piefed better, because it allows you to select things you might be interested in as part of the process, which is helpful. Overall, it’s a much more guided approach.
I’ve also gotten to know it doesn’t really matter for the average user which of the platforms one joins. So I’m specifically posting this question on a community on Lemmy through my Piefed account.
I’m based in Europe if that makes a difference, which I believe it doesn’t. Nonetheless I’m happy to read your thoughts. Thanks
Lemmy
Technically: less often updated, may have less of the shiny features. Some see it as positive: Lemmy stays out of the user’s way.
Ideologically: devs are far-left, but the project itself is neutral. Wherever you find yourself politically, you’ll find a place.
Main dev: @Nutomic@lemmy.ml
Overall: Lemmy is a good option if you want to see the “raw” Threadiverse. Less bells and whistles, no content or moderational filters pushed on the user aside from what instance admins and users themselves decide.
PieFed
Technically: fast-paced development, “move fast and break stuff”, highly experimental, but feature-rich.
Ideologically: Liberal/moderate, enforced. All PieFed instances filter out “radical” left- or right-wing content (see no-qanon PieFed list), all user filters come on top of this list instead of replacing it. It also suffers from the backlash on some of the decisions made, such as vote throttling.
Main dev: @Rimu@piefed.social
Overall: PieFed is a shiny and new, fast-paced, but also opinionated and controversial project. Whether it’s going to be a “peace of mind” or “power tripping dev hellscape” software is only for you to experience.
Potential compromise: PyLova
PyLova is a fork of PieFed designed specifically to cut out opinionated pieces while keeping the technology.
However, it’s only currently present on quokk.au, which is itself opinionated (anarchist, far left).
I don’t get the opinionated part; aren’t we all? Yes, some project theirs more onto others than the rest. Personally, I see myself as humanly common-sense moderate. I used to be a political hot-head, which meant I cheered certain people I wouldn’t touch with a pole these days. I tend to avoid stupid people and situations as I mature.
It is one thing to hold an opinion; it is another to limit which opinions others can see.
Lemmy devs hold a very radical and strong opinion, but they don’t enforce it on anybody else. You can have any instances posting whatever. This fosters a healthy and open discussion and political development.
PieFed dev enforces certain optics by limiting the sources viewable through it, and some of the choices raises eyebrows in a major way. For example, did you know PieFed bans WikiLeaks? No matter the political stance, you’d rather be able to cite that. This open censorship limits political discussion and serves to reinforce Rimu’s political line instead of going for an honest intellectual exchange.
We have plenty of spaces trying to shape people’s opinion. Fediverse is the direct response to this threat among many. Why would we want to turn Threadiverse into this again?
Again, with that said, I tried to give a more neutral outline. Objectively, Lemmy the software is politically neutral, while PieFed is not. If you share the values baked into PieFed, you may end up enjoying this experience. But overall, this is often seen as problematic around these parts.