Preparing Lemmy for a migration influx of Reddit users after June 30th requires some planning and consideration. Here are some steps I think we should do in orther to make things a bit more smoothly this time.
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Scalability and Performance: Assess the current infrastructure and ensure it can handle increased traffic. Consider scaling up servers, optimizing code, and implementing caching mechanisms. Monitor the system for potential bottlenecks or performance issues, and address them proactively.
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Community Engagement:
Create a welcoming and inclusive environment for new users. Clearly communicate the community guidelines, code of conduct, and expectations to ensure a positive experience. Assign dedicated moderators to handle increased user activity, enforce rules, and facilitate discussions.
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User Onboarding:
Simplify the registration and account creation process. Offer multiple login options (e.g., email, social media accounts) to accommodate different user preferences. Provide clear instructions and resources to help new users navigate the platform, including a comprehensive FAQ, user guides, and tutorials.
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Data Migration:
Develop a data migration plan to transfer relevant communities, discussions, and user accounts from Reddit to Lemmy. Coordinate with Reddit’s API and ensure compliance with their terms of service and data usage policies.
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Communication Channels:
Set up dedicated communication channels to address user questions, feedback, and concerns during the migration process. Consider creating a dedicated forum or subreddit where users can discuss the migration, provide suggestions, and receive updates from the administrators.
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Feature Enhancement: (important)
Identify key features or functionalities that Reddit users value and ensure they are available or can be easily replicated on Lemmy. Actively seek feedback from the community and prioritize feature development based on user needs and preferences.
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Promotion:
Develop a marketing strategy to raise awareness about Lemmy and its unique value proposition for Reddit users. Leverage social media platforms, online communities, and relevant subreddits to reach out to potential users and invite them to join Lemmy.
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Continuous Improvement:
Regularly evaluate the performance and user experience on Lemmy, and make iterative improvements based on user feedback and analytics data. Stay up to date with the evolving needs of the migrated user base and adapt the platform accordingly.
Looking forward to see the new users and creating a thriving and exciting community together with you all.
That data migration item might be a little cost prohibitive starting June 30th.
As for feature enhancement, I agree that Lemmy should be forward-looking in terms of what it needs in order to enhance the service, but I don’t know that catering to expectations set by Reddit is necessarily the best path. Reddit evolved to suit the needs of a centralized, profit-seeking service. Not all of the decisions they made along the way were necessarily optimal for users, conducive to strong communities, or even particular good for society as a whole, no matter how much the Reddit userbase has grown to tolerate or even demand them. And, ultimately, I don’t think it’s healthy for Lemmy to stake its future on its potential as a Reddit replacement. At some point, it needs to chart its own course. The devs should certainly learn from Reddit where they can, but Lemmy can be more than just where Redditors go when they’re pissed off at the admins.
I’ll add, one thing that the admins of lemmy.ml and lemmy.world should think about ahead of June 30th is whether its healthy — for the network, their instances, and/or their mod teams — for two instances to host the majority of accounts on the service. Personally, I suspect that a broader distribution is probably better for everyone, and if they agree on that point, then one thing they work out in the meantime is a plan for how to limit new sign-ups and the best way to direct them out to other instances.
