Jotting some quick notes I’ve observed so far from running /m/scifi for a couple of weeks and getting to 3K subscribers:
- Even though most people will return to Reddit and it’ll be ‘business as usual’ - the seeds of destruction are already in place.
- No one is coming to a place where there’s nothing to read / think about / interact with
- The thing that made Reddit great is content - we came there for content. So when it comes to asking ‘how can we grow Kbin?’ the answer is simple: It’s the content, stupid.
- Reddit has tons of free content - in the spirit of being a #chaoticgood, we can grab the best parts of that content and use it to make Kbin an interesting, thoughtful place to be
- Creating spaces with well-thought-out rules to encourage inclusivity, collaborate, and mutual respect. It’s working out well for /m/scifi
- Redditors know what’s up - they’re pissed at Spez but there’s not much they can do about it. They’ll vote with their feet if we give them a new place to come to.
Thoughts?
Kbin really needs an app to become daily for most people I think. I’ve spent a lot of time on Lemmy because of Jerboa and the fact this whole thing came about because of Reddit screwing over app devs means people will be looking for that be alternative.
This is true ! I do enjoy using the PWA app though
It’s impressively usable, but there are certainly some problems with it right now. I haven’t made a second account to use a Lemmy app because I don’t want two accounts to access the same set of content, but I am eagerly awaiting the API coming online so that app devs can start working on a more polished mobile solution.
You can install an app from the Kbin mobile page to your phone, though. Just go to the mobile page, there’s an install app option under the 3 dots that works.
I use Hermit so that I can reload a page. The PWA didn’t support any kind of reload unfortunately
I’m using that app and the standard “pull the page all the way down” browser gesture refreshes pages
Hey fellow Hermit user. Do you use infinite scroll? And if so, did you have an issue with Hermit snapping to the bottom of the page if you navigated back from a thread loaded via infinite scroll?
I.e.,
Unfortunately yes. I have it turned off for now
I wasn’t aware that it worked
I am working on an app myself but it’s going to be about a month
kbin still doesn’t fully have an api so any apps are going to have to wait until it’s development is underway
The main board updates, but I have the worst time logging in from there or mobile. I think that’s my phone and my fat fingers, though.
if other fedi projects are any indication, likely a unified API will develop. Mastodon’s API is supported by most other fedi projects, so you can use mobile apps interchangeably. If Lemmy becomes dominant then kbin would have to implement an API to match.
If kbin gets an API, maybe apps like rif is fun can be ported to it!
kbin has an API (docs here), but it isn’t working right now
55% of website traffic comes from mobile devices.
Apps are definitely the “killer app.”
Reddit screwing over app devs also potentially means app devs free to use their skills for Lemmy/Kbin.
I don’t mind it on the browser. It doesn’t feel that different from RiF when you play with the settings. I could use an infinite scroll.
An app is coming called Artemis (based on Apollo) see more about it here
Supposedly Sync is coming
I try to give time and patience to kbin because it’s actually only a month old xD I think it’s this guy called ernesto and some of his friends that are developing for it. They have to fix a lot of things on the site because it’s still in a prototype mode. They work very fast though but yeah I think they’re going as fast as humanly possible right now. I’m glad there is an app being made already right now for both lemmy and kbin.
I’m looking forward to a proper app with more functionality, but for now the progressive web app does work fine and I have it on my home screen on my phone in the place where Baconreader used to sit (and open it multiple times each day).