On join-lemmy.org, the project is described as “A forum and link aggregator for the Fediverse”. In the previous post, multiple people mentioned that this is not a good description. However I have a hard time coming up with anything better.

So please post your suggestions below, and upvote the ones which are both accurate and easy to understand for new users. Later I pick one of the most upvoted options for the website.

By the way the second title “Follow communities Anywhere in the world” will likely go away (see the pull request for frontpage redesign). After this is decided I may also make another post to get suggestions for the longer description text below (“Lemmy is a selfhosted social link aggregation and discussion platform. …”).

Edit: Please only post concrete suggestions in top-level comments, and use replies to discuss. And here you can see how a few other Fediverse projects do it:

  • snek_boi@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    14 hours ago

    The best sentence will depend on the target audience. Is there a way to know who would be that audience?

    Also, responding more directly to your question, I’ve got a frame challenge: What about two or three short sentences, like what Mastodon does?

    A platform that is truly democratic. You choose your feed. You choose where to host your account.

    A platform where you’re truly free. You choose your feed. You choose where to host your account.

    A platform that can’t enshittify. You choose your feed. You choose where to host your account.

    That third one I like, because it’s a differentiator that Lemmy has in comparison with ButterflyX or whatever Jack the Twitter Guy is working on right now; Lemmy is not at risk of enshitifying, unlike ButterflyX.

    Also, if it’s important to differentiate Lemmy from Mastodon or other Fediverse platforms, the sentences could start with “A discussion platform”.

    Also, here’s a take where I tried to make no reference to electronics:

    A bustling room filled with tables, each filled with people talking about what they find interesting, where the conversation topics are always chosen by the table and always changing, and where you’re free to set up your own tables with your own topics.

    or, more succinctly,

    A bustling room filled with tables, where each table is filled with people talking about what they find interesting, a room where you’re free to set up your own tables with your own topics.

    Also, I just realized that every time that I edit this post you get notified becase I @ed you. Sorry!

    And, finally, happy cake day, @nutomic@lemmy.ml!

    • snek_boi@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      14 hours ago

      I’d love to edit my previous post but I don’t wanna spam you.

      As to target audiences, I think it could be helpful to specify the personas that we’re building the sentences for. Does the persona know what the Fediverse is? Do they know what enshittification is? Do they know what open source is? Do they have strong opinions about surveillance capitalism (even if they don’t know the word for it)? Or are they clueless regarding all of these topics?

      My suggestion assumes some knowledge of these topics. To be clear, if I’d single out a suggestion of mine, it’d be:

      A discussion platform that can’t enshittify. You choose your feed. You choose where to host your account.