I still think this is the biggest issue with lemmy right now. There should be a way for communities that are identical across instances that can connect where a post would be cross posted and connected with links to each instance it's connected with.
I'd like all of the similar communities grouped so I can sub to one. It is annoying seeing the same content posted to multiple communities on different instances. It is also harder for new users to find.
I think we would have more active larger communities if they could all be grouped as one.
For example if we have gaming@domain1 , gaming@domain2 and gaming@domain3
I would prefer it was just gaming and all three synced the content and comments. If one node was to drop all of the content and comments would be there. There would be a larger more active community and less repetition. If a new gaming@domain4 joined it would be seeded with the existing content and sync any new content from that node.
I know it doesnt work like this but I think it would be nice if it did. I know if I go to a steamdeck subreddit I will find all the news related to that. Here I need to check the three or four that I'm subscribed to which is a pain point.
Instance owners ought to clean up all the unused communities that were created during the Reddit exodus by inactive users/mods only wanting to hoard the names. They're basically redirecting traffic from actual communities and into a void.
I wonder how often it happens that some user has a hobby/interest, and go search for a community for this interest. They'll find an empty community and leave without posting.
My theory is that if the dead communities didn't exist, people who actually care about the topic would create their own active communities.
I know that it's a core design feature of Lemmy and the underlying federation, but it's pretty annoying that multiple communities with the same name can exist on different instances while not necessarily following the same ruleset or even purpose.
The small user base gets even more fractured that way, a lot of posts get reposted to multiple instances as well.
So you either:
subscribe to one or two communities and miss a lot of potentially interesting conversations
subscribe to more communities and get flooded with reposts and potentially stuff you don't want to see due to a different ruleset
Somehow prevent multiple posts with the same content from showing up in my feed consecutively. Some people post to multiple communities (which is fine, if the content is relevant), but sometimes I see 3-4 identical posts by the same person in various communities, one after the other on my feed.
I've blocked some accounts who have done this excessively, but in many cases it's valid.
Users. Sites like reddit and communities like Lemmy get their strengths (and weaknesses, but that's ok) from the size and contributions of their populations. Lemmy doesn't have enough yet.
Image galleries in posts. Having multiple images in posts is currently extremely glitchy depending on the client, so having a central solution would be helpful.
I would like different types of nsfw tagging and categories like i don't wanna see porn but if it is a gruesome article or fucking insane story or question or pics i would like to have a way to acess them without seeing porn.
I like to engage in nuanced topics more than I like posting or commenting on random memes. Not necessarily to argue but to learn.
But if you post a comment in a thread that opposes the hive mind - heck even if you suggest the issue might be more complicated - you will accumulate down votes which I presume risks your comment visibility in other threads at a later time.
I wish the voting system could somehow be altered so that there's a useful/thoughtful indication separate from the "I agree/ I disagree" button.
Fixing that bug where if you do something like upvote someone while typing a comment, your comment gets deleted.
Stop making "Undetermined" the default language for posts and comments, so my feed stops getting spammed by foreign language posts that didn't bother to correctly tag themselves.
Allow blocking entire instances (I think this might be in the latest update which my instance hasn't yet migrated to?).
Beyond that, the only thing I really miss from reddit is being able to open the comment thread for a post and read literally hundreds of comments. Gets a bit underwhelming seeing so many front-page posts with 1 or 2 comments.
Users being able to group communities together themselves might also be a potential solution to the many, many posts complaining about the fragmentation of identical communities across instances.
Like, I've seen "Wendy's wants to go to Uber style pricing", I want the ability to mark it as "read" and set jerboa or lemmy.world in my browser to "show unread" and still have the ability to view my "read" items later if I want to refer back to them or whatever.
It would drastically improve my mobile experience and greatly improve my PC experience as well.
So I'm scrolling down the All feed. Bottom of first page. Click Next Page. I get another page. Some of them are the same posts as on the first page because whatever algorithm ranks them for display just ran again and they got ranked in a different order.
I see one I'm interested in. I click on it. It loads, I leave a comment. I click Back to get back out to the feed. I'm on the first page again. It didn't remember my place.
lichess integration so every unresolvable argument can be decided by a chess duel. A bot reacts when it's called by a command (plus arguments to customize the game) and drops a link (only OP can access and play, others join as spectators). Results are then posted as a reply. It's not possible atm, but I guess lichess devs are based and won't mind a little customization on their side for that silly matter. Federating with them would be a way to null many people's bingo cards.
Language blocks or automatic translation
More people that post content in my languages
Hiding duplicate posts in stacked cards
More non-Americans for a more global viewpoint
Ability to hide posts you've seen and aren't interesting. I usually either block the user or the community, depending on how uninteresting it is.
Not really possible, but... Have an ability to filter content by region. Removing all US content related to politics and "boring dystopia" would be a happy trade for 80%? less user activity.
Fix the cross posting issue (crossposts are not treated like a new post).
Make it so when you go to a new unknown community it won't take 5 tries to see the first posts (before it's like it's empty at best)
Faster respons times overall, I'm running my own server and it's quite slow. 20 seconds to see my inbox for example. Maybe have tweaks for different server hardware configurations/loads.
Make it possible to post hirez images, locally (downscale for other servers so it won't hog them down).
A page for administrators including users, metrics, tweaks etc.
ability to crosspost comments or textposts from within the fediverse
reading lists beyond just subscribed (a la "multireddits")
the ability to tag other users a la RES
user flair for munis
better mod controls (eg. make it easier to add or remove additional mods, automoderation, more streamlined reporting, federate moderation more effectively)
better control of a user's own content (eg. being able to delete posts effectively)
Just general stability things. Images not loading. Comment counts appearing but not being able to load. No handling for blocked posts via direct link. No handling for hidden posts via direct link when hiding already-viewed posts. Not being able to see your own posts when hiding already-viewed posts. Upvoting or downvoting a post clears the in-progress comment box.
Put back the way votes were displayed before the last update. This new version is terrible and it makes the app less user friendly. At least give the option to change the setting
I feel like the web interface could be better. I would like to be able to hide posts, use keybindings to navigate, and generally the overall performance could be better. But we have third party clients, which is a huge plus!
Turn off Downvote. Lemmy have some quirky user where they will lurk all the time and downvote content that doesn't fit their own preference. Like, what are your purpose? If you don't like seeing that language why not turn it off? Why not scroll past the topic you don't like or don't matter to you? It chase away a lot of people because they feels unwelcome.
These quirks is also the reason it's hard to recommend lemmy to my acquaintance and friends.