There are two ways to discover new communities:

  • Search for a specific community

  • Browse communities

On various instances the browse feature is unworkable if you have focus issues like ADHD.

What I would like help with:

I would like to browse an alphabetical list of communities without large graphics.

Extra sorting by genre is unnecessary and I don’t need page breaks. Page breaks would be a nice-to-have, but I can always use the letters as breaks. I’m not looking for communities based on membership/posts/comments either.

A bonus feature would be searching for communities using a filter of subscribed or unsubscribed.

More specifics if it would be helpful:

Distracting graphics

Feddit.de’s list has very large graphics for some communities in addition to community icons. It’s overwhelming. Lemmy.world only has small community icons. That’s better as they aren’t too intrusive. Some have additional animated icons though. I can deal with that, but it would be nice if they weren’t there.

Continuous scrolling

Feddit.de’s list is continuous scroll. I don’t know how to describe what happens with continuous scrolling other than saying I feel lost in a short period of time. I don’t know where I am in the list, even with the scroll bar on the right of the screen. I mean, I’m in the list somewhere in that area, but did I scroll too fast and miss something?

I’ve tried lemmyverse.net/communities, too. There is nowhere for the eye to land on the screen. There are large, distracting graphics, and it has the continuous scroll feature.

Lemmy.world has pages (fantastic!), but no page numbers to make sure I stay on track, and I have no idea how many pages are in the list. I’ve never managed to reach the end and I’ve spent a lot of time on it. Also, if I come back to the communities search later that day or the next day, the items on the individual pages have shifted. I can’t pick up where I left off. I love that we get new communities, but I’d like to search a-z and then maybe come back in a month to view that list again to browse for new communities, especially if I can search with the filter of unsubscribed communities.

Filter for subscribed/unsubscribed

On Lemmy.world I can see if I am subscribed to a community, however, there are statistics in between the community name and subscription status. Processing vertical scrolling and horizontal scrolling simultaneously is frustrating. It would be more useful to have a filter of subscribed or unsubscribed.

I do love Feddit.de’s filter for instances. An on/off button next to each name. I’m not looking to sort by instance, but that setup is really cool if you want to show subscribed and unsubscribed on the same page. It’s very workable.

Thank you.

    • Mason@lemm.ee
      6·
      1 year ago

      That’s where I found the first few communities, then I realized I can use the SEARCH button and look for communities I like that way… Same thing as reddit really

      • blueskiesoc@lemmy.worldOP
        3·
        1 year ago

        What do you suggest for browsing? I think there are 20k+ communities. I know there’s something brilliant out there that I wouldn’t think to look for by itself.

        If you don’t have a browsing suggestion, I’ll take a community suggestion. Maybe something niche?

        • Mason@lemm.ee
          3·
          1 year ago

          Look at where other people post, look in “All”, look up ur interests, look up anything

          • blueskiesoc@lemmy.worldOP
            3·
            1 year ago

            Thanks for the suggestion, really. I’m happy for anyone trying to help.

            Yes, I can look up a specific community if I know what it is and I can browse for communities also, but the current browsing method wrecks my brain because I’m neurodivergent.

            I guess a good analogy would be suggesting to a low-vision person that they should face the screen. I can see it already, but it’s blurry and I’m asking for help to zoom in.

            As long as you’re here, do you have a suggestion for a community? I’m definitely looking for interesting, niche spaces.

            • Mason@lemm.ee
              2·
              1 year ago

              196lemybhlajzone

              Piracy

              Privacy

              Fediverse

              I got bad ADHD but I find this not too complicated, it’s a bit hard to find communities but i don’t find it easier on Reddit tbh… just keep searching and you’ll get used it

    • blueskiesoc@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      That is…better. Hmm. We may have a winner, but I’m wondering how I might find a community that was never on Reddit.

      Anyway, thank you so much. It’s not perfect, but it is substantially better.

  • Candelestine@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    1 year ago

    In the meantime, you can search for chunks of the alphabet, I do this sometimes.

    Instead of searching “games” I’ll search “gam”, which returns a much wider array of results, some of which are interesting. I’ve found a lot of odd places this way.