this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2025

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Can the term 'link aggregator' be changed to 'decentralized forum' (lemmy.ml)

submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

32 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Or another term which is more descriptive. This is the first thing people see when they type in Lemmy

all 33 comments

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (5 children)

Forums update threads by bumping, so threads from ten years ago can still be on the front page as long as they are active.

The term "link aggregator" was made to differentiate websites that are designed for threads to rapidly decay and be replaced by a constant flow of new content. If you tried to federate lemmy with a forum it wouldn't really work.

Maybe there's another term that could be used, but there needs to be a way to differentiate the two styles.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 days ago

We also do have a forum sort on here, that allows infinite necrobumping (not limited to 2 days like the Hot sorts), called New Comments.

But ya I agree link aggregator is a good enough descriptor for what lemmy is: a place to post links to communities, and comment on them.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

The term link aggregator makes me think of a search engine. A forum is based on user content. Forums generally make lots of new threads too. The only way forum threads stay active is when people bump them by responding to it. Lemmy posts also stay on the front page longer if people keep responding to them.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Lemmy posts are still designed to decay and fall off the front page. The posts last longer if they have participation but the only way to make something last a long time is to sticky the post so it doesn't decay.

Forums aren't like that. Forum threads are meant to stay around as long as people bump them and they can be ancient, with hundreds of pages of comments, and the thread still keeps getting bumped because new content is added to the thread.

Also, the way comments are organized is different. Our comments are threaded so we can have a conversation between us in a comment chain, but forum comments are sequential. The comments section of every thread would look way different if it was a forum.

Forums are just structurally different. If you don't like "link aggregator" that's understandable, it's actually not very descriptive, but you still need to be able to differentiate between forums and whatever-the-heck this space is.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The important point is that people who are not familiar with what Lemmy is can understand it feom reading its description. Other suggestions are possible too.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Digg and Reddit invented the terminology and I don't think people are unfamiliar with it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I vaguely remember the term from yCombinator which is exclusively links and does not have communities.

Even when using Reddit for many years in the past I never heard the term. It seems like Reddit too realized that it was not a good term for marketing.

According to NATOpedia Reddit is also a forum and "social news aggregation platform

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reddit

Reddit (/ˈrɛdɪt/ ⓘ RED-it) is an American proprietary social news aggregation and forum social media platform.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

There literally are forums with ActivityPub support. Bumping is not some magic feature of forums. If you sort on Lemmy by activity you can get exactly the same behaviour.

And bumping is even often frowned upon because it pollutes active discussions. It's just people abusing how those forums sort threads.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

If you sort on Lemmy by activity you can get exactly the same behaviour.

Point. That's not the default behavior, though, and most users aren't using the site that way - and I'd argue the site isn't designed the be used that way, and that's why most users don't use that functionality.

And bumping is even often frowned upon because it pollutes active discussions. It’s just people abusing how those forums sort threads.

Not what I meant. I don't mean people making worthless "bump" comments (that often just gets people banned) I mean that forums bump up threads that get new comments.

I use forums, and they're just different.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

Agree. "Link aggregator" is understood to mean "reddit-like" without having to refer to a specific link aggregator as a point of reference. "Forum" is a different though similar thing. And a lot of the lemmy communities I subscribe to are literally link aggregators like people link to articles, git repos, etc to draw people's attention to, although I can see the issue with it referring to text posts too.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Forum comes from latin and means a public square where people meet and gather for various activities. There is no need to use it only in such narrow, technology specific sense.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

it is perfectly descriptive. It is not a forum. I wish it was, but those went pretty much extinct. If they called it a forum it'd be lying

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reddit

Reddit is an American proprietary social news aggregation and forum social media platform.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Lemmy was built as a clone of Reddit, but federated.

Reddit is and has always been called a link aggregator.

Lemmy technically aggregates links to things as its primary function, and then allows us to talk about those links.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The term "link aggregator" is not descriptive of any function. Links are posted on any medium including chatrooms like Discord.

Users can also make posts, such as this one, which do not contain external links. Thus this is a forum.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago