Welcome Reddit refugees!

We are happy to see that many of you are exploring Lemmy after Reddit announced changes to its API policy. I maintain this project alongside @dessalines.

Lemmy is similar to Reddit in many ways, but there is also a major difference: Its not only a single website, but consists of many different websites which are interconnected through federation. This is achieved with the ActivityPub protocol which is also used by Mastodon. It means that you can sign up on any Lemmy instance to interact with users and communities on other instances. The project website has a list of instances which all have their own rules and administrators. We recommend that you sign up on one of them, to avoid overt centralization on lemmy.ml.

Another difference compared to Reddit is that Lemmy is open source, and not funded by any company. For this reason it relies on volunteer work to make the project better, whether it's programming, design, documentation, translating, reporting issues or others. See the contributing guide to get started. You can also donate to support development.

We also recommend that you read the documentation. It explains how Lemmy works and how to setup your own Lemmy instance. Running an instance gives you full control over the rules and moderation, and prevents us developers from having any influence. Especially large communities that want to use Lemmy should host their own instance, because existing Lemmy instances would easily be overwhelmed by a large number of new users.

Enjoy your time here! If you have any questions, feel free to ask below or in the Matrix chat.

biscuitsofdeath,

Does Lemmy have any rss support?

dessalines,

Yes, click the rss button on your fron page or communities.

biscuitsofdeath,

Perfect. Thank you!

Ephera,

By the way, the feed reachable via the RSS button in the account inbox has been broken for me, for a couple weeks. Probably should've reported that earlier...

It uses URLs like this: https://lemmy.ml/post/971001/comment/442247

Which, if I load it in my browser gives me an error 404: TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'send').

If I simply remove the "post/971001/", it loads the intended comment: https://lemmy.ml/comment/442247

dessalines,

Open an issue in lemmy-ui if you would.

Ephera,

Could you create the issue? I don't use GitHub and I just won't spend half an hour to create a throwaway mailbox + account, to paste some text into the appropriate place.

Here's the issue text, as I would formulate it, and a screenshot, if you want it:

Account Inbox RSS-Feed has broken URLs

The feed reachable via the RSS-button in the account inbox has been broken for a couple weeks.

It uses URLs like this: https://lemmy.ml/post/971001/comment/442247

Which, if loaded in a browser, gives an error:
404: TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'send').

If the section “post/971001/” is removed from the URL, it loads the intended comment: https://lemmy.ml/comment/442247

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Log into your account.
  2. Go to <Lemmy-instance-URL>/inbox, e.g.: https://lemmy.ml/inbox
  3. Click on RSS-button.
  4. Open the downloaded file in a text editor. You should be able to spot the wrong URLs in the XML.

This issue was reported by https://lemmy.ml/u/Ephera .

Screenshot of the account inbox, showing the RSS-button that leads to the broken feed.

CannotSleep420,

Yes

https://lemmygrad.ml/pictrs/image/75e6964b-816b-41d0-8bd3-5ddc38084036.jpeg

You can use it from an instance's home page or a community.

biscuitsofdeath,

Sweet! Thank you!

smallerdemon,

I had heard of Lemmy before the Reddit API debacle, same as I'd heard of Mastadon before the Twitter Elon debacle. Just as the Twitter debacle really pushed me toward using my existing Mastadon account, the Reddit debacle is pushed me toward actually finding a Lemmy server to join and signing up.

I'm 57 (58 next month), so I was in my mid-20s when the Internet of the 90s really started to form. What was crazy was being in college and wandering over to labs on campus that had access to the latest protocol, https, and seeing Mosaic for the first time and kind of fantasizing about that being the future of the internet. ...and it was. But not always for the better or for the benefit of people. By the time I moved to San Francisco (not for dot com myself, but my spouse was in grad school) in 1999 the dot com boom was in full peak force about the crest the edge of the wave and completely bust in a couple of years (and hoo boy did it). The commercialization of the internet was utterly and completely underway during that early 2000s period, but I was still sort of shuffling around telnet based BBSes and still pulling a lot of my files with FTP. GOPHER was long gone by then, though, and usenet was always more of a hardcore user area in my personal circles (mainly due to the the fact of how overwhelming and disorganized it could be to me, which is so incredibly laughable now).

The promise of those early telnet and early web days almost completely disappeared and a lot of those people who saw the internet as a democratizing force either did find a way to make money from it or they just found jobs and turned into Makers during the 2000s. Now it feels like a lot of those Maker folks have started to find ways to come back to the internet in ways that bypass commercialization in order to have methods of having communities that aren't targets for bigots and fascists to intrude on safe spaces that a lot of people felt like they had found initially.

And it DEFINITELY feels like a lot of tech nerdy Millennials and Gen-Z have completely tired of the commercialized internet entirely and are inventing and finding ways to control their own communities. And friends... I fucking love it.

TerrorBite,
@TerrorBite@meow.social avatar

I would say "If you're posting here, aren't you signed up by definition?", but I'm posting from Mastodon, so I am literally my own counter-example. I don't actually have an account on any Lemmy instance.

ephemeral404,

that moved me. you sir, made my first day at Lemmy awesome

fchaverri,

@smallerdemon @nutomic it really puts things into perspective not being fed ads constantly, I stopped using Twitter since March and I definitely notice a relief...

Same thing with the algorithms 'suggesting' content: I prefer to browse the content by myself

TheLemmiestLemmy,

The algorithms are what I'll miss the least. I used Apollo for Reddit so I didn't see ads, but Reddit telling me what I'm going to see whether I want to or not really irritated me.

naoseiquemsou,

Thank you for taking your time to write about your experiences with the early internet. This is the kind of deep and informative comments that I loved fom the good days of reddit, but that seem to be slowly being killed.

Seeing your comment here was like a relief. I hope lemmy flourishes and becomes what reddit was.

Haunting_Tale_5150,

And it DEFINITELY feels like a lot of tech nerdy Millennials and Gen-Z have completely tired of the commercialized internet entirely and are inventing and finding ways to control their own communities.

I'm early gen z and it's so disheartening to see what's happening. I remember a time when people would fight for the right to post youtube poops, or when people went to war over uncredited reposts on ebaums world. For a while, there was no fighting. Things go bad? Oh just rest it off. Thankfully I think stuff like this is a return to form. Fight to keep the internet free and creativity high!

clemthecat,

Thanks for having us here! I hope we can make Lemmy into a wonderful place as Reddit once was.

RoboticChicken,

Thanks! Looking forward to seeing Lemmy grow :)

Mir,

I don't quite get it. How do you see posts from communities residing on other instances?

Barbarian,

Swap from "Local" view to "All". It's on the top of the web page and in a menu top-left on Jerboa.

AineLasagna,

Are communities unique? e.g. could you have a !gaming community on Lemmy.ml but have another !gaming community with different content on another server?

Barbarian, (edited )

Yes, that can absolutely happen. In fact, that exact situation is happening right now with !gaming and !gaming

Not really an issue if you subscribe to both though.

In the longer term, I fully expect duplicate communities like that to resolve themselves with people predominantly using one over the other. EDIT: Or another possibility is that they might end up different due to moderation and rules (i.e: one is the memey gaming community and the other is the more serious one)

AineLasagna,

I would like to know this as well. In Mastodon, I’m pretty sure you could access all Toots regardless of server, but communities seem to be locked to the server.

kernelyoda,

Thanks for the welcome. :-)

Is there a guide on how to get started here? Searching for posts and communities, posting and commenting etiquette, etc.?

For example, when searching for communities focusing on movies, I found 3 communities named “movies”. How are these different?Which one should I be browsing?

If there isn’t such a guide, I can spend some time exploring and write one.

Tatar_Nobility,

Docs here

Aragorn,

I'm so tired of Reddit, so here I am trying this out!

CheshireSnake,

Thank you for the warm and informative welcome! I really hope this community grows.

sorrowstouch,

Thanks for the welcome! I look forward to seeing this website grow into the thing Reddit should have been!

dessalines,

Glad to have you!

caffinz,

Thanks for the welcome! I was a little standoffish about signing up but then found an app for it and it honestly feels like reddit should at this point. (For those curious, it's Jerboa for Lemmy on the play store)

Ilikemoney,

I'm hoping this new influx of users helps to improve jerboa over time. It pretty as it is, but some areas could use attention.

Deiv,

I wonder if there are any other app alternatives. This one is nice, but lacks most features that many of the 3rd party apps had for Reddit

cascadia,

Lemmur is another one I've heard recommended for Android.

asexualchangeling,

Lemmur is no longer being maintained, I'd love it if some of the apps that are about to not work on reddit anymore switched to lemmy though coughinfinitycough

jarfil,

That's a pity, I had Lemmur installed and was wondering why it wouldn't workm IMHO a better name for a Lemmy app than "jerboa".

asexualchangeling,

Yeah I tried it too before I found out, imo one thing lemmy really needs is a selection of usable apps like mastodon has and reddit is about to throw away

JBBdude,

How do communities work across instances? Among other things, can a community have a moderator on another server? Would the top mod need to be on the same server?

ada,
@ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Basically, a user on any lemmy instance can subscribe to a group on any lemmy instance (as long as the instance admin hasn't blocked the other instance). So then they see activity on that group on their home instance.

Moderators are appointed by the sub creator, and they can come from any instance. But of course, an instance admin can block/ban/delete content from their own instance, even if they aren't a moderator. The difference is, the moderators moderation action will federate to other instances, but the instance admins will not.

nutomic,
@nutomic@lemmy.ml avatar

The difference is, the moderators moderation action will federate to other instances, but the instance admins will not.

Unless the admin and community are on the same instance, then admin actions will federate. Not so easy to explain...

ada,
@ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Does a log of it federate, or does the action itself federate?

That is to say, if a user on my instance makes a post, and it federates to lemmy.ml, and a lemmy.ml instance admin deletes it, does the original get deleted from my instance?

nutomic,
@nutomic@lemmy.ml avatar

That depends entirely on the community where the post was made. If the community is on lemmy.ml, then the deletion federates to all other instances (including yours I think). Otherwise, if a lemmy.ml admin deletes a post in a remote community, that action isnt federated at all. At least thats how it should work, might be worth testing to confirm.

calcifer,

Hello there

d3Xt3r,
@d3Xt3r@lemmy.ml avatar

General Kenobi!

creek,

Thanks for the warm welcome. This is my first time exploring anything fediverse related, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around how all this works. All I know is that I'm really dissatisfied with the decision making that is going on at Reddit, and if there comes a day where I can no longer use my beloved Apollo to access their service, that will most likely be where I officially dip out.

Arfuirl,

Thanks for the welcome, hope this alternative its actually good and with freddom , without the degeneration of Reddit

FaceDeer,

Not so much a question, as a couple of comments. One is of course a hearty thank you to the devs who've put so much work into creating something like this. Long ago I was an avid Usenetter, and while Reddit replicates a lot of the feel of Usenet its underlying structure is tragically centralized and closed. Lemmy feels a lot more like the Usenet of old and I would be very happy seeing it take off.

The other is: you've got a month left to iron out as many kinks as possible. :) The real flood isn't going to start until Reddit actually shuts off those APIs, because humans are lazy and I bet most just clicked through the announcement their third-party app gave them and figured they'd worry about it later. I've seen threads on Reddit where there was a lot of odd negativity about Lemmy and a lot of it seemed to come down to a confusing interface or stylistic complaints, those seem like things that can be addressed in a hurry and might be worth focusing on. I'm brand new here myself so I'll see if I can spot some to comment about more specifically in the future, but I'm sure you've got a backlog with that sort of thing in it anyway.

And if Reddit ultimately bans NSFW content, as they keep seeming to be edging towards, the flood will become a deluge. But that will likely be a separate phase of their enshittification process than the API thing, so who knows when that will be.

jarfil,

What would be some good NSFW places on Lemmy? Asking for a friend.

FaceDeer,

No idea, I'm afraid. And I'm happy that this is going to go down in my personal history as the first response I've received to a Lemmy comment. :)

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