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.

div,

if we can get more reddit users to try this, people would make the switch.

SubArcticTundra,
@SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml avatar

Yes the account creation process just needs to be more frictionless ideally

Obi,
@Obi@sopuli.xyz avatar

I'm reading threads on Reddit with people that act like it's the most complicated task ever, like come on just pick anything. On one hand I guess it acts as a filter of sorts but on the other it's a fact that it'll slow down adoption. Maybe there should be a text in big friendly letters that says it's not a big deal, just choose any and get started. Maybe even a randomised button where it just selects it for you? Maybe it could ask a couple of questions to the user to determine the best suited server?

The other big one is the whole part about having communities existing under multiple servers. It's nice that I can go subscribe to communities from any server but it does complicate things a lot if I just want to see everything from subject X, and fragments the userbase further. Right now it's ok because there's only a few servers and communities are focused on large topics but down the line when Lemmy gets big and we have communities for niche topics, it'll definitely be a headache. There needs to be a way to simplify this even if it's on the user's side.

Jasmor,

Hello!

cyclohexane,

Imo lemmy seems to have more features than Reddit also, like editing post titles, having text alongside an image post, using third party apps (which will stop soon with Reddit) etc. Reddit is very slow to add updates that make sense, but lemmy moves fast and is a great piece of software.

atomicfurball,

The only problem with lemmy right now is lack of users.

wiki_me,

So it needs to tackle the root causes, what is causing the lack of users, hopefully like mastodon and the rest of the fediverse that will put him on a growth path (if it is not already is on one), the-federation shows the number of instances is growing but the number of active users is shrinking (but that could be due to some instances choosing not to show their users).

cyclohexane,

On the number of users shrinking, I'll say that I quit using lemmy for several months, mostly due to losing hope on it. But after Reddit banned third party apps, I decided to come back.

dessalines,

Thanks! We've been feature-crazy for its whole history... but I've kinda learned the hard way that none of that helps adoption. The users are the feature, and its the only reason people don't leave reddit, facebook, etc.

What @nutomic is doing with activitypub service interoperability is far more important than almost anything else we work on. Because at least mastodon and other services have an existing userbase that can plug into lemmy.

wiki_me,

Thanks! We’ve been feature-crazy for its whole history… but I’ve kinda learned the hard way that none of that helps adoption.

How did you conclude that? do you have data that supports that conclusion?

According to some metrics lemmy is growing, for example the number of instances grew by more then 92 percent, If you don't have big money for a marketing campaign that's probably how good organic "word to mouth" growth might look like.

It's also not just about the quantity of features, it's best to try to aim at "killer features", marking new comments that haven't been read could be one, but maybe a UX study will provide better answers.

dessalines,

Because our greatest influxes of new users come not when we develop new features, but when lemmy gets cross-posted somewhere, or when reddit messes up in such a way that communities want to migrate somewhere else. This current influx is due to something reddit did, not lemmy's developers.

annath,

Hi there!

I have a question about managing communities on different servers. I may be misunderstanding how this works, coming from Reddit, but I wanted to ask...

I have subscribed to a few different communities here on lemmy.ml

However, I noticed for example that there is no "literature" community on lemmy.ml, but there is on beehaw.org.

Is there a way I can get all my subscribed communities to show up in one subscribed feed? It looks like I have to constantly switch between sites to access different communities, which is very inconvenient, especially when using Jerboa.

nutomic,
@nutomic@lemmy.ml avatar

Paste the beehaw community url into the search box on lemmy.ml, then you can interact directly with it.

annath,

I tried searching for https://beehaw.org/c/literature and it didn't find anything.

iod,
@iod@lemmy.ml avatar

Try searching simply for "literature" it shows up. for some reason the full fediverse doesnt work for me either

Haunting_Tale_5150,

Searching other communities can be hit or miss. Sometimes going back to the home page, then going to search and inserting the link works if it didn't the first time.

N00b22,

I can't create any communities. Is it intended if I haven't posted anything?

SubArcticTundra,
@SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml avatar

I think it's only possible on some instances. The communities on beehaw are created by its owner, but I think the web version of Lemmy.ml lets you make your own (in the menu bar

nullthegrey,

I've had my account only for about 30 minutes and I can see this fully replacing reddit for me. Here's to the future!

SubArcticTundra,
@SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml avatar

Do you know how to create new sublemmys? I want to copy my favourite subreddits and tell people to migrate here. Do I need to buy a literal server?

DarraignTheSane,

If you're talking about the equivalent of a subreddit here on lemmy.ml, that's just called a "community". Click the "Create Community" link up at the top of the site. If you want to create your own whole Lemmy site with its own communities you can do that too, but you'd have to read the documentation on that.

SubArcticTundra,
@SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml avatar

Ahh good I was afraid it was one community per server. Will try thanks

SubArcticTundra,
@SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml avatar

Also, do you know how to view communities from multiple servers in the Jeboa app?

DarraignTheSane, (edited )

Just figured it out myself - in the top-left menu, click your username and then +Add Account, then you can enter the URL of the Lemmy server you want to connect to along with your credentials. You can then switch back and forth between your logins on the different servers.

(edit) - Or do what @sexy_peach said below. I don't know what I'm doing. :P

Of note - while logged into any one instance, you can also pick from the various filtering options:

  • Subscribed - List posts only from communities you're subscribed to
  • Local - List posts only from communities in this Lemmy instance/server
  • All - List posts from all (federated) Lemmy instances/servers

So, selecting "All" at any given time will show you posts from all servers that are federated (share creds) with Lemmy.ml.

sexy_peach, (edited )

you can search for !communityName and your server will look it up and you can join it. No need to have multiple accounts.

Edit: instead of the above you can also search for the link to a community on a foreign server to look it up, both works.

i.e. if you were on a server that didn't yet know about https://beehaw.org/c/news, you could search for https://beehaw.org/c/news or !news on a lemmy server so the lemmy server will recognize that community and list it, you'll then be able to join it, participate, mod it (if you're given the rights) etc.

SubArcticTundra,
@SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml avatar

Ahh great thanks for this!

XPost3000,

Yeah same here, Reddit is my social media mindless scrolling app and I'm really happy I have a promising looking alternative

a1studmuffin,

I'm very impressed with Lemmy and the fediverse in general. What a promising future for social media, especially after a decade of capitalism and centralisation slowly eroding the integrity of every commercial equivalent.

WhoRoger,

Hello there

SubArcticTundra,
@SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml avatar

Hii! Guess what this is my first comment! I'm sure we'll look back to this comment one day.

lemming,

Welcome everyone ;)

pleasemakesense,

A very minor thing, but I really like that you can see the downvotes on posts like you used to be able to do on reddit. Is there any vote confuscation like reddit did/does or is it straight up what the votes are?

nutomic,
@nutomic@lemmy.ml avatar

No its showing the actual vote count.

ImOnADiet,

lemmy doesn't need to obfuscate votes like reddit, since you have to be approved to join it's way harder to make spam bot accounts

dessalines,

Yup... I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembers when reddit used to show full and real vote scores. They removed down-vote showing so long ago that a lot of people joined after, and had no idea that existed.

And of course most US-based social media platforms have removed downvotes / dislikes entirely.

BrooklynMan,
@BrooklynMan@lemmy.ml avatar

reddit calls it "vote fuzzing", and claims it was to protect against fraudulent votes or whatever. i think it's bs and always have.

bahcodad,

I've just moved here from reddit. I've read the documentation introduction but I'm also an idiot.

Could someone please explain how this works in super simple terms? Sort of eli5

Barbarian, (edited )

I'm a newbie as well, so take this with a grain of salt.

Lemmy is a language. Different "reddits" (called instances from this point on) can talk to any other instance that the moderation team hasn't banned. Every instance has their own rules, settings and moderation teams. Every instance can make "subreddits" (sublemmies). You can contribute to any sublemmy on any instance as long as they haven't banned your instance or your user.

What this means in practice is that if you don't like the moderators, go make your own instance or find one with like-minded people. If the moderators of an instance are not happy with the contributions of another instance as a whole, they can ban that. Assuming they're talking to (federated with) another instance, it's seamless and you can comment and post with all those people too.

exterstellar,

So are we gonna go with "sublemmy" from now on? 😀

exterstellar,

I'm going to use e-mail as an analogy.

"Lemmy" is analogous to "e-mail".

Each lemmy "server" or "instance" is the analogy of an email server. E.g. "lemmy.ml" or "beehaw.org" is equivalent to "gmail.com" or "hotmail.com" or "us.gov" or whatever email server.

You can use any email server to look at any email, the same way you can use any lemmy server to look at any lemmy post or community. You can use any email app to access any of your email accounts and view any email, the same way you can use any lemmy app to access any of your lemmy accounts to browse any lemmy post/commu ity.

If you currently use Gmail, and Google becomes evil, you can switch to Yahoo or Hotmail and still use email like usual. In the same way, if Lemmy.ml becomes evil you can switch to Beehaw.org and keep reading lemmy posts.

*** note that "lemmy" (the platform) and "lemmy.ml" (the instance) are not the same thing. It's kinda confusing, like if there's an "email" server called "email.com"

Barbarian,

Your explanation is much clearer than mine, thanks!

ArtVandelay,

Something I just found out in the Settings page that I wish existed in every social media site: you can turn off scores!

dessalines,

Yup! Hiding scores is absolutely better for our psychology. Constantly checking feedback numbers can be like a drug sometime.

We devs have a responsibility to not go along with all of the addictive UI patterns that silicon valley pays psychology-phds to help them develop. So there are some things we've chosen not to display, like total karma counts on your profile.

Obi,
@Obi@sopuli.xyz avatar

I was just wondering about the total count, great to find the reasoning right here.

ArtVandelay,

In all my years of being online I've come to really dislike "activity counters". Forums, as much as I'm nostalgic about them, used to have member ranks based on post counts, which also encouraged spamming. Then we've got these points systems in every social media website, making things even worse.

I'm glad devs like you are giving us a way to opt-out from it. Hopefully we can wean off enough people that it won't be a feature anymore (in the future).

AbSoluTc,

Thanks! Just signed up and moved over from Reddit. Really hope theirs a Lemmy app in the works

Barbarian,

If you're on Android, Jerboa works pretty well.

AbSoluTc,

Thanks, on iOS

KelsonV,

This post alone now has as many upvotes as I saw someone on Reddit claim Lemmy had total users.

thepiguy,

The number of users must be growing exponentially at this point. Woo.

BrooklynMan,
@BrooklynMan@lemmy.ml avatar

I'd love to see the numbers on that

thepiguy,

https://lemmy.perthchat.org/pictrs/image/7929b17d-7219-4ffd-ae1c-d36febf3cf72.jpeg

This is from yesterday. Wonder what it looks like today.

Obi,
@Obi@sopuli.xyz avatar

Wow even though some people here have been around a while, having joined yesterday I'll still feel like I'll have gotten in on the bottom floor if Lemmy takes off!

anityatva,

Hi everyone, I heard about the legendary digg exodus many times (I joined reddit in 2013). I have to say it's strange to be a part of this one.

Are there any good iOS clients for lemmy? I found https://github.com/uuttff8/Remmel but it looks like it hasn't been updated in a while, and it's also not available on most of the app stores.

EnglishMobster,
@EnglishMobster@lemmy.ml avatar

I'm an Android user, but /u/parentis_shotgun on Reddit mentioned mlem as the IOS app.

I'm using jerboa.

anityatva,

thank you!

Spacebar,

I'm digging Jerboa

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