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.

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.

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.

bec,
@bec@lemmy.ml avatar

Thanks for the welcome! Hopefully Lemmy will grow with the Reddit changes, I wanted to join a while back but the lack of users held me back; since the news I decided to join anyway, and hopefully others will do the same!

One question: I'm browsing via Lemmy app downloaded straight from GitHub, but some posts don't show the comments, even though I see there are several and if I use the browser everything is there. Bug? User error? Thanks in advance!

sexy_peach,

It might have something to do with the language settings introduced with the latest update?? It's unintuitive for me.

bec,
@bec@lemmy.ml avatar

No idea, I'm here since a couple of days lol

Ephera,

If you go to the settings on the webpage ( https://lemmy.ml/settings ), is "Undetermined" enabled in the language menu?

The posts you're seeing might also simply have comments in languages that you don't know (and have rightfully disabled in the settings).

bec,
@bec@lemmy.ml avatar

Thanks for the help! I checked and English is enabled. The comments I was referring to are in English so I don't think it's that. Thanks!

sexy_peach,

You could try to enable english and undetermined, maybe those posts you're missing don't have a language set?

I too find it very confusing.

Valmond,

Hello and thanks!

dessalines,

💗

anji,

This is the way. As a bit of a Reddit-addict I hope Lemmy (and perhaps other interoperable projects one day?) will take off. Centralized social media sites appear to be doomed to inevitable self-destruction. Protocols can survive.

Like Mastodon and other ActivityPub applications however, it is the Federated nature which IMO still needs some work. Not being able to easily browse remote communities, posts, scores, comments, etc. from the comfort of my home instance (which will also be the only portal to the federated world visible to mobile applications) is a problem. On Mastodon I often don't see all replies, and likewise on Lemmy I don't see any comments to this post yet.

I hope ActivityPub apps figure out a way to better synchronize remote and local state so users won't keep seeing incomplete/fragmented views of Fedi content.

dessalines,

Someone did create this Lemmy community browser, which searches all known instances for any community. It might be useful to integrate that into lemmy, or at least link to it, in some way, to help people discover communities not on their own instance already.

BlazingFlames6073,

Anybody know if we had a spike of new users and activitiy here after reddit's announcement?

I joined lemmy like a week before reddit's announcement after checking it every now and then for months. I didn't see so many comments and upvotes on posts last week.

heimchen,

@BlazingFlames6073 @nutomic I at least joint because of reddits announcement, but I think the real wave will come when the technical subreddits go dark.

dessalines,

We definitely did have a spike in registrations here at least. One of the only ways people find out about lemmy is when it gets cross-posted. We could really use more news articles about it tho on open-source / privacy related spaces.

aeternum,

I joined because of the reddit changes. I'm not going to PAY for a service that should be free, especially when you consider that they're already making a bucket load from users as it is. I foresee reddit dying very soon. No one is going to pay for an API. Well not many, anyways.

bahcodad,

deaddit

russjr08,

Happy to give Lemmy a try! I had a bit of an adventure setting up my instance, but I think I've got it all working now :) Hopefully I'm now "here" to others on the Fediverse!

ada,
@ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

You're posting from zueslink, to a community on lemmy.ml and I'm replying from blahaj.zone. You're federating :)

helloworld,

Idk if that is a stupid idea, but can one host a community that does not allow posting of images and links?

Base idea behind that would be: Text conversations are easier to search and assess quality and topic of.

Here on Lemmy I see many accounts that post links most of the times, no text conversations or in depth conversations. That is why many Lemmy "subs / instances " seems like an oppionated link aggregator atm.

davidgro,

I just wasted a ton of time trying to create an account here and it not working before realizing that I already made one nearly 3 years ago. Fun times. At least I'm here now. I'm also really scared/frustrated with the direction Reddit is going.

Spacebar,

How many people will you actually miss from Reddit once this takes off?

davidgro,

People? A few, but maybe they will come here too.

Communities? A large number. Hopefully some of them will make the switch also if they haven't already

Servais,

Welcome!

goryramsy,

Happy to give Lemmy a try!

JoeBidet,
@JoeBidet@lemmy.ml avatar

Get off my federated lawn!

maegul,
@maegul@lemmy.ml avatar

@nutomic would you be able to provide any general guidance for potential community/sub-reddit/sub-lemmy creators or admins on the trade-offs involved in starting a new community (on an existing instance) vs starting a new instance?

I figure for those new to free and federated social, the case for starting an instance might not be clear, and could, provided technical abilities are available, be an attractive and useful option for some.

nutomic,
@nutomic@lemmy.ml avatar

Creating a community on an existing instance is less effort. However it means that the instance admins have full control over your community, and you have to follow their rules. There is also no way to automatically migrate a community to another instance. Having your own instance gives you full control over the rules/moderation, and also lets you apply custom themes or change instance configuration (eg signup mode).

Ren_Rosemary,

Out of curiosity would it be possible to automatically migrate users on a technical level?

And are there any plans to implement this feature?

nutomic,
@nutomic@lemmy.ml avatar

It would be possible to implement that (Mastodon has it), but there are no current plans to implement it in Lemmy. After all its easy to create a new account.

Sparsin,

Let me know how I can help. I brought a lot of traffic to reddit, just to find out reddit admins are more sensitive than the mods that work for free.

I spoke up how poorly their mobile app changed towards modding on mobile, instead of taking the issues at hand they limited my number of subbreddits I could moderate.

I have knowledge in automod if that's a feature here, also I am pretty fast at finding information.

TLDR - fuck reddit here to help.

nutomic,
@nutomic@lemmy.ml avatar

It sounds like you might be interested to host a new Lemmy instance. Right now the number of instances is still limited, and most of them cover niche topics. So it would definitely be good to have a Lemmy instance that is more mainstream. Hosting an instance requires some technical knowledge, but you can always ask for help in /c/lemmy_support or find someone else to take care of that aspect.

Sparsin,

Appreciate it, there is a lot more to the story. Will make a great read and will make it a lemmy exclusive, because right now reddit admins are trying to keep it hush hush.

Can't wait to get it all written up, on a more appropriate name.

jherazob,
@jherazob@beehaw.org avatar

Dumb question i can't find an answer to: You see a post in a different Lemmy server than your own, and if you try to answer it says you're not logged in, because you're not in that server. How do i see posts/communities through your server so that i can vote or comment? Don't see a clear answer to this in the docs, or have missed it completely.

Edit: Partially answering myself: Go to the "search" box of your instance and put the name of the community you want in the format "!linux", it should show you that community through your server. Will update if/when i find an answer for direct posts that does the same.

nutomic,
@nutomic@lemmy.ml avatar

Its the same for posts or comments, you need to paste the url in the search bar of your instance. For this you should copy the url from the colorful fedilink icon.

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