this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2023

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Lemmy

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Everything about Lemmy; bugs, gripes, praises, and advocacy.

For discussion about the lemmy.ml instance, go to !meta@lemmy.ml.

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

nutomic@lemmy.ml

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Welcome Reddit refugees! (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by nutomic@lemmy.ml to c/lemmy@lemmy.ml

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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.ml.

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.

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[–] nerrad@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 years ago

I love the whole idea of Lemmy. Great software, and looks good!

[–] FaceDeer@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] chucha@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Testing, is this on?

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[–] Cromutorium@beehaw.org 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Just joined because of all the reddit shenanigans. Quick question: I'm posting from the beehaw instance and am wondering what happens to my account if the instance goes down? Does it just disappear?

[–] sexy_peach@feddit.de 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

yes. Your account is tied to the server that it lives on. You could make another account called myUsernameBackup on another server, or even with the same name. Just as with e-mail.

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[–] elouboub@kbin.social 8 points 2 years ago

I still think the fediverse is using language that most people don't understand. My cousins, let alone my parents, won't understand half of what's written there. Federation? ActivityPub? Instance?

The best comparison I've heard that everyone I've explained it to seems to comprehend is that the fediverse is basically email 2.0. You can send emails with only pictures, text, video, or all the aforementioned together. In order to do so, you need to pick a server, just like you do with email, but in the fediverse they aren't "google", "aol", "yahoomail", but "lemmy.ml", "feddit.it", "mastodon.social", "chaos.social", "kbin.social", "kbin.pub", and others.

You will notice that "lemmy.ml" and "feddit.it" look very similar, but have different names - that's because they run the same software called lemmy. "mastodon.social" and "lemmy.ml" look very different and have different features, and that's because (you guessed it!) they run different software (mastodon vs lemmy). It's just like GoogleMail runs different software than YahooMail, has very different features, but can communicate with each other.
The fediverse is the same, just with 2 major differences: it uses email 2.0 (aka activitypub) and the software is opensource. That means developers (or anybody who wants to for that matter) can see the source code of the software. This is unlike Google, Yahoo, Yandex, AOL, who keep their source closed.

In the fediverse, the different software focuses on different things. Lemmy presents the fediverse to you like reddit, mastodon like twitter, peertube like youtube, diaspora like facebook, and so on and so forth. The great thing is, they can all talk to each other using email 2.0 (aka activitypub)! Therefore somebody on a server using mastodon can view post made on a server running lemmy with a video hosted on a server running peertube and comment on that video, right from their server that runs mastodon!

So please, pick a server with the software and conditions you like and have fun on the fediverse!

[–] bahcodad@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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

[–] exterstellar@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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"

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[–] Barbarian@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

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.

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[–] swarrior216@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Hello everybody! I was a Digg refuge, now I'm a Reddit refuge. This is pretty neat that its not funded by a company and relies on volunteers. I think this is going to be a good place. I was wondering if there is an app for IOS?

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[–] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Hello! Also a reddit refugee here. I was thinking of making the switch before all this since reddit needs an increasing array of tweaks & add-ons just to be usable (RES, old reddit redirect, custom ublock filters etc.) so this seemed like a good time to start migrating.

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago

One of the benefits of both the back end and front end(s) of lemmy being open source, is that we can build in these wanted features directly, rather than relying on hacks that sit on top of the site.

[–] MathAndBall@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago

Liking Lemmy so far. Looks and feels really similar to Reddit but also unique in its own way.

[–] finickydesert@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Will there be flairs for sub Lemmings?

[–] nutomic@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago

There is an open issue, contributions welcome!

https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/1456

[–] Mir@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago (5 children)

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

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[–] Aragorn@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago

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

[–] baronvonj@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago

I went from Slashdot to Fark to Digg to Reddit. Already found the Fediverse as @baronvonj@mastodon.online after recent changes over on Twitter.

As my user bio says I dabble in guitar and watch rugby (US MLR, go SaberCats) and hockey (NHL). For reading it’s mostly fantasy, with The Witcher and Discworld being my most recent books, but I also enjoy scifi. I tend to be more visual (ie TV and movies) due to ADHD though. Video games with a strong narrative are great. Games like the Horizon series (Zero Dawn, Forbidden West), Uncharted, Assassin’s Creed, Witcher, and Zelda Breath of the Wild.

[–] potato_salad@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago

Been exploring Lemmy for the past hour or so... actually pretty impressed with what I see. Hope it manages to take off!

[–] Bryggyth@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago

Thanks for the welcome! I'm loving the idea of the fediverse and I really hope lemmy can help recreate some of the enjoyment I used to get from Reddit.

[–] zergling_man@lemmy.perthchat.org 7 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Might as well shill my client, clemmy here. 🕶

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[–] annath@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago (5 children)

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.

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[–] AbSoluTc@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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

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