Welcome reddit refugees!

Hey! I'm keeping this as it's targeted at new users from Reddit. However, in future please find another community to post this on, because it is not related to the lemmy.world instance specifically.

Fuck /u/spez, innit?

Ngl, us r/efugees are not happy with things over there.

As much as I'm coming to enjoy this, it still isn't what reddit was, nor is the app experience anything close to as feature rich. But, I'm finding other benefits here that are, and never were, possible at reddit, so it's still a good thing :)

Reddit is proof that no publicly traded company, nor any that intends to be, can be trusted with anything. Not use that was ever in doubt, but reddit has shown it in such a glaring, grotesque way that it's the poster child for how shitty corporate thought is.

I dunno. I was enjoying things. I had started moderating two subs I deeply cared about, with one having a strong sense of community building. There's an emotional response to the loss of that. But I'll be damned if I'm going to put in the work, put in the passion, when it's shit on by the very company that profits from my free labor. fuck spez, fuck reddit

God dam right friend.
The best parts of reddit were the communities of people dedicated to the topics under each sub.
Reddit CEOs didn't create that. It was and has always been regular users and hardworking Mods that brought us what we loved about reddit. If reddit isn't going to protect those people, fuck em.
I'm signing off of reddit with the black out. There will probably be a long time before something replaces it. But I'm a long for the ride.
I mean it seems so obvious in retrospect I suppose. I hope we're looking a the start of a real renascence for the internet, away from corporate overlords.

Seems sluggish, rough, and low population, but fuck spez so I'll give this an honest chance.

Just joined a bit, too. Looks great so far. It reminds me of that wild west frontier feeling like when a bunch of us migrated from Digg to Reddit. We're building another new community.

... With blackjack! And hookers!

Are you Decoy Bender or just Bender?
- Just a decoy, I'm afraid. Shut up baby, I know it!
Hell yeah take my money!

The whole lemmy concept mixed with the current situation feels far more like you are part of a real community. Kinda like in old internet days. I will even break out of my reddit lurker days and try to contribute here.

Yeah it feels a lot more like an old school forum.
Exactly. The days when people would run little community servers for IRC or shoutcast or whatever on spare laptops hooked up to cable modems, and would mess around doing stuff for their friends or whatever online community they were part of. When websites didn't all look the same because they're hosted on the same big tech platform, and if you wanted to publish something you'd put creativity into web design rather than just signing up for a Twitter account. When you didn't have the constant Faustian deal of selling your activity data in exchange for free platforms. When talking to your gaming clan meant typing in the IP of whoever hosted the TeamSpeak/Ventrilo/Wilco server, rather than everybody all using Discord. When you didn't have content policies for millions of people being made by one guy in California (IE Tumblr). When most websites were hosted on little $20/mo shared hosting accounts so nobody gave a shit about pandering to advertisers. When a 'big forum' was 10s of thousands of users, and forums had their own communities with their own culture.
I miss those days. But this feels a lot closer to that than anything else I've encountered in the last several years.

Happy to be here, also sad to be here.

We've had to go backwards to go forward and I'm all for it.

It's like we've just escaped an abusive partner and now starting from zero!
- That "first night in the new apartment without most of the furniture, sleeping by yourself for the first time in a while" feeling.
Honestly I don't see it as going backwards but unfamiliar. I was reluctant to switch to this style because I didn't understand it and ended up on mastodon a few years ago into some terrifyingly hostile racist/bogoted/sexist communities. Maybe I did something wrong and ended up in a bad part of town but I ended up deleting the app I was using. So far the experience on lemmy is so much more pleasant lol...

So glad to leave that dumpster fire of a website

I'm a little confused, but cautiously optimistic. It took a while to sign up and log in, but I got that far, so I guess I can work out the rest too! As a bit of a Reddit lurker, I'm out of my comfort zone, but committed to upvoting and commenting to help build the community!

It's ugly, not intuitive, feels way more complicated than necessary for a social site and the name is kind of dumb.

I'm 100% on board because screw Reddit and fuck u/spez.

I hope I can learn the ropes and help this place grow into something better.

Honestly when i started with reddit it was very confusing. Specially the concept of karma. Now it is time to learn something fresh and new!
If you're on Android get Jerboa for Lemmy. It's still in alpha but its still much better than browsing with the website imo, at least in terms of ugliness
- I just discovered Jerboa. It's at least serviceable.

I'm a slashdot refugee who just had a 16 year stopover on reddit :)

OMG! Slashdot… now that is a name I haven’t heard in a long time.
I should see if I can recover my 5-digit account.
- I've still got my 4 digit account.😏
Hello, fellow /. refugee. I made a stopover on Digg before jumping to Reddit. nice to meet you here.
- That was my path... /. -> Digg -> Reddit -> Lemmy.

I am here on mobile using Mlem. Mlem has an interface superficially like Apollo, but it doesn't have nearly the polish and features, like swiping posts to the side to up/downvote. I didn't realize (until I lost it) how much that single capability improved QoL. Until an app comes along with better UX and QoL, I probably won't stay. (I don't doomscroll on my computer either).

I just tried out mobile browser. It works great on iOS Firefox. It’s good enough as a stopgap until someone makes a better mobile app.
Yeah. Mlem needs a bunch of work. It crashes, sometimes shows full posts, has no option for compact posts, etc.. I bet it will get there; it's just going to take time.
memmy is another ios (x-platform?) app to try that is apollo'esq, is more stable, and seems to default to using swipe as the primary method of up/down vote and commenting.

I just spent a little time today creating my Lemmy.world account and trying to find equivalents of my favorite subs from Reddit. I really question whether Reddit will survive the uprising that has spawned. I think the IPO is going to go very poorly, then Reddit will turn into some commercial mess. This is my first Lemmy post, BTW!

It's good so far; a few UX/UI issues need polishing, some more display options would be nice too.

The whole issue of community@instance is going to take some getting used to for people, and it's not clear how that's going to shake out in the long run. I'm not yet certain whether this will become my default space, but I'm willing to give it a go.

There should be a way to make meta-communities. I.e. I could group FOO@lemmy.world and FOO@lemmy.ml and so forth so it shows as one large community when reading it.
- It seems like the intended use-case for federated stuff like this is that all of FOO would be in one instance, even though it's accessible from any instance it still shows which instance it originates in. Which feels a little weird, some topics don't really have a overarching supertopic that it makes sense for them to belong to.
is it possible to change what your default space is?

I’ve lamented the loss of what I called “old internet energy” — the feeling of a largely-nerdy community forming around something new. I felt it on early Digg and on Reddit for a good while, until the last 7-10 years or so after mainstream users started pouring in. I feel that here again. ‘Tis nice.

So far it’s been good. There is a bit of a learning curve, setting up on mobile devices was a little challenging. Seems to be working well now. This thread has been really helpful for me.

I'm excited to be a part of something new

Well lets see, my self promo spam to begin :o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OHEFg9GbBA
edit: also fuck spez

Still a young community, hopefully this’ll be able to take on Reddit someday in terms of user growth and usability

Thanks, where's the coffee machine, please?

looking good, already feels better

Loving it - federation is great, hardly ever even know which instance I'm interacting with from kbin, which is a good thing as it means the federation is working and mostly seamless. Can't wait for some apps to come out and streamline the experience, hopefully some more people will start coming here to populate a lot of the communities that I'd like to participate or lurk in. Right now there's a lot of... uh... shouting into the void trying to fill the space. I'm posting way more than I ever did on reddit just because like... somebody has to do it, right?

I'm quite enjoying it so far! mlem is surprisingly great

Hi there! I'm having trouble uploading pictures, but other than that, it's nice

Hoping it's a success but I find it hard to see it becoming one. Purely due to the confusion with how it actually works with different instances. Many casual users are going to be confused and not bother

The way this is successful is if someone develops a way for the 3rd party clients (such as a proxy) to switch to this system instead. Also a way to easily register.
People use discord though, and I find it just as confusing. It feels the same here, except you make an account on one server and use that server to browse all other servers
I agree. I think there needs to be lesser of a learning curve to get more users onto this.
Yeah, I'm one of the confused casual users. Can you explain how the instances work? This morning I created an account on my pc but had no time to browse. I downloaded an app called jerboa a few minutes ago. The front page had memes and fun things. I logged into lemmy.world instance and that content is gone. Do I have to have an account for each instance? Are the instances like separate websites?
- All the accounts and posts can communicate/share across the instances, but each instance has its own database of posts.
  The example people give is that is like email. You can have licenensedtoill@gmail but you can send messages someone @yahoo.
  You dont have to create a seperate account for each instance. And on whatever instance youre on you can browse and post on communities of any other instance.
  Theres definitely some work to be done to make this all more intuitive though

Excited about the possibilities of the fediverse!

I'm finding it hard to get rid of the "Open Reddit"'s muscle memory

That was easy for me. Apollo was Reddit for me. I deleted my account, removed that app, and now the barrier to entry of reaching Reddit would be going to the mobile site, so… I’d rather have all my teeth pulled with a rusty pair of pliers. Addition cured.
A scripblocker/adblocker might help you there.

I like it so far but it's strange and feels like I'm exploring the web with no experience.

That's the fun part. I haven't felt like this exploring a new website since I was a kid.

Just deleted all past activity from my reddit account, deactivated it and joined you marry bunch. Glad to be here.

@immadeofgold

This is a very different experience! I'm currently posting from a Mastodon server to a Lemmy server. I'm excited to see how a federated web can serve creators and users alike.

I kinda like it actually. A cross between discord and reddit or smth. I'm only 1 hr old so I'm gonna withhold judgment for when I get more accustomed to the ui.

I feel like I'm back in the best part of the early-mid 00s, when the entire internet was running on phpbb or some random local social networks with 500 users. I missed those, glad to be back in the new, hopefully better, interpretation of those times. Overall, it's quite nostalgic here. ❤️

I dig it.

I really like the UI. The sign up process was a little rough though. The idea of the different servers and signing up via those servers was a little jarring at first.

Couldn't agree more. I actually signed up on a difference instance a couple days ago, but never got a confirmation email or anything and thought I just had to wait for a manual process. (the instance had me answer questions they said were needed to be answered to join) I got tired of waiting and didn't know how to message anyone about it, so I just signed up here. It was super quick and easy, but the overall process is confusing for sure. Excited for the platform though, I think once you get past the learning curve it's very promising.
- Yeah, Lemmy does have a rather steep learning curve, but once you are past it the platform does seem very promising as a reddit replacement.
I feel ya. It took me an entire day to find a server that would process my sign up.

I feel kinda dumb.. I truly did not get the whole fediverse thing and panicked trying to guess where most of us refugees would go, I made an account on mastadon, kbin.social, karab.in, lemmy.world and maybe a few more I now cannot recall, all same username as my Reddit account.. I assume now that was overkill? I hope there is a way I can merge them all together at some point.. and Oddly enough, this was my last instance(? That's what lemmy.world is right?) that feels less confusing than all the previous ones I tried..

Growing pains but in time I think this whole fediverse thing will grow on me!

I think creating too many accounts as you try to find a home and figure out what instances are is a normal thing. I certainly did it as well 😂
You can think of each instance as a separate reddit website. The magic of the fediverse is all these separate full on websites are still the same thing and can interact with each other!

It's all new, if a bit confusing, but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it like I did with Aim, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and now Lemmy.

So far, so confused 😕
- This is exactly why I'm worried that this'll just die off and reddit will keep chugging along. This is not nearly user friendly enough to beat out reddit

A bit confusing, but I'm really excited about this. I hope the 'choose server' part when you sign up gets streamlined a bit. It's very confusing for new people. My first post on Lemmy by the way!

It seems intuitive coming from Reddit. I’m excited to explore all the communities and see what’s going on

First post, liking what I'm seeing so far! Appreciate that signup here was quick/easy, had some issues on other instances.

I don't fully understand it, but I'll try to get used to it.

Question: is the "lag" from hitting the post button to seeing the post intentional or is that just a sign of stressed servers?

My bad, it was my fault.
- Ha! Have an upvote!
Yeah, I've noticed that. I'll probably notice it again once I hit reply for this post. ;-)
- Gonna test this now
- Sometimes it's lightning fast and sometimes it's sloooow. I just don't know if that's a feature/consequence of federation tech, or if the servers are just stressing under the mass-reddit exodus. :)

digg déjà vu

I just got here, figuring things out slowly

I'm scared and confused and don't know where all the cat pictures are.

Confusing as shit initially, but it starts to make sense

I'm trying to understand it still. I understand you can visit communities from any other instance, but are communities shared between them? I mean, if there's an r/NFL in lemmy.world, can lemmy.ml also contain an r/NFL and would those two be two different things?

First of all the r/ doesn’t apply here (okay, I’m being pedantic, sorry), but if I understood correctly what you’re asking, you can see any community from all instances. Each instance can also create a community of the same name (so in that case they wouldn’t be shared) but you can access !community@instance everywhere and it’s the same for all
This is also the confusing part to me. If I want to see content for NFL, are we all fractured among hundreds of servers and there is no way to see all new posts on all of the verse at once?
- You would just have to subscribe to both so they are in your feed. I don't know if there's any way to merge them into one, but that shouldn't be impossible. That doesn't mean it's a currently implemented feature though...
Have a look at this post, which will help you find some communities to join: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/61827
In short...
Your account (and every account) has a home instance. Both you and I have our accounts on lemmy.world.
And every community (aka subreddit) also has a home instance. The home instance for this community happens to be also be lemmy.world, same as our accounts.
But through federation, the posts from each community gets copied from the communities home server onto each subscribed user's home server. So you can subscribe to any community on any server that lemmy.world federates with.
So while it's possible for multiple instances to have an nfl community, it's not necessary since you can sub to the NFL community on another instance and that's totally normal and expected. Think of it as the subreddits name includes its instance name, so !nfl@lemmy.ml is just a different subreddit than !nfl@lemmy.world, just like on Reddit you could have competing subs named /r/nfl and /r/nflfootball. And just like reddit, when things start to calm down, I think you will see that in cases where a bunch of dupe subs exist... one or two with active mods start to dominate on user count and those end up being the most interesting. It will be a bit wild west for a while though. Lemmy is a lot smaller than reddit, though, when I find dupes of a topic I care about, my strategy had been to subscribe to them all and I'll cancel the ones that flopped a few months from now when it's clear what is active and what's dead.
- So my account's home instance is lemmy.world. Do I need to make a new account to access another instance, or can I use this one across every instance?
Yes this would be two different communities on two different servers. Right now everything here is still wild west but overtime you will get something like a "default" NFL community where most people visit and several smaller sub-communites on different servers.
We have a gaming on lemmy.ml and we have a gaming on beehaw.org. The later is already bigger and way more active than the former.
- First time here for me, and I’m confused as well.
  Say there’s a ‘movies’ community on this server, and one on lemmy.ml, and over time the one on ml becomes the definitive one, do I need to have an account on the ml server as well or is there a way to be able to see multiple communities on different servers in my stream?
  Thanks for taking the time to help us newcomers out.

I feel like I just logged on to USENET 2.0…

…that’s a compliment, BTW…

…and I’m old enough to not only remember the original USENET, I used to admin a USENET server back in the 90s.

So far the mobile site is way better than Reddit. I feel like Reddit was always humping my leg trying to get me to install their shitty app.

I also really like the federated aspect, but I do agree with others in that I fear this may be too confusing for the average user and it won't catch on.

So far the mobile site is way better than Reddit.
That is such a low bar tho. The Reddit mobile site is the only thing worse than the official app.

I lost my job the day I found out about the issues with third party apps for Reddit. I found Lemmy and Mastodon searching for alternatives. So far this community is a lot more wholesome and I'm enjoying being a part of it

Lets work to keep it that way! While the ethos of individual communities is up to the community, I love the vibe they're propagating over on Beehaw. We can work to make sure Lemmy doesn't become another 4chan lite.

I have been on Mastodon for a few months now, and just joined here. I have been wanting FOSS and community-based alternatives to social media for a long time, and now it seems the impetus is present based on the actions of large companies selling their user-bases out for larger migrations of people to these more community-centric platforms.

What is striking me now is that these once-revolutionary internet platforms and companies are all reaching an inflection point. Imploding one-by-one at the hands of their own hubris and exploitation of their users.

What I realized after switching to and primarily using these platforms over Twitter, reddit, etc, is that I had become so desensitized to the commercialization of the internet. I didn't know what it was like to browse and connect with people without constant advertisements and clickbait. The algorithms of commercial social media incite conflict because it drives engagement and benefits the bottom line.

I've never been on social media without feeling a sense of anxiety. Even when I pared down my consumption to my own interests, it was there. I really had no idea it was possible to have a space on the internet without that.

The fediverse so far has been an enlightening experience. Genuine conversation, no mysterious algorithms dictating what reaches your attention, and an unfamiliar sense of calm while browsing social media; traditionally stressful on commercial sites, but addictive as well.

I know places like this and Mastodon are unfamiliar to most and will not draw the same numbers as the larger, more established commercial sites. But spaces like this are worth investing time in, as opposed to selling your data to the lowest bidder. I say welcome everyone who has taken that step in to the fediverse and I look forward to chatting with you all!

It's got late 2000s Reddit vibes, which I like. I had to remove the Reddit browser bookmark because I suddenly realized I was browsing it again and must have opened it subconsciously. I'm trying to stay here dammit lol.

Honestly I am feeling pretty optimistic about using Lemmy. It is definitely a learning curve in hoping the federated community but I really enjoy the idea of it. I’m hoping it can gain some more traction and get bigger in the near future.

I think its super important we all try to stay active. Upvote, comment, and post as much as you can. When more refugees come lurking we don't want them to see a ghost town.

I really want this to gain traction if reddit goes with the api changes, thing is it needs to be more user friendly to be popular, the easier the transition, the better. Also, Fuck u/spez

Hi, just joined but have been lurking for a day or two.

Just trying to find my bearings at the moment. I haven't joined any communities yet but will look at doing that later today.

I'm hoping that Lemmy is a less toxic space than Reddit became, and that an influx of us refugees doesn't ruin things for people who have been here longer. My hope is that those of us who migrate here learn to fit in with the ethos and rules of Lemmy, rather than trying to change things (or worse, expecting them to change to fit what we're used to "over there").

I'm looking forward to getting stuck in!

Honestly I'm glad that reddit is going down the tubes. It's time for a change.

It seems like a cool idea. The idea of picking a server to sign up for didn't throw me for a loop like it does some folks; just like email, right? I think it needs a better way to interact on other instances though. Like for this one, I found lemmy.world from a link on Reddit, then opened this post. But I couldn't vote or comment because my account was on midwest.social. So I had to copy the !lemmyworld@lemmy.world community spec from the sidebar, go over to midwest.social in another tab, click the search button, paste the community spec there, re-find the same post, and now I can comment. Ideally I'd instead just be able to comment directly on lemmy.world using my already-logged-in account on midwest.social, or at least go directly to viewing the post via my own server with one click. Functionality like this would probably require a browser extension but that's better than nothing. I actually found one for Mastodon that's supposed to allow something like this for that service but so far I can't figure out how to get it to do its thing, and I don't think it supports Lemmy at all so far.

I went through the same process you did. Created this account a long time ago. Revisiting because reddit is being weird. And, the cross instance functionality and UX really needs an upgrade.

Thanks. So far, I'm really enjoying Lemmy. What I really miss is a good iOS client. But I guess it's hard to build something like Apollo...

Depending on the amount of traction Lemmy gets, I'm hoping new apps start popping up over the next coming months/years.

I'm liking it. I'm sure it'll take some getting used to, but I'm off Reddit for the next 3 days so I'm sure I'll figure it out!

Digging it so far. The only thing that I have noticed, and this may just be due to the large influx of people coming to the site, it's been taking literal minutes for me to submit a post or edit my profile

- Figured as much lmao. Hopefully a decent chunk of the new users stick around. I've been on way too many sites where we'd get a large influx of users with only 0.5% becoming regulars.
DIGGing it

How is the federation supposed to work regarding logins? I made my initial account on lemmy.world but I'm unable to login and subscribe to communities on other federated servers. I presumed the primary server I setup on would allow me to subscribe and comment on communities on other servers?

- So then could you have, say, a 3D printing "subreddit" on lemmy.ml as well as lemmy.world? And if you had no idea of the one on lemmy.ml, you would never see the posts submitted there, correct?
  Edit: I think I understand now. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. You would be able to see it on your instances "all" page only if one other person from your instance went and subscribed to that other community (from the other instance). So it essentially grabs the content from that other instance and shows it on yours, without actually having to go and sign up for that other instance.
- I think what threw me is communities on the same server allowed me to just click subscribe but ones on other servers I had to click through, expand the sidebar THEN I could subscribe. That's a bit cryptic on top of the login only working on the initial server but I figured it out.

Still a bit confused.

come join us at !formula1@lemmy.world and !photography@lemmy.world

I’m not sure about this (I need to verify) but afaik the account should be virtually gone if that were to happen
Yes, your account would be gone.
I know that its pretty normal for Mastodon server operators to publicly commit themselves to anouncing that they are going to shut down, so users can take action accordingly (Was it 90 days, not sure?).
Additionally, Mastodon has a functionality that lets you transfer your account to a new server you choose, while keeping your followers and followings.
Lemmy doesn't have a similar functionality. I suppose this is something in the works. Ideally you would take your community subscribtions with you (instead of followers/-ings).

Is very comfortable here, I will not go back on reddit for sure!

Thanks for having me, lemmy.world!

These instances feel quite cosy. Homely, even. I think they're called instances? I don't know. Anyway, I'm here.

If anyone has any super-noob friendly tips for being a good Lemmy citizen then I'm all ears - I'm an iPhone user so any app recommendations would be greatly appreciated too!

Really happy to be here - would love it if this place worked out. What's the best way to ensure that we get folks moving over?

I think u/spez on reddit has done a phenomenal job helping to increase Lemmy's appeal as of late. Maybe someone should give him a job?
- It's almost as if he doesn't realize that it's the truly few people who are power-users that make up the majority of what gives that company value. It would be great if this place could be like what it used to be.
  But for real - I would love it if the community found its way over here. But like with Mastodon, I feel as if there is a knowledge gap for federated places - I don't really even understand it myself!

Really hope this thing takes off.

Yo what up, fam?

Been a wild six months losing Tweetbot, moving to Ivory, and now Reddit has decided to trip over itself. I’m eager to see how this site (and the general federated versions of the reddit idea) end up.

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Feels a bit similar to moving to Mastodon from Twitter. easier to browse here than finding people to follow on Mastodon though

When I add this site to my Home Screen it afterwards loads as a PWA. Is there a way to add the site without it loading as PWA? I just want it to open as a tab in safari.

@immadeofgold I'm pretty excited despite it being daunting. It reminds me of the 90s internet days. Looking forward to learning something new and fun.

I’m excited for a new experience. I only commented about 5 times my entire time on Reddit and I hoping to interact more here.

doesn't hurt my eyes, looks just as good as old.reddit, now just hopefully reddit can hurry up kick the bucket.

I am happy whenever there is a fresh start. Brings out the flaws of my old ways.

I'm a big fan of it. The website is great and I'm thankful that I can interact with posts and comments on other servers. I think for most people's adoption the picking of a server to join is intimidating because there are so many options.

To draw more users it needs to be made abundantly clear that you can interact across servers.

Hello! Looks nice, I realize it will probably take some time to get used to, but I hope the community will grow. I mod a sub on Reddit and we are thinking about a blackout in protest, in any case it would be cool to set up shop here in the fediverse :)

The Jerboa app though could use with some improvements to navigate the different communities.

Test

I’m liking it a lot, so far!

Thanks! It looks more like a Discourse forum than Reddit. I'll reserve judgment for now but after so many companies took their own platform usage we need something like this more than ever.

I dunno

i'm just excited that i was able to make an account... lemmy.ml didn't want me. anyway, i'm just here to browse and see what i find.

Reddit ran me off with a permaban 2 months ago because I wrote about the 3 boxes of liberty metaphor in a comment. 2 million+ imaginary Internet points down the drain. Glad to see the site shoot itself in the foot and looking forward to finding an alternative.

And the obligatory: fuck Spez.

I got permbanned a few months ago because reasons? This is more gooder.

It's strange. I feel lost.

It’s strange. I feel lost.
Give yourself a day or two, and it will be a second nature to you. Speaking from my two-day experience :)

I’m loving Beehaw! And it’s super cool that we can all interact across servers and communities.

I think this has a lot of potential, I mean I’m already using it a ton. The only thing missing imo is more niche communities, but those will come along as the user base grows.

Go make them! :)
- I know lol it just seems really daunting. And idk if the userbase is even large enough to support what I'd personally want. It'd probably be just me.
  But regardless, I'd love a community like the NatureIsLit subreddit, or even AIDKE (animals I didn't know existed).

Thanks for having us! I'm excited to try this out. I am only just trying to figure out how all of this works.

I have subscribed to several communities now, but when I go to the main page, I still see the generic content that was there before I logged in. How do I view a feed of just the communities I have subscribed to (analogous to the front page on reddit)

There should be a button to view subscribed communities at the top along with local instance communities and all known communities. You can change the default in the settings.
- Oh, I got it. Thank you!

Is there an easier way to find communities on other instances? I wish I could browse another instance as if it were "local" to organically find more communities.

There is!
Click Communities, and from there you can sort Local (Communities that originate from your instance, for you it's lemmy.world!), or All, which includes most communities every public instance (like how I'm commenting to you from beehaw.org!)
From there, simply subscribe to what communities you like, even if they come from a different instance.
Here's a link for you to investigate.

Honestly struggling a bit. Finding the communities for my interests was very easy on Reddit, kinda having a hard time here.

Hey! You should totally create those communities by yourself, takes less than 5 seconds!! (Via the website though -- sadly the apps don't yet have that functionality...but will soon)
For example, I created beatles@sopuli.xyz, since there's no Beatles community here. Never modded any subreddit in my life, so it's a first for me.
I'm soon gonna make a list of maybe 8-10 communities I like and create them over here. Then I'll post links to them on the corresponding subreddits.
I don't plan to actually mod them actively, so I'll pass the modding powers to others if/when the communities get a good number of followers.
You could do the same, it's like being Johnny Appleseed!
- I thought about creating them but I figured someone already did and I don't want to fracture the community. Someone already created a boardgames community in a German server (content seems to be English), is it best to jump in there and add some content or create a new English community? No clue.

Pretty good, can someone explain how federation works with Lemmy? Are communities linked?

I'm commenting here from another instance (feddit.de) where I'm logged in and this community is available at https://feddit.de/c/lemmyworld@lemmy.world
Similarly, you can just access communities from other instances here, e.g. https://lemmy.world/c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
- but like if there are two Gaming communities on different instances, do they merge? or are they separate?

I have finally managed to create an account, so do we have CSS like original reddit? Other then that lemmy seems pretty cool

It doesn't look like we have the same css feature yet, but you can start your own lemmy instance just to host your community and customize the hell out of it.

Can we call communities "lemlets?"

Lemnities or just Lemmies sounds good to me!

This is my first visit so I'm still trying to figure things out. I'm on the mobile website right now because I haven't been able to figure out how to log in on the Jerboa app. Can anyone tell me what "instance" means on Jerboa when you're logging in? I tried a couple different ones from the dropdown menu but they all said " incorrect login."

Instance is basically a server. All of the servers talk to each other, so you can post and comment on any one of them. But your physical account resides on only one server. Currently, you can't migrate your account from one server to another, but it's planned as a feature in future releases of Lemmy.
Your instance (server) is lemmy.world, so you need to type that in the instance field. Thus, your username on Lemmy (and in the fediverse) is Violet@lemmy.world.
- Thanks for this explanation. Where are "subreddits" and how do I find them? Are they on different instances?

Jerboa kinda sucks and Lemmur straight up doesn't let you sign in.

A lot of communities are unfortunately missing, the Lemmy devs should do a better job of advertising the platform to Reddit expats so we can have more content.

I'm hoping some third party Reddit apps rewrite themselves to support a Lemmy backend.

Jerboa seems pretty good as an app in is infancy thrown together quickly to address the sudden need. It does lack the maturity and stone features Reddit 3rd party apps had (I was partial to Boost and Relay myself) but it's pretty usable and given time I think it'll get even better. Also add Lemmy and Kbin reach critical mass we may see more apps soon.
- Indeed, considering how young it is, it's a good start.
  Definitely needs a way to look at inbox comments in the context of the thread, right now I need to go to the thread and scroll to find my comment and its reply.

I like it. Bringing over some No Man's Sky people. Is there a shorthand way to link communities? Like typing /r/NoMansSky would link to the subreddit on reddit, but /c/NoMansSky doesn't link to the community here. Would be a cool future feature if it's not one now!

You can! With a few caveats.
asklemmy](/c/asklemmy@asklemmy.ml) becomes asklemmy
However it won't work if your instance doesn't know the community exists. In those cases it needs to be searched for in the usual cumbersome way, but after that the relative links should work.
- Thank you!

It feels quite right. We need to set up lots of niche communities, but what I miss the most is the user base. It was diverse, and lemmy is known to have an specific user profile. Would be nice to reach out, wear a former redditors badge, and wear it with pride!

I'm surprised at how many Linux instances there are here. Very few Normie's instances so far.

is there any advantage of using one instance vs another? I made accounts on both kbin and lemmy.world, is it all the same except whatever UI i prefer?

When i visit some communities in kbin, it tells it the posts might not all be up to date

You can join communities hosted on another server than the one you registered with. Some posts might take time to update because I am guessing the two servers need to communicate the changes.

I'm trying out Jerboa but it keeps telling me I'm not logged in every time I try to do something.

Anyone else having this issue?

I can't get it to work but I'm very new.

It's quite laggy (understandably) and I'm having trouble navigating myself, finding communities/topics, finding people to interact with etc. Naturally there will be teething problems early on, and different problems will arise as the reddit exodus increases. Still, I think Lemmy has huge potential.

Check out https://browse.feddit.de/ for finding communities, it's not 100% perfect but it's a good start :)
- I tried to do that and it logged me out :-/

I'm waiting for some new communities to pop up, but the layout is good.

I've started photography and !formula1@lemmy.world would be great to see you in either
Both my links are doing weird things, if anyone knows how to do this please tell me!

Glad to see an alternative is gaining traction! The inversed colours for up and downvotes will take some getting used to!

To double-check that I understand Lemmy correctly: the equivalent to a subreddit is a server, right? So within lemmy.world there aren’t necessarily subforums/topics/subreddits.

A bit uncomfortable with the UI and stuff, as I am an old.reddit user, I like to consume content in my comfortable way. I normally do not tend to have issues with UI changes, but reddit was extremely comfortable in that mode. I will however try my best to get used to this, as I'd do anything to avoid Reddit from now on.

It would be cool if someone built an old reddit theme for Lemmy

I'm having trouble navigating through lemmy. The Frontpage was different before I created an account. Could someone explain the instances? I logged in to lemmy.world does that mean the content on the rest of lemmy is off limits? I have to create an account for each instance?

I see there is lemmy.ml and others

Edit: I get it now. Thanks for the explanation

Easiest thing to do, click Communities up at the top, then click "All" right below "List of communities"
This will show you all of the communities from all of the federated lemmys (sorted by number of users), and allow you to subscribe to them and easily interact with them from your lemmy.world account. Once you subscribe to the ones you want, you can go back to the main lemmy.world home screen and click Subscribed, which will give you a list of posts from your subscribed communities, much like the Reddit home screen.
I have to create an account for each instance?
No, that's actually the beauty of it all.
Could someone explain the instances?
Imagine if now every subreddit would be located on its own server, not somewhere in a Reddit headquarters. So r/funny is now running on server with address my-server123.com and thus have address my-server123.com/r/funny. r/europe is now running on eu.gov and thus have address eu.gov/r/europe. etc. Good, but lets say I want to create a subreddit r/myFavoriteYoutuber but I don't have a server. No problem, I contact people at r/funny and they allow my subreddit to run on their server, so its address will be my-server123.com/r/myFavoriteYoutuber. The "my-server123.com" and "eu.gov" is what we'd call an instance.
I write some extended explanation after lunch :)
- This has some pros and cons:
  You might say - ok but I don't care about instances, servers and whatnot. Also now instead of one Reddit website, we have thousands of them! Do I need to register everywhere? I don't want this, I just want to to come to Reddit and browse stuff from everywhere!
  ... and this is possible! Instances can communicate with eachother so with account on one instance you can connect (not login) to all the instances you want. Basically your browser or smartphone app just now needs to download posts from different servers instead of one giant Reddit server. But it needs your help, you need to specify the address of the instance otherwise it doesn't know where to connect. This is the same as email, if you want to send an email to John Smith, you don't just write recipient as john.smith, you need to write the server also so john.smith@gmail.com
  So if I take the example from previous comment, you cannot just write that you want subscribe to r/funny because your app or browser doesn't know where the r/funny is. You'd need to write funny@my-server123.com or europe@eu.gov. And voila, that's basically Lemmy

I'm liking it but if there's a search function I'm not finding it? Like, I want to go looking for communities by topic.

For all of Lemmy: https://lemmy.nz/communities/listing_type/All/page/1
For just your instance: https://lemmy.nz/communities/listing_type/Local/page/1
There isn't really a way to search by topic as of right now, but you can search in those menu's with generalized subjects to find related communities
- Thank you!

Digging it so far. Some technical issues but I think they may just be due to the mobile app I am using (sometimes when I open a post, the comments displayed are the ones from the last post I looked at). But it feels much more.. Democratic? Than reddit did.

Which app are you using?
- Jerboa for Lemmy from F-Droid. You may have to install F-Droid for it, my phone has not the google play store so i dont know. I think i did something wrong because Lemmur was too confusing for me.

I am still trying to wrap my head around how it all works, but I feel like I am slowly getting the hang of it. One thing I was wondering, and forgive me if I get the terminologies wrong, since instances are their own little ecosystems, wouldn't there be multiple versions of the identical communities i.e. gaming, videos etc., or is that the beauty of it all?

Another minor concern I have is that since instances are run by individuals, wouldn't there be a risk of losing massive amounts of content if said owner no longer wishes to maintain their instance or "goes rogue" for a lack of a better word and shuts down access to all communities located on that particular instance/server.

I think those are all fair points. Reddit did duplicate communities too, sometimes because some communities wanted to focus on specific elements of the topic they were covering, sometimes because of splits and disagreements, and sometimes just because it happened over time. People tend to find their niche, as do communities, but there will usually be a main one with the most members and activity.
Regarding individual instances, the way Mastodon has tried to manage that is by asking the people running instances to commit to a set of rules, one of which is giving appropriate notice should they wish to shut it down. This has been adhered to for the most part, and instances that don't voluntarily subscribe to those rules can get degenerated, or more likely just not promoted through the various explorer tools. So long as there's notice, there's opportunity to migrate to another instance and copy over data. It would be good to see something similar on Lemmy, if it's not already there (this is my first day!).
- Maybe lemmy can already do this, but maybe we need to reintroduce the concept of ‘mirrors’ — being able to create a community on one server that can mirror a copy of all posts from a community on another server, so if the original disappears then the mirror can be promoted into its place.
  …or maybe this is already a thing, or isn’t necessary? I’m new here and still learning the ropes.

got into reddit fully just a few years ago. it was my go-to for silly frog pictures to cheer me up. any other instances (i hope i'm saying that right, something similar to a subreddit) that are frog related? i'd love to contribute some :)

You could try starting your own community?

Pretty cool to see. I'm excited to see it grow. I'm pretty adamant about Mastodon being a great platform and seeing other decentralized platforms grow is awesome. I wanted to know how I can see a list of instances, or if anyone has any recommendations? I know myself and a lot of others likely joined the largest instances first, but I don't want to add onto an already stressed server.

I've stumbled upon this Github repo listing Lemmy instances and their differences
- Thanks! This is exactly what I was looking for.

How do instances decide to defederate other instances popping up in the future? E.g. an NSFW instance is created but I don't want to see any of it when I browse "All".

Simply block it.
- I didn't mean for individual users, but for the whole instance. Like Lemmygrad is blocked by other instances.

On Reddit you have your home page or start page that shows combined content from all of your subscribed subreddits and nothing else... how do I get to something like that here, or isn't there anything like that here?

On the main page you can toggle the Subscribed | Local | All thing to get different feeds. You can set the default in your settings.
- Awesome, thank you, somehow I missed it