How did find out about lemmy?

I saw someone complaining this site was full of tankies.

I found out about it when r/genzedong got quarantined on reddit and there was a mass exodus of users.

I am a former reddit user. Well okay, lurker. I liked the concept of reddit, but hated the issues that their team left unresolved: power tripping mods, censorship and later the whole Ellen Pao debacle and it just got worse from there. So I started looking for similar sites. I tried Aether, Tildes, I think I was also on Raddle at some point. Then I found Lemmy and here I am.

I am also a former Redditor. The admin team is usually corrupt. Silencing criticism of unfair mod actions could make Reddit user-hostile. Reddit is on the verge of collapse as Twitter.
- See, I don't think it is. While Reddit has many, many problems, most users seem to be okay with it. Heck, until about year ago, there was a subreddit called WatchRedditDie which had ample proof of Reddit's shortcomings. However, Reddit never really died, corporate interests just took over. After this revelation, the mods of the subreddit rightfully gave up and archived the subreddit. I believe Reddit will only die when a mass exodus of users takes place, which is just not happening right now.

My memory is a bit hazy on this. After listening to Snowden's "Permanent Record" audiobook , my interest in encryption and online privacy grew. I became much more aware about how unhealthy it is to have a society that relies on large centralized platforms to broker people's social interactions.

At some point along the process of looking into solutions to the centralization problem I remember running into Dessalines' essay on "Favorite apps and services". I think I found it via a google search for decentralized social media alternatives or de-googling, or on a post on Reddit alternatives, I don't remember the details. In this list lemmy is listed as a reddit alternative, and I was shopping for one 😄

I am glad I found lemmy as it encouraged me to learn about self-hosting, and that has snowballed in a positive way.

GenZDong got banned on reddit.

Shit, I remember when it got quarantined. Did it get full on banned now?
- Well quarantined. Its still there with its broken links, zero listed members, and heavily shadow banned status. You can't see it unless you look for it, and an anti-socialist mimic comes up first if you search for it. It's there though.

I think I read about it on Mastodon.

Have a feeling it was either when I was just searching FOSS alternatives or I saw a post on Mastodon about it. Either way, I enjoyed Lemmy

I had vaguely known about it for some time, but it wasn't until I saw it in action when a podcast I listen to started it's own instance and group (!acrossthefediverse@links.artemai.art) that I "got" it and started using it. And then started my own instance too :)

least repeated question on asklemmy 🤭

There was a poster on reddit promoting fediverse alternatives to mainstream social platforms. It caught my attention and so I signed up on lemmy whilst not yet fully grasping what was meant by "federation" and "decentralization".

On a side note, there's this nostalgic sentiment to my early days on this platform. It was a novel experience, and this is where I fell into the rabbit hole of privacy and libre culture. Lemmy's content was a huge rupture from what I used to consume on reddit.

Searching for federated forum software, and found lemmyBB.

I hold no ideals toward decentralization, ideologically I'm more aligned with a democratically-run centralized platform. That said, federation is still a great feature even on a big platform! Also I like the people more.

I think I searched for "open source reddit" and Lemmy was one of the search results. Joined lemmy.ml, and then a year or so later started my own instance.

i forgot 😔 it was a long time ago

same. though if I were to guess, it was probably on one of those "awesome fediverse" lists.

I got banned on reddit, so I searched for reddit alternative in google.

What did you do to get banned from Reddit?
- I don't really know, they just said my account was permanently suspended for violations of the rules. They never said what rule I broke or what post broke the rule. They also never gave me a warning about it.

I never had a reddit account but I was checking r/privacy, r/degoogle, etc through Slide app. Then I found out about Lemmy

I googled "activity pub Reddit alternative". I like it here

Don't remember exactly but it must have been a few years ago. I think I came across it when searching for FOSS reddit-like forum alternatives. I remember the main instance was on dev.lemmy.ml and federation wasn't a thing yet.

Feditips on Mastodon made a post about not using Lemmy and using Kbin instead. I went to Kbin first, but it was having major Federation problems at the time and I ended up swapping.

I was looking at Fediverse groups and how they work, and then I stumbled across Lemmy. Initially joined lemmy.ml, but really loved it, and now co admin a dedicated instance :)