I made a picture to try and explain a few basic concepts (hopefully) in a simple way, if you think it can help, feel free to link it in the guide, if not it's ok :)

https://imgur.com/a/uyoYySY

As someone who used voat for awhiel here are my tips:

1. USE this platform, don't use reddit. USE this platform and give it content. Content is basically the same as oxygen you can't deprive it, POST often and comment OFTEN.
2. Don't dwell on reddit too much. Voat's only active communities were about shit posting on reddit (they had a /v/MeanwhileOnReddit and a few banned communities and that was it, nobody used any other communities). Find your favorite community and build it. Build just 1 ideally, anymore is too thin. I am building up https://lemmy.world/c/frugal

Is there a way to turn off auto-refresh on the homepage's posts? Sometimes its cool to drink from the firehose, but other times you're trying to read titles of posts and they refresh and scroll off faster than you can keep up with. Would be great to have a auto/manual toggle for refreshing.

When I'm on the homepage, I click "All" then sort by Hot. I get a nice list of posts from all over which is really good. But after a few seconds new posts take the top slots of hot and makes just scrolling through unusable. Is there a setting I'm missing for how to keep it from refreshing until I actually hit the refresh button?

Is there any way to keep the content of the front page from jumping around like crazy while I'm trying to use it? It almost looks like it's updating live while just sitting there, but I can't imagine someone implementing a busy website that way after giving the idea more than two seconds of thought.

I'm trying to upvote stuff and it keeps automagically unclicking it when I click. Do I need to do something different, like burn incense and melt an ancient AOL disk or something?

Having this pinned means I have to scroll past this and the other one e v e r y s i n g l e time I go to my homepage in the Mlem iOS app 😂

Excellent post! Hello to all the reddit refuges... including myself lol

anyone know of an easier way to discover communities? it'd be nice to have like a list or something rather than searching blindly or going to each different server and seeing what's available

Suggestion: I think it might be good to add the https://browse.feddit.de/ to the homepage sidebar.

I hope that somewhere in Lemmy's development a system is added for federating/syncing each instance's Known Community List with each other, so even if no one on lemmy.world is interacting with some.site "yet" lemmy.world knows *about *it and about its communities (just their basic name etc data, not the contents) because lemmy.ml, or whoever, has established a link with some.site and lemmy.world talks to lemmy.ml and gets the list info from them.

The more people that Upvote and Downvote my comments here on Lemmy, I'm now curious to know if Upvoting and Downvoting on Lemmy hurts your overall experience much like how it does on Reddit?

For context: On Reddit, over the years I found myself deleting my posts and comments that got downvoted by any amount, but more so if it got double-triple number downvotes, not because I'm so incapable of having discussions and understanding and respecting people's opinions and points of view, but because other people could more or less control my Reddit experience, and that's just not fair or balanced. If you have low enough Karma you actually can be denied entry into subreddits. If you have low enough Karma you become limited on what you can even do on Reddit as a whole. Having low enough Karma can legitimately have negative effects on your general Reddit experience, and all it takes is for a handful of people who don't agree with what you're saying, who then choose to downvote your posts and comments.

Thanks this helps a lot. Coming over since they massacred by boy rif

RIF transplant. Happy to be here. Thank you for the tutorial looking forward to start playing catchup

Thanks for making this post! It answered a lot of my questions, but I still have a few more. So I made my account with this server, Lemmy.world, and I can connect with any other server/community I want to with this account. Awesome. What happens though if this server were to be taken offline? Would my account still exist? Is there anything that would be lost aside from the content on this server?

So I think I've spotted a problem with how Lemmy's federation actually works. I can give you several examples, but I've spotted that there are several 'Technology' communities that originate on different servers. They're definitely different 'communities' because they have quite dissimilar subscriber numbers. That's potentially going to cause a lot of confusion going forward - I really don't want to have to subscribe to two or three of everything...

I'm having trouble finding a Lemmy community from another instance. For example cloudcomputing@lemmy.ml on the Jerboa app. I even added the bang "!" but that didn't work either.

On a tangential note, how do I follow people from across the fediverse, for example Mastodon?

as a newcomer to all things federated (I skipped mastodon as I never used twitter), the best piece of advice I have is to not overthink the whole federation idea. Just sign up with an instance or two (I signed up to kbin.social and lemmy.world). See which instance format suits you best. You will (should) be able to interact with all other communities/magazines etc. I started off liking the interface of kbin more, but find myself using lemmy.world. Just start searching for communities, find ones with decent userbases and start interacting. Feel free to down this to oblivion if I have the wrong take on this!

am i supposed to be able to post comments? i verified my email and all

What is the philosophy behind downvotes? Downvote non-productive/bad faith comments or downvote things you do not like?

Could you update this to point out one of the major differences that most Redditors won't expect?:
When using ActivityPub Upvotes and Downvotes are public to every service that reads into it (such as Kbin).

This rundown is great @ruud@lemmy.world

How can i help donate and support lemmy.wold and the greater Lemmy ecosystem?

Could you sticky a donation link on the top of this community? Or put it in the community-info section?

So lemmy uses ActivityPub, right? But can it connect with mastodon or gnu social that also use it?

I'm a dev interested in getting involved. I've followed on GitHub and I'm about to start diving into the various repos. Where is development being coordinated?

Hello, world!

I see in this post it says that Lemmy communities can be followed from a Mastodon instance. Can the opposite be done too? Could I follow a Mastodon account via Lemmy.world?

Sorry if this is a really silly question, the Fediverse is still very new to me!

Is there any phone app for Lemmy? Or would it be different websites for different Lemmy worlds?

Is there a way to collapse this post or hide it now that I’ve read it? It seems to be the first post in my feed, always.

How does lemmy mark a post as read? I want to scroll past posts and have them automatically marked read, and then not show them to me again. Every time i open lemmy I'm seeing the same posts I've seen many times. Yes, even when I am not sorting on 'active'

Thanks so much for this guide.ive used mastodon in the past, but it's been a while. I'm not really a fan of the short-blurb content and prefer a forum-format, so here I am!

I made a userscript (Lemmy post) which rewrites all links everywhere (not only on Lemmy) to always point to your home instance. It helps a lot with subscribing to communities and in general makes browsing the web and finding Lemmy links nicer.

Does anyone know if it's possible to use the show_read_posts filter of the API? I see that it's implemented, but I can't find the option anywhere in the web UI.

Thanks so much for this guide! i was not aware on how the accounts worked and I created the same account on multiple servers, is that a problem now?

Thank you for this. It feels a little like collective moving day 😆

Why the upvotes and downvotes are acting like crazy? I'm back after a few hours and I'm noticing that in all posts. Also, I'm noticing too that I can't upvote anything.

Hi, is having a community flagged NSFW sufficient, or will every individual post also need to be marked as NSFW at time or posting?

goodbye reddit, hello lemmy!

Firefox on android doesn't let me login to lemmy. I have AdGuard installed and the add-on switched on. What could be the solution?

Edit: I haven't solved the problem, but after some time trying some things here and there, I think I know what's the issue. I have both Chrome and Firefox installed. I was using Lemmy on Chrome, so I tried to login in Firefox, and the issue started. I logged out on Chrome, and tried here on Firefox, it worked. TLDR: you can't have the same account logged in on both Chrome and Firefox.

Great write up, I appreciate this as I get stuck into Lemmy.

Does the 'local' tab just refer to posts from your home instance, eg; .world?

May I suggest to add a link to donate in order to contribute to the financial efforts behind Lemmy.world? @ruud@lemmy.world

So can I not have my home page only be the communities I subscribe to by default?

I've seen repeated accusations that lemmy is tankie/red-fash, especially when it comes to those that control it - mods/admins/w/e. How true is this?

What does pending subscribe mean?

My SO is having a login issue, that I'm not experiencing myself. Everytime she closes Jerboa, it logs her out. She will end up as "anonymous" so you have to go into Settings and under Accounts, her account is not visible. She's gotta Add New Account everytime to input the account she already created and added. Hmm

Anyone else experiencing this? I am not and I'm wondering if it's user error on my part. I been using lemmy since last night and love it, I'm just trying to get her settled over here. Thanks!

We've just published a polish translation of this, with some minor changes; https://szmer.info/post/356383

So if I understand correctly, there is are multiple Lemmy Servers. Each server has communities which are equivalent to subreddits. You can access communities that were created through other servers.

Is there a benefit to joining a specific Lemmy Server? Or is it the same experience no matter which server you join from?

Can we unsticky this post personally? I have to scroll through the guide each time I get on lemmy. And it’s quite long.

Thank you so much for the info to the newbies! What client do you recommend, Lemmur or Jerboa for Lemmy? Easy and privacy friendly. I'm trying Lemmur and just made my account, with same nick as on Reddit. I will save this post!

Is there some way to stop Lemmy from refreshing under my nose. I'm trying to click a link, or read one and it just scrolls away.

Thanks for all the info i feel like i finally understand. Hopefully people figure out how to migrate because a federated network of sites is much better and its about time everyone moved on from reddit!

The FediDB site does not list lemmy.worlds hosting location, what country is the site hosted in?

ETA: I'm inclined to think the Netherlands based off of some quick googling, but confirmation would be nice.

Can I hide this post somehow?

As a lemmy.world user how can I block posts and communities from a whole other instance?

I changed the screenshots in the picture to a light theme, I saw someone saying buttons are difficult to read on dark, could you please replace it in the guide? thanks :)

https://imgur.com/a/fiLOmI7

Hope that someone creates a Lemmy view much like old.reddit - way too spread out for me right now. Please, someone build this. :)

Is there a file size limit for banners?

Is there a beginners guide I can read so I could learn how to set up scheduled posts?

Hi,

I noticed that thumbnails of links are not showing here https://lemmy.world/c/world, whereas same news link posted on https://lemmy.ml/c/worldnews is working fine, why is that?

Here is an example of the same news link on both communities:

https://lemmy.world/post/260407 (no thumbnail)

https://lemmy.ml/post/1317159 (with thumbnail)

Thanks

ty for this

I don't know why you were at 0 votes for this, but thanks for taking this on! I think a lot of folks will benefit.

Edit: vote count is probably incorrect and just due to being from a newer instance!

that info graphic was great! thanks for posting this

Sorry to bother you, but I wanted to test whether I could post a comment here.

I'd really like to have the ability to disable embedded images in comments. I want to see only text, not 50 memes, RES had this as a feature.

Don't know if this is of any use to anyone, but someone posted link to Lemmy documentation, which includes markdown instructions and more. I've not actually read it all yet, but here's the link anyway: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/en/users/02-media.html

So if an instance 'defederates' another instance, it effectively means all content from them is blocked while using the instance which defederated them?

How do I disable new posts from appearing dynamically? Right now i sort posts by whatever but after a short time new posts starts accumulating at the top like this: https://i.imgur.com/RvZ8C73.png

why did that top one appear??

When I browse communities and switch to allI am able to find some off server communities that I would like to join, but when I go to the link, I am unable to subscribe. The subscribe button doesn't seem to work. Is this because the server doesn't federate with the other one? I am trying to add some nature/science related communities from the https://mander.xyz server.

The part that was confusing to me is even if I choose “All” when searching for communities, it doesn’t find communities I know exist on other instances. This post helped clear it up for me (I have to search for it by link to add it), so thanks! I am worried this is going to trip up a lot of people though.

Is there a karma system?

Bravo. Reddit had no idea how much it sucked until 3hrs ago.

What does create remote post or comment mean? Does this mean we can post onreddit from here or something?

It looks like Lemmy.world communities do not get regularly indexed on search engines. Is this because of the system architecture, or is it for some other reason?

Thank you! A user guide is sorely needed, I'm still overwhelmed by all this new stuff lol, I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Also, I know it's typed out somewhere, but I can't find it and couldn't understand it anyway. Could someone explain to me as if I'm technologically useless and just a bit dense generally, how to connect with communities on other instances? Something about copying links and pasting them somewhere? I'm on jerboa if that means anything.

Thank you!

Hi, thanks for the post. This bit confuses me: "Please note that a server only starts indexing a server/community once it has been interacted with by a user of this server."
How does a user interact with a server for the first time, for lemmy.world to start indexing it?

Is Lemmy.world in the US?

In my haste to sign up I jumped into Lemmy.ca, as I followed a favorite subreddit there. Now I'm feeling like I would prefer a more general instance. Can I switch from lemmy.ca to Lemmy.world? Outside of the local view does it even matter?

@ruud i think a good thing to mention would be copying the URL of a post or a comment to fetch and interact with it from your own instance.

I'm trying to use the app to browse when I'm not at a computer. I've seen mentions of "Jerboa" but it won't accept my login credentials. I've tried all three instances, no dice. Any suggestions? I use Android phone the most, but open to apps for iOS.

Is the registration closed on lemmy.world? It does not seem to go through when signing up. I know you can choose another instance but I just thought it could be confusing when sign-up still looks open and is encouraged in this guide.

Edit: Resolved. Apparently there was some delay in the server. Got the verification email now. While I was retrying without the email, on the sign-up and login pages, the loading wheel just kept spinning. But all is fine now. Thanks!

New users: this instance is too large, please join a smaller instance.

How do i unblock someone? It was an accident

What is the difference between Lemmy ML and WORLD?

Hi, thanks for making this instance and post! I think one of the main things that prevented me from grasping the fediverse when I tried mastodon out earlier was not knowing about the common Activitypub protocol. The e-mail analogy that was being used didn't quite click for me, so I'm happy to have a much better understanding for this go around! Here's to greener pastures!

This is great, thank you! I plan to send it to a friend - it's much better than any explanation that I could come up with.

On Reddit subreddits are self moderated. Are communities on Lemmy self moderated or does all moderation happen at the instance level?

@ruud Can a Mastodon user vote on a Lemmy post?

Has anybody an idea how to get the thumbnails to work properly?

I the post here it says once using the 'Upload Image' function, that the image will show in the post and as thumbnail. The latter doesn't seem to work for me on Jerboa.

The only way that worked for me so far was to link the uploaded image (via the button) by adding the url as ![](IMAGE_URL) to the body of the post.

Thank you for this post @Ruud. I'm a Reddit refugee like a lot of new users today, and I didn't quite understand what Lemmy was until I read your post. Now it makes complete sense.

What is the ideal resolution for a community banner so as not to unnecessarily 'weigh it down' with a super high-resolution image?

Polskie tłumaczenie, z drobnymi zmianami: https://szmer.info/post/356383

I do wish the search function was easier. I’m into a lot of tech stuff and just searching for an Apple community is a little rough. Understanding will come with time I guess.

Can I change my @handle (not display name)? I messed up.

Would it be an idea to add the alternative interfaces in this post?

On jerboa I found out that you can reply to stuff in your inbox without revisiting that thread. You have to click it so isn't collapsed, then click and hold where the up votes are and it will expand further to show all the options like upvote, comment, etc. Hope that helps someone, anyone.

i don’t see it described here. i get the difference between “subscribed” and “all” but what the hell is ”local”?

How do I add someone as a moderator to a community?

The search using !community@instance format never works for me. I always have to enter just the community name and look through the list to see if it’s there.

Is there a way to pause the feed when browsing all/new?

It's adding new posts faster than I can even scroll, I see something I want to look at and POOF, it's gone to who knows where.

Is there a place to discuss moderating? I'm new to being a mod and I was wondering if mods should be able to edit post titles/body to follow community guidelines?

This is likely a stupid question, but why can I instantly subscribe to some sublemmys? (I have no idea what the equivalent of subreddits are called in Lemmy) but on others my sub request remains pending indefinitely? Thanks.

I can't seem to create an account on lemmy.world directly (though I appear to be able to access via lemmy.ca). When I enter all my details on the sign up and click the button - it just spins for ever. I have tried a few times a day over the last 3 days. Any idea what could be the problem? I was able to sign up on beehaw and lemmy.ca with no issues. Is it a known issue - or are sign ups on hold?

Is there a way to slow down the firehose that is my feed? At times my feed will just start scrolling with new posts at the top without giving me a chance to click on anything. I've tried different filters, but nothing allows me to slow it down. Maybe I'm just missing something.

If you delete your account (or get banned) on one instance (such as .ml), does it affect the other instance, such as .world?

Is Lemmy.world based on the US?

Goodbye Reddit and welcome Lemmy

Is there a way to hide posts / mark as read / remove from feed?

Hello ! For those like me that do not understand the sentences « Lemmy is a federated platform for news aggregation » nor « it means Lemmy is using a protocol which makes it possible for al Lemmy servers to interact », there is a good explanation here: https://github.com/maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instances (Link from https://join-lemmy.org/instances)

Like emails companies (gmail, outlook,…) you have multiple Lemmy server (Lemmy.world, Lemmy.ml,…) than can communicate ( you can send an email from Gmail to Outlook).

So by register on one Lemmy server, you can interact on all Lemmy servers ( depending on server configuration, still) and then have access to multiple communities (aka subreddit)

So, how do you make this more browsable on desktop?

Just joined. I am trying to find my way around here and trying to figure out how things work. Last time I felt like this was my first day in the army. Lol.

please add turkish language

Hello! I signed up for an account with a different username, but I believe I input the wrong email. Is there a way to get this fixed as I would like to use the first account I created. Thanks!

Can one send a PRivate message to another user?

Hi, thanks for the post. I migrated here immediately after Boost started not working well any more.

What does "Subscribe Pending" mean?

I clicked the Subscribe button on !guildwars2@lemmy.ml but I get that yellow pending button instead of the green "joined". Is it because of the heavy load?

Not a big problem, I can read and post there, but I was curious.

Helpfull!

Thank you for this guide! Helped me alot!

Are there any more guides for Moderators and about editing communities? e.g. can images and banners be edited after creation? Where exactly are the mod tools options to found as a moderator? I'm very new to this and there is very little that is obvious to me.
This basic guide is very helpful but where can I find more? thanks in advance

Great initiative!

Frankly I’ve been looking for a while now and I can’t figure out how to subscribe to a community?

this is great, thanks for this - going to have a good read through over the blackout for the next few days

So I’m a total newbie to this whole thing, and I’m sure I’m just being stupid, but I’m running into a weird problem. There’s a community on feddit.de that I’d like to participate in (!germany@feddit.de), and I found it successfully in the lemmy.world search, but when I go in via the search result, it doesn’t show any content. However going to the community directly on via the URL — https://feddit.de/c/germany — I see a post with a bunch of comments.

Is there something I’m missing here? I can subscribe and post via lemmy.world but it seems like I’m the only one in the community.

Thanks all! I’m really looking forward to getting a handle on this…

Not sure if this was raised already, but how come og:images don't show up on article posts in lemmy.world?

Does anyone know if it's possible to use the show_read_posts filter of the API? I see that it's implemented, but I can't find the option anywhere in the web UI.

I discovered that if I deselect Undetermined as a language for my community, then I can't post using Jerboa ("error: language not allowed"). Apparently that is the language Jerboa uses by default, probably some other apps too.

Anything similar to Reddit Frontpage?

I would like to see the top posts on any community on any server so I can easily find active and interesting communities in the fediverse.

This is excellent, very helpful! I added a link to it in https://privacy.thenexus.today/kbin-lemmy-fediverse-learnings-from-mastodon/#background

Thank you very much for this post! It helped me a lot. I suggest caution with using browse.feddit.de though. They do not include all instances - like for example my home instance reddthat.com - you might miss a great community because of that.

EDIT: Now reddthat.com is back on the browser again - Instances could get dropped due to long response times or rate-limiting issues, so depending on the time you search you may get different results on the Community Browser.

How do I see saved posts?

So as I understand it, communities are the equivalent of subreddits, is it possible to create a private community? One accessible only by members? Most of the people I interact with on a daily basis are part of a private sub.

The thing that I'm struggling to understand is...

I get that Lemmy is essentially a platform of servers, but do I have create an account for every server? Do I need to create an account on lemmy.ml? Do I need to create an account on lemmynsfw.com?

Muito bom pra eu aprender..

Is there a hidden character limit? Was trying to copy and paste something and it never posted, just span forever. But a small post loaded instantly.

Thanks for this post, @ruud@lemmy.world. I’ve setup my own instance and am enjoying the lemmy experience so far.

At least the latest RC cut the post and save time in half, for me. That’s a measurable improvement. It definitely must be due to server load, as posting and saving to !lemmyworld@lemmy.world from my instance seems pretty snappy.

Why did 3 people downvote this?!

I know this behavior is inevitable and I shouldn’t focus on that minority, but this is objectively a good post for the community.

Could someone help me add my lemmy community to kbin? I've been trying to add !webtoons@lemmy.world to kbin.social but putting it into the search finds nothing. Going to kbin.social/m/webtoons@lemmy.world just gets 404 not found error.

If it’s federated, how does or can it integrate with Mastodon? Did I make a mistake by creating a separate login?

Anyone else having issues trying to create a community? I input everything and get the loading symbol but it never goes past that, no matter how long I leave it.