Now Lemmy Explain: Simple Explanation for Complex Topics

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/853004

Hello there, and welcome to the Fediverse! Let's get you started.

This post was created together with many users, intended to help you have an easy start! It has a simple language, and it includes many useful links.

For your first day here

Hello, newbie user! Lemmy is just like Reddit, but better. Ha-ha. Seriously. But let's not overwhelm you for now.

This very neat starting guide was written by our beloved admin, @ruud. To avoid confusion, start reading it from the Quick start guide section.

If you're new to Lemmy, this post will also help you perfectly.

kbin users can check out this amazing starting guide instead. This is also a nice guide.

Finding Communities on Lemmy/kBin

If you finished reading your starting guide, it's time to go find your new favorite communities! Check out these dedicated services: number 1, 2, 3, and 4, and 5! Go have some fun! :D

For your second day here

Hello again! You're less of a newbie now, and you found some amazing communities! We can start talking about the Fediverse. I hope you didn't forget to read the rules for lemmy.world!

kBin.social's rules are in this link.

The Fediverse

You must've realised that we addressed Lemmy and kBin users differently. And what is this Fediverse people keep talking about, anyways?

Lemmy and kBin are two different platforms, and they can perfectly interact with each other! This means that they are a part of the federation. And they are only two members of the vast Fediverse.

What is the Fediverse? video by Framasoft to get a good understanding with visuals!

As a great lemming once said: Fediverse is basically like a group chat, but for websites. This means that federated websites all agree to share their content with each other, constantly, at the same time.

Follow this link to view a list of all Lemmy instances.

Follow this link to open the Fediverse Observer. It is set to show kBin, but you can navigate your way through the site to show any Fediverse platform you'd like.

For your third day here

That's it! What else do you want? Go have some fun and keep learning along the way! ;)

Modified from what I've posted on our partners at No Stupid Questions:

I've felt that /r/eli5 was some of the best content in the Old Country, but somewhere along the way, it lost the fun aspect it once had. Everything there is so sanitized that it no longer has the feeling of community anymore.

In the age of large language models, getting a simplified summary of a complex idea is pretty much just a copypaste away, and I don't really see the need of having a place for what ELI5 currently is when it can be automated away, but I'm willing to admit that I may be wrong.

Now, the specific issues I have with ELI5 on reddit is that the mods there seem to make and enforce the rules arbitrarily and without any rationale, which just led to serious mod abuse. For example:

• Your answer can't be too short, that's too low effort.
• Your answer can't be too long, that's too specific.
• Your answer can't be for something someone asked before.
• Your answer can't be how you literally explain things to a real 5-year-old, despite that being the very name of the subreddit.

Just ridiculous. And I think we can all do better than that.

My ultimate goal would be having a place for people to explain things that would not be possible for machines, it should be entertaining to read as you learn, instead of making your eyes glaze over, because first and foremost, on Lemmy, we are rebuilding a place specifically for people to get engaged and inspired by each other, because that's what a community is.

(Hatefulness would NOT be tolerated, of course.)

There's overlap between our partners at "No Stupid Question" and "Now Lemmy Explain", of course, but I think the best way to explain it (or, Now Lemmy Explain: ) is that NSQ focuses on getting any answer to simple questions, while NLE focuses on getting simple answers to any question.

I'm mostly expecting that if this works out, NLE will probably be the more casual counterpart to NSQ on lemmy.world, which would be the reverse of the situation on reddit.

So, if you have any topic you'd like to have explained, please make a post there, and we'll all try our best to explain.