this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2023
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Lemmy

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1 users here now

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

For discussion about the lemmy.ml instance, go to [email protected].

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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 @[email protected].

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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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Cancelled my Reddit premium renewal (it's 10 months away but still...) and donated with the link above.

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[–] [email protected] 1 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?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Would love a native iOS application. Maybe @[email protected] could be convinced as the brilliant creator of Apollo!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Imo lemmy seems to have more features than Reddit also, like editing post titles, having text alongside an image post, using third party apps (which will stop soon with Reddit) etc. Reddit is very slow to add updates that make sense, but lemmy moves fast and is a great piece of software.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Thanks! We've been feature-crazy for its whole history... but I've kinda learned the hard way that none of that helps adoption. The users are the feature, and its the only reason people don't leave reddit, facebook, etc.

What @[email protected] is doing with activitypub service interoperability is far more important than almost anything else we work on. Because at least mastodon and other services have an existing userbase that can plug into lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Thanks! We’ve been feature-crazy for its whole history… but I’ve kinda learned the hard way that none of that helps adoption.

How did you conclude that? do you have data that supports that conclusion?

According to some metrics lemmy is growing, for example the number of instances grew by more then 92 percent, If you don't have big money for a marketing campaign that's probably how good organic "word to mouth" growth might look like.

It's also not just about the quantity of features, it's best to try to aim at "killer features", marking new comments that haven't been read could be one, but maybe a UX study will provide better answers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Because our greatest influxes of new users come not when we develop new features, but when lemmy gets cross-posted somewhere, or when reddit messes up in such a way that communities want to migrate somewhere else. This current influx is due to something reddit did, not lemmy's developers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

This post alone now has as many upvotes as I saw someone on Reddit claim Lemmy had total users.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Anybody know if we had a spike of new users and activitiy here after reddit's announcement?

I joined lemmy like a week before reddit's announcement after checking it every now and then for months. I didn't see so many comments and upvotes on posts last week.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

We definitely did have a spike in registrations here at least. One of the only ways people find out about lemmy is when it gets cross-posted. We could really use more news articles about it tho on open-source / privacy related spaces.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

@BlazingFlames6073 @nutomic I at least joint because of reddits announcement, but I think the real wave will come when the technical subreddits go dark.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago
A long, long time ago
I can still remember how upvotes used to make me smile
And I knew if I just got rollin'
That I could help keep users scrollin'
And maybe there'd be content for a while

But July 1st makes me shiver
With far less content to deliver
Bad news on the frontpage
I can no longer engage

I can't remember if I erupted
When I read apps would be disrupted
But disappointment interrupted
The day that Reddit died

So bye, bye, old Reddit API
Stuck with Huffman through some updates but the updates were shite
And them good ole boys were snortin' gonewild 'n smite
Postin' this'll be the day that it dies
This'll be the day Reddit dies

Did you read the TOS?
And do you have faith in mods success
If users still engage with subs?
Now do you believe in open access?
Can ads save your failing assets?
And could you be less avarice heedless schlubs?

Well, I know that you're in need of clicks
'Cause I see you suckin' Newhouse dicks
You both killed third party apps
Man, I thought that you might give a crap

I was a lonely teenage software dev
With a git repository and a shit to give
But I knew those apps wouldn't live
The day that Reddit died

I started singing bye, bye, old Reddit API
Stuck with Huffman through some updates but the updates were shite
And them good ole boys were snortin' gonewild 'n smite
Postin' this'll be the day that it dies
This'll be the day Reddit dies

Now for ten years we'd moved on from Digg
And greed grows fast for a ventured pig
But that's not how it used to be
When the users came for the cats and memes
From apps made by the community
And content that came from you and me

Oh, and while those cats were growing old
The number crunchers grew too bold 
The communities dismissed
Now everyone is pissed

And while Lemmy federates with Marx
The concept knocks it from the park
It's time to migrate to an ark
The day that Reddit died

So bye, bye, old Reddit API
Stuck with Huffman through some updates but the updates were shite
And them good ole boys were snortin' gonewild 'n smite
Postin' this'll be the day that it dies
This'll be the day Reddit dies
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I have a pretty good feeling that lemmy.ml is going to be the next reddit.com. Sure, there's different instances of the federation, but this one seems more developed than most of the others.

you can mention or message anyone on any website using their address.

So someone on a Mastadon community of servers could ping me in their server/website and I'd get a notification?

And can posts on one Lemmy server also show up in another Lemmy server? Like could a post be made here, braodcast into the lemmy-verse, and appear on another Lemmy website?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yeah, it looks like it. I saw a message yesterday from someone posting a toot on Mastodon that showed up here, and I replied and they confirmed they got it. So I think they're all connected somehow.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yup, posting this from Mastodon. I love this integration. Curious to see what's possible with this.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

So are you able to read the Lemmy posts and comment threads using a mastodon app? Or through a mastodon implementation?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

I'm using the official Mastodon app. Browsing Lemmy communities is a bit awkward this way since they're essentially just another account retooting every user's comments and replies in threads. But I can search for individual comments through permalinks. Your response also triggered a regular notification in Mastodon.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

@nutomic @caos is this the year of the linux desktop (lemmy)? ^^

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 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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[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Something I just found out in the Settings page that I wish existed in every social media site: you can turn off scores!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Yup! Hiding scores is absolutely better for our psychology. Constantly checking feedback numbers can be like a drug sometime.

We devs have a responsibility to not go along with all of the addictive UI patterns that silicon valley pays psychology-phds to help them develop. So there are some things we've chosen not to display, like total karma counts on your profile.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago

Testing, is this on?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Hi all! Happy to be here. Been thinking about moving to an open source federated reddit-like for a while now, and the imminent death of RiF is what finally pushed me to sign up. Spent the last hour or so poking around different communities, and like what I see.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

One neat thing is that because Lemmy is ActivityPub, your posts show up on anything that follows the ActivityPub protocol (like Mastodon).

Speaking of which - hello from Mastodon!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Glad to have you!

Federation is really our best hope to beat these US tech giants. People making instances and connecting with each other, and cultivating communities here and on other instances.

At some point I think the fediverse / lemmyverse will reach a critical mass where there's enough good content, that people won't feel the need to open up reddit at all.

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