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A Beginner's Guide to Lemmy for Redditors
Have you stumbled upon a post, comment, or message urging you to "try out Lemmy"? The intrigue is there, but the question of "where to start?" remains. A quick Google search for "Lemmy" may lead to numerous similar-looking sites, and words like "federation" and "instances" from post replies might add to the confusion. But don't let these hurdles deter you.
Admittedly, conversations surrounding Lemmy can be perplexing. However, once you navigate the initial learning curve, Lemmy serves as a fantastic Reddit alternative.
This guide is designed to simplify your transition from Reddit to Lemmy. Carefully structured, it doesn't overload you with information; instead, it progressively delves deeper, layer by layer. To kickstart your journey, we'll begin with the most basic step: the registration process.
Getting Started
Visit https://lemmy.world. Click Sign Up at the top right, then enter your desired username, email, and password. If the Sign Up button continues spinning after you've clicked it, it likely means the username you've chosen is already in use. This issue is due to a current site error failing to inform users of username unavailability. To confirm, search for the username's profile page at "https://lemmy.world/u/[your-chosen-username]".
After account creation, check your email inbox for the verification link from lemmy.world. Be patient, as the email may take up to 30 minutes to arrive and could possibly be sorted into your spam folder. After verification, log in by clicking Login at the top right of lemmy.world, then entering your username and password.
You're now all set! This process mirrors other social media platforms: create an account, verify your email, then log in.
You can now start exploring content. Posts, comments, upvotes, downvotes, users, mods, admins, and communities (Lemmy's version of Subreddits) all function similarly to Reddit. Try the "Top Day" or "New" sorting options in "All" mode for fresh content.
That's everything you need to begin. If you wish, you can delve into Lemmy's technology that helps future-proof it against issues that have affected platforms like Reddit.
Note: It's good practice to use a unique password for each internet service you use.
Lemmy Instances
A Lemmy site operates much like a standalone Reddit clone. On lemmy.world, for instance, you can invite others to create an account and join you as if it were an independent Reddit alternative.
As I touched on earlier, there are various other sites displaying the same Lemmy layout. This is due to the fact that Lemmy's technology is available for anyone to set up their own site. Its developers have made it freely accessible and open to public modification, while also prohibiting commercial exploitation.
However, for most users, it's more practical to use an existing Lemmy site like lemmy.world. Creating your own is a complex task, and there's no guarantee of attracting visitors.
While I've been referring to these as "Lemmy websites", a more accurate term is "Lemmy instances". Each instance has its own storage for all posts and users within it, which is accessed by both the website and any mobile apps.
The split between website/app and instance mirrors how email apps interact with email servers. Just as any email app can connect to Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, or any other email server, an app that communicates using "Lemmy" can connect to lemmy.world, lemmy.ml, or any other Lemmy instance.
Lemmy Federation
Theoretical Overview
Major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit function independently. Cross-platform interactions are limited to manually copying and pasting links. You can share a tweet from Twitter to Reddit, but Reddit users have to open Twitter to see it.
Now, picture this: You receive a tweet within your Facebook app, reply using your Facebook account, and a Reddit user sees the tweet and responds using Reddit. Everyone sees the original tweet and all the replies, regardless of their platform. You can even follow Twitter users from Facebook, merging their tweets into your Facebook feed, negating the need to ever leave Facebook for Twitter interactions.
In this analogy, Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit each represent Lemmy instances. This demonstrates the truth behind the claim, "it does not matter on which Lemmy instance you register, and you only need to register on one." All Lemmy instances display the same posts and comments, and allow you to follow all users and communities. They do this by collaborating and exchanging data in a process known as "federation".
Additionally, you can respond to a post from an offline Lemmy instance while using a different one. If Twitter were to go offline currently, users wouldn't be able to reply to tweets. However, in a "federated" system like Lemmy, other platforms store the last known replies to a tweet and allow you to queue a reply for when Twitter is back online. If you reply to a tweet from another platform while Twitter is offline, other users on that platform will see your response immediately. When Twitter is back online, all replies are sent and added to the original tweet, making them visible to users on all platforms.
Practical Navigation
Sounds promising, but how does one practically navigate Lemmy and manually find content from other instances? Subscribing to communities and sending messages to users on different instances can be quite confusing on Lemmy.
The main takeaway: To find "original" content from other instances, paste their links into the search bar on the Lemmy instance where you have your account.
Communities and Users
Suppose you've registered on lemmy.world following this guide, hence your account is stored there. Now, a friend invites you to join the "music" community on lemmy.ml. You might instinctively try to log in on lemmy.ml, only to find you're not logged in and cannot use your lemmy.world account.
Instead, remain on lemmy.world. To join the "music" community on lemmy.ml, click the search icon in the top right corner of lemmy.world (not the "Communities" link) and type !music@lemmy.ml, including the exclamation mark (!) at the start. Click Search, and the community should appear. Typically, the search term is "![community-name]@[instance-name]".
Finding users follows a similar process. To locate me ("Amir" on lemmy.ml), click the same search icon and type @Amir@lemmy.ml, including the at sign (@) at the start. Exclamation marks precede communities, while at signs precede users. Usually, the search term is "@[user-name]@[instance-name]".
You can also use the full link to a community or user on another instance. For instance, pasting "https://lemmy.ml/u/Amir" into the search bar on lemmy.world will bring up my account.
Posts and Comments
If you receive a link to a post or comment from a Lemmy instance other than your own, paste it into your home instance's search bar, much like finding a community or user. This allows you to interact with it via your own account.
However, there's an issue when sharing links across instances. Suppose you open a lemmy.ml link on lemmy.world—either from your feed or by pasting it in the search bar—and then share that post within lemmy.world. The shared link, such as https://lemmy.world/post/123456, differs from the original, https://lemmy.ml/post/234567.
Suppose you share the lemmy.world link with someone from beehaw.org (another Lemmy instance), and they attempt to open it via their search bar on beehaw.org. This fails as they'd essentially be attempting to view a post on beehaw.org, which is a view on lemmy.world, of a post on lemmy.ml. This would create a confusing chain of links if multiple people were to continue sharing like this. To avoid this, Lemmy's developers require you to find and share the original link.
To view the post on, say, beehaw.org, either you or the receiver must find the original link on lemmy.ml. This is quite straightforward: open any "incorrect" link to the post and click the colorful rainbow star icon adjacent to or below the post. This will direct you to the original link. The beehaw.org user can then paste that link into their beehaw.org search bar and interact with the content as expected.
Admittedly, this is currently Lemmy's biggest challenge. However, mobile apps are in development and are expected to streamline this process soon™.
(Note: The post links contain random numbers. The actual content they point to is unknown to me.)
Lemmy Defederation
Some Lemmy instance owners may choose to restrict their users from interacting with content from certain other instances, a process known as defederation. This entails instances refusing to share content with others through the use of banlists. If the instance you've registered on either defederates or is defederated, there could be content you may wish to see that won't appear in your feed.
There's a common misconception that "it doesn't matter which Lemmy instance you register on." While this claim would hold true in an ideal world, the reality is different. Some owners choose to defederate all instances they perceive as "too political," while others staunchly uphold "zero censorship," refusing to defederate even those instances that exclusively host hate speech.
It's essential to choose an instance that aligns with your content moderation philosophy. From my experience, lemmy.world is the easiest to recommend due to its near 100% uptime. I've also heard good things about sh.itjust.works. However, if you're skeptical of taking advice from a stranger on the internet (me), I encourage you to ask around and find an instance that meets your trustworthiness criteria.
The Fediverse
Lemmy aims to fill the void left by Reddit, but its underlying federation technology, which unites all Lemmy instances, is not limited to Reddit-like platforms. For instance, "Mastodon"—to Twitter what Lemmy is to Reddit—popularized federation years ago, amidst Twitter's growing challenges. If you're interested in exploring federated alternatives to Facebook, you might try "kbin." Numerous federated clones of popular centralized networks exist; you can find them at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse
All these platforms employ the same underlying technology, ActivityPub, facilitating certain levels of interaction between them. You can even find comments on Lemmy from Mastodon and kbin users! This interconnectivity forms the basis of the "Fediverse": a multitude of services collaborating to create one global network.
Conclusion
While I've observed other Reddit alternatives emerge—such as Squabbles, Tildes, Raddle, and Teddit—I remain skeptical of their longevity. The reality is that their proprietors could, at any moment, follow in the footsteps of Steve Huffman (/u/spez) and trigger yet another mass internet migration.
For those who doubt the viability of decentralization, consider email, a system that's been reliable for at least 40 years and remains one of the most critical communication channels today. Its sustained relevance is due in part to the absence of centralized pressures pushing for continual profit growth.
And which decentralized networks continue to persist? Cellular phone lines and the internet itself.
If we, as consumers, aim to break the cycle of platform migration, we should gravitate towards a platform that is indestructible. A platform that's not owned by any single entity but serves everyone. By definition, this platform must be federated.
Links
Official list of instances:
https://join-lemmy.org/instances
Community-created instance recommendations:
https://github.com/maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instances
Community-created subreddit migration list:
Source code for Lemmy:
Setting up your own instance:
https://join-lemmy.org/docs/en/administration/from_scratch.html
Did you get this from ChatGPT?