What is Lemmy?

Lemmy is open source software used for running individually hosted social media networks in the style of Reddit. It is built on the ActivityPub protocol, and is part of the Fediverse.

We wrote this introduction with Apes in mind, but you may also want to check out the introduction and tutorials at join-lemmy.org located at https://join-lemmy.org/docs/users/01-getting-started.html

How is Lemmy structured and moderated compared to Reddit?

Lemmy has Instance administrations and Community moderators

The analog is Reddit administrators and Subreddit moderators

Instance admins can perform all mod actions on all communities, just like Reddit admins can perform all mod actions on all subreddits

Meanwhile, Community/Subreddit mods only moderate their community or subreddit

What is the Fediverse?

The Fediverse refers to a collection of social media software which all are open source, independently hosted, and can choose to interact with each other. These software are all built on the same protocol and can interact with each other and share users. When instances opt in to the broader system, they are ‘federated’.

Tips for signing up

When you make an account on a federated Lemmy instance like this one, you can interact with all other instances and communities which are federated. The differences between instances are up to individual instance admins, who decide who can sign up and what content is allowed on their instance along with moderation rules.

https://lemmy.whynotdrs.org/signup

When signing up, Lemmy can freeze up if the username you are trying to register already exists or if you are using a password longer than 63 characters long. As detailed in the instance policies, limiting data collection means that no email account recovery is supported. Please ensure that you save your login information somewhere securely such as a KeePass data file. After signing up, there is a verification process which is manual. Our DRS instance admins do their best to check and approve applicants quickly.

Have you reviewed our Instance Policies?

See here: https://lemmy.whynotdrs.org/post/1209

TLDR: Treat everything you submit to this instance as public. Instance admins (we) will attempt to reduce data collection as much as practicable, and will maintain open access for anyone to view posts and comments on this instance.

Different clients you can use, and how to set them up

Once you have your account created and approved, you can choose to browse Lemmy through an app or other client. You can find some apps here: https://join-lemmy.org/apps/

Web

https://lemmy.whynotdrs.org

Android

iPhone

👀 Following Superstonk via Lemmy

The lemmit.online instance replicates a number of Reddit subs to Lemmy communities through an automated bot which crossposts content. You can follow those communities through your Lemmy account no matter which instance you signed up on.

For Superstonk specifically, just follow [email protected]

For other subs, find the community you are interested in following, and then paste the community’s tag (listed in the community’s sidebar) into the search function on our instance. For example:

How to start a new community on this instance

Click the Create Community option along the top. You’ll need to select the community name, the URL, and optionally can include sidebar content.

On Lemmy, Communities are automatically moderated by the person who creates them. That user can appoint other moderators, pin stickies, and moderate content on that community. It’s very similar to how Subreddits are made and operated.

On the lemmy.whynotdrs.org instance, we welcome all communities who wish to discuss the financial markets and surrounding topics including specific stocks, investing styles, rules and regulations, crypto and web3, and the culture around money itself.

List of non-local communities you may want to subscribe to

You may want to start your Lemmy journey by browsing some of the largest instances and subscribing to some of their communities. These are some of the largest general instances which cover a wide array of topics.

Each instance has its own user base. Your login credentials on your home instance won’t work anywhere else. If you are using the DRS instance as your home instance, how do you find and subscribe to new communities through your own instance?

How to find new Communities to follow

If you’re coming over from Reddit, these three resources can help you find migrations for communities you may have followed on Reddit:

For finding new communities, perhaps the easiest way to find instances and communities is to search for them on https://lemmyverse.net/ - at the top of the screen, you can filter for either instances or for communities. This will parse ALL federated instances and their associated communities, and is very robust - it will search titles, domains, and sidebars in order to help you find things you are interested in.

Set your home instance first. At the top right of the screen, hit the house icon and search for your home instance. Here’s how you can select this DRS instance:

Once your home instance is set, you can easily navigate to communities on any instance by clicking the community name, which will be a generated link.

After that, just hit subscribe on the sidebar and you are good to go!

If necessary, you can create and share URLs which will navigate to any community on any instance from any instance following this formula.

https://lemmy.whynotdrs.org/c/[email protected]

[home instance url] [/c/] [community name] @ [hosting instance name]

Views (New vs Active, and Subscribed vs Local) and setting your default preferences

Okay! You have found some communities to follow - these could be on your home instance, on one of the largest and universal instances, or niche communities found through the network search at lemmyverse.

Just like with Reddit, you have some choices to make about how you want to interact with the communities you joined. Your main choices are the types of posts to display and the communities to display them from.

Lemmy’s own core developers explain it well here: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/users/03-votes-and-ranking.html

Blocking Users, Communities, or Instances which you want to avoid

Each user has the ability to block or hide content from specific users or specific communities.

In the case of users, you can block them in order to avoid seeing comments or posts which they make. Click on a user’s name on a comment or post and you’ll see the option at the top of the screen.

For communities, you can avoid ever seeing their posts on your various feeds. While navigating a community, the option to block it will appear on the right sidebar.

Public Moderation Logs: How they work and how to search them

Lemmy’s moderation logs for all instance administrator actions and community moderator actions are available for public review at all times - and do not require sign up to access.

https://lemmy.whynotdrs.org/modlog

Moderation logs are collected together for all federated instances, and so can be difficult to parse in real time without searching for a specific mod. Once you type the name of an individual mod, select them from the dropdown and you can review all mod or admin actions they have taken. Posts which were removed can also be viewed and scrutinized here. There is complete transparency into moderation actions.

  • Dampmaskin
    4·
    1 year ago

    Nice write-up. I notice you talk about “instance admins” and “instance moderators”, are they the same? If so, maybe they should be consistently called “instance admins”.