Signing up
Pick an interface. Do you prefer to browse Reddit with:
- apollo: try https://wefwef.app
- old.reddit.com: try https://lemmy.world
- reddit.com: try https://kbin.social
Flip a coin, pick an instance. Are you:
- indecisive: use https://lemmy.world
- decisive: see https://github.com/maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instances
- using https://kbin.social: you already have an instance
Building momentuum
- Jumpstart your subscription list using https://redditmigration.com
- Try commenting or posting. Just try it! Many people who stopped engaging on reddit find the community more rewarding here.
- Try sticking with Lemmy / Kbin for a few days. Until your fingers learn to get their fix a new way, and you get your subscription list built up a bit.
What next?
Many people are happy at this point… but what to do if you want to help the switch to fediverse but you’re still jonesing for reddit after a few days? A few ideas….
- Its OK! Reddit simply has more volume and a bigger stack of communities as of Jun 30, 2023. Its /probably/ (?) not going to disappear overnight. Its not an either/or, you can use lemmy / kbin more and more over time.
- Start your internet browsing time on lemmy / kbin first. If you’re “still hungry”, supplement with reddit.
- Consider instituting a “read only reddit” policy: no posts, comments, or upvotes. Its MUCH easier to stop adding to Reddit than it is to quit cold turkey. If you don’t like reddit’s behavior, this is a good way to collectively switch momentum toward the fediverse without making big personal sacrifices.
Holy shit. Wefwef is so fucking good
It’s honestly the best progressive web app I’ve ever used.
what is a progressive web app? Is it like a pseudo-app built into a browser like Safari?
A PWA is an app that’s built on web platform technologies and use the browser engine to emulate a native platform app that uses platform specific technologies (Android, iOS). Since they use the browser to serve functionality, they can be presented on any operating system, and the browser UI is supplanted by the app UI. It can still be deeply integrated into the device, so you can install it to your phone, you get the icon, they can access functions of the device, like notifications, running in the background, running offline even in some use cases. Just instead of the device OS providing the backend, the browser functions as the backend. It’s basically a website wrapper, though I hesitate to call it that for fear of being reductive.
Oh, that’s good to know. That actually makes a lot of sense. Is this the future way of making apps for devices? Can a PWA work on both iOS and Android by just having the url? Sorry for all the questions, it’s actually quite interesting to hear about.
My knowledge is really surface level as I’m not a developer. I’m just fascinated by stuff like this and seeing how far they can push it. It doesn’t seem like web apps have taken off the way that native apps have, but part of that is people getting better and better internet over time and more powerful phones, so that things can run without the jank. It does work on both iOS and Android in modern browsers just by going to the URL. Wefwef really is quite stunning, especially if you take into account how new it is and how much they’ve done in so little time. Another good one is https://weather.com, which you can install the same way.
It feels almost native. I hope they eventually make it native. But even if not I’ll keep using just cuz it’s the best we’ve got.
Try Memmy, its on TestFlight
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It is amazing. Made the experience of switching almost pain free. Lemmy still lacks a lot of content that was on Reddit, but it will come with time. I’m also digging lemmy.world. The server seems a bit beefer than lemmy.ml, where I started off. I was getting a lot of errors and slow requests, but not after switching.
It is making my transition to Lemmy soooooo much better.
RIP Apollo
It’s kind of shocking to me that the best app is a webapp. But it clearly makes the decision to just outright copy Apollo and there are a lot worse ways to go.
Might be a stupid question, but I iust signed up for lemmy.world today and wanted to add some communities from the migration list here. The equivalent of r/anarchychess is listed as https://sopuli.xyz/c/anarchychess and on my first visit to that site I couldn’t really figure out how to subscribe… in this case sopuli would be the hosting instance if I understand. Do I need a sopuli account to subscribe and just add that account to my lemmy app? Or did I just not find the right option?
Noob here too.
I don’t think you need another account on the separate instance as long as it’s federated to lemmy.world
I think you need to subscribe to the following
https://lemmy.world/c/anarchychess@sopuli.xyz
source of my info https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/2212
The best way to link communities is like this:
You should be able to click that :)
You can also just do a search for it and it should pop up.
I don’t think you can link communities like that ? Or maybe it’s only supported in some clients / instances. My understanding is that you need to link them by using the usual markdown link syntax (or the link button below the editor) and input /c/anarchychess@sopuli.xyz as the link target.
Like this:
[anarchychess](/c/anarchychess@sopuli.xyz)Which will render like this:
Note however that I’ve had some problems with this previously. I suspect that the first time someone tries to access a remote community from whatever instance you’re on, your instance runs some heavy API queries which are prone to failure if either instance is under heavy load.
Your instance is pretty outdated. Most have updated to 0.18, while you’re still on 0.17.3
In 0.18 you can just type !community@instance and it will automatically link it and keep you on your own instance
Neat, good to know!
I figured it out I think! The problem was that the link basically opened in a browser, and the browser has no idea what my Lemmy.world login is. My Lemmy App (Connect) has a search bar on the left side where I had to enter the community name and choose the right instance. IE there were 3 different Anarchychess communities with the same name, but the Sopuli instance was the “right” one. Going to the page trough the search bar allowed me to subscribe like I wanted.
Yeah there’s lots of competing communities with similar or the same name. Usually picking the most active one will be the best bet. One will win and become the default just give it a little time
Or subscribe to both and get double dosage of fun.
Use the web interface and search for either:
Or
The full url like you linked it.
Be patient, if it’s a community that’s new to your server it may take a couple minutes to find it.
I say to use the web interface because all the apps are rather immature and inconsistent in their handling of this.
I’ve only just signed up for Lemmy myself, but it looks like you can access federated communites with URLs like https://lemmy.world/c/anarchychess@sopuli.xyz
There’s probably a more ergonomic way to get there than manually constructing the URL though!
Search for !community@server or the original url.
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I urge everyone to support a community you like by posting interesting topics and commenting, and the rest will follow. Don’t just wait for people to do it.
Also add Sub Rehab to the ‘jumpstart your subscription’. Has a bunch of subreddits and a way to submit linked subreddits/communities
I’ve been using wefwef for a bit and just installed memmy. IMHO wefwef has the potential to be great. Memmy is great already - super polished.
Tried downloading the testflight of memmy, but it’s asking for a code. I searched the github but didn’t find one =/
Is Memmy on Android?
I think it’s iOS only. I migrated from Apollo. Looks like there a bunch of cool Android clients coming out soon though.
I’ve been using Mlem on iOS. Super polished too!
Just tried out mlem. Feels very apollo-y. Thanks for the heads up
wefwef is such a life saver. It literally feels like Apollo.
Is it me or kbin just doesn’t federate properly? Its always lacking comments on many posts.
I can’t get kbin to federate at all to my Lemmy server. Other Lemmys work fine.
There’s a map of subredits and their new homes, seb.rehab. Many are official others are just copies. You can filter the list to just lemmy communities and kbin magazine.
Thank you for this, one part I’m still struggling with and would appreciate help…
How do I subscribe to a community that is on another instance and have it show up on my account? Example - I have an account here at lemmy.world, but there’s https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/c/piracy community and I’d love to see their posts in one place on my lemmy.world account. How do I do this? If I navigate to that link, it asks me to create a lemmy.dbzer0 account to subscribe so i dont think i’m following the correct pathway
eta - nevermind i figured it out. going to leave my comment here for others though
so what you have to do is search for that community on your own instance and then select it and subscribe that way. Can’t follow the link directly to the instance, but rather have to search using lemmy.world’s search and follow the link from there. So for instance: https://lemmy.world/c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
(if there’s a more straightforward way, i’d still appreciate tips)
You got it right, if you want to use your lemmy.world account, you gotta browse through lemmy.world.
Going to https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/c/piracy you would need a lemmy.dbzer0.com account.
You can also link to another community on another instance with this syntax: !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
thanks, glad those sort of autopopulate once you start typing ! and then the community name. Would probably screw it up if it didnt haha
ELI5: What does “pick an instance” mean? What would I be deciding on?
Basically do you like the administration policies of the instance. All instances can speak to all other instances, unless instances block each other.
Lemmy isn’t one website, it’s a bunch of websites talking to each other and people choose to moderate in their own manner, and can also choose to stop talking to other websites if they deem them to be a problem.
It’s less obvious when picking between big general ones, but here’s some examples:
- beehaw.org: A curated instance with extremely heavy moderation. Leans centre-left.
- lemmynsfw.com: It’s in the name - allows NSFW (porn) posts, which other instances tend not to like hosting.
- lemmy.dbzer0.com: Primarily focused around Piracy, something other instances wouldn’t be comfortable hosting.
- exploding-heads.com: “Free speech” instance (you know what that means)
- lemmygrad.ml: Extreme-left instance, labelled as “tankies” by most people.
Then other than that, you have the big general ones such as lemmy.world, lemmy.ml, sh.itjust.works, and so on. Each of those will have their own rules, but tend to be about anything and everything, but it’s still important to learn how they moderate their instances!
Don’t forget though, no matter which instance you pick, you can still interact with all the other instances unless they are blocked (which they are in some cases for various reasons).
Will my account work at all instances or does it only work for lemmy.world (where i first registered it)?
Your account only works where you registered it. You browse other communities through your lemmy.world instance. Use the search function or the All tab and you’ll see what I mean.
Imagine you’re on a forum with your account, but then you can use the search feature to search posts on another forum and reply to them from there.
All users and communities have names like e-mail addresses, like
user@instanceorcommunity@instance, anything that doesn’t have the middle @ is on the same instance as you.It’ll make sense after some browsing.
This is great info. Thank you!
I did browse and try a bunch of stuff today and it does make a lot more sense now. I just hope the performance is going to be able to keep up with the demand! There was a lot of glitches and I’m guessing it’s because of all the new users (like me lol)
OP here: IMO choosing an instance is mostly a big decision about nothing. What I mean is its an annoying barrier of a decision you gotta make to play that’s both cheap to change AND probably will have very little impact on your experience.
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In two weeks you probably won’t care which instance you picked. 90% of instances are going to be relatively generic: same posts, same communities, same federation.
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If for some reason you do regret your first pick in a couple weeks, you’ll know, and you probably won’t feel like its a big deal to switch. There’s no karma, and losing your account’s link to a couple weeks of post/comment history is, at least to me, a little 🤷♀️.
My advice would be: pick any semi generic instance to start (e.g. lemmy.world), and if you’re curious about more curated instances (there’s a lot less of these, most notable is beehaw.org) make an account on them a few days later just to check out the vibe.
The only wrong decision is to waffle lol.
If I want to switch to say, Beehaw, would I need a different username? Also, I just looked at the Politics community on Beehaw, and it’s different than the Politics community on LemmyWorld. Shouldn’t they be the same?
It would probably be a good idea not to keep recommending lemmy.world as the default instance at this point, given how much larger it has become compared to other instances.
Lemm.ee is a much better recommendation. The server is stable, well-run, and has a lot of room for large growth.
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Well you already did! There’s different servers that host lemmy, each with their own admins and rules. You’ve signed up on lemmy.world, and you can use this one account to interact with other federated instances.
Well hey! Look at me go! :)
I’m still having a bit of trouble using Lemmy. I have Jerboa on my phone but I can’t use it right now, it says something about a version lower than v0.18 and trying a different instance and I can’t log-in on my phone’s browser because the circle just keeps spinning. I’m on my laptop and I feel like if I log this out, I’m gonna have troubles logging in again.
People need to stop recommending lemmy.world when it has so many people already; join lemm.ee, vlemmy.net, or lemmy.one instead.
Or see if there’s an instance for your local community. For example I’m Dutch, so I joined feddit.nl. This makes filtering by Local (as opposed to Subscribed or All) actually usefully to see what’s new on communities on the instance.
I had the same issue. It seems that lemmy.world is not yet upgraded to 0.18, but Jerboa requires it. I was able to fix it by downloaded an older version of Jerboa (specifically, version 0.34 or older).
I later switched to Liftoff, which seems to be a much smoother experience.
Lemmy.world is a heavily loaded instance. You may be better off trying somewhere smaller. lemmy.one is pretty decent.
Well, part of it is the lemmy.world instance struggling with all the new user influx. The Jerboa issue will hopefully get fixed later today when lemmy.world updates to version 0.18.1 (fingers crossed it sticks this time).
If you are looking for other options to interface with Lemmy, there is a list of all current (and upcoming) apps here: https://lemmy.world/post/465785
Lemmy.world just upgraded to 0.18 a couple of hours ago. Still a little sluggish but has improved significantly over the last half hour.
Had the same problem, I’m using Connect for Lemmy on Android right now, hope it helps. However I’m using Sync for Lemmy once the development ends
Just installed connect. It’s nice!
Thanks for this. Im a total noob and trying to learn all these new sites and lingo. Now i know enough to be dangerous.
Consider instituting a “read only reddit” policy
One should also log-out of Reddit if possible.
Excellent post! I know I can’t switch from Reddit all at once, I was kind of booted off a few hours ago once my app stopped connecting. I anticipate it’ll be a lot of fun exploring new communities here. There was a bit of a routine to checking my default subs in Reddit, being forced to change things up might help to expand my interests.
