Hello! Still mostly hanging out at Reddit but I see the writing on the wall and am trying to at the very least diversify, and hopefully make a full switch soon. Very grateful that this is here - both Lemmy and this particular resource.
this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2025
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Lemmy.ca's Main Community
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Welcome to the lemmy.ca/c/main community!
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founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
We have gotten a lot of new signups over the past few days, and we're all very excited to have you joining us! You'll find that people are more than happy to help you get started and learn how to use the site.
If you feel up for it, you can introduce yourself or ask questions below!
We have put together some resources to help new users get started:
You can also read:
- A quick overview of Lemmy
- A detailed guide on how Lemmy works
- A quick overview of 'the Fediverse'
- Learn about the non-profit that runs this site
These guides were published very recently, and we will be updating them over time. If you find that something is confusing or missing, please let us know and we can improve them further.
For an organized list of Canadian communities (provinces/territories, Cities / Local , Sports, Schools, BuyCanadian, CanadaPolitics etc.), see this post on !Canada@lemmy.ca. You can also ask about communities in places like !CommunityPromo@lemmy.ca.
We also encourage you to check out !NewToLemmy@lemmy.ca, so that others can help you / learn from your questions.
Welcome to Lemmy :)
Thank you. I'm in, I need something that doesn't feed me an algorithm.
Welcome :)
If anyone is curious, the post sorting calculations are also public (the code is open source). As a summary:
https://join-lemmy.org/docs/contributors/07-ranking-algo.html
- Active uses the post votes, and latest comment time (limited to two days).
- Hot uses the post votes, and the post published time.
- Scaled is similar to Hot, but gives a boost to smaller / less active communities.
No more hidden algorithms was a big one for me. I personally use 'Scaled', and sometimes flip to the other ones to take a peek
Bonjour amigos!
Hi! Great to be here, thanks! First Lemmy post ever, too.
I'm sure I'm not the first one in this Reddit exodus to mention this, but can we assume maybe there's an interest in refining the Lemmy experience to be a bit more streamlined and user friendly? As in, simpler to navigate and less dependent in tech-saviness.
For example, I had some confusion just to create my Lemmy account, or even download and sign-in to the Jerboa app. There's many Lemmy related pages and apps, which can be quite confusing and discouraging for most users showing interest in moving over. And I do consider myself tech-savvy, so I'm sure most people I know would just give up on it.
I know this is a somewhat sudden and unexpected move, and the last thing I want is to create unnecessary pressure on Lemmy, as these things take time, naturally.
Anyways I wish you well, and lots of success. I'll try my best and make this platform my main reddit-like one.
So, there are a couple of issues with 'streamlining', the big one being that Lemmy isn't a single service, controlled by a single entity. It's a website engine, that lets anyone create a reddit-like content aggregator service. There are a thousand "Lemmys" out there, each one owned and operated independently from each other. Most of them are just engaged in an implicit content free-trade agreement.
So, how do you streamline that?
The apps are also made by whoever wants to make them. And none of them are made by the development team behind the Lemmy software.
How do you streamline that?
And, importantly, do you want to? Because stream-lining means centralizing ownership of it all, which leads us right back to the kind of situation that every major social platform is currently experiencing: taking away control from the user.
The tech isn't the barrier. It's the communication. People keep saying "join Lemmy!" as if it's a place you can go to, and not 1000 different places.
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Kichae did a good job of explaining some of the limitations, and I also agree with you that there's more we can do for user-friendliness while still respecting decentralization.
One of the things we've done is put together the guides above, which I'm hoping can help reduce confusion on how this new platform works and what the differences / benefits are. If they DO help, then one solution could be to share the guides around and hope that it acts as the first introduction for people. There are a lot of confusing resources out there (ex. that infographic that gets posted around), so I'm hoping that over time we can improve these guides over time to be as helpful as possible.
We'd love some feedback on the guides if you have a chance to go through them! In particular, these seem relevant to the areas you were confused about:
- Quick overview of Lemmy (goes over account creation)
- Where to find mobile apps (discusses why there are multiple, and how to pick one
- Quick overview of the Fediverse (goes over why decentralization is key to the Fediverse, and important for fixing the problems with old social media)
In addition, if you have any thoughts on the order of the guide pages and areas that are still confusing
The Lemmy software itself is also open-source, and there's often discussion about what can be improved. Similarly, there are a few other Lemmy compatible projects in the works that are doing things slightly differently, such as Piefed and Mbin. As you get settled in and familiar with things, these communities might be of interest to you:
Welcome to lemmy.ca / the fediverse 😊
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I use both iOS and Android to access lemmy, I think Boost on Android is the best app, and I use mlem on iOS.
I had issues with jerboa when I switched over, I don't think I would recommend it to newcomers.
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Hi hello. Just got my Lemmy account today. A refugee from Reddit. I had been a reddit user for over 11 years. Apparently I pissed off an admin saying something. I'm not sure exactly what because the comment was deleted and they banned me. I assume the comment was related to Canada and Trump nonsense. Whatever.
This is actually great timing because I didn't want to use a social media company in the US given the state they are in now and the direction they're heading.
Being a left leaning Canadian, getting banned from reddit was probably just a matter of time anyway.
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Accounts and anonymity?
For social media, I don't mind using my real name and email to register as long as only my username shows on posts or image uploads.
When I upload an image, what can other users see?
Reddit has become just an absolute dumpster fire lately. Anything even remotely negative and bam you're banned. Even the gifs i could post got so limited. I'm done with it, and am joining the exodus.
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I start to respond to a post or comment that I see on NEW. I finish and right before I hit post, I notice the instance/server is completely unrelated to my response and I deleted my post :) - It's an added nuance to Lemmy that takes some getting used to.
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