Just joined Lemmy after observing how much of a mess Reddit is now. Not really sure how all the parts of this service work together, but am looking forward to trying it out.
Thought I’d share my on-boarding process here in the vaguelly general spot. Perhaps others showing up will want to share their impressions of joining up as well.
I’m a long-time user of Mastodon, so already have a good sense of the Fediverse, its philosophy and workings - so I get how this is set up.
Selecting a server/instance on a Fedi service is always a bit of a decision. I tried to avoid the picking the biggest one here (which I did on Masto and still mean to shift away from it). First small server I tried seemed to die during the signup. Was happy to see Lemmy.one was pretty smooth. Some of the profile settings are a bit cryptic - so I’ll have to figure out what they mean.
Next I shall survey the communities available and hang out a bit. Do people do hashtags here?
Anyway - Hello World.
Hey! I’m new to Lemmy and the Fediverse. I’m currently using the biggest server/instance (lemmy.ml) on Lemmy right now. Is there a reason for why you shouldn’t pick the biggest server/instance? The docs for Lemmy also said to not pick a server with too many people, but it never explained why. I was hoping you could shed some light on that. Thank you!
I’m certainly not an expert (I’m also new to lemmy), but at least in the case of lemmy.ml (where I first signed up for, too) their servers had trouble due to the sheer number of new users. It’s why I decided to move to lemmy.one which has been smoother in my experience since they’re not facing the same issue (yet?).
Ya, after a day or two, I noticed it was almost impossible to browse because of the lag and stuff, so I switched to lemmy.ca and it’s not facing the same issue anymore as well (for now). It’s just smoother. Kept the same username and profile pic though.
I guess the reason you shouldn’t pick the biggest instance is because the server will probably have a hard time keeping up and will cause issues with posting, commenting, browsing, etc.
Welcome :)
Do people do hashtags here?
Lemmy has no special support for hashtags. We generally do not use them. But there will be hashtags leaking through from Mastodon and other fediverse platforms. However, for the Lemmy, they are just a part of the simple text. Nothing to click on, etc. Lemmy was supposed to be community following-driven, as opposed to user of hashtag following-driven #noHashtags I am not sure if any changes are planned in this area. One could always look through the GitHub issues and/or ask the developers. But you can still search for them across posts using the search function at the top right (they would be handled as a normal text again, though).
P.S.: I have never used hashtags, so… What is the appropriate naming convention for hashtags? camelCase, flatcase or something different?
camelCase - as screenreaders pronounce them better.
That is a good point. Thank you for the info.
Hi there - I’ve just joined today too, hoping enough of the reddit userbase migrates to make this a viable alternative. I will say as someone who hasn’t really messed with the fediverse before, an eli5 summary of what lemmy is and how it works / how best to use it would’ve been welcome, but I’ll figure it out as I go.
Welcome - from someone who is still wandering about aimlessly.
Yes, hope this service gets a bunch of redditors and can grow into something like the early days of that platform. Yeah, it’s a bit confusing, but I think having a bit of experience with the Fediverse through mastodon already, it mostly makes sense.
I see there is interconnectedness with masto - and I can see myself here from there, and vice versa. But it appears to be mostly a separate animal.
Lots to learn - will be interesting to see how it evolves with more joining in.
Welcome! Feel free to ask if you have any questions about anything :)
Thank you. Can you explain to me the meaning of the “type” field in the Profile area? Is that some default for what posts are visible maybe? Seems a bit redundant with the similar interface in each community. :)
Good question, yes, it should be renamed to “default sort type” IMO, because it just sets the default for these sorting settings on the homepage:
It doesn’t completely hide non-local posts if you have “local” selected, because as you noted each community has this interface available anyways :)
Okay - thanks. :)
I think it sets which posts are visible to you, not entirely sure though.
Seems possible - I guess I’ll have to play with it a bit. :)
@rossawa looking forward to meeting everyone as well.
