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.
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:
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)
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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! :)
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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?