Skip Navigation
Lemmy.ca's Main Community @lemmy.ca
Otter @lemmy.ca

Welcome New Users!

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:

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 :)

162 comments

  • absolutely new to here (and to Lemmy, just learn that this exist today from.. well .. reddit) Glad to be here and glad to move on from there. Thanks to all the folks who host this, setting this up, and making this happen!

  • A couple of notes and unsolicited advice as someone who is almost an old hand already...

    (1) Your front-page will be more interesting as you subscribe to more things. You can subscribe to things from other Lemmy servers and they will be pulled into your feed here.

    (2) Communities that are hosted on this server will show up under "Local".

    (3) "All" shows all of the local content from (2), but also any content that this server had to fetch from other servers for others. Basically, when you subscribe to stuff, it'll end up in All for everyone else on this server as well. If no one on the server has subscribed to specific content from another server, it won't show up in All. As a result, All is sort of a cross section of our users' interests.

    (4) If you were to sign up for another server -- say lemm.ee -- you would get a different Local and All. But you should be able to subscribe to the same things regardless of the server you chose.

    (5) Some servers are not connected to others, for reasons. This is called defederation. It's basically a means to block an entire server who has a community not behaving in a way that doesn't jive well on your local server. Lemmygrad.ml is blocked from this server, for example. You probably won't notice, but on rare occasions you can't subscribe to a community on a blocked server.

    (6) You can help the quieter communities grow by shitposting. Throw your backlog of old saved memes into them. There isn't as much traffic here as reddit, and the niche communities often don't exist (or are silent).

    (7) Find a larger community to post to for engagement. For example, on Reddit I would subscribe to the WinnipegJets team sub, but on Lemmy it is too quiet. So instead I post my Jets content to the more general Hockey community so we can have some discussion. This will change over time.

    (8) A good place to find communities to subscribe to is: https://lemmyverse.net/communities -- copy and paste the community name -- eg: !technology@lemmy.world -- into the search bar and then subscribe.

    (9) Meow

    (10) Try different sort options. New or Scales are my favourites.

  • I'm happy to see new users joining Lemmy and every instance out there big and small.

    One thing everyone should consider and think of is .... funding and supporting the Fediverse.

    Every new user should consider and think about supporting the fediverse through a donation as they use this new community in order for it to remain free to use, open and freely available for everyone. We all like to believe that these things can be just free to use without any of us having to pay for any of it. We also like to think that people just magically and without reward or compensation just work in the background for free to keep all this software, hardware, equipment and organization running.

    We don't have to spend a fortune to keep funding these projects, but we should contribute something to it even if it is a small amount. If thousands of users spend a dollar, then it would add up to thousands of dollars to keep this whole system well funded. I know I've chatted with a few of the instance owners and have read what developers have written in the past ... many of them have well paying jobs and have commercial work themselves that they do and they enjoy doing the work on Lemmy as either a hobby or passion project. However, I also know that as the popularity of these platforms grow, expenses add up for more hardware requirements, new hardware requirements, software management, security management and even having people monitoring everything online around the clock. Eventually, no matter how you cut it ... work, time, effort, equipment all ends up costing money to someone at some point. And those costs only increase as popularity grows. And those payments have to come from somewhere.

    Donating a little bit and funding even just a little from everyone should be a new norm we should all accept. Otherwise, any new social media we create, no matter how open source we want it to be will slowly just be affected by corporate rot and get taken over again by those who would like to lock everything behind a wall and make the most money from it.

    Donating to Lemmy.ca (run by the non-profit Fedecan)
    https://fedecan.ca/en/donate

    Donating to the Lemmy Software developers
    https://join-lemmy.org/donate

    Donating to The Fediverse Foundation
    https://fediverse.foundation/en/spenden/

    But also ... Donate to the instance you are on and support the people who maintain your instance.

  • Glad to be here. I wanted to get off Reddit for obvious reasons.

  • Hello Lemmy.ca,

    Super new here, but super happy to find this exists. I hope it grows and keeps gaining in popularity despite the clunky nature which I think is inherent to the Fediverse (am I saying that right?).

    My story is probably like a lot of people here. Reddit was my only actual social media account. Never did the Twitter/Facebook/Instagram, whatever else. Reddit was how I got my news and I was fine with that.

    But back in January when this whole Tariff thing was first winding up, I decided to go hard and start my American boycott. I cancelled Netflix and Disney+ (I haven't missed them for one second, which makes me wonder why I was paying for them anyway), I cancelled my Xbox Gamepass. I was already boycotting all things Amazon and Wal-mart. You get the idea. Reddit though, it didn't feel like a betrayal - r/onguardforthee was my Canadian politics news source of choice and I wasn't giving them any money.

    But it occurs to me, when engagement numbers is how these guys convince investors to prop them up with no sustainable business model - I sort of was doing some damage. So, I set off looking for an alternative and here I am.

    We have so little power to influence things these days it can feel pointless to make changes. Changes to our social media site of choice. Changes to our buying habits. How much does it really add up? But my father taught me, and I bet yours did too, you don't do the right thing because it guarantees the right outcome. You do it so you can look in the mirror at the end of the day. Thanks for helping me look in the mirror.

    • Good on you. Most OGFT canucks fit right in here. 🍁

    • It made me happy to read that, thank you for writing it. Especially this part:

      But my father taught me, and I bet yours did too, you don't do the right thing because it guarantees the right outcome. You do it so you can look in the mirror at the end of the day. Thanks for helping me look in the mirror.

      Welcome to lemmy.ca, please let us know if there's anything we can help with 😊

    • Welcome! I think you'll find that the clunkiness dissolves into the background pretty quickly. Peoples' biggest stumbling block after signup is often that you can find communities with the same name on different websites, and that kind of offends some folks' sensibilities. Coming from OGFT, though, I think you can already appreciate that Reddit had multiple communities fighting over names anyway.

      The admins here have been absolute power houses, so I know they'll be only too quick to provide any help that you need, or answer questions about the site or nuances about the underlying tech. And some of us regulars have been around here for a few years now, and even predate the site, thanks to the way federated services can communicate across site types (I started on Mastodon, for instance, and have been kicking the tires on nodeBB).

      It's a fun little experiment in internet anarchism.

  • @otter@lemmy.ca, do you know what the catalyst was for the recent influx? It’s great news!

    • I'm not sure if there was a particularly viral post (aside from a few mentions of r/BuyCanadian), but I know we've also been mentioned in comment sections all over. Copying from another comment:

      Going off of what people have mentioned in the registration applications, it is a combination of

      • wanting to support Canadian, and avoiding American tech companies (due to tariffs and other concerns)
      • concerns with how big tech has changed for the worse these past few months
      • Reddit's recent actions, such as banning (and then reversing) a bunch of communities and the recent paywall announcement
      • learning about it for the first time and being excited about the concept

      The first point is why lemmy.ca has seen more relative growth this week than the others, but a lot of fediverse instances have seen growth recently

  • Is there any interest in taking donations on Librapay or Open collective again?

    • We haven't revisited our donation methods yet, but we will at some point.

      If you have a moment, could you share why you'd prefer to have Librapay / Open collective over the existing options? No wrong answers, I just wanted to copy it into our notes for when we revisit all that

      • I think I’d like those options for a couple of reasons. First would be recurring payments in Canadian dollars. Second would be more visibility for financial contributions, help to see you’re apart of community of donors, and lastly I think these two institutions seem aligned with the values of federation, and bottom up community driven initiatives.

  • 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.

      • Thank you for clarifying! Now I understand a bit more how it works. 😁

      • 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.

        This is a great comment, but I do want to correct this statement; Jerboa is developed by the same people who created Lemmy.

    • 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:

      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 😊

      • Thank you so much for your perspective. I'll be sure to check them out as soon as I can, and as I increasingly integrate myself in this platform. Cheers! 😄

    • 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.

      • That's great to know, and will try to compare. Can't say I had yet trouble with Jerboa, but then again only today did I start to nuke my reddit history - initiating the full switch to Lemmy. Any info is always welcome, stay well! 😁

  • 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.

  • 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.

    • Would you be able to share an example? (Short description or screenshot is fine)

      We might be able to clarify or add it to the guides in the future

      • The question was "What type of stuff are you buying off Aliexpress?"

        I started responding with "toys, cleaning supplies, phone cases, etc." And then I noticed I was responding to a post on ** Aliexpress@programming.dev**

        So I felt like my response wouldn't be as helpful or would be off-topic because I was responding on the programming.dev instance.

        Right? That makes sense right? LOL

  • 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.

162 comments