Hello everyone, nice to e-meet you :D
this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2025
574 points (99.0% liked)
Lemmy.ca's Main Community
3193 readers
18 users here now
Welcome to the lemmy.ca/c/main community!
All new users on lemmy.ca are automatically subscribed to this community, so this is the place to read announcements, make suggestions, and chat about the goings-on of lemmy.ca.
For support requests specific to lemmy.ca, you can use [email protected].
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 [email protected]. You can also ask about communities in places like [email protected].
We also encourage you to check out [email protected], so that others can help you / learn from your questions.
Welcome to Lemmy :)
Hello. Nice to see a Canadian alternative to reddit.
Welcome :) Let us know if you need help with anything!
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.
Welcome!
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
This is true for a lot of the new users, despite what the memes may suggest 😄
Is there a particular community on reddit that you'd like to see more of on here?
New here, looking to move from redd it also. Got recommended lemmy by my brother this morning and I like what I see so far. Keep up the good work.
Welcome!
It's nice to see the word of mouth working, I've seen a lot of mentions recently of people being recommended here by friends and family members
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!
Welcome 😊
Definitely check out the guides above, and drop by in [email protected] if you have any issues!
A quick hello from a new community member. Thank you to the folks who set this up, and to participants in this community generally. You give me hope.
Welcome, glad to have you here! 😊
Thanks for having me! I'm glad to have finally made the switch over from Reddit and other conventional platforms. I've always been mostly a lurker but hey, maybe this time will be different. Looking forward to the fresh start!
Welcome 😊
Hello. I don't usually make personal posts but I am glad this site exists. I left reddit after 5 years. It was on reddit that I was pointed here. The Fediverse sounds like a beneficial collective and I am excited to see it grow.
Usually I just post stupid puns (which are very clever in my head) and topical quips which offer nothing (but are very genius in my head). I hope to have fun, get informed, and learn something from the pack along the way. Goodbye.
Thank you for posting!
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.
Can you please add Liberapay as a donation option? I don't see it on your donation page.
It's not currently there, but it's on our list of things to look into when we revisit our donation options.
Recently another user checked in about Librepay, and I asked for more thoughts. If you have any additional points, we'd appreciate them! I'll copy them into our notes alongside the previous comments
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.
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! 😁
Just dumped Reddit as well. Using the Mlem app, seems quite similar to the Reddit iOS app.
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 😊
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! 😄
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.
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.
Thank you for clarifying! Now I understand a bit more how it works. 😁
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 ** [email protected]**
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
There's actually no harm in commenting on communities from another instance!
Often there will be one large community for each topic, on some random instance, rather than individual communities on every instance. The diagrams on this doc might help to see how it works: https://fedecan.ca/en/guide/lemmy/for-users/detailed-overview
It is possible that a community is intended for a certain group of people, and ideally the community name will indicate that. If not, you can open up the community and check the sidebar. For example, [email protected] is named 'Medicine Canada', and it is intended for Canadian medical professionals / Canadian medical news, while [email protected] is named 'Medicine', and it is the general community for the topic.
We didn't have to make 'Medicine Canada' on lemmy.ca, and in fact, there are many non-Canadian communities on lemmy.ca. It all comes down to what the community mods want the community to be about. The instance is just where they chose to set up shop.
In your case, the sidebar at [email protected] says:
An unofficial English-speaking channel for discussing Aliexpress and Alibaba, interesting products you find, asking for product recommendations, and any scams by the sellers.
When in doubt, just check the community sidebar :)
Sub-forums here expect people from remote sites to comment on them. They're not just for local users. Most sites aren't going to have an Ali Express community on them for you to comment on.
Check the community's rules before posting, in case it's very specifically Ali Express discussion for software developers, and also so you know the nuances of that particular community, but don't feel like you can't engage with communities on the other side of the fence.
This whole space is best thought of "This forum I'm a member of, plus all these other things over there that I'd like to see, too!"
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
'morning! I'm in. Though I scrubbed my reddit content back in the 'strike' my eyeballs still regularly contributed to their site. I guess I'm stopping that now too. Small steps, as they say. Looking forward it.
Welcome aboard!
Thank you!
Welcome :)
Thanks!!
view more: next ›