Disappointed ex-Reddit user after the APIcalypse - starter pack
Disappointed ex-Reddit user after the APIcalypse - starter pack
I used to browse Reddit 90+% of the time from my phone through the RiF app, so after June 30th, here is what I did and what I recommend as a starter pack for others in the same situation:
- Create account on lemmy.world, so the browser part is covered
- Search for the information on which app provides the closest to the RiF (Apollo, etc.) experience
- Instal Liftoff and be happy - it is just like RiF :-) (for Apollo and others, it could be different - find your own favorite!)
- Dial back dramatically on using Reddit at all. I only load 4 subs in my phone's browser, because I did not find the Lemmy / Fediverse alternatives yet
- Constantly look for the communities to replace the subreddits you are still visiting
- OPTIONAL - once or twice a week, look at /r/pics and /r/videos and laugh at the creativity of the still ongoing protest :-)
So that is where I am right now, posting this via the web browser on the lemmy.world site, by pressing "create a post". Seems easy enough for now, but I find it a bit confusing that other people can post from Mastodon and other Lemmy instances... Do they see the same communities I do? Do I see all Lemmy communities if I use lemmy.world....? So many questions, but it's exciting to explore this brand new structure.
Even after reading the Fediverse and ActivityPub articles on Wikipedia my head is spinning, and I don't really understand how everything fits / works together, but here I am! An ex(-ish) Redditor after the APIcalypse, looking for cool new communities, and excited about the future that the Fediverse can bring!
(I'm willing to learn! Someone please link me a FAQ where I can find the answers to my questions :-) )
For apollo: use https://wefwef.app, it’s nearly identical.
48Lemmy is a piece of software. Lemmy software is a link aggregator - same as reddit.
So you’re signed up to a server that's installed an instance (a copy) of the Lemmy software. Other servers also run the Lemmy software making them also instances of Lemmy. As well as you being able to talk to users in Communities (think subreddits) on the lemmy.world server, you can talk to users in Communities on other Lemmy instances. For example, lemmy.ml, feddit.de etc etc
KBin is also link aggregator software, just like Lemmy and Reddit. Same things apply there, same software on multiple servers, all able to talk with each other.
Mastodon software is a microblogging service - same as Twitter (and Threads). Just like instances of Lemmy, instances of Mastodon can talk to each other. So a user on mastodon.world can talk to (for example) a user on kolektiva.social which is also running the Mastodon software.
There’s also Pixelfed (Instagram), PeerTube (YouTube), Friendica (Facebook), Plume (WordPress) and a large variety of others.
Now, as well as all these different types of software (Lemmy, Mastodon, KBin, PixelFed etc) being able to talk to other instances of the same software on other servers, because they are all underpinned by a single method of passing information called ActivityPub, each type of software can also talk to each other - so you as a Lemmy user can also see posts and comments from a user on a server running an instance of Mastodon (or Plume, or PixedlFed, or...you get the idea). All these things are loosely joined together making a joined (federated) universe - the fediverse.
44I would discourage telling everyone to go to Lemmy.World as not only could it overload the server, the centralisation problem starts all over again.
The vast majority of instances are federated to all the big ones anyway, so I would recommend looking around to see if there are any instances that better fit your wants before going straight Lemmy.World. You won't lose anything from it, and you'll be supporting the wider fediverse.
38Newbie here and apologies if these are FAQs but just want one line answers
What's an instance?
What's a community?
What are federations?
Whats the difference between all these?
What's mastodon?
What's Kbin?
What's ActivityPub?
Just jargon I'm trying to get my head around, I'm still confused on signing up to different communities?! I guess and yeah.. a bit lost I suppose. If there are FAQs to all this please direct me to them, thanks!
11Essentially, lemmy.world is an email provider right? Like Gmail.
And communities [or subs!] are forums. While these forum posts are made by people who are on the lemmy.world instance, every other provider [instance] can see them, provided the instance owner has not decided to block other providers [defederated].
As long as you are browsing ALL instead of Local [local only shows subs on your own instance], it's effectively reddit.
It may be worthwhile to make an account on an instance which features your country for Lemmy performance purposes, plus the local communities [subs, remember] may be very relevant for you, albeit probably very small in terms of users.
Signing up for lemmy.world is like signing up for shit, monopolised, slow internet in America? It has lots of customers, but that new upstart fibre company [small, fast instance] will let you see the same pages as shitty, slow Comcast.
(I'm not knocking Lemmy.world, just using it for this analogy)
That's what I make of the fed so far, pretty cool.
6I explain the fediverse a bit like all those "local" newspaper websites (that have names like Chathamgazette.org or GainsvilleAdvertiser.com or ChanningtownTimes.net), that in actual fact share 90% of the content on articles (usually all articles written as adverts but that is not part of the analogy here). They have 10% local content that others could access then the pages are made up of material they all share.
6www.fedi.tips it's tailored to Mastodon but similar rules apply. It's written for non technical users.
5I haven't found anything like Joey, but I like liftoff a lot
Connect is OK but I don't like comment threads having the color line extended the whole way down. I also don't like connects font size options. Too big or too small.
I also don't care for Connect's comment option bar between comments. Too spread out
Font size options are a big miss on most reddit apps
5Welcome. The confusion will fade away after a few more days of using lemmy. :)
5
