Lemmy: Guides for Users
What is Lemmy?
Lemmy is a forum-style social media platform, often referred to as a 'link aggregator'. You may be familiar with websites such as Reddit or Hacker News, which are similar in nature. You can share and discuss links, text, and images, and decide on what content rises to the top by upvoting and downvoting.
Like many other forum-style websites, Lemmy is made up of communities, each of which has a topic or theme. When you make a post, you will post it to a particular community.
Lemmy is a part of the 'fediverse'. This means that you can access communities from all over the internet, as if they were all on the same website.
If you want to learn about this in detail, you can see the Detailed Overview page. However, if you're ready to get started, see below!
❓ What is the Fediverse?
If you haven't already, we recommend that you read the 'What is the Fediverse?' section first.
Getting Started with Lemmy in 3 Steps
1. Pick an Instance
When you made an email address, you got to pick which website you made it with. You can do the same with Lemmy!
🍦 Can't decide?
If you are having a hard time picking, you're not alone. With so many options, you might feel like you're at an ice cream shop, unable to pick which flavor to try.
Remember that you can always make an account in one place, and then move somewhere else later. Some people even have accounts on a few places at the same time.
The instance that we run is lemmy.ca, which is geared towards Canadians, but open to everyone. You can also check out this organized list of instances for more options.
2. Make an Account
This part is easy!
As mentioned above, we run lemmy.ca, which you can join by going to lemmy.ca/signup. If you want to join a different instance, look for a 'sign up' or 'register' button on their website.
In order to reduce spam, some instances will have a sign up form. After you submit, an admin will review your account and approve it manually. This can take a few hours.
3. Start Posting
Congratulations! 🎉 You are now free to use Lemmy however you like.
To make the most of your experience:
- Join the NewToLemmy community. This community is specifically for new users, and you can come back to it whenever you have questions.
- Grab a mobile app. In our most recent survey, the majority of our users accessed Lemmy on mobile. You can find a list of mobile apps here.
