this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
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No Stupid Questions

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No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

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All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.

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Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.

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Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

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How does lemmy differ from reddit? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by BothsidesistFraud@lemmy.world to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
32 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Here are some specific questions.

  • Are the upvotes and downvotes I make, private? If I report a comment, is my report private?

  • Can someone follow me across lemmy instances based on my username?

  • If I want to make a community, is there a reason I would choose one lemmy over another?

  • Are the powers of moderators similar to reddit's?

  • Where can I find a list of most active lemmy instances?

  • Any other differences from reddit I should know about?

all 35 comments
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[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 45 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Are the upvotes and downvotes I make, private?

no

If I report a comment, is my report private?

yes

Can someone follow me across lemmy instances based on my username?

yes

If I want to make a community, is there a reason I would choose one lemmy over another?

no

Are the powers of moderators similar to reddit's?

somewhat, lemmy is still kind of new. mod abilities are being expanded.

Where can I find a list of most active lemmy instances?

https://fedidb.org/

Any other differences from reddit I should know about?

lemmy cannot use the 'microblog' part of the fediverse (tweeting, communicating to Mastodon)

i use mbin for this reason. it can do both. https://moist.catsweat.com

[–] Rooki@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If I report a comment, is my report private?

No, this is because of already many abuses, the local admins / mods and the "origin" instance admins / mods can see your name.

Are the powers of moderators similar to reddit’s?

Much less but soon with sublinks aw lemmy compatible backend / ui it will become a lot better.

Any other differences from reddit I should know about?

Everything here is PUBLIC, because of federation many things gets federated everywhere even without you noticing sometimes.
Everyone here is unpaid, so mods and admins are here equal instead of reddit admins beeing paid millions for beeing *ssholes.

Here, if you dont like the admin of an instance you can somewhat easily swap to a different instance ( sh.itjust.works, lemmy.today .... ), but be aware if you just went out with a "Bang", like you trolled a lot and got permabanned you wont be welcome in the other instance because the admins are most of the time in good contact to each other, and warn for trolls or harassment.

.world has some other types of software too, https://mastodon.world/ and https://sharkey.world/

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 21 points 1 year ago

In an oversimplified way: when it comes to moderation, Lemmy is mostly like Reddit. The big difference is in the administration - each group of admins controls its own instance, with no group controlling the whole.

Where can I find a list of most active lemmy instances?

Here's one. I'm linking this one because it allows you to look for communities ("subreddits") too, not just instances, so it's comfy to use.

If I want to make a community, is there a reason I would choose one lemmy over another?

Yes. For most of the time, it's probably better to create the community in an instance focused on that topic, as people who like it will probably gather around that instance. So for example:

  • programming stuff - programming.dev
  • weaboo stuff - ani.social
  • science stuff - mander.xyz
  • furry stuff - pawb.social
[–] Nemo@midwest.social 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Votes are semi-public. Not every instance makes them public, but anyone who is on an instance that does can see them.

Your comments and posts are public, I think your subscriptions as well, so if you need to protect yourself from harassment the remedy is just like reddit: have accounts that don't overlap, one for politics, one for anime, one for whatever.

You should definitely only create a community on an instance where it fits. For example, a muni about fashion doesn't belong on the the solarpunk instance, and a muni about ocean life doesn't belong on midwest.social. Many instances are "general" instances, though.

Moderation here lacks the robust toolset of reddit, so it's hard to compare them. But you can have posts and comment threads removed (lemmy removes whole threads, not just the parent comment); you can be banned from a muni or even a whole instance; but no one can ban you from all of lemmy. Unlike reddit, your home instance can be defederated, which is basically shadowbanning your entire server. Defederations and mod actions are public; other admin actions can be done stealthily by directly editing the database.

You don't need an active "home" instance if you have a robust subscription list, honestly, because you can subscribe to munis on other instances.

[–] Lojcs@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

Votes are semi-public. Not every instance makes them public, but anyone who is on an instance that does can see them.

I thought it was the other way? If your home instance makes them public they can be seen by anyone otherwise only the home instance admins can

[–] BothsidesistFraud@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Thanks. Is lemmy.world the best instance for general discussion?

[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

In my opinion, the major difference between instances is moderation practices. There may also be technical aspects such as down time or frequency of updates that may affect your experience.

I find that lemmy.world has well balanced moderation. They don't allow spam or abuse, and they're not pushing an agenda.

It's a good place to start.

[–] Rooki@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

We try to do our best in that. We try to keep us out of community matter. We know its YOUR community. Of course sometimes, it requires admin intervention but only if we see urgent matter, otherwise we want to talk to the mods first for their point of view.

We have a discord server for better communication too. https://discord.gg/TnqAFsdgy4 and a matrix space too: https://matrix.to/#/#space:lemmy.world

[–] BothsidesistFraud@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Good to know! Are there other Fediverse sites with different moderation practices? Like what's an example of one with a VERY strict policy, and what's an example of one with a very loose policy?

[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For example, beehaw.org is known for more strict moderation. It's a very positive place in my opinion, but there's a trade off that not as many different voices are tolerated. There are also some like lemmyNSFW.com that let users post/say whatever they want as long as it's legal.

[–] BothsidesistFraud@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Cool. Can I ask you one more question? Can I comment on Beehaw (or lemmyNSFW, but I'm at work so not going there right now) using this account I have at lemmy.world? The reason I ask is, I see that I can comment on other lemmies (e.g. lemmy.ml) using this account, but only if I find them through lemmy.world's communities|All tab. But I don't see Beehaw there.

Or more basically, in general for another instance running Lemmy, how do I access it using this account at lemmy.world?

Thanks so much...

[–] shootwhatsmyname@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

Yes. Any instances that are linked with your current instance basically become one—all communities, posts, and comments become intertwined into one big social network and you can interact freely. Behawshould be included so you probably haven’t come across a community hosted there yet. You can always see what instances are linked by going to the homepage of any Lemmy instance, scrolling to the bottom and clicking Instances

[–] gt24@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Can I comment on Beehaw (or lemmyNSFW, but I’m at work so not going there right now) using this account I have at lemmy.world?

Beehaw, no. They defederated from Lemmy.world. More information is at https://lemmy.world/post/145337 (iffy formatting) and https://beehaw.org/post/567170 (easier to read). A bit more information is also at https://lemmy.world/post/149743

LemmyNSFW, yes. The answer is yes for most instances.

[–] loobkoob@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Is also worth noting that it's not just the moderation practices of your instance that affects your experience, it's also how other instances perceive your instance. Hexbear, for example, is an instance filled with "tankies" and a lot of other fediverse instances don't agree with them or their values and choose to defederate from them. So a Hexbear user, while they might personally like their own instance's moderation and values, will not see any content from instances that have defederated with Hexbear, which could impact their experience enough that they'd rather move instance.

(Personally, I don't think I've ever seen a comment from a Hexbear user that I've loved. And I've definitely personally blocked several of their communities from showing in my feed.)

In the past, I know some instances defederated from lemmy.world because it was seen as kind of spammy. Some of them re-federated after lemmy.world tightened up its moderation, but I don't know of all of them did. (I'm not a lemmy user so it doesn't affect me personally and therefore I don't keep too much track of it.)

Inter-instance politics aren't necessarily a thing you need to be hyper-aware of, but they can definitely shape your experience.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago

Depends on what you're looking for. Each instance has a general vibe of user, so while .world may be good for someone, .ml may be good for another, and beehaw.org may be good for another, and so forth! .world is generally a generalist instance, but ironically because people with more specific interests are already on more specified instances, .world is more likely to house people that don't fit well into other servers, paradoxically creating a type and it's own unique vibe.

[–] TechLich@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Best is very subjective.

.world is a good general purpose instance for just about anything. I think it has the biggest population at the moment, so communities there are likely to get at least some engagement.

For "general discussion" it doesn't really matter. The instances are federated so you'll likely get general discussion in comments from lots of people from lots of instances anyway, wherever your community is based.

Some people get almost nationalistic about their chosen instances or have grudges against people from certain other instances. There's sometimes inter-instance politics with some servers defederating with others or threatening to for various reasons. It's kinda fun to watch in a popcorn drama kind of way. For the most part, the instance doesn't matter.

[–] Nemo@midwest.social 2 points 1 year ago

No, probably mander.xyz. .world is plagued by bots and trolls and a lot of uses block it outright.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

Others have already answered, so I'll just add to it: the decentralized nature and lack of a profit motive help keep it from going downhill like Reddit did, but at the same time this nature attracts a lot of leftists and tech enthusiasts, so Lemmy overall definitely leans in that direction more than Reddit does.

[–] Mastengwe@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

No CEO that runs the show, but same biased moderators, so if you report a comment in a community where the mods agree with said comment- they’ll threaten to ban you if you don’t stop.

[–] The_wild_card@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Are the powers of moderators similar to reddit's?

As everyone has given proper answers for all other questions i'll answer this one . No here moderators come under admins and that wasn't a thing on reddit.

[–] cali_ash@lemmy.wtf 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

moderators come under admins and that wasn’t a thing on reddit.

That is exactly how it was on reddit.

[–] The_wild_card@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No it wasn't not like this you know what i mean

[–] cali_ash@lemmy.wtf 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But it was. It's literally the exact same hierarchy of roles. So no, I don't know what you mean.

[–] The_wild_card@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well does every community on reddit come under different admin rules like on lemmy ? Does reddit have a problem where if you don't agree with instance admins beliefs or actions you can get banned ?

[–] cali_ash@lemmy.wtf 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Every server is under the total control of it's admin while moderators are self-assigned to communities by the users that created them. It's literally the exact same structure as on reddit.

The only difference is that there only is a single reddit server with a single set of admins, while lemmy has many instances.

So yes, everything you mentioned is basically the same on both platforms. The only difference on lemmy being that when you piss off the admins and get banned you can go to another instance.

[–] The_wild_card@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Nah i mean the reddit admins follow a standard rule structure because they are corporate workers and does'nt insert themselves it is like moderation on any sites but in the fediverse its different.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lemmy admins create rule structures for the same reason Reddit admins do, they are doing high level curation of the communities they want.

You're right in that there isn't the firewall between moderators and admins on Lemmy that there was on Reddit, but that was a choice that Reddit admins made, not a design difference between the two services.

[–] The_wild_card@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

No reddit admins can't push their agenda because they were employees here that is not the case and i am not saying that is a bad thing

[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

A lot of people left reddit because of the way admins were inserting themselves into communities. There is a different dynamic here.