Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
7) No Hit-and-Run questions.
Please don't delete your post for no apparent reason. If you plan on deleting a question later, say so in the post, or if you feel that you have a good reason to remove it, message a mod beforehand. It's not fair to the ones who took their time to answer, and it's not in the spirit of the community.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
I actually joined Lemmy three times:
The first time, I became a Linux user and quickly dove into FOSS and all that stuff. But using proprietary and centralized Reddit felt like a hypocrisy for me so I started looking for alternatives. That's how I found Lemmy, a year before it will be found by fleeing redditors.
Early Lemmy was very quiet. Many instances you are used to now didn't exist (no .world, shitjustworks, blahaj zone, dbzero, etc.) The three biggest instances were lemmy ml (the more generic, tech-focused), lemmygrad (you know that one) and wolfballs (some awful alt-right bully instance, will be later known as explodingheads). Beehaw literally just appeared when I was looking into Lemmy.
Overall, it wasn't really enough to make me want to stay. I had no confidence in my English and social anxiety wasn't helping too. So I quickly lost interest and moved on.
Despite all my searches, I couldn't find a fitting replacement for Reddit. Then, my friend came out as trans and I started lurking trans-related subreddits like r/traaaaaaans and r/egg_irl and thus got back to the platform. This time I was using libreddit (still maintained by the name of redlib) and Infinity for Reddit (a fork called Eternity for Lemmy adopts it for, well, Lemmy) because the FOSS world had spoiled me and I wanted actually usable UI.
And then, the APIcalypse. I was naive enough to think that people will actually resist greedy corporats and force them to change their mind or sink their platform. Of course not. Like it or not (personally, I don't), Reddit is still alive and well, and likely very, very profitable. But there was one beautiful consequence of the enshitifaction - this place!
Unlike my first visit to Fedi, the second time I entered not as a FOSS fangirl - posts about Linux and Firefox aren't gonna cut it. And thus, once again I found myself on a platform with not much content that I wanted to actually see. I was still very much a lurker although it was the time I tried to break through my lurking habits and to start contributing something.
Long story short, most of my time on Lemmy was spent reading and talking about Fediverse. When Meta announced its plans to connect its Xitter-alternative to Fedi, I started spending way too much time arguing with strangers about it. Until I realized just how useless all that was. I deleted my account and took a break from all social media for months.
I decided to return at some point. I was already more comfortable with posting and more aware of just how much I hate arguing with strangers. So I made a resolution: my Lemmy time should be spent on discussing stuff that actually matters to me. While it took me quite a while to figure out how to chase interesting interactions here it brought me the best online experience since my group chat broke up.
So, I hope y'all enjoy my presence as well!