- Find a topic that you are interested in the most using the Lemmy Community-Browser https://browse.feddit.de
- It will list the most popular communities (analogous to subreddits)
- There may be multiple similar communities on different instances (servers)
- Research the different instances to see which one you like the most and sign up for a profile on that instance. That will be your home instance.
Some things to keep in mind when researching instances.
- Does it allow instant profile creation or do I have to be vetted first?
- Do I have the ability to create a community or can admins only do that?
- Does the instance allow downvotes?
- Has the instance been defederated from other instances?
- Does the instance allow NSFW content?
- Does the instance have performance issues when there's an influx of users?
- Does the instance host controversial communities or admins?
- I wouldn't want my profile name to show [email protected]
- Your profile name can also be seen as a promotion for your home instance. For example, wherever I post shows @[email protected]. People might want to check out my home instance after hovering over my name.
After you sign up for a profile on your instance of choice, you can start subscribing to communities.
- In one tab, go back to the Lemmy Community-Browser https://browse.feddit.de
- In another tab, go to the search section of your home instance
- Copy and paste a link from the Lemmy Community-Browser into the search section of your home instance
- It may take a few moments before the community will appear on your home instance.
- Once it appears, you can subscribe to it.
There are 3 options for reading posts. Subscribed, Local, or All.
- Subscribed will show you posts from communities that you manually subscribed to.
- Local will show you posts from all communities on that instance.
- All will show you posts from all the instances that are federated with the instance you are on.
Sometimes comments will not show on a post because they haven't been downloaded to your home instance yet.
- Click the rainbow fedilink to take you to the instance that hosts the post which should have all the comments.
- However, if you want to upvote or reply to that post, you will need to copy and paste the fedilink into your home instance search field.