What is Lemmy and the Fediverse?

It makes sense to first start with the Fediverse. The Fediverse is a collection of instances (i.e. servers) that host Fediverse services and communicate with other instances to disseminate information. One of those services is Lemmy.

Lemmy is free and open-source software (FOSS) that can be used to host link aggregation and discussion forums. It is similar to Reddit in appearance and user experience, but with the major differences being (1) that Lemmy is FOSS, (2) rather than one Reddit there are many Lemmy instances, and (3) Lemmy can communicate with other Fediverse services running ActivityPub.

Lemmy.Autism.Place

You are currently reading a post that was made to lemmy.autism.place. This is a Lemmy instance with the specific purpose of autistic users and allies to have an online place of their own founded on the principle of autism acceptance. As such, we have specific rules and guidelines to help meet that purpose which can be review at out Terms of Use.

Donations

Lemmy.autism.place and all other autism.place services are financially maintained by private persons because we believe in it purpose. If you would like to help pay for our costs, please any of the donation links in our instance sidebar.

How Does Lemmy Work?

Each instance is managed by its own team and connects to other instances they allow connections with (i.e. federate/federation) while blocking federations with instances chosen by the administrators. All instances have their own purpose and rules set forth by their administrators.

Users can create communities (similar to sub-reddits) on Lemmy to aggregate posts and comments based on their desired purpose. Once a user creates a community, they become a moderator in charge of maintaining that community. Other users can then join the community and participate by posting links, making text posts, or commenting within posts. Posts and comments can also be voted on by users. Common understanding is that upvotes suggest that the content is worthy of being seen and downvotes suggest that the content is not worthy of being seen. It is important to consider that voting does not imply agreement or disagreement. Therefore, a user that disagrees with a comment but believes it is an interesting discussion could upvote it for visibility.

Tailoring Your Lemmy Experience

Lemmy can be personalized so that users can increase the content they are exposed to and discussions in which they participate.

Communities

Communities are created to share and discuss content typically revolving around a common interests. Users can create or subscribe to communities so that their posted content is shown in the user's home feed. Communities can be found through the search function which can be accessed by clicking on the magnifying glass on the top right of the main feed.

Forcing Federation with New Instances

Sometimes, communities on instances that have not been federated with may not show up at first. To force lemmy.autism.place to federate with another instance that hosts a community you would like to join, search for the community by placing the community name followed by the instance as follows: ![community]@[instance]. For example, one would enter "!autism@lemmy.world" which would force our instance to federate with lemmy.world. This will mostly be an issue in the beginning of our instance since users will eventually cause our instance to federate with other popular instances as they make use of our lemmy.

Moderation

We have created a moderation guide for our instance.

Home Feed

When someone logs onto a Lemmy instance, they are typically shown their home feed. This is a list of content posted onto Lemmy. However, the feed can be adjusted to aggregate communities based on certain factors.

Community Lists

• Subscribed
  • Content posted onto the communities in which the user is subscribed.
• Local
  • All content posted into the specific instance they are signed into.
• All
  • All content posted across Lemmy instances which are federated with the specific instance.
• Moderator view
  • Content posted to communities which the user moderates.

Sorting Communities

The order of content in the news feed can also be adjusted.

• Active
  • Rank is based on the vote score at the time of the last comment, while decaying over time.
• Hot
  • Similar to active, but the post time is used for the score.
• Scaled
  • Hot with a boost to less active communities.
• New
  • Orders content based on chronological order with most recent first.
• Old
  • Like new, but reversed.
• Most comments
  • Orders posts with the most comments first.
• New comments
  • Orders posts based on the most recent comment.
• Top day/week/month/year/all time
  • Order posts by score within the last 24 hours/7 days/30 days/12 months/eternity.

Blocking Not Safe For Work (NSFW) Content

Because the content on Lemmy is submitted by users, there is a vast diversity of what is shared. Some of the content will be material that is not appropriate for places of business/work, public, or minors. This content is referred to as Not Safe For Work (NSFW), and can include nudity, pornography, erotica, and violence. Our rules require that users mark NSFW content accordingly. Lemmy settings allow users to filter out NSFW posts from their feeds to avoid accidentally accessing it. Do block NSFW posts, go to your profile settings and uncheck the box next to "Show NSFW content".

Themes

Lemmy.autism.place allows users to select among various aesthetic themes. To review and change themes:

1. Click on your username name on the top right
2. Click on "Settings"
3. Scroll down to "Theme"
4. Use the drop down menu to review the various options
5. Once selected, make sure to click on the "Save" button at the bottom

User Profiles & Settings

Users can adjust their user profiles to control how they represent themselves on Lemmy. A user can choose to have a display name (name presented on posts/comments) that differs from their username (name used to create and login to their account). Users can also change their avatar (small picture shown in posts/comments) and profile banners. Additionally, users can opt to include their Matrix username so that other users can contact them via that system.

Posting & Commenting

Users can contribute to the site by posting and commenting in communities.

Posts

Users can make posts to either (a) share a link, (b) share an image, or (c) create a discussion (i.e. text-post). Posts must be made into an appropriate community. Therefore, to make a post, go to the main feed of the relevant community, and click on the Create Post button on the right and complete the form. Including a title is mandatory. Including a URL, image, or body is optional, but at least one of them must be included. Posts that include content that is not appropriate to access from employment locations, in public, in family settings, or by minors must be marked as NSFW (i.e. not safe for work). This informs users of the content nature of the post before accessing it. The following content must be marked as NSFW:

• Violence
• Nudity
• Sexual topics

Comments

Comments are statements that users make within a post. They are hierarchical in nature so that users can either respond directly to a post (i.e. top-level comment) or to another comment. Top-level comments are flushed left, where as next-level comments are indented one-over from the comment it is a response to.

Text Formatting

The text included in post bodies and comments can be formatted using Markdown syntax.

Further Reading

For more information on how to use Lemmy, review the "For Users" section of this guide.