IMO !newtolemmy@lemmy.ca and !newtopiefed@piefed.ca are more helpful than a generic fediverse focused community. By the time you know what the fediverse is (I used Mastodon before joining Lemmy and now Piefed), you don't need to deal with the noob questions.
this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2025
17 points (100.0% liked)
Fediverse
566 readers
79 users here now
Downvote are limited to members of this community
Welcome!
Can you imagine, years ago how the internet was before? We know Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok, Youtube. We knew blogger, Tumblr, Skyrock... and long before, it was the forum era as phpBB..and mail-lists.
And now with ActivityPub, we are reshaping the web, and achieving much with lots of freedom. So thank you all, and welcome π€π
Our thread
- [Monthly thread] What fediverse feature/UI do you enjoy the most?
- [Monthly thread] Share your experiences on the fediverse
Resources
Related communities
- !testfediverse@jlai.lu (for testing federation, formatting on lemmy)
- !fedibridge@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- !newtolemmy@lemmy.ca
- !communitypromo@lemmy.ca
- !fedigrow@lemmy.zip
If you want to donate, double check on the official website and report any problem to mod team
Social network
Threadiverse
- Flarum | git | donation
- Friendica | git
- Lemmy | git | donate
- Mbin | git
- NodeBB | git
- PieFed | git | donate
Blog
- Wordpress
- WriteFreely | git | donate
Microblog
Event
Mediaverse
Audio
Streaming/live
Book
Culture review
Picture
- Pixelfed | git
- Vernissage | git
Short-video
Video
Image Credits :
Avatar : Wikipedia Eukombos
Banner : David Revoy licence : CC-BY-4.0
founded 2 months ago
MODERATORS
On the other hand, it's easier to point new joiners to a single community rather than having to check what platform they are using every time
While that's true, I think it's best to keep everything as simple as possible for new users.
You joined Lemmy, you have a newtolemmy community where (hopefully) all your questions are answered. Same with Piefed.
When Voyager will start to support both, new joiners won't even know if they're on Lemmy or Piefed
The pinned !newtolemmy@lemmy.ca (https://lemmy.ca/post/40668574) is generic enough to work for both. It can probably be reworked a bit so that it is the default page new joiners read, whatever platform they use
cc @otter@lemmy.ca
And if you didn't join anything yet and feel like sorting sth out after some hearsay and the 'static' info on joinfediverse?
Right now one of the fediverse@... could be linked, but that may flood them with these questions and bury fediverse news etc interesting to regulars.
Hello,
As said elsewhere (https://piefed.social/post/889659#comment_6523468), I would advocate to have a single "NewJoiners@lemmy.ca" community.
We could have people with questions about Lemmy/Mbin/Piefed, but also Pixelfed, Mastodon or NobeBB.
Having a single place would make it easier to link and get more activity.
Draft (How I would frame it)
Welcome!
Are you curious about the Fediverse or new to it?
Did you see guides like https://jointhefediverse.net/ (more in the βWikiβ)*, but still
have some questions?
Feel free to ask them here!
Here you are in a community on Piefed. Similar platforms with communities around topics are Mbin and Lemmy, the largest of these. Users from there help with your requests, and you may have a look at their spaces, too.
For this Q&A purpose we chose Piefed, because you can optionally add flairs like βunsolvedβ/βsolvedβ etc. to your posts. Additionally you can set a user flair at the sidebar.
You can read right away, but to post you need to make an account (e.g. on https://join.piefed.social/try/ or - without flairs - https://joinlemmy.com/ or https://joinmbin.org/)
Keep in mind that for some questions there is not only one correct answer, but rather a pluralism of perspectives.
* I would limit this wiki to a) links to general guides and communities b) specific guides and newto-communities sorted by platform, as imo thereβs no need to start another guide from scratch.
.
Here you are in a community on Piefed. Similar platforms with communities around topics are Mbin and Lemmy, the largest of these. Users from there help with your requests, and you may have a look at their spaces, too.**
First question people are going to ask "I just installed Interstellar/Voyager, how do I know if I'm on Lemmy or Piefed? How do I go to those communities from here?"
Yeah, it's tricky stuff. I mention those other platforms, because it's not about directing people to Piefed aside from this format. If not for the handy flair thingy for this purpose, one could just neglect the differences or discuss that somewhere else than the intro. I'm probably too intrigued by the idea of sorting questions with that feature.
I would keep it one community for new joiners
https://lawsofux.com/choice-overload/ is a thing, especially for people new to the platform. We want to avoid overwhelming them with too many links (some of them might not work), and redirecting them to other communities from the get go
That's kind of where I'm coming from, initially. And since the flairs are the only major thing in the way of interoperability between Lemmy, Mbin and Piefed - while we'd need as much help with this as possible - I think ditching that part is best.
Oh sorry, I guess I misread your proposal.
To avoid starting from scratch, what would you rework from that post? https://lemmy.ca/post/40668574
All good :-) Do you mean rework to adress the whole fediverse? I wouldn't suggest turning newtolemmy into newtofediverse at the expense of losing a fine community tailored to Lemmy.
My point is, as someone being new to the Fediverse you may need both, at different stages.
And the 'read-only' resource jointhefediverse.net probably should avoid choice overload by not listing a ton of newtocommunities as next step(s).
Hence the idea of offering one community newtofediverse (or other title), that is for all the dozens of platforms, but with minimal input itself. Just a safe space for questions. I wouldn't fill it guide-like, only link to a few of those existing resources and newtolemmy etc. in a pinned post, instead.
The discussion here is helpful, but it's all pointless, if fediverse people don't warm up to the idea, signalling readiness to help with actual questions. We could rework the draft and suggest an instance (lemmy.ca?) in another post to the various fediverse@... communitys.
Hence the idea of offering one community newtofediverse (or other title), that is for all the dozens of platforms
Agreed on the single community!
I wouldn't fill it guide-like, only link to a few of those existing resources and newtolemmy etc. in a pinned post, instead.
Would you be okay with the level of detail of https://lemmy.ca/post/40668574 ? It can probably be reworked to be platform agnostic
I think it's a great guide to answer questions about Lemmy, and so helpers also don't need to interact with the same questions over and over.
With a new community I personally wouldn't try to do the same for everything from Mastodon over Funkwhale to Mobilizon in one post. I would simply list 2-3 guides like https://jointhefediverse.net/ and https://joinfediverse.wiki/ plus 1-3 links per platform.
We can maybe focus our scope to Mbin / Piefed / Lemmy.
And then add links for other stuff at the end?
I feel like that makes sense looking from the POV of these 3 platforms, but it's not a logical focus after watching Rossini's video, for example.
I see. Would it be better if we added one link to guides to all the platforms, and then focus on Mbin / Piefed / Lemmy?
Something like
"Here is a link to resources for all the Fediverse platforms: https://joinfediverse.wiki/Fediverse_projects
If you are interested in a Forumverse platform (Lemmy / Mbin / Piefed), we have put together some resources to help new users get started.
(links to relevant communities and threads, similar to https://lemmy.ca/post/40668574)"
That's an option, yes. Maybe 'forumverse', 'threadiverse' etc on top of Fediverse is a bit confusing for starters?
If you are interested in forums, we have put together some resources to help new users get started with the platforms Lemmy/ Mbin / Piefed ...
Sounds good
my 2nd draft
Welcome!
Are you curious about the Fediverse or new to it?
Did you see guides like https://jointhefediverse.net/, but still
have some questions?
Feel free to ask them here!
You can read right away, but to post you need to make an account (e.g. on Lemmy, Mbin, or Piefed
See the pinned post for a selection of guides and more.
Keep in mind that for some questions there is not only one correct answer, but rather a pluralism of perspectives.
* Pinned post limited to a) links to general guides and communities b) specific guides and newto-communities sorted by platform. Post not being another guide itself.
edit: still somewhat choice overload, but less than before?
.
Why have the pinned post separate, and not the whole content together?
To give some perspective, this is a post I made on Reddit a while ago: https://old.reddit.com/r/BoycottUnitedStates/comments/1jrcrh6/lemmy_as_an_nonus_alternative_to_red_dit_using/
Only separate like in the newtolemmy community sidebar and pinned post are separate.
Ok, so your second draft is for the sidebar?
Yes, these are suggestions for the sidebar. The part with joinfedi...wiki (and joinfedi...net too!) & the other info Could be added to it, if it's not a longer list for now.
At this point, let's maybe wait what @otter@lemmy.ca or @otter@piefed.ca has to say , they might have good ideas / perspective
Thanks for tagging both accounts :)
I like the ideas here! One of the things that I tried to do when I did the sidebars on !newtolemmy@lemmy.ca, was to keep it as short and simple as possible. I was hoping to increase the chance that someone reads enough of it to be encouraged to subscribe and post. Looking at that one again now, there are some things that I would change to make it even shorter and cleaner.
Long term, it would be nice to have a general help community for people to post questions in. That way, if someone is very lost, they can just post there and get some answers.
The part I'm not sure about is if we should close the other platform specific communities. A generic community is good for those who don't know where they should post, but it might discourage other people who want to stay subscribed to it. New people might get confused by posts that discuss features that don't apply to the platform they are using, and experienced users might not like seeing a bunch of posts about a platform they don't have experience with. PieFed's feeds might help in the later case, where experienced people can create or subscribe to a feed of a bunch of help communities. That way it's still easy to answer questions, regardless of where new users decide to post them.
:thumbs up:
I'd see the new community as a transit space in the middle
Not a community, but new people on Mastodon use the hashtag #newhere to introduce themselves or ask newbie questions. I don't know if that could be integrated into a Piefed/Lemmy community or if it would create too much noise.
My (non-expert) experience is mostly with Lemmy, for this case Piefed's flair-feature might me helfpul to sort through the questions.
I mean we very well may end up with more than one community, so that all platforms have their share and load.