For general browsing, news, technology, mainstream topics etc… it’s much better than reddit, less toxic, better vibe.

It’s very small though, so I’ve found two areas where it is just not a replacement:

• Specific, smaller niche interests, they might have a community here but it is often empty and quiet or just non existent.

• Sports, specifically a place to chat during live events. There’s not enough people to support that.

So it depends what you are looking for and how niche your interests are.

I’ve mostly stopped using reddit and am in here now. But I still end up there occasionally. Not much these days though.

I made 1 “controversial” comment and I got perma-banned… this sucks. … Is Lemmy the answer?

That’s really going to depend on you. What sort of “controversial” comment?

If you engage in ableist, racist, or LGBTQ-phobic commenting, you’re going to have a bad time. Other than that sort of thing, you’ll probably be fine, with some exceptions:

• There are two Marxist-Leninist instances that can be problematic (mainly a minority of their users, tbf).
• Some mods and instance admins can be ban-happy.
• There’s a larger than average population of neurodivergent people here so, that is sometimes a cause of the second item and miscommunication (we’re trying!).
• You may run into unexpected rules depending on where you’re posting. Individual instances (kinda like “reddits”) have server-wide policies. Communities (aka comms, the equivalent of a subreddit) usually also have their own policies. This means being aware of where you are posting and commenting (ie. don’t expect shitting on communist ideals to go well on an M-L instance, even if the community is related to something else).
• It’s important to be aware that Unix Surrealism is the best comic in the Fediverse.
• There are a lot of Linux users and tech nerds here. Don’t be frightened if you find yourself getting a bit FLOSS-curious. We’re generally happy to try to lend a hand to people who hit bumps at the beginning of their open-source journey.

If you’re good with that stuff and can find out start a comm for Beetles discussions, there’s a good chance that you’ll have a good time.

Yes, it is a good alternative IF you take part. Don’t be a lurker, post stuff, cause friction, create interesting discussion even if you know you may get downvoted for bringing up things people don’t want to talk about. Reddit is a censored pile of gatekept shit, don’t ever waste your time commenting on there.

Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Reddit felt like a massive echo chamber

Lemmy is a way bigger echo chamber, it’s as “no matter who vote blue” as it gets tbh (with very few exceptions).

Where people aren’t pushed away for respectfully voicing their opinion. Is Lemmy the answer?

Nope, it’s the opposite if anything.
I’m constantly getting attacked with ad hominem (my favourite one - getting called a fascist) here despite voicing opinions as respectfully as it gets, as well as providing sources for my claims whenever people ask.
Gotta have really thick skin if you are not left-leaning, but if you are - you will feel right at home :)

I found I had to block a large number of communities from my feed that were very narrow minded. Once I did some diligent editing, however, Lemmy has become my daily browse and I’m happy with the change. I still use reddit for some of the niche communities that don’t have a counterpart here, but the larger topics (news, memes, technology) are well covered and open to discourse.

I’m also super new here because I keep getting banned there. I’ve been told I was a bigot because I was against the Palestinian genocide. Like what?! And I was harassing the mods because I asked them a question 2 times in 3 months. There’s no discussing with them. They come down at you with a hammer and it’s just mean. But if people attack you? If people are cruel? Totally fine. I’m a huge rule follower but I’m human and make mistakes. I hope here there is discussion allowed with the powers that be in case i mess up. I try to be respectful and kind. I just want to all get along.

I made 1 “controversial” comment and I got perma-banned

From a subreddit or from reddit as a whole?

My perma-ban happened in a discussion within the r/EveryoneKnowsThat search for a lost wave song

If from Reddit as a whole, unless the admins have changed a LOT in the last year, that sounds weird. They usually only banned accounts over calls to violence and promoting piracy blatantly.

I once got temporary ban for saying I preferred Zelda Breath of the Wild over Tears of the Kingdom

wat. was a small personal sub? That’s just a random suspension.

Feels like early internet here, enjoy it while it lasts. Good chance this place will blow up and the normies will come in.

It’s great - scratches the itch, overall. I sometimes pine for places where major debates on a specific topic constantly rage - ideally, I’d be able to discuss religion whenever I wanted, skipping threads I felt I didn’t want to wade into…

But it is a good enough replacement overall and I feel like we are proceeding to having such a size. I am also open to the idea that I have not curated enough to find a place where this si consistently happening in the Fediverse yet…

I was a fairly active member at Reddit with a good social standing, I made 1 “controversial” comment and I got perma-banned… this sucks.

There have been some controversies that have led to banning and banning of entire instances. Usually, this involves Lemmy instances that were tolerating a lot of blatant transphobic memes that cut deep and were very mean…

I get why people isolated them.

I am still worried, though, that there are people who would still react this way to good faith discussion where there are disagreements. While there are some places where that is for sure OK, I think there are some instances that might react so negatively as to want to ban a specific user or their instance over it. I may be overreacting but IDK.

@007KeyLimePie welcome!

Discoverability takes a bit longer here. If you’re looking to add content, then alongside the usual directories it’s worth checking out the lists at https://kbin.social/magazines/collections

Moderation is transparent here.

Also, protip: if you’re in a thread where everyone is raging about “libs” or “the liberals,” on reddit that would indicate a conservative sub, but here there’s a 99% chance they are communists or anarchists.

There are instances or subs here that will delete your comment or ban you simply for posting something that disagrees with the predetermined consensus they are going for. And no, I’m not talking about racist or abusive comments, just generic shit that may not perfectly align with their narrow personal Overton window. I’m not going back to Reddit, but I wouldn’t say there is a robust and diverse discussion here either. A lot of groupthink, or perceived groupthink…because dissenting opinions get straight up deleted.

Welcome to Lemmy.

One important thing to point out, your upvotes and downvotes are mostly public here, so if you want to maintain anonymity with your votes you’ll want to setup a separate account for voting only and no commenting.

I tried a few apps for interacting with Lemmy and Voyager has been my favorite by far.

I still go back to Reddit for very niche communities that can’t be found here, or just don’t have the userbase to churn out content like they can. I use an app like “Stealth” to browse any of the subreddits I still frequent, but I’ve been able to replace a lot of the generic ones with Lemmy communities.

You will find a lot more users here that will take any chance they can get to blame capitalism for all of the worlds problems.

Some opinions are still heavily downvoted here, but you can always join up with an instance that ignores/doesn’t display any downvotes.

You will need to be a lot more active in your own communities if you want to turn it into the kind of place you want to keep coming back to.

As far as moderation goes, there are some Lemmy instances that have stricter mods than others. Just do a little research and pick a main one where you won’t get banned if you decide to voice your opinion about a dictator one way or another.

Just note, if you pick one that’s too small there’s a greater risk of them shutting down for one reason or another.

I too have recently been perma-banned from reddit for nonsense. I still browse it with my banned account, I just don’t comment. They’re going to chase away heaps of people. I made a new account under a vpn to help someone and the account got shadowbanned. I think reddit is trying to become some corporate-safe-space where business can fake market directly to reddit users.

Small but great!!! Once I’ve blocked Hexbear (the proud boys pretending to be far-left), everything is pretty fun and respectful.