Well step one is obviously sending feet pictures to the mods, assuming you've already done that..

It's somewhat similar, but there are a few differences.

One, the instance matters. You'll see users as BlahBlah@somesuch.blargh. The somesuch.blargh is the instance. An instance with .ml is often a sign of tankies. 196 has a high proportion of trans individuals. db0 leans technical. World is more conversational and broad. Lots of smaller ones around too with less defined reputations/communities. If you want to be a piece of shit, there are actually instances for that too. They just get defederated. (No one outside the instance will see it)

Two, advertisers are evil. There are no ads here. No one wants to make a community that advertisers approve of. The focus is on maintaining the community, not a business. You might see things that offend you a little. Unless it's actually hateful or illegal, grow up and deal with it. If it is hateful and illegal, report it. Mods are generally pretty good in a lot of places. Learn to use 'block user,' 'block community,' and 'block instance' to improve your feed. There's no company algorhythmically trying to force you to see things.

Three, the maturity level is higher here. Reddit is the big name so it has all the teens. Lemmy leans toward older, more technical, less popularity focused people. There's still plenty of silliness, but it's not usually the same kind seen elsewhere. It's a good thing.

Four, no karma. Your points aren't about you. They are to help sort post and comment quality individually. So, if you are getting some downvotes because you said something a group of people didn't like, ignore it. The points won't follow you to the next post or comment.

Rule 0 is still 'Don't be an asshole' though.

Welcome!

Lurk a bit, feel the vibes out. Things are different here. blocking works differently, so does karma (it still sorts posts but there's no profile score and it doesn't sort comments unless you specifically set it to).

Just go straight for that community search bar, switch to all, and just start typing shit in. Lots of reddit subs have equivalent communities here but they don't rise to the top because it's a small platform. Unless you curate your feed, it's just going to be trump outrage posts all day.

Drink water, and enjoy yourself. Welcome 👋

Welcome!

Your mother is a hamster.

Have a nice day!

Find a client you like, I personally like Voyager

Browse by all, and by new, and block every community you don't like. Don't downvote, just block communities you don't like. I personally would block all the political communities. Only fighting happens in there

Go through all and be prepared to block all the communities that don't interest you!

You sent feet pics in right?

I use All and sort by HOT for post perusing. This keeps the feed fresh and you get to skip all of the bullshit that happens when threads get to popular.

Treat it exactly like reddit. Find something interesting and, if you want to, give your thoughts and/or opinions. Some will agree, some will disagree, yet the hate levels, while still existent, are not nearly as strong as reddit. There are a lot of fair minded folks on here.

subscribe to a lot of communities to keep your feeds active

Instance matters as every instance has different "all" and "local" feed. It helps with organic discovery of communities.

Also check out plethora of different apps for your smartphones, if that's your jam.

What are you using to browse lemmy? On Android, I really like the Voyager app since it is pretty similar to reddit.

For more general advice, you can view popular communities and join those since they're more active. I think that's the thing I miss most about reddit was that niche subs had more activity.

well don't be! just be yourself. And welcome!

The best way to get started is to find a few communities you like then notices how they are on different different instances. What are the topics you are interested in?

I use PieFed which is similar to lemmy. Mbin is also another option. This is determined by your instance (basically your domain name) not by you. They all have various good and bad points and all talk to one another.

If you desire, you can use clients (apps/frontends) to browse. I just use my web browser, even on mobile.

I prefer to not subscribe to communities, but rather block things I will never be interested in. I then set my sort to active and see what's going on. If I find a community I have zero interest in, I block it. You may find subscribing to things that you like instead better, but I like to see what all is out there. Generally, though it depends on the instance software and client, one can block people, communities (magazines in mbin speak), whole instances, or keywords in a sort of filter.

There's more, but this may already be too much or too technical.

Basically, just comment, post, and don't be a dick and the rest will work itself out.

it wont have as much niche content as reddit, but you also wont get the annoying propaganda bots, or astroturfing that goes on. the things to watch out for is tankies, and htier instances. some are using both reddit and this.