Lemmy

Overview

Lemmy is a forum for sharing links and talking about them, much like Reddit. People post links, text and images in communities, vote on them and reply in threads. Lemmy is part of the fediverse: your server can follow communities on other Lemmy servers, and people there can join yours.

Features

• Communities, each with its own moderators and rules
• Posts with links, text or images, and threaded comments
• Voting, with sorting by hot, new, top and more
• Follow communities on other Lemmy servers, and on other fediverse apps
• Private messages and a reply inbox
• Moderation tools, reports and a public log of moderator actions
• Image uploads, with a built-in image server
• Many themes, in many languages

Setting up

The install form asks for an admin name and password. Lemmy makes that account on the first start. Sign in with it:

• Username: the admin name you entered
• Password: the admin password you entered

Lemmy reads these only once. Changing the fields in moose later does not change the account. Change your password inside Lemmy.

Then open Admin settings to name your site, write its rules and choose who can sign up. By default people can register and then wait for an admin to approve them.

Good to know

• Other people need a public app. The app starts for you only. To let other people read and post, and to follow communities on other servers, set the app to Public in its access settings. Lemmy then has its own sign-in and sign-up.
• Your server's name is fixed at the first start. Lemmy writes this app's address into every user, community and post it makes. If the app's address changes later, other servers can no longer find your server, and the fix is a new install.
• Following other servers needs a hosted box. On a box you run at home, Lemmy works only on your home network, and it cannot talk to other servers.
• Email is optional. Add an outgoing mail provider to this app in moose to send sign-up checks, password resets and reply alerts. Without one, those emails are not sent.
• Phone apps. Lemmy phone apps such as Jerboa and Voyager need the app to be Public.