I’m tryna get my friend off Reddit and to join the Lemmy dark side. He seems cooperative so far. What communities should I recommend to him?
Don’t. Tell him to browse /all and block the ones he doesn’t like. And sub to the ones he likes.
I also came from Reddit, and I tried to use a community migration tool. Like for example, I like Animal Crossing (the Nintendo game), and there are 3-4 Animal Crossing communities, but none are active. One is posted to by a bot. There is basically no Animal Crossing community on Lemmy, even though spaces exist. Same for my favourite band, favourite singer, favourite film — all of which had active communities on Reddit.
So the point is to discover them.
That said, I’m a fan of Casual Conversation, Ask Lemmy, and this one — the ones that get people talking.
Also, tell him to ignore content mills — accounts (not sure if bot or person) that just post stuff but don’t discuss anything. A dead giveaway is when they post something that is freely available but they post blog spam. Like it would have cost you nothing to just link to the content, but you’re hiding it behind ads. So either it’s your business or you’re the tool of whomever’s business it is. And that’s not really a user you want to follow. Block a few of those and you’ll see more of the “real” Lemmy. (Also, become part of the “real” Lemmy by engaging others in discussion. Not everyone, and definitely don’t entertain rude people or people who are trying to herd you into an answer so they can gainsay you — karma isn’t a thing on Lemmy, and people who act like it is are, at best, a waste of time, and safely ignored.)
schwim@piefed.zip 10 hours ago
Rather than try out other people’s preferences, browse all / new, invest a little time learning how to block instances, communities and users and in no time you’ll be browsing content you want to see. Not what any of us want you to see.