You may have noticed this message when sending a DM on StarTrek.website:

What does it mean that "sending private messages are not secure"?

Basically it means that DMs (unlike passwords) are not encrypted before being stored in our database. If I (or the server admin of the sever the person you're DMing) wanted to read DMs, it wouldn't be easy per-se, but it's far from impossible.

Are you reading DMs?

We are not digging through the database to read DMs (we don't care enough to put in the effort also its wrong) but we can't stop other Admins on other instances, and if law enforcement or someone got their hands on our server, there's nothing we could do to prevent your DMs from being accessible to them. Just FYI.

So what's element.io?

Element.io is a secure messaging service that uses the decentralized Matrix protocol. The Lemmy devs like it so much they put a spot in your profile page to make it easy to share your profile:

It's a neat service but has nothing to do with StarTrek.website or Lemmy. It's also far from the only secure messaging platform (Signal and Telegram are two popular ones that allow for it).

Hope that clears up some confusion, feel free to ask any questions!

All Tuvix related arguments should now be .03% more efficient.

nuqneH!

Welcome to our new home in the Fed~~eration~~iverse. First of all- WOW we did not expect to surpass 300 users on this instance (and over 1K fediverse subscribers) within our first 48 hours and with little promotional effort. We are all excited to see where this long road goes.

Coming from Reddit and confused about Lemmy?

I had some stuff typed out, but honestly, this thread sums it up better. Check it out! It has infographics.

If you're still stressed out, remember that Lemmy is still new. Yes, it's ugly, but people said Reddit was ugly too (both are correct). As Lemmy grows, and #Rexxit continues, more tools will get made. Decentralization opens up a lot of possibilities we didn't have before. The future is bright.

Will other communities be setting up shop besides StarTrek, DaystromInstitute and Risa?

Yes! Eventually. Right now our focus is staying online, fast, and reliable which means keeping things focused while we find our footing. Daystrom, StarTrek and Risa were chosen to start off with because the three of them cover the "srs bsns ↔ shitposting" spread quite well.

If you are part of a community interested in being hosted on startrek.website, send me a DM and we can try to work something out.

Qapla'! How can I support?

We've started a Patreon here: Patreon.com/treksite. There's only one plan and it's just $4. If our growth continues like it has, we're going to need to upgrade our hosting very soon.

What's up with the "unencrypted DMs" warning?

Read here

I feel like I'm not seeing everything. What gives?

Lemmy is weird with languages. In your user settings, make sure “Language” is set to both “English” and “Undetermined”. You can select additional languages as well, but they aren’t currently allowed on this server. On desktop, you can use CTRL+click to select both options. This will allow you to see content for which the author has not set a language, and content which has been set to “English”.

This will hopefully be made more clear with future updates.

Thumbnails acting weird/not showing up (for users on another instance)?

Add this exception to your adblocker (replace "lemmy.world" with your instance):

@@||*/pictrs/*$domain=lemmy.world

Where can I find official server updates?

Follow us on Mastodon for updates, scheduled maintenance, etc.

Where can I talk with Trekkies about non-Trek stuff?

We've just opened a new "offtopic" community, welcome to !quarks@startrek.website, Quarks is fun!

If you have any questions for the team, please don't hesitate to ask in this thread! 🖖