this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2023
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Asklemmy
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The app I'm using (Jerboa) is a bit lacking, but I'm sure it'll improve. I'm unsure about how accounts work with the servers, can I migrate my account if the server I am using shuts down? Communities are tiny and a lot are missing, but I'm sure those will grow and fill in as more people join.
My understanding is that Lemmy accounts are currently locked to the Lemmy instance you created it on, if the instance goes away you lose your account too.
Hmm, that'll be interesting as a ton of people are migrating and spinning up new instances. I'm sure not everyone will want to keep hosting long term
That's a good point. I think we are going to see some growing pains as we all figure out Lemmy, and as it develops and evolves. Which server to create an account on, and how accounts work, both seem like big points of confusion right now.
That would suck :/ Would your posts still last on other instances, or would those be gone too?
Good question. I think they do continue to exist on other instances, but I'm not completely sure. My understanding is that you could delete your comments and posts from other instances before you delete your account from your own instance. But I'm not sure if they get deleted automatically anywhere outside your instance when you delete your account.
Edit: I found a discussion with a Lemmy dev and it looks like "deletions are federated" - https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/2977
As far as I understand it you currently can't import data from one instance to another
Not automatically - I saw someone else saying that they sat with two browser windows open and just copied their subscribed communities from one profile to another. Bit time consuming (he/she said 20 minutes), and it wouldn't carry across your post/comment history, but it's a sort of solution.
Jerboa's been a bit confusing for me too. Does anyone know how to find communities on other instances?
Mine is just letting me search in the second icon from the left across many instances, I don't know if that's all instances. But sorting by all posts on the home page I've been able to get more communities and instances
I've been doing the same, but the search seems hit or miss. I've found some good communities through the search (like this one), but some that I know exist don't show up. That being said, I appreciate the functionality the app provides!
This is an incomplete understanding as I'm new too, but I think that if you know it exists and have the URL, you can search for the URL itself to find that community.
And in doing so, I think it makes your instance aware of the specific community, so that in future other members of your instance can search with a simpler term and not need the URL.
Over time, most instances should become aware of most communities. I think...
Exactly, the issue is just with communities that I don't know exist. If I can't search for them from my instance, it's really difficult to find them. Then add to that that the communities are so fragmented (there may be 100 different communities for the same topic across different instances). If I search for a topic (ex. Gaming) I want THE biggest, most active gaming community.
Lemmy has the potential to get there, but if they want to attract and keep users en masse, it needs to prioritize making it not feel like such a fragmented experience.
One place you could try is https://browse.feddit.de - this makes it MUCH easier to find communities across all instances. And it has the busiest ones at the top if you just want to join those with most people in them.
I was also a bit confused about that (also use the app) but I found this page https://lemmy.world/communities/listing_type/All/page/1
Loged in and been looking through all the pages and subscribing directly
Yeah the app is a bit slow and clunky. Joining communities I have to press the button multiple times for it to work, and sometimes it gets stuck on pending till I leave and open it back up. Plus some other weird clunky things I've noticed. Hopefully it gets refined as more people join, give the devs some more incentive to work on it.