Asklemmy

Is there one overall community just mirrored across all instances? Or is the “Nintendo” on lemmy.ml different than the “Nintendo” on bee.haw or whatever? (Just an example - no idea if these communities exist)

here's a cohertly sound Answer.

1. What happens to the communities/comments/accounts if a Lemmy instance goes down? Do they just disappear?
   When a specific Lemmy instance goes down, local users won't access their accounts, communities, or comments until it's restored. The data seems to "disappear" but it's not lost if the instance comes back online. Content copies exist in other federated instances but the original data is tied to the creating instance. BTW, you can backup your toots, comments and anything else on your account on your current instance and start again

2. Can people on other instances use your username? Could others tell which is which in comments/posts?
   Yes, usernames are instance-specific, so the same username can be used across different instances. However, usernames include the instance, making identification clear. For instance, 'username@instance1' and 'username@instance2' indicate different users.

3. How can people afford to host an instance? Aren't there costs to hosting a server?
   Indeed, hosting an instance involves costs for server, bandwidth, and potentially maintenance. Individuals hosting instances usually cover these costs themselves or use donations or sponsorships.

4. Is there anything stopping corporate interests from hosting a Lemmy? I fear that these corporate instances will be the only ones that can handle large traffic and we're just back to Reddit.
   Theoretically, a corporation can host a Lemmy instance. But federated platforms like Lemmy ensure that no single instance controls the entire network. Even with a popular corporate instance, users can choose other instances or create their own, allowing diverse moderation policies and community norms.

5. Can an instance go from fully federated to partially without telling its users? How would they know?
   An instance changing its federation policy can impact the available content and the reach of users' posts. Although there's no built-in notification system for such changes, a responsible administrator should inform the community, potentially using the instance rules listed in the sidebar or other official communication channels. Users may notice a change if they stop seeing content from certain instances, or if their posts aren't visible on instances they used to federate with. Such a shift in federation policy could also alter the dynamics of moderation and community interaction on the instance. you can see what instances is blocked on /instances. and /modlog shows all moderations.

Long time Reddit user and I find Lemmy easier to navigate. I’m used to Mastodon so maybe that’s a factor.

Looks pretty good to me at the moment. I have a community on Reddit that I might try to bring over here, nothing crazy, but I am cool with making the jump!

A bit rough on the edges, but it's actually better overall for my use case than Reddit's

It doesn't feel ready for mass adoption.

The difficulty of finding ~~subreddits~~communities is a problem. And, when you do find one, nine times out of ten the link you click takes you to a different Lemmy server, from which you cannot join the community.

And then there's the problem of fragmentation and duplication, which has been explained better by other users on this thread.

There are lots of little problems here and there, like the language defaulting to "Undetermined" which hides your post from everyone who just naively selected English.

Fortunately, I'm (reasonably) technically-competent so I can make it work for me, and I recognise that even getting this far with development is a massive achievement. But I'm pretty sure the average internet user isn't going to stick around until the project's a bit more polished and mature.

Reminds me a bit of how the internet felt when I was growing up. More like a bunch of forums that are easy enough to move between. Just lacking users and discussion on niche topics right now

I'm enjoying the smaller subs the most. Many subs I used to frequent have just gotten too big. It's nice to be able to post in a sub and have it feel like it used to.

As a user, figuring out communities and participating was pretty easy. There was only the briefest confusion about where to find the communities on my instance because they slowly populate over time.

What was aggravating was trying to set up the instance in the first place. All kinds of things didn't work from time to time, but I don't think I ever saw an error message or explanation, leaving me to guess what the hell was going on. New user creation never worked with email verification. I couldn't begin to guess how to fix it. But once we turned that off, we still had user creation fail. It took a little while to figure out that we were trying to create accounts that were already in the database (or already on another instance of Lemmy), so the process couldn't complete.

At this very moment I'm still trying to figure out why I can't appoint moderators to my own community. I'm also having to solve problems with hours of trial and error. I really hope this changes, because I actually like how Lemmy works.

I'm confused but have been figuring things out.

Mostly it seems that many of my Reddit subs are reconvening on different Lemmy servers (.ml, .world, .can) and I can't yet figure out how to combine them or view them under one account?

I'll keep trying.

It's a change. Harder to use initially but then I'm sure I'll get used to it and enjoy it more

Moving over from reddit as well and it would help if there was a summary for what the new terminology are such as microblogging and magazines and if these terminology have the same meaning across the fediverse.
Also when I subscribe to a community based in Lemmy why does Kbin show only how many people are subscribed from Kbin. It doesn't impact usage but it did add to the confusion. I'm probably still using the wrong terminology.
Otherwise I'm liking what I'm seeing and hoping to be on this long term :)

I am getting the hang of it. I am noticing a few UI bugs. If I browse some of the posts in my server I have my account at, I'll notice the side bar changes to another remote federated server and community side bar sometimes. The last time I noticed it, I had just subscribed to a remote community in a different tab. then switched tabs to my home server instance.

Very confusing, I'm still lost

Lemmy is great and i love it but.. I feel like to few people are using it. Because most of comunities i follow are dead, noone has posted anything in monts, and when i ask something noone is answering even when i have couple of upwotes.. In other cases i get answer and its great but i would love to see more people using it and to have more live comunities.

And also many topics that i have searched for doesnt exist at all. So thats why i get feeling that not enough people are on lemmy.

So far not too bad. I understand that server owners are needing to make changes to optimize for a large number of users migrating, so any slowdowns or service issues are completely understandable. I really like the idea of a federated "reddit style" forum. Gives power back to the users.