You don't have to think of the servers as different entities, all servers are Lemmy, each one slightly different sure but you can participate in every server equally so nothing changes to you
this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
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It's becoming painfully clear that federation is the most confusing part for new people. It felt less so with Mastodon but the Reddit migration seems to be bigger. (I don't know since I was already on Mastodon a few years before the Muskaning) I think we need an easier way for people to understand how instances work.
Mastodons federation has become pretty seamless. Just browsing around, it seldom takes you off-instance.
Lemmy still does that a good bit, and it throws people off hard.
I would say that in an update that allows you to redirect links to your own instance would be great, and I was told I was wrong thinking that would need an extension. Take link, copy to search wasn't obvious for me when I started with Mastodon, but I eventually figured it out.
If I was an instance I would try and find a way to make a FAQ that linked maybe to Wikipedia or something that everyone can update for common questions, and a local community with FAQ posts for anything specific to that instance.
Unfortunately I think it's gonna be like this for a while as more and more people come and get exposed to this concept for the first time. Some folks have made very helpful introductory threads to guide newbies into the Fediverse, but at its core it's a very different paradigm to "log on this website to see and interact with this one thing" that people have gotten used to.
That makes more sense now. I was really lost around all these different servers and Reddit experience had spoilt me because it was so centralized by construct that I came in here expecting the same!
Yep, it's like if subreddits were sorted into larger groups of subreddits, like say a megareddit where you can have many subreddits with the same name as other subreddits, but a little bit different.
So instead of going to /r/aww, you would hypothetically go to /r/lemmy.one/aww or /r/beehaw/aww. They can have different sets of rules but you can see and post to both equally.
Maybe I can be of help with explaining how Lemmy and the federation works. (Hope I have this right, anybody feel free to correct me)
Lemmy itself is just the software used by the different servers (beehaw.org, sh.itjust.works, etc..) that belong to the federation.
These servers can each have communities and users that belong to them, but these communities and users can all interact with and be interacted with from other servers. Example, I am currently logged into and browsing this post from the sh.itjust.works server)
So the communities that you see on lemmy.one are hosted on one server and the communities from beehaw.org are hosted on a different server.
Because of this setup, communities aren't just as simple as Reddit (/r/wellthatsucks) because there can be [email protected] and [email protected]. These communities are different and run by different people.
Now the way the federation for the servers works is that in order for servers to know that eachother exist, communities or posts from one server have to be searched for on another one. (Ex. searching [email protected] while on beehaw.org) by searching for the communities, your server now knows they exist and will work in the background to sync those communities so that you can browse them from your own server.
The idea is that you only need 1 account on 1 server somewhere in order to participate in the federation.
Unfortunately, because of this system and the rapid growth from the Reddit exodus, communities have been splintered onto different servers. That is why LOTRmemes exist in many different places. They are all different communities.
In order to find the communities that you are looking for on beehaw, search for them while logged into your account on Lemmy.one. You'll probably be able to find them.
Keep in mind, this federation works when the servers are okay with communicating with eachother. You will find there are posts talking about defederation of servers.
My home server is has been defederated from beehaw.org. I cannot find their communities or interact with anything on their server, and the same with them to my home server. Both of our servers however can still participate with other servers though, because only the metaphorical link between beehaw.org and sh.itjust.works is broken, all the others are still intact.
I hope this sorta clears things up a bit for you. Welcome to Lemmy!
I think the algorithms are not quite doing what you expect, on top of server delays or whatever.
The way I am set up, I start in ALL and sort by HOT. If the post start to feel too familiar I will go by active, then new.
What I feel works the best however is to subscribe to all the communities that you are interested in (don't be precious) and you will find that the subscriptions page has the content you want. It is nice, they don't get lost, or you can jump into a single community and see all they have.
The most useful way to use lemmy of course is to post content.
Thanks @[email protected]
Just as a follow up to your comment - is there a link or something where one can see how many different Lemmy communities exist? I'd be up for casting the net wide like you said and right now I am mostly hanging around lemmy one.
I'm going down the same rabbit hole and have struggled trying to figure out the fediverse. The other comments on your post explain things well. From my experience, I had to research which instance was federated and populated with what fits my interests, then sign up for it. Jerboa doesn't do well with it's search function yet, and I almost exclusively use the app to browse (I did so with Sync for Reddit ((3rd party app)) too and never used the browser unless I was looking up specific questions), but I did find out that when using a web browser to login to my instance they have a community browser that lists every and all communities locally and federated where you just hit Subscribe to. Once I subscribed to everything that peaked my interests I went back to my app (Jerboa for Lemmy) and sorted by Subscribed and New (or hot). I now have an experience very similar to that of using Sync for Reddit.
To answer your questions about seeing the exact same communities (instead of a singular subreddit) to subscribe to, it's just because each community is hosted on separate instances. Some of those instances are federated with yours (ie lemmy.world) but for users who are signed up on that particular instance may not have the same federations your instance has so they created their own version of the community.
Another comment on this post explains it well using minecraft as an example. (Idk how to cross-post or @ another user yet)
Some of those instances are federated with yours (ie lemmy.world) but for users who are signed up on that particular instance may not have the same federations your instance has so they created their own version of the community.
Is this why I can read this while on kbin?
kbin has a 'federated' instance that's shared w/ lemmy?
i have no idea wtf I'm talking about. still trying to wrap my head around the fediverse.
Yes. Kbin is federated with basically every Lemmy instance that exists, so you can use Kbin to view, comment and post to other Fediverse instances.
You can kinda think of Kbin as being a Lemmy instance with a different paintjob (it isn't, but from a user perspective it's not that far off): Kbin user wants to read/comment/post to Beehaw.org Gaming community? https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]. Beehaw user wants to comment to Kbin Tech Magazine? https://beehaw.org/c/[email protected]
Hi there @JohnEdwa - I am a week late to respond to your comment but it helped me finally crack the basic level of understanding behind lemmy and kbin :) Not to forget the fact I can subscribe to different instances on Lemmy from lemmy.one which I signed up for when I joined Lemmy. Knowing what I now, I am able to check out other instances from Lemmy.one and subscribe to them!
This is going to blow your mind too but...you don't HAVE to create accounts on all those servers. I'm reading your post right now from Kbin.
I would actually try to not subscribe to any beehaw communities if youβre not planning to be on beehaw since theyβre defederating. I think that means anything you post on those communities canβt be seen by other servers?
You can browse on lemmyverse.net/communities for a list of every single (Lemmy-only) community.
Thereβs no equivalent browser site on kbin.
However, another way you can search and get pretty much/nearly all results is by using the community search on the large servers of lemmy and kbin. These large servers try to add every single community, so you can search for both kbin/lemmy communities on these
So for kbin, I use https://kbin.social/magazines
and you can search lemmy.worldβs communities too. You can do searches on these even without an account
Isn't lemmy.one and beehaw still federating? Why did you make a second account on beehaw? Same for kbin, what do you mean you are not exploring it? All the content on kbin is accessible from lemmy.one.
If you have an account on one instance, you're already able to access all the content of all other instances. (That federate with yours) That includes kbin. Kbin's content is already in your "all" feed, and you're already exploring it.
I havent made a second account at all. On the contrary, I was trying to login using the same account. The thing I was and am still clueless about is how I can go about accessing Kbin with the same account created on Lemmy. I didnt even know that until you said it here. Lol
That's not how it works, you'll always access everything from a url that begins with "lemmy.one".
If you aren't, you need to flip it around, for example:
beehaw.org/c/news
becomes
lemmy.one/c/[email protected]
Same goes for kbin, to access kbin "magazines" the url would be something like: lemmy.one/c/[email protected]
Of course, you don't actually have to manually edit stuff in the address bar, most of the time, you'll just seamlessly see "outside" communities in your feed, and be able to click them and open them. You probably have been without realizing. You posted this in a community thats from lemmy.ml.
Also, if editing the url doesn't work, you can also paste a url to a community into search, in your instance (even a url for other instances), to make your instance look it up for you.
To use the ever popular email analogy, trying to log-in to beehaw with your lemmy.one credentials is like trying to log-in to gmail using your hotmail account just because you want to send an email to someone with a gmail address.
I think am sort of struggling to wrap my head around how lemmy really works and where should be hanging out. It was easier on reddit in the sense that if I wanted to go LOTRmemes, there was only subreddit but here on Lemmy, there seem to be multiple instances of the same community :D
This one took awhile to wrap my head around as well. I'll try to explain. Each Lemmy instance has its own unique communities. So you might find LOTRmemes on lemmy.one, lemmy.ml, and Lemmy.world. Each is a community of its own and unrelated to the community of the same name on a different instance. You can choose to subscribe to each one you find or only the ones that seem to fit your tastes.
Now what might really cook your noodle is the info that the developers of the Lemmy software are pro-Russian genocide deniers, and there's a growing sentiment to not support that by dropping Lemmy in favor of kbin or something else.
Just as I was starting to get the hang of this, it feels like I stepped into another wasp nest.
Ookay, then let's look at kbin, right? Well, there's literally only ONE developer and the current version still very much a (good) beta version. So, not kbin either, then?
What's left? Beehaw, who act like snowflakes and have disconnected from where growth and interesting stuff is happening?
I feel pretty lost in the sea of the fediverse right now. Go back to Reddit? Naw, not right either.
It's open source software, if the devs try to enforce their political views, it can be forked
As long as the devs don't admin the server your account is on they won't have much effect on your experience
Let's say they are - who cares? They write the software, they don't run the server you are on unless you are on their server, so don't be on their server then. That's the whole point of federation. If one developer at some company you like is a tankie, you wouldn't use that software?
Mostly just wanted to make my first comment
I haven't signed up for Lemmy. Between the Lemmy and Kbin I like this Kbin a heck of lot more and decided to sign up here.
I haven't abandoned Reddit and I have no plans on doing so. I'll probably be on both platforms if this one takes off or until Reddit becomes something like a Myspace. For now I'm just exploring here.
Well, you can always put one foot on each side. Make an account on both, use both a bit.
kbin has a better interface, in my opinion though, I'm cheering for them!
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The Lemmy project maintainers are communists, and quite possibly Marxist-Leninists, but I've never seen them make any statements denying genocide. They're been fairly explicitly against genocide, and have made statements directly to that effect. Meanwhile, the actual software has seen contributions from many people from all over the political spectrum. Because that's how the open source development community works.
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Reddit's seen significant investment from Tencent, a Chinese company with well-known ties to the Chinese government and the CCP. Whether the people running the company believe China has committed genocide or not, those continued ties are implicit support for the government's actions (made even stronger by the Chinese government set to take ownership over a significant chunk of the company). They've been invested in Reddit for years, but that hasn't stopped basically anyone playing the "evil communist" card against the Lemmy devs from using Reddit. In fact, it's been used for a while now to try and convince people not to leave Reddit.
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Reddit's also seen investment from white supremacist and actual fascist Peter Thiel. He invested almost a decade ago. Once again, no one seems to have any issue with the politics of the people backing Reddit.
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The politics of the Lemmy devs can be separated from the usage of the software. The software is free, contains no ads, and usage of it does not directly financially support the Lemmy developers at all. Meanwhile, Reddit investors who implicitly deny or actively support genocide both in China and in North America stand to make considerable money off of farming our content out to chatbot developers and/or selling their stake in the business to greater fools.
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Beehaw defederated from like 3 Lemmy instances. Most of us on the fediverse still have unfettered access to their communities. All it takes to not be disinvited from their party is to not shit all over their rugs.
This is the first time I hear about the Lenny developers being pro-Russian. Do you have any source where we can look into it?
Here's the best sourced info I found on the genocide topic: https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/47012/-/comment/196579
I'm curious about this Russian connection as well. This is the only related link I've found so far. Can anyone shed more light on this?
https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/143o5xd/reconsidering_my_support_for_lemmy/
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