this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023

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Relaxed section for discussion and debate that doesn't fit anywhere else. Whether it's advice, how your week is going, a link that's at the back of your mind, or something like that, it can likely go here.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

AskBeehaw

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

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[email protected]

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I put together a guide aimed at Redditors for Kbin and Lemmy! (beehaw.org)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

196 comments fedilink hide all child comments

(Reminder: if you have shared the original version in a public post with an old version up, replacing it with this one might be more helpful.)

I want to preface, if you see a mistake in the image or have something helpful to add, go right ahead! I still have the layered files for this, so edits can be made very quickly. I chose to handwrite the text to avoid font copyright infringement.

Feel free to share this poster as you wish, especially on Reddit. All I ask is that you respect the license and don’t remove my socials at the bottom. If anyone’s addition is included, I’ll credit them, and if this gets added onto (or translated) by someone else later, they can add their info as well.

I hope someone can find it useful with the subreddit blackouts right around the corner.

I want to thank the Beehaw admins so much for their amazing work!

(Poster edited; I spotted a duplicated word, [email protected] noted the lack of whitespace; current version is slightly larger and has been spaced out. You can still request the 800x2000 size, but know it is a little squished.)

(Edit 2: Removed defederation part as it’s not really required. The email analogy [email protected] suggested has been added, thanks!)

(Edit 3: Here’s another version making the interconnectivity a bit clearer and mentioning some cool-looking reader apps that have been suggested! Also made the image slightly longer for ease of viewing. I might do some small cosmetic changes tomorrow)

(Edit 4 is here with the date updated towards the bottom. This version contains a reminder to verify your email, lets people know why mlem isn’t showing up on App Store searches, and added fedia.io to Kbin instances. Some colors have been changed slightly to be more mobile friendly, as this is written and edited from a phone tablet. If you have a hard time reading this because of the changes, please let me know. Thank you all for the help and tips!)

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

This is awesome, thank you for making this. Trying to get friends and family to move platform seems like such a daunting task and I wasn't sure how to put forward the information - feeling much better about it now.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

What a great infographic, thank you!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Related question for all you experts: if I have an account on both (for example) lemmy.ml and lemmy.world, what is effectively the difference between them if I can view content from any federated instance?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

AFAIK, the difference is mostly in the performance, moderation, and peering of each instance.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I see, so...

If the instance my account is on is down or slow, I may not be able to log in.
Only moderators from my account's server can take action against me? This seems... potentially problematic, unless the moderators from federated instances are all in communication with one another? E.g. if I'm a problem on one instance but not my home instance, is there nothing the moderators on the non-home instance can do?
Could you elaborate on peering? Does that refer to which Fediverse apps a Lemmy instance can communicate with?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

@[email protected] @1993_[email protected]

Only moderators from my account’s server can take action against me?

as someone running a fediverse instance: not really... I can "ban" you from my instance, so that people from my instance can't see your post/follow you/interact with you, or delete specific posts from you, so that they don't show up on my instance. but i can't completely remove your account: anyone from any other instance can still see your account and follow you.

if i believe you did something really wrong and should be banned, i'd contact your instance's admin to take actions against you. if they don't comply and i believe it's causing too much issue, i can mute or "defederate" your instance. muting means posts from your instance won't be visible to people on my instance unless they specifically look up your account by name, and defederation makes it so that my instance pretends yours doesn't exist, and will refuse to lookup anyone from your instance, or let anyone from your instance follow some of my instance's people and so on!

hope this helps :3

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Only moderators from my account’s server can take action against me? This seems… potentially problematic, unless the moderators from federated instances are all in communication with one another? E.g. if I’m a problem on one instance but not my home instance, is there nothing the moderators on the non-home instance can do?

They can stop you from accessing their instance, afaik.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

So, is kbin a lemmy instance? If so, how do I log in over there? I'm registered here on beehaw, so how do I access/vote on kbin content?

gotta say, as a somewhat technically-inclined person, I don't like this fediverse stuff.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Long winded explanation but hopefully it clears a few things up...

There is a protocol that allows two or more things to talk to each other. That is called ActivityPub and things that speak that protocol can work together. The things in this case are the servers which you register your account with.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub

You can have two different things (kbin and a Lemmy instance) and they can work together despite being different. They are differently written programs in different programming languages. The ActivityPub federation thing allows your Lemmy instance to ask to be sent all posts and comments from another server "just to have" as a local copy which you can then read on your server. If you comment, vote, or post on your server's "local copy" then your server sends that update back to the original server so they can update their records.

The content being downloaded from a remote server is like 1 person looking at everything over there. At that point, you and everyone else on your server can look at your local copy which is quick (if your server is not overloaded). The remote server can better handle lots of users from where you are at because your server is taking on the "user interaction load". This way, the user load is distributed to remote servers where the users do their interactions and the smaller "like 1 person" transactions are sent along when necessary.

The way things work on the Lemmy side is that you can see other communities by using the search function or by clicking on the communities button and clicking on all. You will see all communities that your server "knows about" (including communities hosted on this specific server). It automatically downloads all content from remote servers that it "knows about" (and it does so frequently) but that is driven by you first asking the server to get things from a specific server if necessary.

You can ask for things by searching for a specific address starting with a ! character. Wait a few moments and search again and you should be able to see that the content was retrieved for you. (You can search by a more granular term like the server address itself if necessary.) At that point, you can interact with that community in expected ways (like subscribing to that community to see updates from them).

The link you need is on the right side of any community page you view. Examples are [email protected] and [email protected]

Once everything is set up and working, the server you log in to will automatically gather posts and comments from "the fediverse", show it on your screen, and send along any comments or votes you make back to "the fediverse" for others to see.

That all being said... kbin is a bit overloaded at the moment and is not quite sending updates to other servers. When they have that sorted, you should be able to interact with them. Refer to the following post from chaorace for more information.

https://lemmy.sdf.org/comment/67263

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

kbin in a separate software from lemmy. The same way that Mastodon is different but still federated.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

@[email protected] @[email protected] kbin isn't a lemmy instance, it's a lemmy "competitor"

kbin is a software you can install on your server just like you can install lemmy, or mastodon, or pixelfed, etc...

if you want to interact with a post/profile/community/... on another instance, the usual way is to just take the link to the post, and paste it into your instance's search bar. this'll bring up the post in your instance where you're logged in!

that's what i just did with your comment: i don't use either lemmy or kbin on my instance, but i saw your comment on beehaw, so i copied the link, pasted it in my akkoma search bar, and was able to reply to the post, even though my instance doesn't even have support for user groups/communities

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Is the target group people who know what servers and/or instances are or not?

Otherwise I would go up one layer and put in the comparison more users have made about having an mailadres [email protected] and being able to communicate with accounts who also have [email protected] etc.

It gives users who are not familiar an idea of the concept.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

first comment. it took me waaaaaay too long to realize I had to go all the way to the bottom to reply.

[–] PCChipsM922U 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I want to preface, if you see a mistake in the image or have something helpful to add, go right ahead! I still have the layered files for this, so edits can be made very quickly.

Why didn't you mention Jebora or the iOS app? People are into apps, makes things easier and quicker. For example, I never would have transfered to Lemmy if it wasn't for Jebora.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Thank you! Super helpful

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I cant add my account on mlem. I wonder if I am putting in the correct information for homepage.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Extremely useful & consice! Thanks for the work ~

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

@unsunny that link doesn’t appear to work

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Really well put together. Very succinct but with enough information to get people started.

I find that for not tech people trying to deal with such terms like fediverse, kbin, Lemmy, instance, protocol might be quite overwhelming and even off-putting. I am saying this because I used to do software development and still took me a bit to get my head around it.

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