Everything about Lemmy; bugs, gripes, praises, and advocacy.
For discussion about the lemmy.ml instance, go to [email protected].
It should be by geolocation/language and to not confuse people, the instance should be a lemmy.xx domain by default.
i like mastodon's approach - its clean, simple, and easy to understand.
i think the fediverse is just a very hard concept for people to wrap their heads around if they aren't internet savvy or already knowledgable on these things. i think in general there needs to be an easier way to fully explain what it is and get it across to people.
lemmy should def adopt something similar here to mastodon. i think having a default server is smart and probably the right move (with the "Pick your own server" option or something similar right below, just like what Mastodon is doing, so users easily have the option), HOWEVER i think before that happens, lemmy does need to allow migrating and moving servers, and ik lemmy.ml is being overloaded really badly rn in general, so those issues probably need to be sorted too.
I think they need an easy wizard, some way to guide users to an instance they could use to sign in. Ask a couple questions and then bam here you are. The biggest issue then is "Well you don't go here to sign in now you use this url. " lemmy could add some sort of redirect though for known people?
A wiki for new users would be super helpful. It took me a couple of tries to even get to the account creation stage from a baseline of "not knowing anything about federated content"
A quick video on the homepage, professionally done would be really useful too. One of those snappy 1min videos on how to sign up, and what federated means with lots of animations.
There's a reason those types of videos are everywhere, they work well
I think the main problem here is that there isn't a really accessible explanation of federation and how these social platforms differ from the other, larger options. There is lots of great documentation for interested users to acquaint themselves with, but it would be beneficial to have a more 'elevator pitch' version that can get people moving through the signup process with more confidence. Even just a short message saying: "hey, choosing your instance isn't as important as it looks right now, you'll be able to freely use any other instance once you sign up" could go a long way towards making on-boarding much smoother. Once a user is in the system, they can learn what details they care about through osmosis for the most part.
I do think that having a default instance would help with streamlining the on-boarding process, but I don't think that the idea aligns with the values of lemmy as a whole. It's important to keep services decentralized in order to keep things free and open.
I personally look at federation like email. Doesn't matter if I am using a Hotmail email address. I can still talk to everyone over at gmail, icloud, yahoo, Comcast etc....
email is the original federation service.
As a person new to federations, I have to admit that the mail analogy doesn't really answer or clarify much. Who decides what gets to go into a federation? Should everyone be in a single federation since otherwise there is no communication? Do I need a separate account per federation? Whats the practical limit on number of instances per federation?
I think first of all we need a really good FAQ.
I think you're getting hung up on the word "federations" (noun) instead of the adjective "federated".
Who decides who gets to email who? The email provider admins. Should everyone be in a single email network/bubble since otherwise there is no communication? Mostly, yes. Do I need a separate account per email bubble? Per email bubble? Yes. But how many email bubbles are there? One? Whats the practical limit on number of providers per the email world? None, mostly?
Gmail does ban a lot of small email providers if they don't seem "legit" enough. And that is where you're onto something with the noun federations.
If a bunch of instances really disliked a different bunch of instances they can indeed severe each other from each other. The admins would do that. They put the other instances on a block list. Most Mastodon instances block Trump's Lie ehm Truth Social etc. But otherwise you can talk from gmail to hotmail to mcselfhost, with one account.
Basically federation works based on a block-list, not a allow-list, unless the admins of the instance set it that way, just like email providers.