Since it was answered, quick summary:

Communitys have connected instances. If the instance you’re looking for is not yet listed there, you can discover it. Only communities listed as blocked will never pop up in your feed or searches.

Original question:

This probably got asked already, but I couldn’t find exactly the answer I was looking for while searching.

On all the lemmy sites there’s a link to “linked instances” which, presumably, lists all instances that your instance has knowledge of. Does that mean that instances which aren’t listed won’t be accesible? Or does it mean that no user has yet tried to access the instances which aren’t listed.

The way I see it, only blocked instances are inaccessible. Am I correct in that assumption?

Thanks a bunch 🤠

Edit: I’m asking because I’ll want to join some super specific local communities eventually and I’m worried this might be a problem.

  • ImplyingImplications
    4·
    1 year ago

    If you’re specifically looking for NSFW content then you probably should join an instance that allows it in their rules. If you join an instance that bans NSFW content you’ll have a difficult time finding it and some admins also request their users not subscribe to NSFW communities.

    • alehel@beehaw.org
      1·
      1 year ago

      some admins also request their users not subscribe to NSFW communities.

      Any reason for this? Would what I subscribe to affect my instance at all?

      • ImplyingImplications
        1·
        1 year ago

        Would what I subscribe to affect my instance at all?

        It does! If you browse “all” posts on your instance you don’t get every post from every community, only the local ones that exist on your instance, and the remote ones that users on your instance have subscribed to.

        If you subscribe to a NSFW community on another instance, your local instance will start showing all local users posts from that remote NSFW community when they browse “all”. Some instance admins don’t like that idea and make rules to avoid that happening. I believe if they wanted to they can blacklist the remote instance but that comes with downsides as well. I’d assume local users wouldn’t be able to interact with any community on the blacklisted instance.