With spez ascending the last few remaining levels of becoming an absolute wanker, it’s about time I got more active and I have been wondering how should I be using Lemmy efficiently? Like many I migrated from Reddit and I was primarly using Apollo to browse through my subscribed subreddits.
Over here on Lemmy.one, I have subscribed to communities and I scroll through my feed by sorting “All > Top Day” because sorting “All > Hot” means I end up seeing the same threads.
Then earlier today I discovered https://beehaw.org/communities where I found many communities I would love to subscribe to but then I got confused because I am also subscribed to more or less similar communities on lemmy.one.
I think I am sort of struggling to wrap my head around how lemmy really works and where I 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
To top it off, it is proving hard to login to beehaw [probably the server is under stress] with the same details I use to login into Lemmy.one.
Not to forget there’s also Kbin which I haven’t even begun exploring. Phew.
ps - my apologies if I am sounding slightly incoherent as this is all new to me. If there is anyone out there who has this all figured out, I’d appreciate any help here.
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
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.
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.
To top it off, it is proving hard to login to beehaw [probably the server is under stress] with the same details I use to login into Lemmy.one.
You can’t login like that. You login on your home instance, your home instance is federated with beehaw and so has a “window” into all its content, but you are still grabbing it via your home instance. Put the url if the instance you want to join into your home instance search bar and the community will show up and you can subscribe through there. Same content but different url.
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 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!
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 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.
I’m really confused about a lot of things here. For one, you’re talking about Lemmy, but from my perspective it looks like you’re posting on kbin.social.
When I started my kbin account, I searched for “magazines” to subscribe to. Most looked like they were either on kbin, Lemmy, beehaw, or shitjustworks. I had heard that Beehaw had become unfederated, so I unsubscribed from those communities, although I’m unsure why I was able to subscribe to them from kbin in the first place if they were I federated.
Now I’m reading that shitjustworks is unfederated too? Also Lemmy.ml? Can Lemmy servers be h federated? And again, why can I subscribe to them through kbin in the first place if they are unfederated? Do I need to be doing research on communities before joining to make sure they are federated? Does it matter if they aren’t?
One server can defederate from another server, that doesn’t prevent a 3rd server from communicating with both of them
While true, I would like to point out that this does not imply arbitrary routing. In other words, instance A can’t pull data from instance C via instance B.
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.
This is all very confusing for me, too. I have an account here (posting from kbin), and one on lemmy.world. I assumed it was a good idea to make an official presence in as many of the instances as possible. So, is the fediverse just a content aggregator for everyone who officially joins it? How do you decide to cut off one or more of the different sites/apps if you wanted? I have a lot of questions I can’t quite formulate. I have sort of an intuitive understanding, but I feel like a kid using the Internet for the first time in another way, too.
Which I really like.
Think like this. On reddit, you had old.reddit.com and www.reddit.com, here you have lemmy.world, kbin.social, and many more.
On reddit you have (I making the names up): /r/politics, /r/politicaldiscussion /r/truepolitics etc. All about the same, but slightly different. Here you may have [email protected] [email protected] and many more.
The rest goes behind the scene - fedeverse decentralized, run on many different servers, but you can simply ignore all that, and think about all of that as names and themes.
So, is the fediverse just a content aggregator for everyone who officially joins it?
Kinda, but not exactly. Imagine there’s a sea with different ships. The ships have different crews, all with their own interests - some may like sleepy cats, others might like painting etc. And the sailors set their communities. Each community must take a room on that ship, and they can have whatever rules they want, unless they don’t break the general rules of the ship they’re on. Now, imagine the rooms have hardware that can create a hologram version of you, through which you can communicate with others - just like in Star Wars or Star Trek. By using that particular thing, any sailor can have a holographic version in any of the ships at will, and attend the discussions.
That fleet of ships is Lemmy as a whole. And every ship is a server.
Now on to something a bit more complicated: out there, there’s also a group of airplanes, and there’s also a group of UFOs, but fortunately controlled by humans. Their crews similarly have different interests, different hobbies, whatever. They also have this thing that allows their hologram into the room where your community gathers. They might however have their voice distorted, or there might be some latency, their image might be distorted a bit, but that’s okay. You generally get their message. That is because they use a different implementation of that thing, or they work differently since they’re not ships - they’re planes, or UFOs, serving different purposes, working differently. There is usually, however, no issue in ship-to-ship communication.
The other vehicles are the other platforms such as Mastodon, Kbin, Friendica, Pixelfed etc. - they all use a protocol (think of it as a language) called ActivityPub (that would be the thing allowing you to be on any ship through your hologram); these platforms usually work together in order to facilitate communication from one-another, but they add different features, they cather to different people, so issues may arise from time to time. That’s fine. The message should get through.
How do you decide to cut off one or more of the different sites/apps if you wanted?
Let’s return to my previous example: Each ship has a captain. The captain can decide to cut all communications with all ships, allow communications with all ships from his end (mind that other captains can have the same power, but on their ships), or only allow communications with certain ships (which is generally what is done around this place).
When any captain decides to cut communications with any ship, the process is called defederation - it’s more of a red button.
Besides that, you can also block individual users yourself from contacting you, so you have some power as well. :D
Hope my example makes things more clear :D
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/newsbecomeslemmy.one/c/news.orgSame goes for kbin, to access kbin “magazines” the url would be something like:
lemmy.one/c/RedditMigration.socialOf 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.
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.
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?
@kerplunk Also to that point, this is apparently a baseless rumor started from someone who had some beef with the dev at some point. And it’s only spiralled because people keep spreading this info to new people who then just rinse and repeated what they hear because they’re all new.
I can’t find the link but it’s on the lemmy blog. So it’s best not to spread the info based on what you hear in the comments anyway. Lemmy is fine as long as you like the software. The best way to not support them is by not donating or something. That’s all they get from it. Let them be tankies if they are, and distance yourself from the core instances.
kbin is newer but in my opinion the better interface. And if I stick around it will only get better!
I’d say Beehaw is the fediverse for your kids. let them be soft and kind and ban curse words.
You’re safe with lemmy or kbin, probably. Just live with some growing pains for a month or two.
Just to clarify a few things:
- Some of the dev team members who wrote the apolitical Lemmy software are the ones being accused of things. However, anyone can copy that software and create a Lemmy instance. Those devs made one called lemmy.ml that they host and moderate themselves, but everyone else is just copying the base code.
- Beehaw is a Lemmy instance. Same apolitical software that runs all the other instances you see, just hosted and moderated by people who would rather not see disinformation, political propaganda, and hate speech on their site.
- Kbin is different software, but still uses the same ActivityPub communication so they can talk to Lemmy instances and Mastadon (Twitter-like) instances.
- Kbin.social is the main kbin instance run by the developer, but anyone can host their own version
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.
I tried signing up to lemmy.world and it just wouldn’t progress past spinny waiting graphic. Then lemmy.ml and it said application sent and then never heard back. Kbin just worked, so here I am. Also signed up for wt.social, but tried to sign up for trust cafe and it was just broken.
I’m finding that much or most of what I saw on Reddit is here too, so I may actually phase it out myself.
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!
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/
