I honestly do not mind it one but. I quite like the interface. It’s minimal but there are some bugs to it which is to be expected. I really do like the overall design of it though. There isn’t too much going on. It’s like old Reddit which I am a big fan of
You must log in or register to comment.
I’m quite lost, and don’t think I fully understand the distributed nature of the various Lemmy instances (if I’m even using those words properly).
I’ll do it like Reddit 10 years ago… wander in, poke around, make a snarky comment or 4 and see where it goes.
I was a bit confused about the place at first too. Here’s a comment I copy-pasted from a previous post of mine:
My friend gave me a great explanation:
-
Lemmy the platform is planet Earth
-
“Instances” like lemmy.world, lemmy.ml, beehaw.org, etc. are like the different countries on Earth
-
When someone signs up, the user picks one instance to be a part of, like how an Earthling becomes a citizen of a country
-
If you register at lemmy.world, that means your home instance/ “home country” is lemmy.world, but you can “travel” to lemmy.ml, another instance / “country”, to check out and subscribe to their community
-
When you subscribe to a different instance that’s not your home instance, you can still participate in their content, and other people will be able to see which instance / “country” you’re from
-
Each instance can have its own version of the same “subreddit”, so you can have a c/Memes in your home instance that is different from a c/Memes in another instance. But you can subscribe to both separately
-
c/[community name] is the naming convention used here I think like r/[subreddit name] on Reddit. If talking about a community in a different instance, it’s c/[community name]@[instance name] so like c/[email protected]
-
Donations will help with the cost of running lemmy.world only and not lemmy.ml, beehaw.org, etc.
Someone please correct any of this if any of it is wrong, I’ll happily edit
Hope it helps even a little
If the Fediverse is planet earth. Lemmy is 1 country, each server instance is like a village town or city. Other countries where you can talk to follow users etc are Mastodon, Pixelfed, Misskey/Calckey, Peertube, Friendica, etc Like following Twitter users replying etc from inside Reddit.
I thought of it this way too and I think as long as people can get the gist we should be all good, though for me personally I prefer using the planet analogy considering all of these platforms are on the Fedi-universe, and trying out different platforms like Mastodon feels like it’s “on a whole other planet” as a less tech-savvy person
A quick overview of some of the larger platforms in the #Fediverse
If you don’t mind me asking: what’s the importance of choosing a “home country”? Like what consequences does it bring signing up for lemmy.world in comparison to lemmy.ml? As a new user (refugee), how do I know where I belong?
Other than that, and the questions underneath your comment, this makes a lot of sense and helps getting started here. I can see myself wasting hours in this place
Not OP but from what I understand, the instances (home countries) you sign up with don’t really matter on the whole. It’s just that those are different servers. When a server gets too big it can kinda bog down the system and can cause things to get buggy and slow. So it’s better if we all spread out to alleviate so much pressure on one server.
With the reddit migration there’s a lot of us coming in suddenly. So some servers Are having a difficult time keeping up. Luckily with Lemmy.world Ruud is hosting our server and he has a pretty strong background with hosting other federated servers on mastodon. He has already upgraded Lemmy.World to its own designated server with more bells and whistles.
Some servers do have limitations on what they want and expect out of their people, but our server doesn’t have anything like that which I like, I feel like our community (lemmings?) are quite chill.
With big companies like Amazon, they have a plethora of servers, some that are on big tankers out in the middle of the ocean. So with a federated community we are kinda socialist in the way that we have volunteers that are giving up their time an space in order to host our servers. It’s much easier for us to spread it out to host as many people as we can. Speaking of hosting our servers, I know Ruud has set up a patreon so that we can donate to help keep the servers running smoothly. That way it isn’t coming out of his pocket only
Thanks for your reply. This seems like a logical and solid solution to the centralization other social medias end up with, and all the problems this brings with it (looking at you u/spez). I am brand new here, so need to find my way around, but when (if?) I do I sure will send some dineros over Patreon in order to help with the costs
i have a question: i’ve made accounts on multiple instances thinking i won’t be able to post on them otherwise, is that okay?
You can make an account on each instance. That’s OK, too!
but then i am a bit confused, if i can use an account on every instance, why is there an option to make accounts per instance in the first place?
Why isn’t there a centralised account log in, and then you select what instances you want to browse?
Also what happens if say, two people have the same username, but are on different instances?
sorry for the myriad of questions i am still new to this whole thing
Instances do not care about users on other instances like that.
A user is not unique by username alone. A user is unique by username AND instance. There may exists another skye on another instance, created by someone else. But only you can be [email protected]
Think of it like email addresses.
You grab the name abc on gmail, giving you the user [email protected]
Some other person can grab the same name on another mail provider (ie. instance), say [email protected]
You don’t need to have an account on every email provider to be able to send mail accross providers. But nothing is stopping you from making an account on every provider, it’s just that it’s redundant
Then there is a central authority that encompasses the Fediverse/Lemmy. That also means one single point of failure, eg Login system goes down. Right now if one instance goes down then all of the others are unaffected.
that makes sense, i didn’t think of that.
Another caveat with instances is that some instances block each other. If you made your account in Instance1 that for some reason blocked Instance2, you can not interact with or even see any content from Instance2.
So that also fragments the world here. It may well be that if you actually like some communities in both Instance1 and Instance2, you are forced to have a separate account on each (happened to me already)
The username thing is the one lingering question I have not seen answered as well. I suspect there’s just going to be duplicate people.
I dont understand this part either. Should just be a single login across the whole fediverse
using the email address analogy - every server maintains its users. You can’t log in to Gmail with your yahoo email either, but you can still email a yahoo user.
Having multiple servers that you can sign up for helps keep things decentralised. If all the logins are centralised, then either one of two things need to happen:
-
One single entity controls all the logins. And if that entity decides to go on a power trip (say… a completely fictitious example where he decides to start charging all servers a ridiculous monthly fee to use the login, then gaslights people who call him out, and doubles down when presented with call logs that show otherwise), the fediverse is dead.
-
Everyone has to keep a copy of the same userbase. When 1 person signs up on 1 server, every server needs to acknowledge that signup. This is going to create massive problems if/when the fediverse becomes huge - imagine thousands of people trying to sign up across thousands of servers.
Makes sense, thanks
-
Pretty sure this is okay, but absolutely not necessary. You should be able to use the same account to access everything, but also like Reddit, you are allowed to have multiple accounts.
An account on an instance is like an email address - if you have a @gmail.com email and a @yahoo.com email, you can interact with people from both. The spam filtering might be slightly different (different instances have a variety of ways they get configured), but both generally get the same job done.
There are reasons you might want multiple to separate things, or you can abandon ones you don’t need and just pick one to stick with!
Very helpful. I had a longer response typed out but lost it by clicking “next” instead of reply so I’ll try to paraphrase. Is there a way to see a listing of instances and their size?
Not sure I get having communities spread across instances, seems like it would be rife for duplication and too spread apart but perhaps that’s just the whole “fediverse” concept if I’m understanding that properly.
I created https://lemmy.world/c/paramore but I’m going to hold off on any other community creation until I understand things better and I’m confident I’ve found my home “country.”
This is the only one I know of at the moment, though I’m still relatively new as well so there might be a better link for a list of instances and their sizes. Based on some posts I’ve read here, lemmy.ml has the most users, with lemmy.world at about half and beehaw.org at about a third.
Also, yeah, I think we’re on the same boat when it comes to why different communities are spread out. From what I’ve observed, “duplicate” communities in separate instances seem to all have their own “flavor” of that particular community. Taking the meme communities as an example, sh.itjust.works’ memes have a bit of a French-Canadian flare to them, lemmygrad.ml’s memes are made with a hammer and sickle, lemmy.world has more of that “general everyday memes” feel, etc.
On Reddit, it used to be r/memes -> r/<specific theme here>memes, but here it seems like it’s the opposite, like c/<instance-specific theme here> -> c/memes. It’s like having pizza in New York vs Italy – they’re both pizza but each country has its own twist to it.
I subbed to your community btw as I love me some Paramore myself. Hope to see everything work out easily for your community!
Thanks my dude! More helpful info.
As for the communities, makes me think like more back to message board driven web times, where yeah you could have a dozen Star Wars fan forums but each with their own flavor and eventually you’d find the one that’s your own vibe. I did that and dove head first into a few specific places for retro video games (8/16 bit) and some other niche interests like a specific car model, etc.
There’s an upside to it. I hope this approach gains traction, certainly has seen an injection of life from people jumping ship. But I imagine Reddit will keep plodding along in a week or two as there were a staggering amount of people who had a hard time even understanding why people would leave. Hope the blackout helps.
@CoolBeance @Velvet that’s a good analogy.
-
Lol … same here, I feel like I went back to 2013 and I don’t mind it one bit … it’s how I got into Reddit … I had no clue what to do or say and just started using it and making mistakes all the time … I feel like a child just learning stuff all over again and I love it 😀
I mind it a bit – I had really gotten into a groove with knowing where to go for certain things. I was also spending way too much time on Reddit even after browsing through everything on value. If I’m scrolling r/all I’ve clearly crossed over into wasting time.
Yeah, same. I’m using Jerboa and it’s a pretty good user experience, and the app scratches the same itch that Reddit does. We just need to keep posting content and comments!
Jerboa – we’re just adding more made-up words! I think that’s the Android app. I’m on iOS. And honestly, maybe it’s good I take a break from the Reddit itch, I’m getting so many projects done around the house.
Heck yea brother. Feel like I’m in a random room with three doors that lead to other rooms, with more doors that lead to more rooms…
Sometimes there’s people there, sometimes there’s a rotting body in the corner, hard to say what you’ll find.
It’s tricky and a learning process for sure
Yeah… and the odd site/UI bug happens and I don’t know if it’s me or the site – that’s the only bad part so far!
me too. but more because of the app (jerboa ae the moment) and having to get used to new ways and interface.
not really happy with it.
yeah it’s janky and timing out / crashing often. But hopefully things will improve quickly!
Yeah, I don’t think I get how communities are spread across all the instances. I understand you can view them if you go looking, but it seems weird to make it so things can be spread too thin or duplicated.
Involve more work but this kind of change is for the best. Freedom from the tyranny of corporate greed!
Is this the part where we seize the means of production and eat the rich? Because I’m here for it.
Nah, we’re just seizing a little corner where the bosses mostly leave us alone.
Okay but if we eat the rich, I’m here for it
Just so we’re clear, we’re definitely eating the rich, right? Don’t just tell me we have the rich at home.
In case anyone was wondering, I’m pro eating the rich btw.
I think having friction to use it can end up as a good thing. Works as a good first filter for bad/low effort users.
Guys, it’s wild. Let’s go.
I’m still getting used to this and there’s not much activity yet, but I’ll stick with it. Reddit isn’t worth it, so I’m happy there’s a chance for an alternative.
@WallCactus @SpezCanLigmaBalls Give it a good Day. Follow good communities stay on and you will get the hang of it. Just like when you first started using Reddit
I’m a big fan of the fact that you can sort by both Activity and also Hot.
That seems ripe to create a neat way for communities to organize, because you can either make your groups into a more Reddit-styled combination of both new/score or alternatively, allows people to run almost like an old school forum where the most recently used threads are filtered back up to the top.
Intended or not, really cool feature, and I hope it stays.
It’s a bit technical for an old goat like me :) but I am loving the positive vibe.
Definitely this corner of the internet passes the vibe check.
Bit of a learning curve, but it’s fun! Feels like the early Internet!
It works, at least. The only issue I’m seeing is that if I try to follow ‘sublemmies’ (or whatever the Lemmy equivalent for a subreddit is called) from certain other federated servers, they just sit in ‘subscribe pending’. A fediverse that creates a lot of friction when spreading out beyond your local instance is a bit of a bummer.
I think they’re “communities” here?
Do moderators have the ability to “require approval” for new subscribers? I’d assumed that “pending” meant that someone had to “let me in” because that’s how they chose to run their corner of the internet (which is great).
Is it actually just lag/a tech issue?
As far as I can tell, this is only an issue if you’re the first one from your instance to subscribe to that community in the other instance. This is because your instance has to tell the other instance to start sending new posts its way. As well as any other subsequent updates. Lemmy instances work on a queue, so it may be a while before the other instance gets to that request if they have a lot of load.
EDIT: This doesn’t seem to be just for the first person to subscribe. I guess so that the list/count of subscribers is accurate every subscription does indeed make a server-to-server transaction. The rest is accurate, though, your instance will have to tell the other instance to start sending updates over.
I like sublemon. Wtf is even a lemmy?
Yeah I’ve noticed that also. Not sure what’s up with that
Surely the servers are overloaded the refugees are always a stressing factor to infrastructure IRL, turns out that in the online life is kinda the same.
I’ve had a lot of issues trying to subscribe as well. Even searching in Jerboa has been a bit of an issue, I’ve had to go onto my computer and search for a community I know that exists and subscribe that way. It won’t otherwise even show up in the app.
All things I’m sure will get ironed out soon enough. I quite like this whole thing, if I’m being honest. Doesnt have angsty reddit bullshit yet either, but I’m sure that will soon follow when the problematic mods start showing up.
Same here with Jerboa, is there even a search option in there?
Concept is great, but there’s a big usability issue (BE: 0.17.4) that quickly needs fixing. When you browse the main index, new posts just pop up and it messes up whatever you were reading and also closes images.
I have to be honest, this was a bit of a painful (but hopefully fruitful) experience. I had to learn about the Fediverse, figure out which ones to join, decided on Kbin but had to abandon ship as it was too slow as an PWA, ended up in Mastodon but for some reason I could not access other instances, got over here but still had to troubleshoot (and still figuring out) how to join communities. But fuck that - I’m just happy to make my first comment!
I’ve been on Reddit for 8 years (mostly as a lurker) and am quite saddened with its current state. I hope I get to find my safe space here.
Also redditor from many years 9 I think, got some troubles accessing other instances but I’m learning slowly. What like the most is seeing how more knowledgeable users help and welcome the Reddit refugees. That gives me high hopes about the community all together!
I’m really happy here.
Like many, I left Reddit after seeing so many great developers get shafted by one arrogant figure with a bunch of investors pulling the strings
Once I wrapped my head around finding an instance, I realised how interconnected the whole platform is and how much variety of content there is already. There’s a few smaller communities missing but I’m sure they will be here in time. I may even start one or two to get it going.
I don’t know how backups and longevity comes into it. Is that down to site owners? I worry we may lose a block of content one day with a server going offline.
It may be alarming having a whole bunch of people rock up from a sinking ship but I hope the majority of users dropping Reddit can bring even more great content to this platform.
Anyway, short version: thanks for having me, it’s great!
An instance can crash, close down or somehow disappear at any time, and if that happens all the users, communities and content in those communities from that instance is lost forever. Right?
I would guess that the copy of the community that this instance cached (starting after the first subscription to that community by a user if this instance) might persist. Anything from before that time would be gone, at least from your perspective.
This is my interpretation but I don’t know for sure.
It’s pretty interesting so far! I’m coming from Reddit Sync and now using Jerboa so it’s quite similar but also a lot of things aren’t where I expect them 😆
I do web dev and UX so definitely agree with the onboarding process being a little clunky for users.
I had no idea what the fediverse was until Lemmy so getting your head around it can be a bit much at the start. I was lucky to find a local server (instance? Not sure on terminology) so no delay issues.
And for any newbies this link is very helpful: https://browse.feddit.de.
I do miss the size of Reddit at times, but that’s likely to drop now anyway with all the buggering around they’re doing.
As a fellow web dev/UX person, I agree completely. It would be neat if there was a FOSS project to create a Lemmy app with all the features that are missing from Jerboa
I am trying to adjust to this format. I am used to old.reddit and RES. But, I’m going to give it a go. I imagine once I get a few sub… sublemmies? going It will start to smooth out for me.
And hey, good luck to everyone on the adjustment period.
Loving it. Yes, it’s a little minimal, and there is some jank, but it reminds this old guy of an earlier online experience that you just don’t see much of anymore.
I really like lemmy so far. With such a small community it almost feels like how online forums used to be
