Hi, new user coming from Reddit, as many. Trying to orient with Lemmy, I realize that I still don’t understand the idea of instances well enough. Or maybe the fediverse. So there are plenty of instances, and each is supposed to be dedicated to a topic, but this is a very fluid definition. Anyhow, how do I search for instances? I mean, if I’m in Lemmy.world, I can click “instances” and I get the list of instances that are relevant. Sure, I can use google for that, but my logic tells me that there should be a more organic way.
And this leads to another question, how can I browses communities on other instances with my already existing account? What about platforms such as mastodon where I’m supposed to be able to browse and submit and such?
And finally, is there a search per community possibility?
Sorry, I’m still confused about these.
You must log in or register to comment.
To answer your question regarding what an instance is.
Think of e-mail. Imagine you use Gmail.com, your email would probably be a_new_sad_me@gmail.com. You can send emails to everyone, even someone@outlook.com. You send and read emails you receive on gmail.com. You can’t log onto outlook.com with your gmail login, but you can still email outlook.com.
I’m not sure I understood your post properly, so I just tried explaining instances. Let me know, if you’d like me to expand my analogy.
I’m not sure I understand that email analogy, especially where it ends. My Gmail account does not allow me to access others users mail box. So what is the mailbox in that analogy?
And for that matter, what is outlook here? Another instance or another platform? To communicate with a mastodon post I need to get the link from there somehow?
(I admit, I’m confused as hell)
Your mailbox is lemmy.world You log into lemmy.world You send emails from lemmy.world You read the emails you receive on lemmy.world
The only website you ever use is lemmy.world (gmail in the analogy)
Outlook.com, gmail.com, protonmail.com so on, they’re all examples of singular ‘instances’ of e-mail. Lemmy.ml and lemmy.world are examples of lemmy ‘instances’. You choose one instance, and that’s the one you use for all your communication. There are apps available, but they still communicate through your instance, similar to e-mail apps built-in in phones.
Not sure how else to phrase it. I’m sure someone else can do it better than me though.
To communicate with a mastodon post I need to get the link from there somehow?
I still haven’t figured this out.
Hmmm… I understand the analogy, but I’m still not sure I accept it. I mean, with emails I need to actively search for specific people elsewhere. The basic idea is not to discover new users and such. I don’t think it is only semantics and the reason is exactly the reason I’ve placed my original post. My intention with it wasn’t clear enough, probably.
To crystallize my question: what’s the point of making theme-based instances if I cannot browse specifically these instances for their local community. E.g., my account is registered on lemmy.world, and I see an instance dedicated to sad things. If I want to browse specifically that instance, see what sad communities I can find there. How can I do that? And if I can, how does that works with the statement I saw on the beginner’s guide that it doesn’t mater which instance I register on?
Yeah, I think the email analogy has run its course😅
Perfect!
It means that I understood something about Lemmy
That’s actually the main issue I had with mastodon. Because it was just an instance and users, there weren’t any way to group them (except for hashtags, they are a great tool, but still bot quite what I was looking for).
The advantage of Lemmy is it has Instance > community > user. Think of an instance theme as more of a grouping of communities, it doesn’t really serve a real purpose. If you subscribe to all communities under an instance you’d get the local experience. This wouldn’t make sense for mastodon, why would you follow every single user on an instance.
Is this not what you’re looking for? https://lemmy.world/communities/listing_type/All/page/1
It shows me many communities, not just the ones from lemmy.world
No, unfortunately.
I’m looking for a way to search for community on a specific instance. For example, I’m on lemmy.world and I want to see what communities exist on beehaw.org. Only on that instance, not all other instances.
Oh I see. That would be nice. I’ve filed a feature request https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/3105
Ha! Cool!
Thank you 😄
So, the way it works: Instance is a server your account is created and hosted on. Within the instance you registered with, people create communities - just like subreddits. You can search for communities within your instance but also from other instances. When searching for a community of interest, make sure to check option All. This will result in showing you communities from across various instances. You can participate, comment and post in the communities from other instances just as if they were created in the instance you are registered in.
One exclusion is when the instance you are registered with decided to defederate with some instance. For example Instance B is promoting illegal content so your instance decide not to federate with it. Then you won’t be able to access the content on Instance B.
Makes sense?
the instance you are registered with decided to defederate with some instance
This might explain why I can’t find communities which allegedly exist, or why I can’t choose my home instance in the android app to log in.
It might. I’m not getting any error which clearly states the malfunction is due to defederation.
How does one achieve clarity? Is there a map, which shows which instance is (de)federated to which other instances?
Sure you can!
If you scroll all the way down in a desktop browser, click into Instances. On the right it will tell you what instances are defederated.
Nice, thank you! There is only one defederated, the infamous lemmygrad.
Though I don’t think this explains the issues I have. Maybe it’s the overall load due to the reddit migration.
So what’s excatly an issue you have? I might be able to help - I struggled with some stuff here as well.
Thanks, that’s very kind!
Someone shared this link: https://kbin.social/m/fediverse/t/4331/The-growing-list-of-subreddits-going-to-be-dark-but
If I understand this correctly, that’s a list of communities I should be able to subscribe to. I can visit https://lemmy.ml/c/atheism and https://lemmy.ml/c/gamedev, but they open as a new (?) lemmy to which I am not logged in. When I try to find them via ‘Communities’, I get “No results”, so I cannot subscribe.
So it feels like some parts of the network are inaccessible (or even invisible, the internal serach does not show these two examples) and I don’t know why.
Right! I know exactly what it is!
So here is what happens when you open " https://lemmy.ml/c/gamedev " - it opens the gamedev community that is hosted on the lemmy.ml instance but also it’s opening it as if you are accessing it from lemmy.ml instance.
If you format the link like this: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/c/gamedev@lemmy.ml
you will be taken to this community, from this instance but you will be accessing it through your instance. There is a better way, supposedly, which will mean you can access lemmy through your instance and search for !gamedev@lemmy.ml and it should show you this community and you will be able to access through your instance, but it doesn’t work for me like it doesn’t work for you. I reckon it’s some kind of bug.
After you successfully subscribed to this community, its easy accessing it from now on, as it will show in the right hand side (subscribed tab)
Hope it helps (please correct me anybody if I’m wrong)
If you format the link like this: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/c/gamedev@lemmy.ml
I changed the link according to my home instance: https://lemmy.click/c/gamedev@lemmy.ml
Result: 404: couldnt_find_community
Same for https://lemmy.click/c/atheism@lemmy.ml
But https://lemmy.click/c/lemmy@lemmy.ml does work. I’m not subscribed/pending to any of these three.
This is consistent with the internal search (Communities). I can find and visit lemmy@lemmy.ml, but not the other two hosted at the same instance.
I found the following site to be useful, but agree it’s a bit overwhelming. https://browse.feddit.de/
To answer one of your questions-- you can browse communities by opening the ‘communities’ tab at the top of the website of your instance (if you use lemmy.ml, then it’s on that website), then you can press ‘all’ and see all communities federated with your instance (these are the ones someone else on your instance already follows).
If you’d like to search up communities, you should try browse.feddit.de. I used that to find equivalents to the subs I used to follow. Protip, if there’s multiple of communities with the same topic, then just follow them all. Just them of them as mailing lists with moderators attached.
Please correct me if I’m wrong
You’ve gotten some good ad-hoc answers here, but here are some sticky posts that might help more:
- On getting started in general and federation: https://lemmy.world/post/37906. This is aimed at
lemmy.worldusers, but except for the support community link at the end, it’s mostly broadly applicable. - On finding communities to join: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/61827, including links to the major external community browsers that are essential to finding stuff that you’re the first user on your instance to discover.
Thanks for the answer.
My question, when I think about it, is actually about what’s the point of instances topic. I mean, I understand the strength of having multiple instances, and how this prevents anyone from controlling Lemmy or shutdown Lemmy (pretty much the point of the internet as a whole and not having it running on a single server, when you think about it). But… what’s the point of having an instance dedicated to, let’s say, puppies if I cannot browse for community specifically on that instance (unless I open an account there)?
But… what’s the point of having an instance dedicated to, let’s say, puppies if I cannot browse for community specifically on that instance (unless I open an account there)?
I don’t follow the premise of your question. You CAN browse for communities on a topic instance without an extra account there.
- https://pathfinder.social/communities allows you to anonymously browse the community list on that tabletop roleplaying focused instance.
- https://browse.feddit.de/ let’s you browse communities on all instances without a login.
- https://lemmy.directory/communities attempts to subscribe to every community in the Fediverse. You can browse there without an account.
I’m not quite as convinced as some that topic instances are necessary or useful in the long-term. But I don’t see them posing any unique challenges to community discovery other than the “normal” challenges the posts I originally sent cover.
The thing is that I have to exist my instance in order to browse these communities. On an app this is extra problematic, since once I found a community of interest, I cannot subscribe to it.
On top of that. Not all instances allow dor anonymous browsing.
And finally, the second link you’ve provided, does allow me to browse communities pers instance.
/u/Falmarri opened a feature request for that in GitHub, maybe it explains what I mean better than me.
- On getting started in general and federation: https://lemmy.world/post/37906. This is aimed at
