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New user here: Why does my community not show up in other instances? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I recently made a community, [email protected]. The community can be seen from this instance, but isn't accessible from other ones.

For example, if I go to https://lemmy.one/c/[email protected] , I get an error.

Is there some requirement communities have to reach before they appear on other instances? Is this a bug?

Sorry if the answer is obvious or has been asked before, but I couldn't find any info on this.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 years ago (10 children)

Communities aren't pulled in until at least one user on that instance subscribes.

A user can subscribe to a community that hasn't been pulled onto the instance yet by searching for it in the community page with the full URL, and changing all search settings to all. That'll pull in the most recent 3-5 posts.

Once they subscribe, all future posts, comments and votes will be synchronized over and cached locally on the instance.

[–] Saturn 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Something that kind of bothers me about this way of doing it (even though I understand it’s probably a performance or otherwise concern) is that it means that users from other instances can’t see older top posts on a community just because a user from their instance hadn’t joined up until some point.

That seems kinda like it’s a second-class experience for anyone on a different instance unless I’m missing something.

The solution I guess is creating an account on the other instance if you want to see all the older top posts, but then you’re starting to make accounts on multiple instances which is not my personal preference.

Just thinking out loud. I’m curious if anyone else feels the same way.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

(even though I understand it’s probably a performance or otherwise concern)

Yes, exactly that. It's to enable smaller servers to exist without having to download every post & comment from every community on every instance (including some troll spam communities that would inevitably spring up if it was done this way), filling the storage and immediately dying.

That seems kinda like it’s a second-class experience for anyone on a different instance unless I’m missing something.

Ideal setup atm is lots of mid-sized instances, especially if grouped by interest. If 1 person or 10,000 people are subscribed to the same community, it's the same footprint. It's actually a relatively efficient way of doing things.

The solution I guess is creating an account on the other instance if you want to see all the older top posts, but then you’re starting to make accounts on multiple instances which is not my personal preference.

Best workaround yet is lemmy.directory. It's a bot instance that just subscribes to every community it can find. ~~Signups disabled so the server doesn't explode xD~~ They've enabled signups? The absolute madlads.

[–] Saturn 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Ahhh I see. That makes sense.

I guess a bunch of big severs downloading everything from smaller servers would also create an issue too just like the other way around huh?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Yeah, pretty much, except for the fact that big servers are more likely to have the hardware to deal with it.

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