this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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Alongside that more reasonable point of individual features, alot of people are mad that the service is instance based and are angry that that there isn't a single iteration of communities, IE only one /c/aww or /c/vets or whatever.
Basically they fled a central organizational authority and got mad there's no central organizational authority.
This is a steep learning curve and confusing. It would be helpful to get some orientation after landing
Lemmy.world has a little guide. I totally understand there being a learning curve, I'm IT so don't have much trouble but I get that people are flocking from "just works" land and most people have zero idea how any tech works.
My problem isn't people struggling to learn how this different system works, my problem is people who come HERE instead of one of the available more direct Reddit clones then refusing to learn how this system works, bitching that it isn't Reddit, and start harping that the devs need to make it Reddit. If you just want New Reddit, that option is available. A couple, in fact. Lemmy got some buzz though and people want to be cool kids, instead of picking the more suitable option for them. Shit's frustrating to me as a user, and I feel for the devs who have been working on this specific vision for this project then just wake up to 1,000 "MAKE IT REDDIT I WANT EVERYTHING ON ONE INSTANCE CAUSE I'M USED TO IT" posts.
Rant aside, I'm no Lemmy expert but if you have questions about how things work, I'll do my best to help.
I'm brand new and I have spent almost a week trying to log on for a second time (first time worked great, always timed out after that). But I'm here now!
One thing that has been frustrating is that 90% of the time I've seen someone say that it's confusing, people just say IT'S SO EASY, TRY LEARNING and then the learning materials describe the concept of the fediverse and Lemmy but not how to use it.
I still don't really understand. I've used a hundred different forums and forum-adjacent type services, and Lemmy seems to be similar enough to Reddit, except that each server is it's own reddit, but if anyone on the server is connected to another server, it'll pull in communities followed by anyone on the server?
Again, I don't really get it. I'm trying, but it's a bit confusing. I get that it's decentralized and all the servers are unique and it's one login, but I don't get how the communities fit together between servers, if they do at all. Would this mean that we can have duplicate communities on different servers?
I see alot of people using an email analogy that people don't seem to follow, I saw another analogy so I'll give it a go (and probably butcher it haha.)
You have the planet, right? "Lemmy" as a concept, the "Fediverse" is the planet. Then, you have countries. Large, all encompassing central entities, each with it's own ruling government and systems. What you can get away with in Ireland, might not be legal in Turkey. Instances (or servers) like lemmy.world, lemmy.ml, etc are the "countries." Each can have it's own standards, practices, rules, etc. Then the communities are like cities in those countries, beholden to the larger entity but otherwise allowed to run themselves and do what they do.
For your last question, let's look at those communities (cities, per our analogy.) Say I live in Franklin, Maine. Around town, if you're talking about home you don't say Franklin, Maine all the time do you? It's just Franklin, because if you're in Maine (or your home country if not US) it's presumed you're talking about the Franklin that you're in (or the Franklin down the road if you live two cities over.)
There's still a Franklin in Alabama, Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, and like 40 other states. ^(Thanks wiki :P) So if I wanted to talk about or visit one of THOSE Franklins, I would specify Franklin, Idaho, or Franklin, Illinois. That's the "Fediverse."
(Pretend for a minute we are in a community /c/puppies for this bit so it's less confusing) This group, for us, is just /c/puppies because it's our local /c/puppies, just as I from your perspective am just @CannaVet because we are both in our home "country" of lemmy.world (the instance/server.) If you look at one of the replies to the comment you replied to, you will see someone as @[email protected]. He is visiting our "country" of lemmy.world, from his home "country" of lemm.ee. Over in the "country" of lemm.ee, they may also have a community (city) of /c/puppies which is notated as such to HIM because it's local to his home country just as ours is to us - but for us to visit would be "traveling" so we would visit /c/[email protected] because we're leaving home and visiting another country. For him to come here he has to come to /c/[email protected] because HE would be the "traveler."
Same with users, I'm just @CannaVet and you're just @Swoggles because we're "at home" on lemmy.world, but if we click around and are perusing a community on lemmy.ml we would show as @[email protected] and @[email protected] because we're "traveling." There may be a @[email protected], but on lemmy.ml they would just be @CannaVet and I would be @[email protected], because I'm visiting their "country." If they come here I'm @CannaVet and they're @[email protected].
We're different users, with different accounts, on different servers, completely unrelated. Communities work the same way - I may run /c/[email protected] however I want, but somebody might be running /c/[email protected] completely differently with completely different rules and content entirely over on that instance.
As for exploring different instances, you can go most anywhere you want (mostly, my understanding is instances can block other instances from access, but I'm not super in the know about that.) Using the "all" button in search and browsing will open you up to other instance's content vs the "local" button that keeps you in your "home country."
I don't understand entirely how to link out to other instances, but if you click a link and end up logged out on a different server, you can manually visit by adding the community to the end of your URL like so-
lemmy.world/c/[email protected]
This will keep you on lemmy.world and ensure you're "just visiting" where you're trying to go. Once everyone has a better grasp this shouldn't be a problem but I've run into this issue a few times.
Cliffs Notes-
Instances (lemmy.ml, lemmy.ml, lemm.ee, etc) are top level "countries" and run things as they see fit
Communities (/c/puppies, /c/lemmy.world, etc) are "cities" bound by instance administration and can exist on multiple instances completely independently of eachother, like how London, England exists independently of London, France.
If you run into trouble visiting communities on other instances, manually navigate with lemmy.world/c/[email protected] (or lemmy.ml/c/commname.url if you're registered on lemmy.ml, etc etc.)
Sorry for the wall, hope it's at all helpful lol.
Extremely helpful, thank you.
So if I'm understanding correctly, each lemmy instance is effectively it's own forum/reddit, and being part of a lemmy instance gives us a passport to visit and interact with other lemmy instances, yeah?
And after us as individuals are more established and connected, we'll naturally start to join and "import" communities within our home insurance and other Lemmy instances.
So, one final question, won't this model lead to like, heavy fragmentation of communities? There's pros and cons to that, but if I'm a fan of d&d, there will be a d&d community on many lemmy instances, and each of those would only be connected by visiting lemmy users that join multiple instances of the d&d community on different lemmy instances, right?
Unless I'm mistaken, you're overthinking the "import" concept. I do think that your home instance caches info from communities you visit (MAYBE that influences what you see in all but I don't know really,) but otherwise there's no "importing" of anything. Otherwise, yeah the passport analogy isn't far off. You don't have an account on lemmy.ml, but it recognizes you as a registered user of lemmy.world and you get to interact as normal, you get tagged as @[email protected] just like your passport says you hail from insert home country here. (I assume lol)
If you visit /c/[email protected] for example, you're connecting to lemmy.ml as @[email protected]. You're not bringing that community into lemmy.world, you're visiting it in lemmy.ml, as someone from lemmy.world (and as mentioned would appear if you comment as @[email protected]. Because "visiting.") /c/[email protected] is just /c/aww on lemmy.world. It has zero at all to do with /c/aww on lemmy.ml, and they have zero at all to do with /c/aww on lemm.ee. All completely independent communities existing on different instances. There's no connections, no correlations, just somebody made /c/aww on lemmy.world, somebody also made /c/aww on lemmy.ml. They don't connect or anything. London, France has nothing to do with London, England, and /c/[email protected] has nothing to do with /c/[email protected].
This is where people get lost coming from Reddit. Lemmy is not Reddit, and it isn't designed to be Reddit. Lemmy is designed to be a decentralized alternative, which offers far greater control at the cost of UX (usability, cohesiveness, whatever.) There aren't "single" communities, because that isn't what this is for. Decentralization is the point. Being able to (as one user put it) "make my own /c/aww with blackjack and hookers" is the point. That I can spin up a Docker container on my pi and build my own single user Lemmy instance as a home base, is the point.
It isn't meant or designed to provide a single central point of compilation, it's existence is for the exact opposite - Nobody has ultimate control because any one instance owner's power only extends so far as their server. The fragmentation everybody laments coming from Reddit actually provides redundancy, have you ever had a sub you like on Reddit get shut down for this that or the other reason? That's it, it's gone, sucks to suck. If you want more /c/aww, you CAN follow every /c/aww you can find - /c/[email protected], /c/[email protected], /c/[email protected], etc can ALL be in your sub feed. However, if @ruud (the owner of lemmy.world) decides he fucking hates adorable animals and nukes /c/[email protected], you still have /c/aww on every other instance available.
This is the point that makes me mad about other Reddit exiles (not you.) They came to lemmy to leave a central authority, and got mad that there isn't a central authority. I try to point out that more 1 for 1 Reddit clones exist, but they get mad because that's "not what they want." Control and ease of use(the smooth singular experience of Reddit, Google, etc) are diametrically opposed. Either everything "just works" because everything is owned by and exists on Reddit servers, or you have to put in a little leg work to have control over your data etc because having control means I can get mad at lemmy.ml and block my server from federating with them, or I can tinker with the code and someone else's client doesn't understand what it's seeing, or any other number of things that can occur with the backend being in our hands vs a singular entity like a company. You just......can't have both, but Reddit exiles are mad about that. They want total decentralization of infrastructure and ownership, but want centralization of content, which just isn't possible without that single central pillar running the show (some people argue for communities that exist to scrape and clone every copy of a given /c/ across the fediverse to create a "supercommunity" but that just sounds like stealing with extra steps to me lol.)
Thank you again for the thorough explanation.
There are definitely pros and cons to having everything be decentralized. The fediverse seems a lot more like a thousand different forums with the same login.
Question - how are bad actors dealt with? If someone has their account banned on one lemmyverse, does it ban them for all?
My understanding is that a ban would only apply to that community or instance if done by the instance. I'm not 100% on that though.
I definitely like the more personal nature of smaller communities, but for the sake of sharing information it's not as good.
I enjoy some niche video games, and a centralized place to share information is extremely helpful for that. But also having smaller communities for more generalized topics is nice because you'll actually get to know individuals.
It was helpful. Thank you for the analogies.