this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2023
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.

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  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. Avoid politics
    • 3.1) NEW RULE as of 5 Nov 2024, trying it out
    • 3.2) Political posts often end up being circle jerks (not offering unique perspective) or enflaming (too much work for mods).
    • 3.3) Try c/politicaldiscussion, volunteer as a mod here, or start your own community.
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (26 children)

I joined a smaller instance that more fits my interests, but is still federated with the "popular" ones I like. So far it works great.

[–] SmokesForBreakfast 16 points 1 year ago (25 children)

I still haven’t got a clue what this means. Goddamn it.

[–] meekah 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (14 children)

Lemmy is not one big application like reddit. Instead everyone can download Lemmy and host their own >instance<. Each instance can have their own users, their own communities/subs and admins.

Since Lemmy is part of the >fediverse<, it means that each Lemmy instance can interact with each other, and can even interact with other applications of the fediverse (like mastodon, which is more similar to twitter).

Because everyone can make their own Lemmy instance, it is also possible for bad faith actors to make one. They could create many accounts on their own instance, and try to mess with the other Lemmy instances by either posting a lot of comments, reporting a lot of content, or a number of other things. To prevent that from being an actual issue, each instance has the option to >defederate< other instances. (I am not 100% sure on the following so please correct me if I'm wrong) Defederating means that users of instance A cannot interact with the content or users of instance B, if instance A defederated instance B.

Since the performance of website is dependent on the instance you use, you can try to find another instance with less users and a more stable server. As long as it is not defederated by many other servers it will be effectively be the same experience as being on another instance.

[–] ProximaChad 4 points 1 year ago (6 children)

They need to find a way to make this easier to understand. I almost didn’t sign up because it was so confusing. I use to go on reddit for one subreddit and they are not even considering lemmy to host a second community. There’s a different alternative they think has potential. Its a pretty big sub too.

[–] meekah 5 points 1 year ago

Yeah, Lemmy isn't perfect, but I think it's much better than reddit already. It's a bit weird and you need to get used to the way it works, but isn't that true for reddit as well? You just already happen to have experience with reddit. I'm sure there are other alternatives that are more similar to reddit in it's monolithic approach.

[–] mesamunefire 4 points 1 year ago

Naa I kinda like that it requires some knowledge to get in.

[–] SmokesForBreakfast 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I only managed to sign up because Memmy held my hand through the process. NEVER underestimate a good sign up flow.

If you’re out there browsing this, unaware of how to sign up - get Memmy. It’s somewhat explained in that sign up flow, and at least you’ll get in here where you can get direct feedback from users.

[–] DM_ME_SQUIRRELS 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is that an app? An instance? Something else?

[–] SmokesForBreakfast 1 points 1 year ago

App for the instances. Like wefwef. I think. I’m still learning this.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think it's not helped by the fact that most early adopters are "techies" who enjoy talking about the underlying tech.

The average user doesn't really need to understand this whole fediverse thing to sign up and use Lemmy. We could just have a website with a big sign up button that randomly (to load balance) selects an instance from a whitelist and signs the user up there to get them started. But instead we have GitHub docs with detailed comparisons of various instances, and long discussions about underlying protocols and what the federation means and how that's different from centralized platforms.

[–] dragonflyteaparty 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I agree with you completely. I ended up with wold because I googled something on lemmy, saw the url had world in it, and just used that. The front sign up page was just confusing to me.

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

Check sub.rehab maybe they went somewhere else?

[–] SmokesForBreakfast 1 points 1 year ago

I only managed to sign up because Memmy held my hand through the process. NEVER underestimate a good sign up flow.

If you’re out there browsing this, unaware of how to sign up - get Memmy. It’s somewhat explained in that sign up flow, and at least you’ll get in here where you can get direct feedback from users.

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