this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2023

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Commenting across instances (self.lemmyworld)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by ArtVandelay to c/lemmyworld

41 comments fedilink hide all child comments

If I registered at lemmy.world, is it possible to still comment on a thread at say lemmy.ml? I get the expected "You are not logged in" and while subscribing is easy enough, I'm not able to comment or interact with other instances. This seems normal as users are unique per instance, I just want to make sure I'm not missing a key component of federated services. The sign in page at lemmy.ml says "You will still be able to interact with other instances" so that is confusing wording there as well.

EDIT: it works fine, you just need to be subbed to the other community before you can comment. Thanks /u/nulluser !

Edit 2: you don't even need to be subbed, I still have lots to learn, lol thank you all for your patience

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You don't even have to subcribe to the other community to comment on it, you just need to "arrive" at that community/post through your instance. example, I 'm on lemmy.ml and not subscribed to lemmy.world, but comment here. I actually got here from browsing 'All' from lemmy.ml so I was already within my instance.

The other method would be to go to your home instance, I'm using lemmy.ml in my case, go to the search and search for either the instance or user you want. Instances start with ! and users start with @. So either [email protected] or @[email protected], then you can click through and you'll be able to comment on it from your instance and it will have an instance link. In this case, this post through lemmy.ml is url https://lemmy.ml/post/1185740

[–] Katana314 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Question. If you live on instance 1, and located a useful post on instance 2 through a social link or Google search, is there an expedient way to go to “instance1/instance2/thatpost”? So far, my process has been to search the community link, and then Ctrl+F for the post title.

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

I haven't found a better way than that unfortunately. Supposedly the devs are working on a better way, but idk.

[–] ArtVandelay 8 points 1 year ago

Thanks, it seems I've got some research to do on how this all works, I'm saving this comment though thanks

[–] Weerdo 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hmm, so if I could question.

I get the instance data sharing and the federation, but are things like logins / users a swarm / shared type of information? IE if the server I'm at home on goes down does my account go with it?

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

As far as I'm aware, if an instance goes down, your account goes with it unfortunately.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It might help wrap your mind around this federation stuff by thinking about email. You don't need to concern yourself with whether you and someone you want to send an email to are on the same email domain, say between Outlook and Gmail, you just send an email and because everyone is using the same protocol, the email can get to anyone with an email address.

The fediverse is kinda the same way.

[–] bandario 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Good analogy. I think it's closer to USENET in nature, but there's every chance many people are not aware of what usenet is or was.

[–] bobaduk 4 points 1 year ago

I miss the Usenet. That was my intro to nerd culture.

[–] nvck 3 points 1 year ago

this really helped, thanks!

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not using lemmy (the software) however because kbin is also federated I can see your post and leave a reply as well.

[–] slash_nick 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is the part that blows my mind!

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Greetings from kbin.social, Lemmy's cooler younger cousin.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's super interesting seeing how Lemmy works. Came here from kbin and prior to this post had no idea about how instances link.

[–] Photographer 2 points 1 year ago

Took me a few minutes to work out how to link my communities, can you access the links if I do them like this? [email protected] and [email protected]

[–] nulluser 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Once subscribed, you can view the community from your lemmy.world instance and vote/comment on it from there. Your votes/comments are then diseminated across to other instances.

[–] ArtVandelay 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

oh my god that was so simple, i was looking at communities i wasn't subbed to yet lol - thanks!

[–] nulluser 5 points 1 year ago

Happy to help.

[–] spicyjimmy87762 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is lemmy.world connected to kbin? I'm trying to interact with their instances but it doesn't seem to work. kbin.social appears to be one of the faster growing instances. It would be nice if we could interact with them.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

kbin.social has been getting overloaded from sudden increased traffic due to the reddit hug of death today (Streisand effect from reddit banning a sub promoting it). The developer/admin of kbin.social has had to temporarily enable ddos protection to keep the site up which they say may be interfering with proper communication between kbin and the rest of the fediverse. This is probably why accessing kbin.social instances from lemmy isn't working right now.

[–] spicyjimmy87762 3 points 1 year ago

That makes sense. Thanks for the info.

[–] DetailObserver 1 points 1 year ago

Well, it is listed at https://lemmy.world/instances so it should work.

Maybe the servers were slow at the time you tried?

[+] mtnwolf 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

[deleted]

[–] sunspider 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

To your question, my understanding is that all your account activity is stored on your instance as the primary source, and then copied into other instances as users there view and interact with your posts and comments. So if the instance with your account on it shuts down, all of its content that was already copied over to other servers will be preserved there, but some of the newer activity that didn't have time to propagate yet might be lost.

[–] bandario 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What about user accounts and ownership of the community though?

[–] havocpants 1 points 1 year ago

If that's a worry for you, you can buy a cheap VPS and set up your own instance.

[–] GrouchyLady 3 points 1 year ago

That's a good question! I'm still learning about federation and trying to get my head around things too.

[–] Photographer 2 points 1 year ago

it would help if there was some background identifier though so we could differentiate from the same community on two different instances without having to type @instance every time

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Heck, I'm not even subbed to this community, and I can still comment on your post from Beehaw.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not even using Lemmy and I can still comment here

[–] birdjazz 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not even on the internet and I can comment here.

[–] johsny 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not even alive and I can comment here

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

AND MY AXE

[–] GiantPacificOctopus 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I (Lemmy.world registered) just managed to comment on a beehaw post… I don’t know enough about how this works to help you fix it but it is possible!

I got the “you are not logged in” error before my registration was accepted, not sure if that’s useful for you?

[–] ArtVandelay 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks, I got it figured out. It turns out the cross instance community you want to comment on, you just need to subscribe to it first.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/61827