180
ELI5 Reddit to Lemmy (sh.itjust.works)

What is an instance? what is a federation? what is a server? can someone please describe in simple terms how this all runs and how we as users navigate it?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] esty@lemmy.ca 44 points 1 year ago

Instance == server == each individual lemmy (Beehaw is its own instance, so is lemmy.ca, etc)

Basically, reddit was a bunch of communities on one server (the reddit servers)

Each lemmy instance has its own collection of communities, and each lemmy is connected together, so users from any individual lemmy can read and interact with communities and users from other lemmys (this is federation)

All of these lemmy instances federating makes up the greater lemmy network as a whole

[-] zabil@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Thank you for this.

How does one go about finding communities from other instances and connect with them?

[-] ClassyHatter@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Use your instance's search feature. You can search

  • Name of community: No Stupid Questions
  • By using !community@instance syntax: [!nostupidquestions@lemmy.world](/c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world)
  • URL of the community: https://lemmy.world/c/nostupidquestions

First option won't work if your instance hasn't federated the community yet. The last option is best in my opinion.

[-] Mori@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Some small addition to the last option:

If you want to browse a community from a specific instance on your home instance you have to add the 'home' instance.

For example your home instance (where you did register your account) is Lemmy.ml and the community you want to interact with is on Lemmy.world you would use:

Https://Lemmy.ml/c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

In order to be able to post, reply etc

[-] Moxvallix@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 year ago

https://lemmyverse.net/ is a great tool for searching for communities and instances.

[-] felixculpa@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

great explanation

[-] b3an@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Doesn’t this then make, a bunch of communities with same names like ‘iOS’. Then it feels fractured across a bunch of groups of same enthusiasts. Or what do I misunderstand about this or it’s benefits? I’m legitimately curious.

[-] Contramuffin@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Yes, it is fractured, and that is by intention. The point is that no one single person can control the entirety of the Lemmyverse. Suppose a spez comes along and tries to ruin things. Then, at worst, he can only destroy 1 instance. Even if he destroys the biggest instance, then it's a big loss, but it's not the end of the entire platform. Lemmyverse lives on.

As for how the fracturing affects the user - not much. As mentioned in other comments, each instance can communicate seamlessly between each other. I can post to other instances, and other instances can post to mine. All information is shared.

One caveat, though, is that the Lemmyverse is still very much in its early growth stages. So you'll find a bunch of communities spread out over a bunch of instances that do virtually the same thing. It'll look like the community is fractured. But over time, users are probably just going to settle on a single community, we just don't know which one yet. Think of it like subreddits on Reddit. There's basically always 3 subreddits about the same topic, but there's always the one major subreddit, which is usually the one that you're looking for. We haven't reached that point yet - we're still waiting to see which is going to be the "major" community for most topics.

[-] Spzi@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Yes, but technically no. The full name includes the instance, for example iOS@example.instance.

Similarly, you had multiple subreddits dedicated to a single topic, with slight variations in their name.

I recommend to subscribe to anything which seems interesting (including duplicates), then unsubscribing from annoying stuff.

[-] Spzi@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago

Overall great explanation, accurate and short.

The one thing I dislike is the usage of 'lemmy', which you seem to use as a synonym for 'instance'. That is both inconsistent (you already established terms for that; 'instance' and 'server'), and inaccurate.

Lemmy is the whole, the network of federated and defederated instances.

this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2023
180 points (96.4% liked)

No Stupid Questions

34916 readers
1575 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS