Some questions about using Lemmy. (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by a_new_sad_me@lemmy.world to c/lemmy_support@lemmy.ml

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Hi, new user coming from Reddit, as many. Trying to orient with Lemmy, I realize that I still don't understand the idea of instances well enough. Or maybe the fediverse. So there are plenty of instances, and each is supposed to be dedicated to a topic, but this is a very fluid definition. Anyhow, how do I search for instances? I mean, if I'm in Lemmy.world, I can click "instances" and I get the list of instances that are relevant. Sure, I can use google for that, but my logic tells me that there should be a more organic way.

And this leads to another question, how can I browses communities on other instances with my already existing account? What about platforms such as mastodon where I'm supposed to be able to browse and submit and such?

And finally, is there a search per community possibility?

Sorry, I'm still confused about these.

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[-] kresten@feddit.dk 4 points 1 year ago

To answer your question regarding what an instance is.

Think of e-mail. Imagine you use Gmail.com, your email would probably be a_new_sad_me@gmail.com. You can send emails to everyone, even someone@outlook.com. You send and read emails you receive on gmail.com. You can't log onto outlook.com with your gmail login, but you can still email outlook.com.

I'm not sure I understood your post properly, so I just tried explaining instances. Let me know, if you'd like me to expand my analogy.

[-] a_new_sad_me@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I'm not sure I understand that email analogy, especially where it ends. My Gmail account does not allow me to access others users mail box. So what is the mailbox in that analogy?

And for that matter, what is outlook here? Another instance or another platform? To communicate with a mastodon post I need to get the link from there somehow?

(I admit, I'm confused as hell)

[-] kresten@feddit.dk 1 points 1 year ago

Your mailbox is lemmy.world You log into lemmy.world You send emails from lemmy.world You read the emails you receive on lemmy.world

The only website you ever use is lemmy.world (gmail in the analogy)

Outlook.com, gmail.com, protonmail.com so on, they're all examples of singular 'instances' of e-mail. Lemmy.ml and lemmy.world are examples of lemmy 'instances'. You choose one instance, and that's the one you use for all your communication. There are apps available, but they still communicate through your instance, similar to e-mail apps built-in in phones.

Not sure how else to phrase it. I'm sure someone else can do it better than me though.

To communicate with a mastodon post I need to get the link from there somehow?

I still haven't figured this out.

[-] Iain@fed.rosssi.co.uk 1 points 1 year ago

I found the following site to be useful, but agree it's a bit overwhelming. https://browse.feddit.de/

[-] kresten@feddit.dk 1 points 1 year ago

To answer one of your questions-- you can browse communities by opening the 'communities' tab at the top of the website of your instance (if you use lemmy.ml, then it's on that website), then you can press 'all' and see all communities federated with your instance (these are the ones someone else on your instance already follows).

If you'd like to search up communities, you should try browse.feddit.de. I used that to find equivalents to the subs I used to follow. Protip, if there's multiple of communities with the same topic, then just follow them all. Just them of them as mailing lists with moderators attached.

Please correct me if I'm wrong

[-] CoachDom@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 1 year ago

So, the way it works: Instance is a server your account is created and hosted on. Within the instance you registered with, people create communities - just like subreddits. You can search for communities within your instance but also from other instances. When searching for a community of interest, make sure to check option All. This will result in showing you communities from across various instances. You can participate, comment and post in the communities from other instances just as if they were created in the instance you are registered in.

One exclusion is when the instance you are registered with decided to defederate with some instance. For example Instance B is promoting illegal content so your instance decide not to federate with it. Then you won't be able to access the content on Instance B.

Makes sense?

[-] Spzi@lemmy.click 1 points 1 year ago

the instance you are registered with decided to defederate with some instance

This might explain why I can't find communities which allegedly exist, or why I can't choose my home instance in the android app to log in.

It might. I'm not getting any error which clearly states the malfunction is due to defederation.

How does one achieve clarity? Is there a map, which shows which instance is (de)federated to which other instances?

[-] CoachDom@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 year ago

Sure you can!

If you scroll all the way down in a desktop browser, click into Instances. On the right it will tell you what instances are defederated.

[-] Spzi@lemmy.click 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Nice, thank you! There is only one defederated, the infamous lemmygrad.

Though I don't think this explains the issues I have. Maybe it's the overall load due to the reddit migration.

[-] CoachDom@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

So what's exactly a problem? I might be able to help - I struggled with some stuff here as well.

[-] Spzi@lemmy.click 1 points 1 year ago

Thanks, that's very kind!

Someone shared this link: https://kbin.social/m/fediverse/t/4331/The-growing-list-of-subreddits-going-to-be-dark-but

If I understand this correctly, that's a list of communities I should be able to subscribe to. I can visit https://lemmy.ml/c/atheism and https://lemmy.ml/c/gamedev, but they open as a new (?) lemmy to which I am not logged in. When I try to find them via 'Communities', I get "No results", so I cannot subscribe.

So it feels like some parts of the network are inaccessible (or even invisible, the internal serach does not show these two examples) and I don't know why.

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this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2023

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