this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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What I think could make Lemmy superior to Reddit is the ability to create themed-instances that are all linked together which feels like the entire point. I've noticed that a lot of instances are trying to be a catch-all Reddit replacement by imitating specific subs which is understandable given the circumstances but seems like it's not taking advantage of the full power that Lemmy could have.

Imagine for a moment that instances were more focus-based. Instead of having communities that are all mostly unrelated we had entire instances that are focused on one specific area of expertise or interest. Imagine a LOTR instance that had many sub-communities (in this case "communities" would be the wrong way to look at it, it would be more like categories) that dealt with different subjects in the LOTR universe: books, movies, lore, gaming, art, etc all in the same instance.

Imagine the types of instances that could be created with more granular categories within to better guide conversations: Baseball, Cars, Comics, Movies, Tech etc.

A tech instance could have dedicated communities for news, programming, dev, IT, Microsoft, Apple, iOS, linux. Or you could make it even more granular by having a dedicated instance for each of those because there's so many categories that could be applied to each.

What are your thoughts?

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[–] matthieu_xyz@piaille.fr 4 points 2 years ago

@_finger_
We can have both generic instances and instances around a particular topic.

We already have a few lemmy dedicated to a particular community like latte.isnot.coffee and startrek.website

[–] kevincox@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I don't agree. If I like LOTR and giraffes I don't want to create an account on both "instance groups". I want to do like today and create a single account, then subscribe to the communities I am interested in wherever they are.

To me it sounds like you are sort of mixing up community location and community discovery. This is sort of the case right now because instances have a list of local communities but I think that it is best that they are separated. For example on Reddit I don't generally find new communities by scanning the entire list of communities. I usually find them when someone mentions a related community in a comment of a community that I am already in. Or when I stumble across a community when searching the web. When you discover and subscribe to communities this way it doesn't really matter where they are hosted or if they are grouped. You can organically discover things that interest you over time (although I agree that it can be a bit slow to start).

[–] Guy_Fieris_Hair@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

You can subscribe and post on different instances. But, I don't think all pertinent communities should be on one CENTRALIZED instance since that defeats the point of the Fediverse.

[–] baronvonj@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

If I like LOTR and giraffes I don’t want to create an account on both β€œinstance groups”.

But you don't have to create accounts on multiple instances. You can subscribe, post, and mod communities on other federated servers.

[–] notun@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Hopping between instances would have to be simplified significantly.

[–] feduser934@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I don't understand what you mean. Isn't the point of federation that one account on one instance is as good as an account on every instance? I've never felt the need to hop between instances.

[–] notun@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

OP's post is about having specialized instances, making hopping around necessary. It's not convenient enough as it is.

[–] feduser934@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

By hopping around, do you mean changing your account to one on another instance, or viewing a list of communities on an instance, or something else?

I don't feel that changing accounts is necessary because of the magic of federation. But I don't know how to view a list of communities in an instance without leaving your home instance. That would be a cool feature, but is only really important when you're initially picking all your subscriptions.

[–] notun@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (6 children)

Exactly, it's really inconvenient right now. And it's really important for the usability of what OP suggested.

If I simply link to a cool community I found, like https://beehaw.org/c/programming, you can't follow that link conveniently if you're from another instance.

And I highly disagree with only being important at the start. It's a big hurdle that stifles growth right now and in the future.

[–] dimath@lemmy.pt 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

No, that's not right You can follow any community from any instance with your account, doesn't matter where you registered your account. I just subscribed to https://beehaw.org/c/programming (/c/programming@beehaw.org) from lemmy.pt user account

[–] pistachio@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

this is buggy. Pardon the nsfw, but it doesn't work for gonewild@lemmynsfw .com

[–] notun@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago

Read what I wrote, please.

[–] tet42@ka.tet42.org 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Yes you can subscribe to and read that community from any lemmy instance. You just need to add it if the instance doesn't already federate with it.

Go to 'Communities' at the top of your instance homepage then in the search bar put the url of the community you want to add. (example: https://beehaw.org/c/programming)

This next part is undocumented, and might just be a bug. But this is the magic part.

On the next page, change the search dropdown from Communities to ALL.

You will see the community you want to sub to in the results. It will say something like.

Programming@beehaw.org - 0 subscribers

Click it, then on the top right pane click "Subscribe"

Done

[–] XpeeN@sopuli.xyz 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

If I simply link to a cool community I found, like https://beehaw.org/c/programming, you can’t follow that link conveniently if you’re from another instance.

I saw that something like !programming@beehaw.org should work. It doesn't work for me now though

[–] notun@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

That's the string you need to put in the search and go through there. Clunky and inconvenient.

The funny part is that the search also returns posts where that link works, but don't know what the issue here is. Regardless, copy+pasteing a universal link should be an easy thing to do and not require manual typing.

Edit: Okay, so to do those links you have to type it out like you would a reddit link:

[!programming@lemmy.ml](/c/programming@lemmy.ml) which results in !programming@lemmy.ml

[–] XpeeN@sopuli.xyz 0 points 2 years ago

So it's actually the /c/programming@Lemmy.ml link that make it works like federation, so the '!' has no purpose? It's weird, I imagined it like @ and # at other platforms, and actually at lemmy's GitHub page readme you can see they mention the tagging just like that, like it works the same as other platforms. What are we missing here hahaha

[–] Da_Boom@iusearchlinux.fyi 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

That's more of the interface you're using a fault for not interpreting links correctly - it should be obvious that url/c/communityname should be interpreted as a community, just as !communityname@instance.org (right now jerboa is interpreting it as an email address) should also be interpreted as one, and if you remove the ! It should be interpreted as a username.

But most interfaces are open source, so give them time and someone (maybe even you) can submit a pull request that fixes it. That's the beauty of open source - in time the bugs get ironed out because it's a collaborative effort.

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[–] Spzi@lemmy.click 0 points 2 years ago

I don’t know how to view a list of communities in an instance without leaving your home instance.

On lemmy:

  1. Click 'Communities' (top left menu)
  2. Search using the search box (top right)
  3. Select 'Communities' from the drop down (top left)
  4. Make sure to toggle 'All' (*not *'Subscribed' or 'Local').

This will show you communities matching your search term from all instances*.

You can then subscribe to communities regardless on which instance they live and use them seemlessly, regardless of wether they are local or not.


*) It will show you communities matching your search term from all instances, if your instance has already discovered that community.

If it has not, it shows 'No Results'. You can force it by some exclamation mark shenanigans which I haven't understood well enough to explain. After that, your instance knows about that community in the other instance and will show it in future search results. I think as soon as one person from your instance force-discovers a community from another instance, that community becomes searchable for everyone on your instance.

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[–] Stumblinbear@pawb.social 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I'm currently working on a Lemmy mobile client and have implemented multi-accounts until it's easier to do this. Basically you can make multiple accounts on different instances and aggregate the data from them all into a single feed. It doesn't currently prioritize posting from specific accounts (you just select a primary)--I'm trying to figure out a good way to go about doing it so you can section things off πŸ‘€

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[–] Carchi@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I guess it's the point of the fediverse as far as I understand. Kind of like being members of a bunch of old school forums. Unfortunately for me it's not really what I'm looking for, and I like the unified aspect of reddit.

[–] dystop@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago

unified is nice, but if i've learnt anything over the past 9-10 years as a redditor, it means you're at the mercy of admins and power mods. And because it's become the go-to forum, it's gotten so much attention from stealth marketers and bots (it's hard not to unsee such posts once you learn to identify them), and karma whores trying to get the first witty remark in so it'll get boosted up into the first top-level comment.

I kinda like the idea of a fediverse - it's like a bunch of forums, but connected in a way that makes it so much easier to browse and read all of them, and doesn't have the "centralisation of power" problem reddit has.

[–] XpeeN@sopuli.xyz 0 points 2 years ago

I feel like is not necessary because you can subscribe and communicate to subLems from basically anywhere. We're right now 2 users from 2 different instances talking at a subLem originate at a 3rd instance, but does it even matter? As long as everything's federated it (basically) doesn't matter where you're account is from, and what subLems are originate from your instance. That's the whole beauty of the fediverse.

PS, I do glad that lemmygard implemented your idea, so because my instance defederate them I don't have to see those guys ever again (they're the reason I ditched my lemmy.ml account long ago).

[–] bcoffy@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago

So sort of like what the forums of yore were like? You’d have a website for a dedicated, broad topic (like a video game franchise or a brand you like), then subforums for topics in it (specific games in the series or specific products by the brand)

[–] hugz@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Currently users of Lemmy are "power users". The fact that power users can't even work out how to use Lemmy 'properly' is sign of its future

[–] phil_m@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago

It's not like it's a finished product. It's a Work in Progress. I'm watching the progress of the project for some time, and it seems for me that the first priority was to get the UX on one instance right (which IMHO makes totally sense). Basic federation support came more recently and will get better, I'm sure of it. Once that is a more smooth experience I think it will organically get more diverse.

[–] BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago

Idk, I got here and I'm sort of an idjit

[–] Halasham@dormi.zone 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] hugz@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago

It's a term that broadly refers to people with more experience in a technology and more ability to extract use from it.

[–] ChemicalRascal@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago

It's arguably a sign that there is need for refinement, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, jeez. Every platforms' early days were much like this. Reddit was pretty shit at first. YouTube was pretty shit at first. And so on.

Nothing comes to life without teething pains. We're literally on day two for most users, it's bizarre to be saying anything about Lemmy's future this early.

[–] manitcor@lemmy.intai.tech 0 points 2 years ago

AI and machine learning tech instance over here looking for members. ran themed communities BEFORE reddit and slashdot, doing it again.

[–] Moonguide@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago

I think, in time, those will come organically. Maybe those communities won't be purpose built to be dedicated to a single topic, but despite federation I wouldn't be surprised if instances popped up with rules about topics discussed. Still federated, but communities within themselves will be regulated somewhat.

I'm not sure how to feel about this, maybe it's just the time I spent on reddit has jaded me, but there's divisive topics that I'm not sure would do well if housed within the same instance without coming down to name calling and unsavoury behaviour. A reddit example, early days r/lowsodiumcyberpunk2077 and r/cyberpunk 2077, both held extremely differing opinions. An even worse example because politics got into the mix, r/thelastofus and r/thelastofus2. If mods keep on top of it with good rules set in place and are enforced, could be good.

I'm not sure either if forcing topics to newly deployed instances is a realistic path, either.

[–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 0 points 2 years ago

This is good but at the moment the user base isn't big enough to support splitting interests like that.

[–] fluffery@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I saw the scramble exodus from twitter to fedi, specifcally mastodon, when elon took over, give it time, when it first happened the Main instance Mastodon.social was swarmed aswell as the instances listed in mastodons Website at the time, over time more instances popped up with themes, im aware of lemmy-php which uses phpbb What doomed lemmy migration is how short the Protest is, over the 3 month Period with twitter fediverse microblogging adapted, just as reddit Corp will ride the wave so will lemmy with minor change, what needs to happen is the suggested "indefinite Protest" it will make lemmy instances pop up with themes, and smaller instances contributing to federation Themed instances already include lemmygrad.ml

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