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Subreddit refugees be like... (media1.giphy.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/lemmyworld@lemmy.world
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[โ€“] 9 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (2 children)

I see alot of people using an email analogy that people don't seem to follow, I saw another analogy so I'll give it a go (and probably butcher it haha.)

You have the planet, right? "Lemmy" as a concept, the "Fediverse" is the planet. Then, you have countries. Large, all encompassing central entities, each with it's own ruling government and systems. What you can get away with in Ireland, might not be legal in Turkey. Instances (or servers) like lemmy.world, lemmy.ml, etc are the "countries." Each can have it's own standards, practices, rules, etc. Then the communities are like cities in those countries, beholden to the larger entity but otherwise allowed to run themselves and do what they do.

For your last question, let's look at those communities (cities, per our analogy.) Say I live in Franklin, Maine. Around town, if you're talking about home you don't say Franklin, Maine all the time do you? It's just Franklin, because if you're in Maine (or your home country if not US) it's presumed you're talking about the Franklin that you're in (or the Franklin down the road if you live two cities over.)

There's still a Franklin in Alabama, Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, and like 40 other states. ^(Thanks wiki :P) So if I wanted to talk about or visit one of THOSE Franklins, I would specify Franklin, Idaho, or Franklin, Illinois. That's the "Fediverse."

(Pretend for a minute we are in a community /c/puppies for this bit so it's less confusing) This group, for us, is just /c/puppies because it's our local /c/puppies, just as I from your perspective am just @CannaVet because we are both in our home "country" of lemmy.world (the instance/server.) If you look at one of the replies to the comment you replied to, you will see someone as @JakeBacon@lemm.ee. He is visiting our "country" of lemmy.world, from his home "country" of lemm.ee. Over in the "country" of lemm.ee, they may also have a community (city) of /c/puppies which is notated as such to HIM because it's local to his home country just as ours is to us - but for us to visit would be "traveling" so we would visit /c/puppies@lemm.ee because we're leaving home and visiting another country. For him to come here he has to come to /c/puppies@lemmy.world because HE would be the "traveler."

Same with users, I'm just @CannaVet and you're just @Swoggles because we're "at home" on lemmy.world, but if we click around and are perusing a community on lemmy.ml we would show as @CannaVet@lemmy.world and @Swoggles@lemmy.world because we're "traveling." There may be a @Cannavet@lemmy.ml, but on lemmy.ml they would just be @CannaVet and I would be @CannaVet@lemmy.world, because I'm visiting their "country." If they come here I'm @CannaVet and they're @CannaVet@lemmy.ml.

We're different users, with different accounts, on different servers, completely unrelated. Communities work the same way - I may run /c/stuff@lemmy.world however I want, but somebody might be running /c/stuff@lemmy.ml completely differently with completely different rules and content entirely over on that instance.

As for exploring different instances, you can go most anywhere you want (mostly, my understanding is instances can block other instances from access, but I'm not super in the know about that.) Using the "all" button in search and browsing will open you up to other instance's content vs the "local" button that keeps you in your "home country."

I don't understand entirely how to link out to other instances, but if you click a link and end up logged out on a different server, you can manually visit by adding the community to the end of your URL like so-

lemmy.world/c/technology@lemmy.ml

This will keep you on lemmy.world and ensure you're "just visiting" where you're trying to go. Once everyone has a better grasp this shouldn't be a problem but I've run into this issue a few times.

Cliffs Notes-

Instances (lemmy.ml, lemmy.ml, lemm.ee, etc) are top level "countries" and run things as they see fit

Communities (/c/puppies, /c/lemmy.world, etc) are "cities" bound by instance administration and can exist on multiple instances completely independently of eachother, like how London, England exists independently of London, France.

If you run into trouble visiting communities on other instances, manually navigate with lemmy.world/c/commname@instance.url (or lemmy.ml/c/commname.url if you're registered on lemmy.ml, etc etc.)

Sorry for the wall, hope it's at all helpful lol.

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  • [โ€“] 3 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Extremely helpful, thank you.

    So if I'm understanding correctly, each lemmy instance is effectively it's own forum/reddit, and being part of a lemmy instance gives us a passport to visit and interact with other lemmy instances, yeah?

    And after us as individuals are more established and connected, we'll naturally start to join and "import" communities within our home insurance and other Lemmy instances.

    So, one final question, won't this model lead to like, heavy fragmentation of communities? There's pros and cons to that, but if I'm a fan of d&d, there will be a d&d community on many lemmy instances, and each of those would only be connected by visiting lemmy users that join multiple instances of the d&d community on different lemmy instances, right?

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  • [โ€“] 3 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Unless I'm mistaken, you're overthinking the "import" concept. I do think that your home instance caches info from communities you visit (MAYBE that influences what you see in all but I don't know really,) but otherwise there's no "importing" of anything. Otherwise, yeah the passport analogy isn't far off. You don't have an account on lemmy.ml, but it recognizes you as a registered user of lemmy.world and you get to interact as normal, you get tagged as @Swoggles@lemmy.world just like your passport says you hail from insert home country here. (I assume lol)

    If you visit /c/aww@lemmy.ml for example, you're connecting to lemmy.ml as @Swoggles@lemmy.world. You're not bringing that community into lemmy.world, you're visiting it in lemmy.ml, as someone from lemmy.world (and as mentioned would appear if you comment as @Swoggles@lemmy.world. Because "visiting.") /c/aww@lemmy.world is just /c/aww on lemmy.world. It has zero at all to do with /c/aww on lemmy.ml, and they have zero at all to do with /c/aww on lemm.ee. All completely independent communities existing on different instances. There's no connections, no correlations, just somebody made /c/aww on lemmy.world, somebody also made /c/aww on lemmy.ml. They don't connect or anything. London, France has nothing to do with London, England, and /c/aww@lemmy.world has nothing to do with /c/aww@lemmy.ml.

    Won't this model lead to like, heavy fragmentation of communities?

    This is where people get lost coming from Reddit. Lemmy is not Reddit, and it isn't designed to be Reddit. Lemmy is designed to be a decentralized alternative, which offers far greater control at the cost of UX (usability, cohesiveness, whatever.) There aren't "single" communities, because that isn't what this is for. Decentralization is the point. Being able to (as one user put it) "make my own /c/aww with blackjack and hookers" is the point. That I can spin up a Docker container on my pi and build my own single user Lemmy instance as a home base, is the point.

    It isn't meant or designed to provide a single central point of compilation, it's existence is for the exact opposite - Nobody has ultimate control because any one instance owner's power only extends so far as their server. The fragmentation everybody laments coming from Reddit actually provides redundancy, have you ever had a sub you like on Reddit get shut down for this that or the other reason? That's it, it's gone, sucks to suck. If you want more /c/aww, you CAN follow every /c/aww you can find - /c/aww@lemmy.world, /c/aww@lemmy.ml, /c/aww@lemm.ee, etc can ALL be in your sub feed. However, if @ruud (the owner of lemmy.world) decides he fucking hates adorable animals and nukes /c/aww@lemmy.world, you still have /c/aww on every other instance available.

    This is the point that makes me mad about other Reddit exiles (not you.) They came to lemmy to leave a central authority, and got mad that there isn't a central authority. I try to point out that more 1 for 1 Reddit clones exist, but they get mad because that's "not what they want." Control and ease of use(the smooth singular experience of Reddit, Google, etc) are diametrically opposed. Either everything "just works" because everything is owned by and exists on Reddit servers, or you have to put in a little leg work to have control over your data etc because having control means I can get mad at lemmy.ml and block my server from federating with them, or I can tinker with the code and someone else's client doesn't understand what it's seeing, or any other number of things that can occur with the backend being in our hands vs a singular entity like a company. You just......can't have both, but Reddit exiles are mad about that. They want total decentralization of infrastructure and ownership, but want centralization of content, which just isn't possible without that single central pillar running the show (some people argue for communities that exist to scrape and clone every copy of a given /c/ across the fediverse to create a "supercommunity" but that just sounds like stealing with extra steps to me lol.)

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 3 years ago

    I definitely like the more personal nature of smaller communities, but for the sake of sharing information it's not as good.

    I enjoy some niche video games, and a centralized place to share information is extremely helpful for that. But also having smaller communities for more generalized topics is nice because you'll actually get to know individuals.

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  • [โ€“] 0 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Thank you again for the thorough explanation.

    There are definitely pros and cons to having everything be decentralized. The fediverse seems a lot more like a thousand different forums with the same login.

    Question - how are bad actors dealt with? If someone has their account banned on one lemmyverse, does it ban them for all?

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