I want to familiarise my self with the rules and workings of this app/ website how moderation is done and etc so I can be extra careful
I want to familiarise my self with the rules and workings of this app/ website how moderation is done and etc so I can be extra careful
Fuck extra careful, for me that was part of leaving Reddit way too much overzealousness when it came to moderation, plus Spez is a piece of shit
Think of Lemmy as Reddit the site that you browse, when you sign up to an instance it’s like you are on their personal website that just shows you the webpage so lemmy.world shows you the same Lemmy website that lemmy.ca shows you the only differences are you go by their rules/moderation on that instance, there is more to it but I’m just giving a basic picture of it when it comes to moderation and rules
You set up an account on lemmy.world read the sidebar, if the rules aren’t to your liking try another instance I like sh.itjust.works cuz they aren’t tight asses
Soo umm I dot get the instances part
Imagine you’re at a convention or something similar. A huge building with lots of rooms, inside those rooms lots of tables, and at those tables, lots of people. You enter a room: At table A they are playing a board game, at table B they’re discussing a rulebook, at table C they’re in a heated argument about spaceships. You like it here, so you dump your backpack and jacket at one of the tables - this is your seat now.
But you’re not confined to that room - you’re free to wander the entire convention scene, regardless of which room you use as your “base”, and other people are free to do the same. You can join discussions at any table in any room for as long as you like, and people who dumped their stuff into other rooms are free to visit yours.
The tables are communities (“subreddits”), the rooms are instances, and the building is the Federation. It doesn’t matter much which “room”/instance you want to take as your base, since you’ll have access to the same content in the entire building anyway.
The room / instance mostly doesn’t matter for the site content, but might matter when something doesn’t work as intended - if lemmy.world is down for maintenance for example, people are temporarily unable to access that instance, but can still browse the rest of the Federation. For the convention example, it’s like someone dropped a bottle in the room and everyone has to stay outside for a while until the janitor has mopped it all up. You can still visit all tables in other rooms in the meantime, since a temporarily inaccessible room is no reason to shut down the entire convention.
Plus, if you’re unhappy with your room for any reason, noone is stopping you from taking your backpack to a different room and find a new chair to leave it on. There is no limit on how often you can create new accounts on different instances if you like their site layout better (content is still the same tho) or something similar.
To compare it all to reddit: Reddit is a convention held inside a gym. Still a building full of tables, but they’re technically all in the same room, so if something goes wrong inside that room, EVERYONE has to stay outside of the building, no matter where your seat is.
…at least that’s how I understand it ;) I’ve been here for 2 months now, also ex-redditor. And yes, I’ve been super confused about it all for the first two weeks or so as well, but it gets better on its own the more you interact with the site. Support is super helpful and friendly, too.
So, you signed up on lemmy.world, I signed up on sh.itjust.works
But we’re communicating with each other right now. That’s the gist. Each instance is like its own mini reddit but they’re all connected (for the most part).
I still don’t really get it, but it doesn’t really seem to affect me. I downloaded the Connect for Lemmy app, and started subscribing to groups and content appears on my screen.
I’m no power user, I just like to read stuff during smoke breaks and down time.
It’s just like multiple reddit websites that are interconnected so you can see content from the other sites on whatever site you choose to sign up with.
Each instance (or server) is like one Reddit.
Much smaller off course, but there are plenty (!), and if you want to subscribe to another instances communites, you can!
No, think of an instance like some guy is hosting the visual part of the website on his computer named lemmy.world another guy hosts the same website but it’s on his computer named lemmy.ca their computers their rules, if they shut down their computer or you don’t like how they moderate then you sign up to someone else’s computer to view the website
The subreddit would be on that guys individual computer you could make a subreddit called technology on lemmy.world but even though the guy with the lemmy.ca computer didn’t set up that subreddit you can still view it, it’s basically a portal to view everyone else’s Reddit
If you use an app they have ways of viewing all of Lemmy, All shows you all the “subreddits across everyone’s computers, local would just be the subreddits created on that computer that you signed up to, then subscribed would be subreddits you subscribed to… technology on lemmy.world and just making one up but worldnews on lemmy.ca
all is actually only communities that someone on your instance has subscribed to. But yes they can be from other instances.
Not to further complicate things. But a community from another instance won’t show up on your all until you or someone else subscribed.
I didn’t realize that so thanks for clearing that up, part of my reply was just giving the general idea so it’s good to get full answer
Yeah, most people seem to think if you’re instance is federated with another then all communities from it will appear, but it’s actually on a community by community basis. That’s a pro of larger instances, the all feed will already be well populated.
Every instance is a different server with its own Lemmy, its own Communities("subreddits), and your Account is only on one Instance. But different Instances are federated to each other, so you can see all the content from these other federated instances, can interact with their communities, their users, can post and comment there and vice versa