both companies notably ruined the internet in the 2010s by consolidating discourse then taking various steps to destroy the user experience and the feel of the communities for profit.
so, broadly, the web went from cozy, small hobby forums in the 90s and 00s, then with the 10s as a transitional period, the 20s being practically complete corporate control of online discourse.
it’s a bummer. but nothing lasts forever. where will we go next?
My first link used the dropdown menu. Fwiw, discuss.online says it is using “BE: 0.19.3”. So if I type e.g. exclamation-mark then start typing “newtolemmy…” it will fill in to
[!newtolemmy@lemmy.ca](https://lemmy.ca/c/newtolemmy), and then iirc someone told me to remove the exclamation mark and… omg, it looks like *I* am the one messing these up!? Removing the exclamation mark results in newtolemmy@lemmy.ca, which takes me away from my instance, but leaving it in allows it to work properly.Regardless, that is still NOT intuitive, like AT ALL, b/c the URL makes it visually look like clicking it should go to “https://lemmy.ca/c/newtolemmy”, so what difference should the click-here text make - whether I call it “I am the very model of a major general” or
!newtolemmy@lemmy.ca, the URL is what governs where a link goes, literally everywhere I’ve ever seen in the entire internet? (and the[whatever text here](URL goes here)format definitely presents itself as a “link”, not “code that will change the URL endpoint later”)Even so, it seems I have been spreading a bit of misinformation, and I apologize for that.
Most especially for this reason and for so many others, I appreciate you so much, for taking the time to think about and correct me on this score - that is so very helpful, THANK YOU!!!
No worries, happy to help. I guess that might solve some of the issues you detailed in the comment above.
I skimmed through it, but some other points I was a bit confused about
The issue here is not about discuss.online being a small instance, but mostly you not using the URL with the instance name
@OpenStars@discuss.online, have you seen my comment above? I was curious as it seems you were missing how to link to communities on another instance
Ah no I did not see it. Which itself is a bit of an interesting story, but first to stay on-topic here: thank you!:-) It made sense to me that perhaps nobody on Lemmy.World had ever “subscribed” to such a tiny, niche community as drpg (which someone seems to have squatted the rights to, on an instance that barely has any other communities, but then never bothered to so much as post to), but apparently either you or someone else has in fact done just that. I appreciate the correction as to how to get it done.
Now the oddness of why I did not respond: I seem to have feddit.org in my user block list. Likely that was historical b/c I routinely kept blocking new communities constantly as they were formed, so that my All feed would be usable, but no matter how many I kept blocking new ones kept popping up in languages that I could not read. I have been wondering if I should remove that, ever since your earlier comment that those communities may have adjusted their language settings since then. So then this presents a new oddity: apparently people can override a user block, simply by tagging the other person’s name? In your case I actually appreciate it but… overall the potential for abuse does worry me a bit. Not terribly much b/c presumably a user account block would take precedence but still…
On Reddit as a mod I was subjected to some “brigading” attempts - and I actually went to the discord and took screenshots of people calling for such - so the scenario whereby hundreds of different accounts (even if a smaller number of actual people) could continuously barrage someone, represents a very real & distinct possibility in my mind. If you are curious btw, eventually I was vindicated and the person who caused the uproar was banned from the other (~10x-larger) sub, with people apologizing after-the-fact for not researching the issue fully before starting into a flame war, and Reddit admins themselves banned several accounts that this person had created (presumably they were not smart about it and did something like use the same email to sign up for them all, but then broke the rules, several times, to use such accounts to evade prior bans from the sub). It is such experiences that have left me jaded, and realizing that >90% of the problems experienced somewhere usually can be attributed to a single “person” (even if multiple accounts).
Anyway that’s one of the chief reasons that I am enjoying the Fediverse over Reddit: discussing things on a factual basis with people like you is a far cry from dealing with such. Thank you not only for your large efforts to actually improve things where you are at, but also for making this place more worthwhile to visit!:-)
The instance block and the user blocks work differently. The instance blocks affects the communities of the blocked instance, not the users of that instance.
I just checked with an alt where I have hexbear blocked, I can still see their comments. Not sure about their posts, they only created them on the hexbear communities.
Happy to help!