What is an instance? what is a federation? what is a server? can someone please describe in simple terms how this all runs and how we as users navigate it?
What is an instance? what is a federation? what is a server? can someone please describe in simple terms how this all runs and how we as users navigate it?
(continued from above because of character limits)
ActivityPub is used for more than just Reddit-likes. Mastodon has a similar micro-blogging format to Twitter, and PeerTube is similar in function to Youtube. There are alternatives to Facebook and I believe Snapchat as well.
You can kind of think of it like email–there is no central email.inc that all emails go through; gmail and protonmail and icloud and compuserve and hotmail and whatnot are all different servers that are capable of using the internet to find each other and send messages back and forth.
You sign up for an account on an instance, say lemmy.world. This is your local instance; your local instance will handle all of the data going to and from you. If you create a community, it will be stored on your local instance. You may notice that instance addresses look a little like email addresses, ie [email protected]. That notes which instance that particular community is on. If you don’t see an instance name appended, it’s on your local instance.
When viewing lists of posts or communities, you are given an option to search for Subscribed, Local, and All. Subscribed will show you only communities you have subscribed to, it’s like your Reddit home feed. Local will show you only posts or communities made to your local instance. All will show you posts or communities from across the Fediverse. You can subscribe to, post and comment on communities from other instances, like I am doing now (my local instance is sh.itjust.works, I am posting to lemmy.world). It looks and works just like posting to my home instance.
A major difference users of Lemmy/the Fediverse should keep in mind: Reddit had platform-wide rules of conduct, which individual subreddits were allowed to expand upon. Lemmy does not have central admins or owners like u/spez to enforce platform-wide policy; those general rules come from the admins of each individual instance, which community moderators may add to. So rules and norms can vary between each instance, and when posting on an instance that isn’t your own, it’s a good idea to read the sidebar of that instance’s homepage to review them.
Thank you so much for the breakdown. I’m gonna reference back to this a lot while i try to wrap my head around this new space. I’m grateful for everyone’s informative replies and your guys’ good-spirited attitude towards reddit transplants like myself.
I was a long time reddit lurker but I feel compelled to post and it’s responses like yours that made me feel comfortable doing so.
TLDR: Thank you so much to everyone who broke it down for me. I’m having lots of fun in this space because of y’all and I am so excited to continue contributing to it.
Great explanation, thanks!
Thank you for your thorough explanation, I get it now!
This is awesome!
When you visit other instances through your home instance there is a delay/difference though as I assume your home instance has to get info from the remote instance before it can show it to you?
Or is that just because my account is on a tiny instance and I’m the first one visiting a lot of the communities?
Yes, but it helps if someone else on your home instance has subscribed before, since it would already have that information.
Also probably this.
That does clear it up some ty