Hi, new user coming from Reddit, as many. Trying to orient with Lemmy, I realize that I still don’t understand the idea of instances well enough. Or maybe the fediverse. So there are plenty of instances, and each is supposed to be dedicated to a topic, but this is a very fluid definition. Anyhow, how do I search for instances? I mean, if I’m in Lemmy.world, I can click “instances” and I get the list of instances that are relevant. Sure, I can use google for that, but my logic tells me that there should be a more organic way.

And this leads to another question, how can I browses communities on other instances with my already existing account? What about platforms such as mastodon where I’m supposed to be able to browse and submit and such?

And finally, is there a search per community possibility?

Sorry, I’m still confused about these.

  • KrestenEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    To answer your question regarding what an instance is.

    Think of e-mail. Imagine you use Gmail.com, your email would probably be a_new_sad_me@gmail.com. You can send emails to everyone, even someone@outlook.com. You send and read emails you receive on gmail.com. You can’t log onto outlook.com with your gmail login, but you can still email outlook.com.

    I’m not sure I understood your post properly, so I just tried explaining instances. Let me know, if you’d like me to expand my analogy.

    • a new sad me@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I’m not sure I understand that email analogy, especially where it ends. My Gmail account does not allow me to access others users mail box. So what is the mailbox in that analogy?

      And for that matter, what is outlook here? Another instance or another platform? To communicate with a mastodon post I need to get the link from there somehow?

      (I admit, I’m confused as hell)

      • KrestenEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Your mailbox is lemmy.world You log into lemmy.world You send emails from lemmy.world You read the emails you receive on lemmy.world

        The only website you ever use is lemmy.world (gmail in the analogy)

        Outlook.com, gmail.com, protonmail.com so on, they’re all examples of singular ‘instances’ of e-mail. Lemmy.ml and lemmy.world are examples of lemmy ‘instances’. You choose one instance, and that’s the one you use for all your communication. There are apps available, but they still communicate through your instance, similar to e-mail apps built-in in phones.

        Not sure how else to phrase it. I’m sure someone else can do it better than me though.

        To communicate with a mastodon post I need to get the link from there somehow?

        I still haven’t figured this out.

        • a new sad me@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Hmmm… I understand the analogy, but I’m still not sure I accept it. I mean, with emails I need to actively search for specific people elsewhere. The basic idea is not to discover new users and such. I don’t think it is only semantics and the reason is exactly the reason I’ve placed my original post. My intention with it wasn’t clear enough, probably.

          To crystallize my question: what’s the point of making theme-based instances if I cannot browse specifically these instances for their local community. E.g., my account is registered on lemmy.world, and I see an instance dedicated to sad things. If I want to browse specifically that instance, see what sad communities I can find there. How can I do that? And if I can, how does that works with the statement I saw on the beginner’s guide that it doesn’t mater which instance I register on?

          • KrestenEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            That’s actually the main issue I had with mastodon. Because it was just an instance and users, there weren’t any way to group them (except for hashtags, they are a great tool, but still bot quite what I was looking for).

            The advantage of Lemmy is it has Instance > community > user. Think of an instance theme as more of a grouping of communities, it doesn’t really serve a real purpose. If you subscribe to all communities under an instance you’d get the local experience. This wouldn’t make sense for mastodon, why would you follow every single user on an instance.

          • KrestenEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            Yeah, I think the email analogy has run its course😅