• Coastal_Tart@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    1 year ago

    I was looking at jerboa and it called Lemmy a “federated” alternative to Reddit. What does federated mean in this context?

    • Akagigahara@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 year ago

      It refers to the fact that communities belong to a specific instance. These instances can federate, as in “be a whole, made out of two”, or stay separate and stay isolated

    • gloriousspearfish
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      There is no central Lemmy servers. Everyone can run a Lemmy server, which is called an instance. The instances talk together and sync posts and comments between them.

      The admin of an instance (usually the owner of the server) is in total control of what goes and what does not on the instance, and which other instances to federate (sync) with.

      When you create a community, you choose an instance that the community lives on. The community is then in the hands of the admin of that instance and the mods assigned by the admin to that community.