What is the difference between 'Instance' and 'Community'?

zaheer@lemmy.fmhy.ml to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 68 points –

I'm really confused. I want to learn how this website works. Would love to know more tips if you guys have any!

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I might be talking bullshit here as I'm also pretty new to this. But I believe an instance is the server (basically like Reddit) where all the communities (Subreddits) are located. These instances can federate with other instances to grow in a decentralized fashion. Every instance can impose site-wide rules (e.g. beehaw disabled the downvote button, I believe, so you can't downvote anyone in all of the communities that belong to the beehaw instance).

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong!

Yep! It's a bunch of reddits that all talk to each other, and each one can have whatever communities (subs) it wants.

Every instance can impose site-wide rules (e.g. beehaw disabled the downvote button, I believe, so you can’t downvote anyone in all of the communities that belong to the beehaw instance).

That’s true for those on beehaw. But if I look at a thread hosted on beehaw from another instance I can downvote. Since I’m looking at a copy/synced version of the thread and I don’t have downvotes disabled.

Still though. It limits the abuse of downvotes to an extent.

Here’s an example screenshot. Note the downvotes are there.

Example 2 from beehaw no downvote button

Cool, thanks for the clarification! I'm still trying to get the hang of the FediVerse. I'm liking it very much so far!