I put together a guide aimed at Redditors for Kbin and Lemmy!

unsunny@beehaw.org to Chat@beehaw.org – 46 points –

(Reminder: if you have shared the original version in a public post with an old version up, replacing it with this one might be more helpful.)

I want to preface, if you see a mistake in the image or have something helpful to add, go right ahead! I still have the layered files for this, so edits can be made very quickly. I chose to handwrite the text to avoid font copyright infringement.

Feel free to share this poster as you wish, especially on Reddit. All I ask is that you respect the license and don’t remove my socials at the bottom. If anyone’s addition is included, I’ll credit them, and if this gets added onto (or translated) by someone else later, they can add their info as well.

I hope someone can find it useful with the subreddit blackouts right around the corner.

I want to thank the Beehaw admins so much for their amazing work!

(Poster edited; I spotted a duplicated word, mrmanager@lemmy.today noted the lack of whitespace; current version is slightly larger and has been spaced out. You can still request the 800x2000 size, but know it is a little squished.)

(Edit 2: Removed defederation part as it’s not really required. The email analogy blackcoffee@beehaw.org suggested has been added, thanks!)

(Edit 3: Here’s another version making the interconnectivity a bit clearer and mentioning some cool-looking reader apps that have been suggested! Also made the image slightly longer for ease of viewing. I might do some small cosmetic changes tomorrow)

(Edit 4 is here with the date updated towards the bottom. This version contains a reminder to verify your email, lets people know why mlem isn’t showing up on App Store searches, and added fedia.io to Kbin instances. Some colors have been changed slightly to be more mobile friendly, as this is written and edited from a phone tablet. If you have a hard time reading this because of the changes, please let me know. Thank you all for the help and tips!)

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Can someone clarify for me - can I 'add' a kbin community to the Lemmy instance I'm on in the same way as any other community? For the first time I'd need to type !news@kbin.social for example (if no-one else had already added that community in my instance)? I ask because I tried to do that, and it doesn't come up under the listed communities. But maybe that's because kbin is overloaded?

Yep. You just need to search that exact example (or just the URL) and it should pop up a little link where you can view that community from your local instance, which'll have a subscribe button.

You might have tried it while kbin.social's federation was broken from being behind cloudflare for awhile.

On my self-hosted instance since communities need to be searched first before they show up I tried using the normal Lemmy format for kbin but noticed for the first time you must format it like this: kbin.social/m/*magazine* (or whatever kbin instance if not that one). Even if not self-hosting this can apply to kbin mags that are fairly niche/new and may have to do that for it to show up especially on smaller instances

Important note for kbin (and fedia.io): if you sign up and fail to click that confirmation link, I think you're basically SOL. So don't make the same mistake I made! Click that confirmation link, it expires in an hour!

I wouldn't bother with the concept of de-federation in a beginners guide. One of the most confusing bits of the fediverse to new users is picking a server. For most users, the one they pick doesn't really matter, but talking about defederation makes it sound like a really important choice.

So I'm trying to understand the whole federation thing, I know we can view/reply to the posts/comments on different servers, even to different platforms(?) like kbin/Mastodon while using a Lemmy account, though they might have slightly different formats, but can we sort of "follow" the feeds of other platforms?

Essentially what I'm trying here is to look for a one app/account to rule them all approach, where I can doom scroll through all the feeds from everywhere, kbin, Mastodon, Fedia, Beehaw, you name it.

For instance, since every server appears to have their own Communities/Magazines, I'm wondering if I can just subscribe to something like gaming@beehaw.org, gaming@kbin.social and user69420@mastodon.social, and read through all their posts in a single page?

Yes! I use jerboa for android to see all my joined communities on one feed.

Thank you! Glad to see that option is available. Sadly I’m on iPhone, guess I’ll have to wait until that perfect app pops up.

There is an Apple app, but I don't know the name of it.

Yes, there are 2, mlem and memmy, but at the moment their functions are very very bare bone. I been using them all day long and I didn't even know I have 2 notifications. Thank you anyway, I'll just wait to see how everything goes.

Needs a bit more whitespace to not be a wall of text in my opinion. But looks good in general!

Good point! I can easily resize and add more space.

Quick question is there normally a long federation delay between kbin and Lemmy?

For example while making a post/comment may be instantaneous, I noticed when using the edit feature for comment title there is a massive delay (6+ hrs sync delay for title change).

Curious is this common or more of a one off

I like this style! Kind of reminds me of a whiteboard. It’s neat!

join the same communities together

Let me make sure I have this right:

  • there are separate Lemmy instances
  • I can chat with other people from other instances (like email)

If I wanted to join the same communities as a friend, do I need to sign up for another instance or do communities 'live' on multiple instances? For instance, a community on 'cats.' If there is one on {instance1} and {instance2}. They aren't the same, right?

There are some duplicate communities (e.g. cats@instance1 and cats@instance2 to use your example) but you can subscribe to and interact with either/both communities without leaving your chosen instance - you don't need to make multiple accounts.

Can I "combine" those communities? What about duplicate posts across communities? For example, there's likely to be multiple gaming communities, i don't mind subscribing to multiple, but I don't want to see the same posts from both. Alternatively, if one gaming community "wins" - basically becomes default: then what? Sounds like we'd be reliant on whoever owns that community again.

Pretty sure combining communities isn't possible, from what I've read the idea is that after a bit the most popular incarnations of any particular community will win out and the problem should somewhat solve itself. Don't think that solves the problem of being overly reliant on a single instance to host that community tho.

Isn't having multiple communities instead of a default one a strength instead of a potential issue? Like, sure, if you're personally following more than one you'll likely end up running across repeating posts, but should one of them become a problem in any way the users can just abandon it for one of the others. Kinda like what happened with r/curatedtumblr, but the "new" option has been there all along. Plus, some will naturally prefer sticking to the smaller ones.

Alright so this seems a good a place as any to ask dumb questions... This almost feels like the 90's and using the internet for the first time 🤣

So, I'm viewing this post on lemmy.world, but the content itself is from beehaw.org, simple enough. What happens if beehaw.org is unavailable, let's say permanently shut down, right now? Is the past content still available on other instances or does it just poof? Could I still view this post one day, week, month, year after a shut down? Could I still comment? The image itself I see is hosted directly on the beehaw instance so that obviously depends on a stable instance.

If an instance shuts down, they're supposed to send a "self destruct" notice to all other instances to delete their content, but technically speaking, instances do not have to listen to these notices. Thus, it's possible that deleted or unavailable content still remains available on some platforms.

so you're saying that even if a post started on a specific instance (like beehaw, for example), and then got deleted from the main source, other instances would still be able to see it? kind of like the light from a supernova reaching us a million light years away?