this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023

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Are we using Lemmy correctly? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by _finger_@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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What I think could make Lemmy superior to Reddit is the ability to create themed-instances that are all linked together which feels like the entire point. I've noticed that a lot of instances are trying to be a catch-all Reddit replacement by imitating specific subs which is understandable given the circumstances but seems like it's not taking advantage of the full power that Lemmy could have.

Imagine for a moment that instances were more focus-based. Instead of having communities that are all mostly unrelated we had entire instances that are focused on one specific area of expertise or interest. Imagine a LOTR instance that had many sub-communities (in this case "communities" would be the wrong way to look at it, it would be more like categories) that dealt with different subjects in the LOTR universe: books, movies, lore, gaming, art, etc all in the same instance.

Imagine the types of instances that could be created with more granular categories within to better guide conversations: Baseball, Cars, Comics, Movies, Tech etc.

A tech instance could have dedicated communities for news, programming, dev, IT, Microsoft, Apple, iOS, linux. Or you could make it even more granular by having a dedicated instance for each of those because there's so many categories that could be applied to each.

What are your thoughts?

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[–] notun@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

OP's post is about having specialized instances, making hopping around necessary. It's not convenient enough as it is.

[–] feduser934@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

By hopping around, do you mean changing your account to one on another instance, or viewing a list of communities on an instance, or something else?

I don't feel that changing accounts is necessary because of the magic of federation. But I don't know how to view a list of communities in an instance without leaving your home instance. That would be a cool feature, but is only really important when you're initially picking all your subscriptions.

[–] notun@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Exactly, it's really inconvenient right now. And it's really important for the usability of what OP suggested.

If I simply link to a cool community I found, like https://beehaw.org/c/programming, you can't follow that link conveniently if you're from another instance.

[–] _finger_@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

You can definitely sub to external communities from a separate instance, I have a bunch from Lemmy.ml show up in my world feed

[–] Kamirose 2 points 1 year ago

While I agree it can be made easier, all you have to do if you’re from another instance is copy the url and paste it into your search bar to open it via your local instance.

[–] this@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Agreed, what needs to happen is an option that allows users to follow links from foreign instances in their home instance seamlessly. I have to imagine with the ramped up amount of development in lemmy that some of the devs must be working on it.

[–] dimath@lemmy.pt 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

No, that's not right You can follow any community from any instance with your account, doesn't matter where you registered your account. I just subscribed to https://beehaw.org/c/programming from lemmy.pt user account

[–] pistachio@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

this is buggy. Pardon the nsfw, but it doesn't work for gonewild@lemmynsfw .com

[–] XpeeN@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If I simply link to a cool community I found, like https://beehaw.org/c/programming, you can’t follow that link conveniently if you’re from another instance.

Then use the fediverse version: programming@beehaw.org

[–] Spzi@lemmy.click 1 points 1 year ago

I don’t know how to view a list of communities in an instance without leaving your home instance.

On lemmy:

Click 'Communities' (top left menu)
Search using the search box (top right)
Select 'Communities' from the drop down (top left)
Make sure to toggle 'All' (*not *'Subscribed' or 'Local').

This will show you communities matching your search term from all instances*.

You can then subscribe to communities regardless on which instance they live and use them seemlessly, regardless of wether they are local or not.

*) It will show you communities matching your search term from all instances, if your instance has already discovered that community.

If it has not, it shows 'No Results'. You can force it by some exclamation mark shenanigans which I haven't understood well enough to explain. After that, your instance knows about that community in the other instance and will show it in future search results. I think as soon as one person from your instance force-discovers a community from another instance, that community becomes searchable for everyone on your instance.

[–] tet42@ka.tet42.org 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Making specialized instances does not in any way make hopping around necessary. If you join a specialized instance that doesn't already sub to the communities you want, you just add them.

Example: I join a Star Trek themed instance that has a bunch of locally created star trek communities. I want to sub to all those, but i ALSO want to sub to the homelab community on beehaw. I just subscribe to !homelab@beehaw.org FROM the star trek instance I am a member of. That star trek instance will then start syncing the homelab content from beehaw and you can read and reply from the star trek instance.

Conversely, if someone has an account on beehaw.org and they want to read a star trek community based on that star trek instance, they just need to sub to it FROM beehaw.org.