What is an instance? what is a federation? what is a server? can someone please describe in simple terms how this all runs and how we as users navigate it?

      • Lui@sh.itjust.worksOP
        9·
        1 year ago

        Thank you so much for the breakdown. I’m gonna reference back to this a lot while i try to wrap my head around this new space. I’m shocked at the amount of informative replies i’ve received and your guys’ good-spirited attitude towards reddit transplants like myself.

        I was a long time reddit lurker but I feel compelled to post and it’s responses like yours that made me feel comfortable doing so.

        TLDR: Thank you so much to everyone who broke it down for me. I’m having lots of fun in this space because of y’all and I am so excited to continue contributing to it.

      • Nighed@sffa.community
        3·
        1 year ago

        When you visit other instances through your home instance there is a delay/difference though as I assume your home instance has to get info from the remote instance before it can show it to you?

        Or is that just because my account is on a tiny instance and I’m the first one visiting a lot of the communities?

        • T156@lemmy.world
          6·
          1 year ago

          When you visit other instances through your home instance there is a delay/difference though as I assume your home instance has to get info from the remote instance before it can show it to you?

          Yes, but it helps if someone else on your home instance has subscribed before, since it would already have that information.

          Or is that just because my account is on a tiny instance and I’m the first one visiting a lot of the communities?

          Also probably this.

  • esty@lemmy.ca
    473·
    1 year ago

    Instance == server == each individual lemmy (Beehaw is its own instance, so is lemmy.ca, etc)

    Basically, reddit was a bunch of communities on one server (the reddit servers)

    Each lemmy instance has its own collection of communities, and each lemmy is connected together, so users from any individual lemmy can read and interact with communities and users from other lemmys (this is federation)

    All of these lemmy instances federating makes up the greater lemmy network as a whole

    • zabil@lemmy.world
      6·
      1 year ago

      Thank you for this.

      How does one go about finding communities from other instances and connect with them?

    • bean@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Doesn’t this then make, a bunch of communities with same names like ‘iOS’. Then it feels fractured across a bunch of groups of same enthusiasts. Or what do I misunderstand about this or it’s benefits? I’m legitimately curious.

      • Contramuffin@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        1 year ago

        Yes, it is fractured, and that is by intention. The point is that no one single person can control the entirety of the Lemmyverse. Suppose a spez comes along and tries to ruin things. Then, at worst, he can only destroy 1 instance. Even if he destroys the biggest instance, then it’s a big loss, but it’s not the end of the entire platform. Lemmyverse lives on.

        As for how the fracturing affects the user - not much. As mentioned in other comments, each instance can communicate seamlessly between each other. I can post to other instances, and other instances can post to mine. All information is shared.

        One caveat, though, is that the Lemmyverse is still very much in its early growth stages. So you’ll find a bunch of communities spread out over a bunch of instances that do virtually the same thing. It’ll look like the community is fractured. But over time, users are probably just going to settle on a single community, we just don’t know which one yet. Think of it like subreddits on Reddit. There’s basically always 3 subreddits about the same topic, but there’s always the one major subreddit, which is usually the one that you’re looking for. We haven’t reached that point yet - we’re still waiting to see which is going to be the “major” community for most topics.

      • Spzi@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Yes, but technically no. The full name includes the instance, for example [email protected].

        Similarly, you had multiple subreddits dedicated to a single topic, with slight variations in their name.

        I recommend to subscribe to anything which seems interesting (including duplicates), then unsubscribing from annoying stuff.

    • Spzi@lemm.eeEnglish
      11·
      1 year ago

      Overall great explanation, accurate and short.

      The one thing I dislike is the usage of ‘lemmy’, which you seem to use as a synonym for ‘instance’. That is both inconsistent (you already established terms for that; ‘instance’ and ‘server’), and inaccurate.

      Lemmy is the whole, the network of federated and defederated instances.

  • jpgb@lemmy.world
    27·
    1 year ago

    Hello this is my first comment on Lemmy, so consider me an expert.

    The idea of ‘federated’ websites is that you can use your login from one server to interact with another server. An analogy is email: you can have a gmail account that can send a message to a yahoo account via shared and open source protocols (e.g. SMTP).

    One question I do have though; if I create my account on Lemmy.world and then for whatever reason that instance disappears; does my account disappear or is it recoverable on another instance?

  • hitagi (ani.social)@ani.socialEnglish
    152·
    1 year ago

    What is an instance?

    An instance is a deployment of Lemmy. sh.itjust.works, lemmy.ml, lemmy.world, ani.social are all instances.

    what is a federation?

    Federation is the ability for these instances to communicate with each other. I can make post in this community (!nostupidquestions@lemmy.world) using my account (@hitagi@ani.social), while you are reading it on another instance (sh.itjust.works).

    It’s like how you can send email from gmail.com to yahoo.com or outlook.com.

    what is a server?

    In simpler ways, the same as instance, but technically it also means the computer/hardware that Lemmy is running on.

    can someone please describe in simple terms how this all runs and how we as users navigate it?

    1. Make an account in any server you like. join-lemmy.org has a long list of them.

    2. Subscribe to communities that you like. There’s a search feature above or you can search in lemmyverse.net.

    3. Use it as you normally would use Reddit.

  • qaz@lemmy.world
    11·
    1 year ago

    An instance/server is like an email provider but for your Reddit Lemmy account.

  • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
    111·
    1 year ago

    Here’s a reddit analogy:

    An instance is an independent reddit, filled with communities that are an instance’s subreddits. Federation is an interconnection with all the different instances. You, as a user, can interact (post, comment, etc) on all different instances, and subscribe to different communities on different instances.

  • br3d@lemmy.fmhy.ml
    8·
    1 year ago

    An instance is like an independent version of Reddit

    Each Reddit (instance) has its own set of subreddits (called communities)

    Whichever instance you’re on, you can access communities in almost any other instance

    So in sum… Just sign up to an instance, subscribe to communities that interest you, and don’t overthink it!

  • rtxn@lemmy.world
    3·
    1 year ago

    Imagine instances as treehouses - then servers would be the trees they’re built on.

    You enter a treehouse and sit down - that’s your home instance. You can talk to others in your treehouse, you can share stuff, but not between treehouses. You can leave and enter another treehouse (make another account), but what if there was a better way to talk?

    That’s where federation comes in. Two treehouses can choose to set up a telephone line with two cans and a string (federate). Then the users in one can use it to talk to another without actually being present (having an account) in that treehouse.

  • Thekingoflorda@lemmy.worldM
    3·
    1 year ago

    Hey! Could you maybe edit the title, to be more descriptive of what you are asking? Something like: “could someone explain lemmy to me in simple terms?”.

  • greensky@sh.itjust.works
    2·
    1 year ago

    Lemmy is an open source software that anyone can run on their own computers. People can’t run their own reddit because its source code is closed. When a person runs lemmy on their server (computer), it has its own domain name (like google.com). Each domain name is a different instance, like lemmy.world or sh.itjust.works. These different instances can talk to each other and exchange posts and comments. This is called federation. This means you can create an account on lemmy.world and post comments and posts on sh.itjust.works. There are over 1000 instances. They can all talk to each other unless they choose not to. When an instance decides to block another instance, it is called defederation. Each instance is its own seperate thing and instances talk to each other in the background. Your account data is only stored on the instance you signed up on.

  • Hedup@lemm.ee
    1·
    1 year ago

    Federation is a bunch of websites that agreed to share their content between themselves. They use an agreed upon protocol for threads, posts (or whatever you call it) and other websites can fetch these posts. These websites are called “instances”. That also works for users who can comment, upvote or whatever on any post and their comments and upvotes will go to all other websites that are in the federation.

    For anology, you probably know how tweets are usually posted as screenshots on reddit. Imagine you could have that tweet just show up in reddit as a regular post. That can be done if Twitter and Reddit would agree to federate with each other and use one protocol.