Lately I often read about kbin.social being similar to lemmy but more accessible. So I created an account there to check it out. My experience so far is a little mixed. From kbin I can access all Lemmy posts, although I find the interface less intuitive to join new communities. So from the kbin side it feels like an other Lemmy instance.
But when searching for kbin from this Lemmy Account, I do not find much. I feel like I am missing some basic concept, that makes it pretty clear. Why this is such a one way experience.
So now I am wondering: How does this work, what are the difference, what do both sites have in common?
I am striving to make the foundations very similar to Lemmy’s, to facilitate potential migration in either direction. The main differences are that /kbin will ultimately be a modular gateway to the entire fediverse. I will tell you more about it a bit later.
You can search for groups and users in the following way (this will also be improved):
https://kbin.social/search?q=%40ernest%40szmer.info
https://kbin.social/search?q=%40wolnyinternet%40szmer.infoYou can also disable federation in the options (sidebar) and only see local posts.
I really like what you are building there, but at the moment I often cannot find the communities I’m subscribed to on Lemmy so I tend to jump between those two.
Can you send me the names of the communities in a private message? I’ll see what can be done.
On Lemmy, if a community on another server doesn’t appear when you search for it, you can use the syntax “[email protected]”. Your login Lemmy server will then go out and index it and it will appear in the search a few moments later.
Is there a way to do that on kbin? I’ve tried every syntax for a Lemmy community that I know of and nothing seems to work.
[email protected]
/c/[email protected]
server.name/c/communityname
@[email protected]
etc.I will be working on it soon to standardize it across platforms. I will also describe it in the project’s wiki. I’ll let you know.
https://codeberg.org/Kbin/kbin-core/issues/4Does
@communityname@server.namework?
That’s how I tend to find things on most fedi places (masto, pixelfeed etc) and so far it’s worked fine here as well.@0xtero @YoTcA @Kory @ernest @DarraignTheSane I am connecting from mastodon and was wondering the same, I haven’t had much luck
Sure thing and thank you. Will do it later though, have to run! :)
Thanks for the answer and all the work you put into kbin. Really like the design so far. Only have to get used to the structure a little more.
Something else I am wondering: when I registered at kbin I think I never could choose an instance. So is it only possible to use kbin with a registration at kbin.social or is a plan to allow other instances of it?
I’m intrigued by the idea of being able to talk to other Fediverse apps, but searching for my Pleroma account at @missingno to test this out turns up nothing. Is there some way to force discovery?
Very excited to see how this all turns out. This is my favorite fedi site so far.
From what I’ve found thus far:
- Community is smaller currently due to being newer but connects to the Lemmy, Mastodon, etc communities so it doesn’t feel small.
- Definitely needs a mobile app for collapsing comments, notifications, etc but installing on mobile through the browser works quite well.
- Would like the ability to delete new magazines to change the URL for instance which I currently can’t figure out how to do.
- Calling communities magazines is a little confusing but nothing serious.
- The ability to sign up without an email like Lemmy would be a huge bonus.
- The privacy policy and UI is much nicer than on Lemmy.
- Signing up is open compared to Lemmy which requires an explanation and review.
Most of these things will most likely and hopefully come with time as the platform is developed. Other than that I feel this will most likely be my safe haven from the bs Reddit (fuck spez) has pulled.
Signing up is open compared to Lemmy which requires an explanation and review.
Only on certain instances. Lemmy.ml and beehaw.org, for example, require you to answer some questions (I’ve heard people say beehaw requires you to write an essay, lol) which I think is primarily to avoid being overrun by bot accounts. Not all instances do, though. sh.itjust.works has open registration, for one.
Fwiw my application to BeeHaw I submitted last night was like 4 sentences and approved in < 10 minutes.
I don’t think they’re looking for anyone’s life story of personal philosophy on life and the universe ya know?
I have not applied to beehaw, myself. I dislike the lack of a down vote personally. I think it’s a useful utility to have as long as people don’t abuse it… Which people always will, but I don’t think that merits taking it away. That’s the great thing about decentralized services, though!
Downvotes are used to show disagreement without an explanation which just stifles discussion, and for off-topic comments reporting them works as an alternative.
I do prefer user moderated conversations through downvotes but with the way they are used I don’t really trust us users enough for that.
I just don’t necessarily think the feature should be removed just because it isn’t always used as intended. I know there are folks who use it as a “disagree” button, and that’s… fine, I guess lol. I think Lemmy does a decent enough job of preventing abuse of the downvote button by removing the concept of karma. There are no imaginary internet points to be gained or lost. As a bonus, you can always turn vote values off entirely for yourself, as opposed to disabling downvotes on an instance. That way you can upvote/downvote organically, without your perception being skewed by existing votes.
I wouldn’t necessarily refuse to use a service based solely on whether it has a downvote feature or not, but I think downvote serves a different purpose than reporting. If I were on a platform that didn’t support downvotes, I do think I would feel obliged to be a lot more liberal with my upvotes, lol. Which… maybe that’s not a bad thing. 🤔
But again, through the power of federation we can both interact on a platform that can satisfy both our beliefs, and that’s a pretty awesome thing.
What might be neat is a user preference that allows one to enable or disable downvoting just for you. If you disable downvoting then you get a different view of the community and comments that only accounts for upvotes.
I guess things like this could also be done just on client side. Kbin and Lemmy definitely need better clients. 😅
Definitely needs a mobile app for collapsing comments, etc but installing on mobile through the browser works quite well.
Being able to collapse comments is definitely a must have feature for me. Hope we get to see that soon.
Afaik the feature is available on Jerboa.
The Jerboa for Lemmy app supports it, need to tap and hold the username that made the comment.
kbin looks good but I can’t get over the fact that its backend is written in PHP. In the long run, lemmy’s Rust backend will probably be way more resource efficient and thus better for hosters. We’ll have to see though, since tech stacks aren’t the most important thing. But for me a Rust backend is a huge plus.
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I’m sure it’s fine code, I just can’t imagine it’ll ever be as efficient as Rust.
Lemmy is not bottlenecked by anything related to the Rust code and neither is Kbin most likely. Modern php is efficient enough for it to not really matter (contrary to Python or Ruby etc.).
Modern PHP is better than PHP5 but it still uses that brain dead execution model where every request starts the entire framework from scratch.
actually that model is now optional thanks to some PHP extensions which can bypass the bootstrap and keep everything running. But it’s not something that is always needed, since the share nothing architecture works fine for most use cases
Are you talking about PHP-PM or something else?
I was thinking more about php road runner, which now that I see it its not a php extension but a standalone application server https://roadrunner.dev/
If it can run on PHP8 you get JIT compilation, which should go a long way to closing any gaps (if they exist, which I suspect not).
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Yeah, the design of the individual posts in the feed is nice. Are you using kbin on desktop? Because on mobile I only get the random feeds, when I search. And at least so far I find it a little confusing, where the random stuff starts and the search results end. But I think that will get better over time.
So far I am only using Lemmy, but maybe this is also a nice entry point for the other services.
What are the differences concerning privacy, you are talking about? Aren’t they using the same Lemmy infrastructure?
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Also, Lemmys devs have pretty radical political views and I don’t want to support sites that don’t care about human rights
Lemmy isn’t a site, it’s a piece of server-software. The software is written by a couple of people with bad political opinions, who also run a popular site using that software, Lemmy.ml.
You can skip using Lemmy.ml and just use another server using this software. The software itself isn’t magically poisoned or anything!
That seems a rather simple statement to throw out there without backing it up…are we supposed to just repeat information like parrots now? Or is there information out there I haven’t been made aware of?
From what I understand, one of the core devs (Dessalines) is a Marxist-Lenninist; they later founded the second Lemmy instance, Lemmygrad.ml.
Recently, there was some discussion on Lemmy.ml’s (the first and official-ish instance) policy of banning any crticisms of China’s government (e.g., even mentioning the Uyghur genocide) on their own servers.
Hmm… I see the points being made. Thanks for supplying actual information. I think it’s a bit too soon to see how this will play out, and people are quite malleable, so this will be interesting to watch develop.
Whatever country you are in, they don’t actually care about human rights. It’s all driven by greed and power.
Kbin is newer, so it has less traffic on its magazines than communities on Lemmy do, at least at the moment. Just like in Lemmy or other fediverse instances, to see kbin magazines someone has had to search for them on your Lemmy instance before they’ll show up on your instance. So more people searching for Lemmy communities in your insurance rather than kbin’s magazines means less will show up on your feed. That’s what they have in common.
Kbin itself is a different software backend to access the fediverse. It supports viewing/subscibing/posting to Lemmy communities in other fediverse instances, but also has microblogging support (basically like random Twitter posts) that supports mastodon (fediverse Twitter). It also has a lot of customization options if you go into your kbin settings. Plus I read kbin doesn’t rely on Javascript like Lemmy does, so that’s a nice security bonus.
Kbin is much newer but I like the direction it’s going. They do need to simplify link aggregation to make it a bit easier to view communities, but it’s a work in progress that has a lot of potential.
I’ll admit I can’t wrap my head around how many of this works.
I like kbin and the default content it provides for the most part… But I want to branch out a bit.
I know there’s a formula 1 community I want to join on lemmy, do I need to sign up for Lemmy now? And do I need to sign up for multiple “instances” whatever those are?
I’m pretty tech savvy but the fediverse makes me feel stupid, i have to assume this could be a barrier to entry for some
there should be a way to join Lemmy communities with a Kbin account, but try this
in the Kbin search bar:
- type @[email protected]
- replace the fields and see if you can subscribe
You just need to be on one instance.
I’ll copy/paste an explanation I gave a friend recently:
Look at it kind of like countries. Call Lemmy the US and Mastodon Canada. A Canadian citizen can come to the US and buy things, interact with people, etc. They just need a passport. They’re not a US citizen, but they can still come here and enjoy our amenities.
Now, Lemmy Instances would be like states within the US (or like provinces in Canada for Mastodon in this example). Call lemmy.ml Kentucky and lemmy.one Tennessee. They have their own independent state governments (moderation), but they’re part of the same country and use the same currency, etc etc. A Tennesseean can walk into Kentucky and enjoy the amenities without needing any extra paperwork or permission, etc.
To continue the analogy, the communities in an instance (the Reddit equivalent of subreddits) can be thought of like cities/towns.
It’s not a perfect analogy, but I think it covers the basics. If I need to clarify anything, just ask!
there is a bit of learning curve.
I found a couple of things :
- if you go to your preferences, you can get a more famililar reddit look and feel, by adding the top bar, and a few other tweaks.
- i think that ultimately it wont (shouldn’t) matter what ‘window’ you look through into the fediverse - correct me if i’m wrong. I like kbin a lot, but i’, looking at beehaw. i was asked not to join lemmy.ml because of server load issues.
- i’m not sure how mastodon fits. i guess that’s a federated app - but is seems entirely seperate.
Mastodon is kinda similar to Lemmy but replaces Twitter rather than Reddit. They both use they same underlying technology though which is why kbin can talk to both!
But when searching for kbin from this Lemmy Account, I do not find much. I feel like I am missing some basic concept, that makes it pretty clear. Why this is such a one way experience.
Not sure if i understand correctly, but instances can only show you what they are aware of. This does not really depend on the underlaying software (unless it is specialized, like PeerTube maybe).
Is there a reason why instances couldn’t just index and show all the communities from other federated instances?
Right now you have to do this to add a community from another instance:
- Visit it, look in communities, copy the link to the community
- Go back to the instance you were, paste link into search box and hit enter, then click the link, open sidebar, and click subscribe.
I don’t see why instances couldn’t just have an index over communities on all federated instances, so it’s a one click action to subscribe to any community in the entire Lemmy fediverse.
If this was implemented it would lower the bar for new users enormously, and encourage a lot more cross instance subscriptions.
Word is Lemmy and kbin are working to make the process more automated, so if you click a link to a community/magazine your instance want aware of it’ll start aggregation without having to manually do the search. Downside of going with a free, open source, decentralized solution is there aren’t a bunch of devs dedicated to updating the platforms for a living, so features will roll out slower.
Like features just flew out the door for us at Reddit. :)
Yeah, Hopefully they’ll be able to something soon. That is ultimately the big downside to decentralized open source solutions but it sure outweighs the drawbacks of the closed source centralized ones as will become painfully apparent on June 12
How would one instance know that I set up a new instance without a central service?
When you subscribe to a community from another instance, it learns your instance exists and starts sending it messages and receives responses.
Couple things i like about kbin over lemmy:
- Has a good privacy policy, and works without javascript.
- It integrates federated services like mastodon really nicely, so not only lemmy posts but mastodon, peertube and other services using activitypub will show and any comments sent to them will also show up on the other end
- I personally think its more intuitive to find new communities, back on lemmy when i was on a less popular instance (tchncs), there was only a couple native communities and they were german, to add more i had to manually find and add them. Whereas on refreshing kbin, i can see a list of random threads/people/posts displayed on the right, alongside other posts on the homepage, which can promote less popular stuff i hadn’t heard of before. Theres also the microblog, and magazines.
- I find the design a lot nicer overall as well
