Why YSK: right now, Lemmy’s autocomplete for the !community syntax isn’t working correctly.

It will appear to work, like so:

But the link produced will redirect you away from your home instance and leave you unable to vote/subscribe…


To fix this issue, you’ll need to manually edit the autocompleted link like so:

BAD LINK: [[email protected]](https://lemmy.world/c/youshouldknow)

⬇️⬇️⬇️ Remove the domain (i.e.: https://lemmy.world) & append the @ identifier (i.e.: @lemmy.world)

GOOD LINK: [[email protected]](/c/youshouldknow@lemmy.world)


Removing the domain like this transforms it into a local link which prevents the instance redirection. Doing this will make it easier for newcomers to join your community and participate in discussions!

Those interested can monitor Github issues #369 & #1048 for when this UI bug is fixed!

  • FlaxPicker@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    If you are using the mlem app to browse, the good link will crash your app so don’t click it for now. They are aware and it is raised as an issue in their github.

  • Barbarian
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    2 years ago

    There is an issue with this. If nobody on the instance of the user that clicks the link is subscribed to that community, this will result in a 404 error. If at least one person on the instance is subscribed, it’ll work. In a browser. Not in Jerboa.

    • NotaCat@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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      2 years ago

      As a temporary bandaid, it looks like every instance needs a sacrificial user/volunteer to subscribe to every community they can find.

        • Pat12@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          Is there a french instance? I can actually do the French and German ones since I am already creating and involved with those communities.

        • impulse@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          Sounds like the perfect job for a bot to monitor that list and autosubscribe to every new community.

          • chaorace@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
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            2 years ago

            I suspect that this may be somewhat frowned upon. The whole point of not grabbing all communities from all instances by default is to avoid massive traffic dumps every time a new instance joins the federation. Doing this via a bot is basically the equivalent of DDOSing your home instance!

            It’s less bad when a human does the same thing because:

            • A) A human will work more slowly than a bot
            • B) A human will likely only do this one time and then let the system continue working as intended afterward
            • C) A human can be easily reprimanded and told to stop if they’re causing problems
    • chaorace@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
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      2 years ago

      Yes, unfortunately. This is one of those situations where it’s technically less user friendly to browse on a smaller instance (since large instances are more likely to already be subscribed to a given random community). Of course, this issue affects anyone who tries to visit a given community via their home instance, not just people using this particular link style.

      Right now this problem is being tracked on the backend Github as #2951. Hopefully they manage to sand off this particular rough edge ASAP.

  • SanguinePar@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Hi - just FYI, the Good link makes the app Jerboa crash (for me at least). Probably something needing changed in the app, but wanted to share anyway.

      • SanguinePar@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Still crashing, sadly. I’m sure it’s Jerboa though. It’ll get sorted at some point, thanks anyway :-)

        • chaorace@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
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          2 years ago

          Bummer… looks like this is indeed a Jerboa issue (Github #556). Hopefully that gets resolved soon so we can have links that reliably work on every frontend.

          • SanguinePar@lemmy.world
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            2 years ago

            Yeah that’d be great.

            Thanks for checking GitHub, I can’t really find my way around on there. Good that it’s a known issue at least.

  • fubo@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    YSK that a URL without a protocol or domain is a relative URL.

    It’s “relative” to the page that it’s displayed on.

    Your browser fills in the protocol and domain from the URL of the page you’re on when you click on it. That’s how it stays local to the instance that you’re viewing it on.

    • chaorace@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
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      2 years ago

      Doh! I totally meant to include instructions to append the target instance id to the link in my original post.

      The post is now edited and fixed to use the correct link format as you’ve suggested. Thank you very much for your help.

  • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 years ago

    It’d be sweet if we could automate the process of discovering the community so that 9 times out of 10 we don’t have to then search for the community and refresh the page to see it.

    • chaorace@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
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      2 years ago

      Of course! Perhaps one of the greatest public goods to come out of FOSS is the public bug tracker. Not a “known issue” list, not a “ticket system”, but rather a place where you can see work happening on your issue in realtime.

  • cowvin@kbin.social
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    2 years ago

    Hmm this still doesn’t quite work for those of us visiting from kbin because from kbin we access this community as: https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/ so even the /c/ doesn’t match up.

    We probably will need some special markup that each instance converts to their own local community / magazine format.

  • aMalayali@beehaw.org
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    2 years ago

    Cool

    Is there any way to link to posts like this?
    Found that crossposting does not provide a instance neutral link.

    • chaorace@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
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      2 years ago

      Unfortunately, no. For posts/comments, there’s currently no way to create cross-instance permalinks. You can follow progress on fixing that issue via Github #2987.