Found a good image explanation of this whole thing.

Edit: update image to use light theme.

Credit goes to @[email protected]

  • arha@feddit.deEnglish
    22·
    2 years ago

    Great post, but here are some questions those graphics raise, that I couldn’t find an answer to, and which have only my experience with email, usenet and irc for reference (all of which are federated, easy to abuse, had a host of problems, and have slowly migrated to centralized versions to solve these issues):

    • how do you ban someone?
    • what stops him from spinning 100 amazon ecc instances, federating 100 servers and spamming his thing 100 times from 100 different instances?
    • how do you even block an instance?
    • what happens with the federated content once the source instance goes down?
    • say lemmy.ml and memes goes down, how do you post a new reply in [email protected]? does it even work?
    • i haven’t found any info for syncing accounts across instances (to prevent this loss) or if this is even possible at low level
    • what happens with comments and pictures once a federated instance goes down? say, if i selfhost and i crash without backups, does my content and posts disappear?
    • can i pull it back?
    • what kind of capacity planning would I need to selfhost say, a decade worth of reddit browsing? assuming I only care about my posts and what I save, would they be accessible for me?
    • midnight@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      2 years ago

      I’m a little worried Lemmy may not be ready for prime time. I’ve already had a few times where my post to another instance just vanishes. But when I made an account on the other instance that worked fine. It seems like choosing the right instance is more important than I initially thought.

      Is this because the admin of one of the instances blocked the other from posting? Does it federate by default or is it on an approved basis? I’d like to spin own instance as well but depending on how interop works between instances that also seems like a poor decision.

      I’ll keep looking but a more informative FAQ would be great

      • The Silence Noise@lemmy.worldEnglish
        10·
        2 years ago

        It may not be “prime time” but obviously the increased attention and user base will incentivize the tech and hosts to catch up quickly. From what people are saying, it has already been a dramatic change in the past few weeks.

        I was thinking today that it’s actually weirder that I stuck with Reddit for so long without really thinking about it when I was consistently switching platforms before. Google Reader, Fark, StumbleUpon, bulletin boards, various smaller blogs and stuff…

        Now that I’ve made the switch it reminded me how nice it can be to find and explore new platforms and communities. Kinda wished I woke up a bit earlier to these possibilities.

    • andobando@lemmy.worldEnglish
      51·
      2 years ago

      i haven’t found any info for syncing accounts across instances (to prevent this loss) or if this is even possible at low level

      Not possibly or very difficult from what I heard.

      what happens with comments and pictures once a federated instance goes down? say, if i selfhost and i crash without backups, does my content and posts disappear? Everything is stored in a database, so crashes are no different than any other site. It comes back and its accessible again.

      what kind of capacity planning would I need to selfhost say, a decade worth of reddit browsing? assuming I only care about my posts and what I save, would they be accessible for me?

      You mean like host an instance for just your own account? The smallest instance for $5 a month should be enough.

  • eurostile@fedia.io
    13·
    2 years ago

    I also really feel people are starting to better grasp what the Fediverse is, I mean people dont seem to be as lost as during the massive Twitter exodus to Mastodon!

  • iByteABitEnglish
    11·
    2 years ago

    Another useful definition that comes up is “Federation”. As I understand it’s referring to the whole set of mini-Reddits for example, and multiple Federations exist in the Fediverse, correct me if I’m wrong.

    • Ulu-Mulu-no-die@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      2 years ago

      You’re not wrong :) It’s the whole set of mini-Reddits + the whole set of mini-Twitters + other similar federated platforms/sites.

      Fediverse = federation + universe.

  • Mainline@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    2 years ago

    Might be a dumb question and not sure how to ask this but… If I spin up my own instance, what happens with my posts if I decide to tear down the instance? Like, will the delete get propagated to other instances where I may have commented?

    • WindInTrees@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      2 years ago

      From what I hear, your instance will send the delete request to the other instances but they may or may not listen to it

    • clara@feddit.ukEnglish
      28·
      2 years ago

      it would be a bit like making multiple email accounts with multiple email providers. for example, if you were to signup “[email protected]” and also sign up “[email protected]”, all you’ve done is made 2 accounts called “eskimofry” at the two different providers.

      it works the same in fediverse. your account is @[email protected], but you could just as easily sign up @[email protected], or @[email protected], or @[email protected], all you would be doing is making more accounts.

      these accounts don’t conflict with each other in the exact same way that “[email protected]” and “[email protected]” don’t conflict either. if these 2 emails are owned by different people, then it is the user’s job to know which is the intended recipient.

      • Pavidus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        2 years ago

        I had the same question as eskimofry. I’m brand new here, and was under the assumption that one login was good across the fediverse. However, I am unable to login to comment or subscribe to other servers, so I’ve ended up with multiple accounts. Is there something I’m missing here, or do I need to create an account everywhere?

        Attempting to log in to a different server is met with a spinning login button that does nothing, no matter how long you wait.

        • nickel@lemmy.worldEnglish
          8·
          2 years ago

          You have to search for the community you wish to subscribe to from on your server’s search page. You’ll navigate to it from within your server’s instance and give you the ability to subscribe to it that way. For example, if you go to the lemmy explorer: https://lemmyverse.net/communities You’ll note that each entry there has a link to the community, as well as an identity listed below it that you can copy. Like so: !selfhosted@lemmy.world This is the identifier url to the selfhosted community at lemmy world. If you navigate directly to it: https://lemmy.world/c/selfhosted but you don’t have a lemmy world account, then you’d have to sign in to lemmy.world to subscribe. But if you are on another server, and you search !selfhosted@lemmy.world, you should be taken to it from within your instance and you can subscribe from there. The same url would also be: https://lemmy.world/c/[email protected] So if you get the identifier of any community, you can navigate to it from within lemmy.world with that url scheme: https://lemmy.world/c/<identifier> (minus the exclamation point).

          Example of navigating to a non-lemmyworld community from lemmy world: https://lemmy.world/c/[email protected]

          Hope that helps.

          • Pavidus@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            2 years ago

            Thanks for the reply! I have since downloaded the app, and things are running much more smoothly. Appreciate the help!

        • el_doso@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          2 years ago

          Something I think is missing from the email analogy:

          We’re all getting a little more confused because every server basically looks the same, so it’s easy to think you could log into any of them with the same login. This is misleading, it’s because all the different instances are running the same core software even though they’re separate instances. It would be like if the Gmail interface was open source and people created servers on Gmail.com, Gmail.world, gbin.com and even if each of them looked the same, you could only log into the one where you created your account. And regardless you could email friends with accounts at any of them.

          Hope that helps.

          • Pavidus@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            2 years ago

            I think the part that’s so confusing is that right there on there on Lemmy page, it states that you can create an account on one server, and it is good on any server. I’m happy to say that I downloaded the app, and my experience is much more user friendly now. From what I’m reading, this has to do with the link, and where you access it from. The app is doing the heavy lifting while accessing other servers, so I’m a happy camper. Thanks for the reply!

  • Talos@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    2 years ago

    This is helpful! Does anyone know what it means when you try to subscribe to a community and it just says “Subscribe Pending”? That has happened to me 2-3 times, and it just seems to stay like that.

    • BrainisfineIthink@lemmy.oneEnglish
      7·
      2 years ago

      I do not know for sure but I’m assuming that whoever set it up required sub approval, similar to how some instances require you to apply before being admitted. I’ve seen it too, but most/all went through within a few hours with no rhyme or reason, so that’s my best guess.

  • mykl@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    2 years ago

    I saw a post yesterday about it, and someone said it was a known issue.

    I’m more concerned about how the votes on this post are bouncing up and down between 4 and 818 as I’m typing this reply. Seems like there are some problems here…

    EDIT: WOAH this ended up under totally the wrong post. Odd bug…

    • andrew@radiation.partyEnglish
      9·
      2 years ago

      I think I know what thread you were trying to reply to, and I’m pretty sure the reason your comment appeared on a different post is caused by the same root cause fyi.

      • mykl@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        2 years ago

        Haha good thing Ruud is a db expert. I think he’s going to need to be!

        • Guy Dudeman@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          2 years ago

          Uh… yeah, I had this tab open on an completely different post yesterday and then this morning I tabbed over to it and it switched to this post as soon as I clicked the tab. Very weird stuff going on.

  • knyuen@feddit.deEnglish
    6·
    2 years ago

    Good infographics! It is better to change the screenshots to light theme (instead of dark) since the links and buttons are hard to read in the photo.

  • TheDarkBanana87@beehaw.orgEnglish
    6·
    2 years ago

    Hello, thank you for the post,

    This clears up a few things for me, because the concept of Fediverse are still “abstract” for me.

    When i first join, I created multiple accounts on lemmy.world, beehaw, lemmy.ml, because i thinks its mini Reddit, with its own content, and its own account.

    Now i know that i only need one account, and i can still see the post from another instances.

    There’s still some questions that i can’t understand

    1. The decentralized nature of the Fediverse, how does one search or now what community on another instances?

    2. Say when in Reddit, we have /r/aww for example, it means that lemmy, beehaw, or another instances can have their own /c/aww ? does it means that we have multiple instances of /c/aww or, we have one single /c/aww but distributed between multiple instances

    Sorry for the bad English :D

  • YourNewestMaster@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    2 years ago

    Right now i’ve had an issue myself where the potential answer to my issue is in a privated subreddit. So, i had to search even more. Frankly, it highlights the downside of having this become a thing. So i am on the fence whether i want that to happen at all.

    • Sleo@lemmy.caEnglish
      7·
      2 years ago

      If you see the Google results on reddit for what you are looking for, you can click the three dots and look at the cached pages of reddit on Google

    • theusualuser@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      2 years ago

      Totally understand this. I’m working on setting up my steam deck, and decided to go the Windows only route with it. Well, the main place for all things windows on the steamdeck is reddit. Youtube’s search means it’s a needle in a haystack for specific questions I have, since the overwhelming majority of people using the steamdeck are using SteamOS on it. It’s really put me at a loss when it comes to getting answers, until that sub comes back up. I just hope that data can be migrated somewhere else, since I don’t want to support reddit but I DO want to engage heavily with that community.

      • Anonymous0573@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        I feel like subreddit moderators dropped the ball here. They all could’ve made Lemmy communities and linked the subreddits there so everything could’ve just continued as normal but on Lemmy instead. I’m wondering why none of them did that. Do they actually think Reddit will revert the changes and go back to normal?

        • theusualuser@lemmy.worldEnglish
          31·
          2 years ago

          The trouble with Lemmy as an alternative to reddit, or ANY place as an alternative to reddit, is that eventually the server costs are going to rack up and it’ll either shut down or have to ask more and more for payment. I’m okay paying, but a lof of people probably aren’t. We’ll see how all this unfolds in the coming months.

          • minimar@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            2 years ago

            I’m not worried. Mastodon instances have already happily been funded by their userbase, so I don’t see why it’d be any different here.

  • Mishmash2000@lemmy.nzEnglish
    4·
    2 years ago

    This is really great! I’ve also been quite lost but am enjoying the learning process!

    One thing I’ve just learned is that all the different instances don’t neccessarily ‘federate’ with each other in real time (there can be some lag in content showing up in your instance) or at all. Only instances your instance federates with sync up? I think? :-) I see beehaw.org have had to cut ties to a couple of instances to help with the flood of new users and content happening right now. It seems while you can still view their content from your instance you can’t comment or post to it? I think? :-)