(Reminder: if you have shared the original version in a public post with an old version up, replacing it with this one might be more helpful.)
I want to preface, if you see a mistake in the image or have something helpful to add, go right ahead! I still have the layered files for this, so edits can be made very quickly. I chose to handwrite the text to avoid font copyright infringement.
Feel free to share this poster as you wish, especially on Reddit. All I ask is that you respect the license and don’t remove my socials at the bottom. If anyone’s addition is included, I’ll credit them, and if this gets added onto (or translated) by someone else later, they can add their info as well.
I hope someone can find it useful with the subreddit blackouts right around the corner.
I want to thank the Beehaw admins so much for their amazing work!
(Poster edited; I spotted a duplicated word, mrmanager@lemmy.today noted the lack of whitespace; current version is slightly larger and has been spaced out. You can still request the 800x2000 size, but know it is a little squished.)
(Edit 2: Removed defederation part as it’s not really required. The email analogy blackcoffee@beehaw.org suggested has been added, thanks!)
(Edit 3: Here’s another version making the interconnectivity a bit clearer and mentioning some cool-looking reader apps that have been suggested! Also made the image slightly longer for ease of viewing. I might do some small cosmetic changes tomorrow)
(Edit 4 is here with the date updated towards the bottom. This version contains a reminder to verify your email, lets people know why mlem isn’t showing up on App Store searches, and added fedia.io to Kbin instances. Some colors have been changed slightly to be more mobile friendly, as this is written and edited from a phone tablet. If you have a hard time reading this because of the changes, please let me know. Thank you all for the help and tips!)
I like this style! Kind of reminds me of a whiteboard. It’s neat!
Thank you so much!
Important note for kbin (and fedia.io): if you sign up and fail to click that confirmation link, I think you’re basically SOL. So don’t make the same mistake I made! Click that confirmation link, it expires in an hour!
Darn, but thanks for the note. I’ll put a reminder to confirm emails on tomorrow’s edit, even for Lemmy; since email is used to recover passwords, no email + lost password = lost account, and that’s not fun!
You’re still able to recover your password, you just still can’t log in afterwards
I know people have said mastodon is like twitter, but what’s kbin? Do I want all three?
Kbin, Mastodon, Lemmy, and others are all “federated apps” connected to ActivityPub. They are just different UIs to connect to it, so you can see posts and content from one on the others.
Mastodon is a UI inspired by Twitter.
Lemmy is a UI inspired by reddit. It is more stable but less feature rich. You can get native apps just like with reddit, such as Jerboa (similar to rif).
Kbin is a UI inspired by reddit. It is more feature rich and less stable (said to be, anyway).
They are all speaking the same protocol though. So while you can load Mastodon posts in this Lemmy ui they might look … off. Similarly you can load things in Mastodon from kbin etc and they too might seem weird. It’s because they’re not giving the same context you might get viewing that content in the UI it was made for.
These are all still new with Mastodon being the one most widely adopted already. So expect better features and bug fixes to roll out over time. Especially with so much more demand now, I’m guessing many old 3PA devs have already been working out new tricks for ActivityPub.
What’s 3PA?
third party apps.
I think you give some really important information for people to get their head around it. I’ve never seen it explained like that. Even further, I feel like there should be ELI5 without trying to use terms like protocol for non-tech people.
Kbin = Reddit + little bit of Twitter
Really like it, sadly I don’t think the people I’d share it with would be willing to read through it. I’ll try with word of mouth for now and use this as a backup.
Alright so this seems a good a place as any to ask dumb questions… This almost feels like the 90’s and using the internet for the first time 🤣
So, I’m viewing this post on lemmy.world, but the content itself is from beehaw.org, simple enough. What happens if beehaw.org is unavailable, let’s say permanently shut down, right now? Is the past content still available on other instances or does it just poof? Could I still view this post one day, week, month, year after a shut down? Could I still comment? The image itself I see is hosted directly on the beehaw instance so that obviously depends on a stable instance.
If an instance shuts down, they’re supposed to send a “self destruct” notice to all other instances to delete their content, but technically speaking, instances do not have to listen to these notices. Thus, it’s possible that deleted or unavailable content still remains available on some platforms.
And what about user accounts ?
Lemmy’s source code shows that user account deletion means the hosted instance will purge and redact all of that user’s content and send a notice to other instances as well, but since it’s federation, nobody is required is to listen to these commands, although the vast majority will.
The concern which has been raised about this is also what happens if one of those other instances is down when the purge message goes out. It’s a risk of a federated system like this, that because there isn’t a single source of truth, that instances fall out of sync with each other and content is semi permanent… That’s also one of the strengths of a federated service, so I think that should also help foster a better community.
so you’re saying that even if a post started on a specific instance (like beehaw, for example), and then got deleted from the main source, other instances would still be able to see it? kind of like the light from a supernova reaching us a million light years away?
No. Each instance hosts its own contents.
I’m having a hard time figuring out how to subscribe to a community from another instance. I know I need a link to the community (not sure what this looks like as the one I thought I’d found didn’t work) and a search bar to paste it in, which I found once on jerboa I think but not again. Is there a more detailed guide for subscribing to another instance’s community?
You should just be able to search for the community using jerboas search. Example: I searched “technology” and it gave me back a handful of different communities from different instances all with “technology” in the name. Then you should be able to just tap the one you want and hit subscribe.
Thank you! That is much simpler than I expected
Jervoa has so far been a really good interface to use. A lot of work can be done to make it more friendly but I’ve been really impressed so far with how seamless it’s made my transition.
Is there a list of
kbininstances? The one fromkbin.pubseems to be incomplete.I wouldn’t bother with the concept of de-federation in a beginners guide. One of the most confusing bits of the fediverse to new users is picking a server. For most users, the one they pick doesn’t really matter, but talking about defederation makes it sound like a really important choice.
Edited; the defederation bit probably shouldn’t be the reason why someone picks a server (my original thought was that someone who is LGBTQ probably won’t have to worry about seeing phobic content from another instance, for example), but chances are if the rules make a place inviting to a group, conflicting (or illegal) instances will probably be defederated anyways.
You’re telling me that i could have just… logged in with my mastodon account? How does that work? (i know its beyond the scope of the guide but i want to try)
lemmy, kbin and mastodon are federated but you can’t log into each app with an account from another platform. You can post to lemmy from your mastodon server, but not log into beehaw.org.
So i replied to my comment from my mastodon account, but that does not seem to show up here. Is that how it’s supposed to work? I could be easily missing something here. I know how federation works but… I’ve never used it hehe
You should see it now. I searched “https://mastodon.online/@Kryostar/110534580057347959” in the beehaw.org search bar to force beehaw to federate.
Wow! I see it now. That’s epic. I’m grinning so hard right now heh. Thank you.
@kryostar@beehaw.org @unsunny Ok i figured it out. It’s a bit clunky, BUT IT IS POSSIBLE! I didn’t even know! Now to see if i can view this on lemmy.
@kryostar Hello from Mastodon! You can follow users/communities on Lemmy from Mastodon like any other Fediverse user and it’ll boost all their posts into your feed. Then you can interact normally from Mastodon.
Jerboa has a not very user-friendly interface. Maybe I’m not used to it, but the feed updates jerkily, everything works with a slight lag.
I have to agree with this. I wonder how difficult the actuvitypub/Lemmy APIs are… I have some interesting ideas on ways to browse the fediverse and what I want out of a Lemmy app.
Of course the jerkily side of things could be due to having to access so many different instances to build your front page or /r/all equivalent.
Also I’d default to subscribed - people don’t usually create an account using the app and therefore they usually have already subbed to a number of communities, not to mention smaller instances have a tendency to only have a couple of basic communities.
Another thing is some form of community aggregation system, so you can set up multis based on different criteria, or manual selections. Multis, i’d wager would have more use and utility on the fediverse than Reddit.
You could mention that Fedia.io is an alternative to kbin.social, as kbin.social is starting to get overwhelmed.
Thanks for letting me know!
So, is kbin a lemmy instance? If so, how do I log in over there? I’m registered here on beehaw, so how do I access/vote on kbin content?
gotta say, as a somewhat technically-inclined person, I don’t like this fediverse stuff.
@komnenos@beehaw.org @unsunny@beehaw.org kbin isn’t a lemmy instance, it’s a lemmy “competitor”
kbin is a software you can install on your server just like you can install lemmy, or mastodon, or pixelfed, etc…
if you want to interact with a post/profile/community/… on another instance, the usual way is to just take the link to the post, and paste it into your instance’s search bar. this’ll bring up the post in your instance where you’re logged in!
that’s what i just did with your comment: i don’t use either lemmy or kbin on my instance, but i saw your comment on beehaw, so i copied the link, pasted it in my akkoma search bar, and was able to reply to the post, even though my instance doesn’t even have support for user groups/communities
Long winded explanation but hopefully it clears a few things up…
There is a protocol that allows two or more things to talk to each other. That is called ActivityPub and things that speak that protocol can work together. The things in this case are the servers which you register your account with.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub
You can have two different things (kbin and a Lemmy instance) and they can work together despite being different. They are differently written programs in different programming languages. The ActivityPub federation thing allows your Lemmy instance to ask to be sent all posts and comments from another server “just to have” as a local copy which you can then read on your server. If you comment, vote, or post on your server’s “local copy” then your server sends that update back to the original server so they can update their records.
The content being downloaded from a remote server is like 1 person looking at everything over there. At that point, you and everyone else on your server can look at your local copy which is quick (if your server is not overloaded). The remote server can better handle lots of users from where you are at because your server is taking on the “user interaction load”. This way, the user load is distributed to remote servers where the users do their interactions and the smaller “like 1 person” transactions are sent along when necessary.
The way things work on the Lemmy side is that you can see other communities by using the search function or by clicking on the communities button and clicking on all. You will see all communities that your server “knows about” (including communities hosted on this specific server). It automatically downloads all content from remote servers that it “knows about” (and it does so frequently) but that is driven by you first asking the server to get things from a specific server if necessary.
You can ask for things by searching for a specific address starting with a ! character. Wait a few moments and search again and you should be able to see that the content was retrieved for you. (You can search by a more granular term like the server address itself if necessary.) At that point, you can interact with that community in expected ways (like subscribing to that community to see updates from them).
The link you need is on the right side of any community page you view. Examples are technology@beehaw.org and kbinMeta@kbin.social
Once everything is set up and working, the server you log in to will automatically gather posts and comments from “the fediverse”, show it on your screen, and send along any comments or votes you make back to “the fediverse” for others to see.
That all being said… kbin is a bit overloaded at the moment and is not quite sending updates to other servers. When they have that sorted, you should be able to interact with them. Refer to the following post from chaorace for more information.
kbin in a separate software from lemmy. The same way that Mastodon is different but still federated.
What a great infographic, thank you!
all the weirdly specific cat subreddits if I don´t have a my r/catloaf idk what I’m going to do.
Here’s one for you buddy:
thank you kind sir/madam/everything in between.
deleted by creator
Here’s one for you!
join the same communities together
Let me make sure I have this right:
- there are separate Lemmy instances
- I can chat with other people from other instances (like email)
If I wanted to join the same communities as a friend, do I need to sign up for another instance or do communities ‘live’ on multiple instances? For instance, a community on ‘cats.’ If there is one on {instance1} and {instance2}. They aren’t the same, right?
There are some duplicate communities (e.g. cats@instance1 and cats@instance2 to use your example) but you can subscribe to and interact with either/both communities without leaving your chosen instance - you don’t need to make multiple accounts.
Can I “combine” those communities? What about duplicate posts across communities? For example, there’s likely to be multiple gaming communities, i don’t mind subscribing to multiple, but I don’t want to see the same posts from both. Alternatively, if one gaming community “wins” - basically becomes default: then what? Sounds like we’d be reliant on whoever owns that community again.
Pretty sure combining communities isn’t possible, from what I’ve read the idea is that after a bit the most popular incarnations of any particular community will win out and the problem should somewhat solve itself. Don’t think that solves the problem of being overly reliant on a single instance to host that community tho.
Isn’t having multiple communities instead of a default one a strength instead of a potential issue? Like, sure, if you’re personally following more than one you’ll likely end up running across repeating posts, but should one of them become a problem in any way the users can just abandon it for one of the others. Kinda like what happened with r/curatedtumblr, but the “new” option has been there all along. Plus, some will naturally prefer sticking to the smaller ones.
one of the potential features being talked about is topics that could act as an aggregate of multiple communities, that would effectively solve that issue if it gets implemented.
you cant combine them as such, you would have them both in your main feed though.
aggregated subscriptions are a feature being looked at for the future apparently though. which would be cool. you could have 5 different versions of one community, if one is outside of what you want to see you could block just one of them.
@rickcooker@beehaw.org @unsunny@beehaw.org to add onto what was said, the cool thing about the fediverse is that it’s all interoperable:
i am currently replying from my own self-hosted akkoma instance. this is more of a twitter-like microblogging software, that i’m running on a server i rent with a few friends. with it, i can’t really browse lemmy/kbin communities yet, because akkoma doesn’t yet have support for those, but i can reply and read content from users, and i believe even follow communities! and i can also follow video creators on peertube, or on the instagram-like pixelfed, whichever instance they use, because it’s all the same protocol, so i don’t have to sign up there :)
Related question for all you experts: if I have an account on both (for example) lemmy.ml and lemmy.world, what is effectively the difference between them if I can view content from any federated instance?
The difference is just that you log on using two different sites. They can access the same federated content. Just read the rules of both instances and see if you prefer one or the other.
So, as someone trying desperately to figure this ‘decentralized’ thing out, what is to stop someone from creating their own ‘instance’ that simply has 0 moderation or administration, allowing torrents/drug deals/piracy/child pornography. It sounds like there’s no overall control over that from Lemmy or anyone, so how would that be policed in any way? It doesn’t sound like there’s any over-seeing body who could either be held accountable or actually force the removal of that content, correct?
If a community had no moderation other communities would defederate them, locking them into their own instance. If they had the illegal content you described, they would probably be taken down fairly quickly.
Any member of the Fediverse can be banned by specific community. That can be a specific account or an entire instance of Lemmy, Mostodon, kbin, etc. I guess it’s like one instance shadow banning another.
For example if behaw goes rouge, Lemmy.world can decide to ban all content and all users from showing up on Lemmy.world. The proper authorities must be notified immediately so Lemmy.world doesn’t look complacent in those crimes.
AFAIK, the difference is mostly in the performance, moderation, and peering of each instance.
I see, so…
- If the instance my account is on is down or slow, I may not be able to log in.
- Only moderators from my account’s server can take action against me? This seems… potentially problematic, unless the moderators from federated instances are all in communication with one another? E.g. if I’m a problem on one instance but not my home instance, is there nothing the moderators on the non-home instance can do?
- Could you elaborate on peering? Does that refer to which Fediverse apps a Lemmy instance can communicate with?
I’m new to this as well, so this is all AFAIK, don’t take it as gospel, please correct me readers, etc.
If the instance my account is on is down or slow, I may not be able to log in.
Correct. Your account is tied to your local instance. Unlike mastodon there is currently no way to transfer accounts between instances.
Only moderators from my account’s server can take action against me? This seems… potentially problematic, unless the moderators from federated instances are all in communication with one another? E.g. if I’m a problem on one instance but not my home instance, is there nothing the moderators on the non-home instance can do?
Moderators of communities can delete your posts or ban you from their community. I’m not sure if remote admins can easily ban you from their entire instance.
Remote admins can definitely decide to de-federate your local instance if you and a bunch of peers are being bad trolly spambots.
Could you elaborate on peering? Does that refer to which Fediverse apps a Lemmy instance can communicate with?
Yes. Click “instances” at the bottom of this page to see which instances beehaw federates with. You’ll note there are a couple banned instances due to issues with their content or moderation.
Good stuff! Thank you for clarifying. This all makes a lot more sense now.
np. also wow! a lot more than a couple banned instances now!
that page has changed dramatically in the past couple days
that page has changed dramatically in the past couple days
this is because we started using a heavily curated blocklist for the worst mastodon instances (they can interoperate with us). we didn’t expect any trouble from any of them, but any instance in the new batch of banned instances can be safely assumed to be quite bad and it’s better to be proactive than not.
@WindInTrees@beehaw.org @1993_toyota_camry@beehaw.org
Only moderators from my account’s server can take action against me?
as someone running a fediverse instance: not really… I can “ban” you from my instance, so that people from my instance can’t see your post/follow you/interact with you, or delete specific posts from you, so that they don’t show up on my instance. but i can’t completely remove your account: anyone from any other instance can still see your account and follow you.
if i believe you did something really wrong and should be banned, i’d contact your instance’s admin to take actions against you. if they don’t comply and i believe it’s causing too much issue, i can mute or “defederate” your instance. muting means posts from your instance won’t be visible to people on my instance unless they specifically look up your account by name, and defederation makes it so that my instance pretends yours doesn’t exist, and will refuse to lookup anyone from your instance, or let anyone from your instance follow some of my instance’s people and so on!
hope this helps :3
Only moderators from my account’s server can take action against me? This seems… potentially problematic, unless the moderators from federated instances are all in communication with one another? E.g. if I’m a problem on one instance but not my home instance, is there nothing the moderators on the non-home instance can do?
They can stop you from accessing their instance, afaik.
Okay good. Not that I plan to be an issue. 😆
