Hello all!

Came to Lemmy from Reddit as I wanted to be a part of helping the fediverse & Lemmy grow. As someone mentioned on here “be the change you want to see”. So here I am! However I’d like to fully understand the fediverse so I can explain it to others and help them join.

I understand the concept of the fediverse but what I’m struggling with is the instance part. I know an instance is a spun up server, and I’m assuming it’s a copy of the lemmy source code, for example, which means it is its own contained version of Lemmy. This instance sets it’s rules, creates its own sub communities etc. You join the instance that relates to you the most.

But does that mean you can only post in that instance? I know you can follow users etc from another instance, but you can’t post in their instance without migrating your account there? Is this the same for mastadon, where you can read / follow users, but cannot post?

The example im thinking of is say there is a sub community on your instance for gardening, but you find out another instance has a bigger, more involved sub community for gardening. You want to participate there, that would mean you need to join that instance to do so? Would that mean multiple accounts for multiple instances?

If there is a handy FAQ, or a video, that helps explain this that would be great!

Really excited to be a part of this and looking forward to understanding it better.

  • tobias@social.diekershoff.de
    5·
    1 year ago

    I understand the concept of the fediverse but what I’m struggling with is the instance part. I know an instance is a spun up server, and I’m assuming it’s a copy of the lemmy source code, for example, which means it is its own contained version of Lemmy. This instance sets it’s rules, creates its own sub communities etc. You join the instance that relates to you the most.

    The Fediverse consists out of servers of different social media projects - Lemmy is one of such projects; I’m writing this from my Friendica account. Others are Miskey, Mastodon, Pixelfed, Funkwhale, even Wordpress blogs can be made to be part of the Fediverse with some addons (and I’ll stop the listing here, as it really gets long. All the software projects that build together software that runs on the servers/inastances of the Fediverse have one thing in common - they all have implemented a protocol named ActivityPub that lets accounts on each of these different servers exchange interactions.

    But yes, basically you pick the one you like and use it.

    But does that mean you can only post in that instance?

    Yes. You can only start new threads of conversations on your own account on the server that you have chosen. You cannot use your Lemmy account to post some images directly to a Pixelfed server, or write a blog posting to a WriteFreely server from your account on Lemmy. You’d need an account on a WriteFreely instance to write blog postings there.

    What you might be able to do (depend on the software you are using) is to reply to a persons posting on some other Fediverse server - like I’m doing right now.

    Framasoft has a short introduction video about the Fediverse.

    • autisticaudioguy@lemmy.ml
      1·
      1 year ago

      If my understanding is correct, it’s actually not just a simple proxy but actually a mirror, meaning If the remote instance’s server is down or slow, your local instance will still be able to let you see/vote on/comment on the post.

    • WorriedGnome@lemmy.mlOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      This makes a lot of sense but I still dont understand the webfinder part. Say I wanted to follow @TechDesk@flipboard.social - I can do that from lemmy? How is that achieved? Is there a guide to the fediverse that explains all of this and how to do things such as follow other instances, comment from a different fediverse app etc?