As the title indicates, how does Lemmy work?
I recently inquired in a couple other communities about necessities (whether it be hardware or software, ect) and guidance to create a server/instance and decided I may be better off understanding how this realm works and operates as my starting point, then move into the hardware side, then continue to the Sofware and setup.
It uses ActivityPub to send and receive all messages to any instance that has subscribed to a community.
So I’m typing this message on my own instance (Lemmy.today) after my instance made it pop up in my feed since I subscribed to the AskLemmy community on lemmy.ml.
Also ActivityPub is the common protocol for all fediverse software, which is why you can even read Lemmy posts from Mastadon for example.
It’s the coolest tech I’ve seen in a long time because users have their own platform instead of it being centralized. They make the rules for their own instance, or they join an instance they like.
How do usernames work? If someone has a username on one instance, can someone else register the username on another instance? If so, how are they distinguished?
Yes, you can have same usernames on different instances.
The full username is always @user@address.
So I’m @barbarian@sh.itjust.works. There’s also a @barbarian@lemmy.ml (that’s also me, I stopped using it to help with server load, but ignore that part :P). Servers and people can distinguish between the two users because it always includes where the user is from.