Hi, new user coming from Reddit, as many. Trying to orient with Lemmy, I realize that I still don’t understand the idea of instances well enough. Or maybe the fediverse. So there are plenty of instances, and each is supposed to be dedicated to a topic, but this is a very fluid definition. Anyhow, how do I search for instances? I mean, if I’m in Lemmy.world, I can click “instances” and I get the list of instances that are relevant. Sure, I can use google for that, but my logic tells me that there should be a more organic way.
And this leads to another question, how can I browses communities on other instances with my already existing account? What about platforms such as mastodon where I’m supposed to be able to browse and submit and such?
And finally, is there a search per community possibility?
Sorry, I’m still confused about these.
To answer your question regarding what an instance is.
Think of e-mail. Imagine you use Gmail.com, your email would probably be a_new_sad_me@gmail.com. You can send emails to everyone, even someone@outlook.com. You send and read emails you receive on gmail.com. You can’t log onto outlook.com with your gmail login, but you can still email outlook.com.
I’m not sure I understood your post properly, so I just tried explaining instances. Let me know, if you’d like me to expand my analogy.
I’m not sure I understand that email analogy, especially where it ends. My Gmail account does not allow me to access others users mail box. So what is the mailbox in that analogy?
And for that matter, what is outlook here? Another instance or another platform? To communicate with a mastodon post I need to get the link from there somehow?
(I admit, I’m confused as hell)
Your mailbox is lemmy.world You log into lemmy.world You send emails from lemmy.world You read the emails you receive on lemmy.world
The only website you ever use is lemmy.world (gmail in the analogy)
Outlook.com, gmail.com, protonmail.com so on, they’re all examples of singular ‘instances’ of e-mail. Lemmy.ml and lemmy.world are examples of lemmy ‘instances’. You choose one instance, and that’s the one you use for all your communication. There are apps available, but they still communicate through your instance, similar to e-mail apps built-in in phones.
Not sure how else to phrase it. I’m sure someone else can do it better than me though.
I still haven’t figured this out.