I saw a mention of Lemmy on a random thread in r/politics so I'm tentatively having a poke about, since I've already tried to quit Reddit once (for Tumblr - it didn't stick). I remember forums pre centralised internet, is it something like that?

[–] BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

A bit between a forum and reddit. You don't have to sneak away to subreddit, just comment wherever and whenever. There's usually some good interaction. Much smaller places than reddit and less monkeying with comments and votes and such.

[–] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 12 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Think of it more like email addresses. Know how a Gmail account can send email to an iCloud account just fine, and both display the same content? Same basic concept. You can have [account]@domain1.com and [account]@domain2.com, and they’re entirely separate accounts. Even if they have the same username, they’re on different instances.

Federation refers to how the instances share data with each other. One of the largest things to look for is what instances your instance federates with, because that will determine what kinds of users you end up interacting with.

[–] taermina@feddit.uk 2 points 7 hours ago (3 children)

Ahh, okay, so if I wanted to go just looking at a specific subject it might be better to make a second account and join another instance, and keep up two accounts?

[–] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Most instances will federate with a pretty wide variety of other instances. There are a few big instances to watch out for, but for the most part the instance choice is primarily about which admin team you prefer. As long as your home instance federates with a server, you’ll be able to see it.

In particular, watch out for Hexbear and the .ml instances. Those will be some of the more extreme and/or brigade-y. There have historically been issues with brigading from some of the more extreme instances. Even calling them extreme is a sort of contentious statement, and I’ll likely get a few “how dare you, fascist, tankie, TERF, etc” types of comments if they stumble across it.

Aside from brigading, the most common reasons for defederation are related to legality (like maybe a certain instance allows porn that would be blocked in your home instance,) or unmoderated trolling. Trolling from new instances used to be a big problem, where an admin would make a server as a side project and leave it to stew. Trolls would make bot accounts on that fledgling instance, and use them to troll other instances. And since that small instance’s admin is just doing it as a side project, they’re not keeping active tabs on anything and the troll accounts are able to run rampant. Bans didn’t federate by default, so every single instance would need to individually ban the trolls.

Also, one particular quirk of federation is that federated instances can act as a proxy for defederated instances. For instance, you’re on feddit.uk, which defederates from Threads. So you won’t see Threads content normally. But maybe another instance does allow Threads, and feddit.uk is federated with them. If a Threads user posts on that second instance, you’ll also be able to see it. Because even though your home instance blocks Threads, that second instance allows it and you see it by proxy.

[–] DiaDeLosMuertos@aussie.zone 1 points 12 minutes ago

Thanks for all this info but I have to say, I am soooo confused.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 2 points 5 hours ago

You don't need another account. Example to access a community on lemm.ee:

https://feddit.uk/c/casualconversation@lemm.ee

Which is the same content as https://lemm.ee/c/casualconversation

[–] pseudo@jlai.lu 4 points 6 hours ago

With an account at feddit.uk, it should be ok to navigated almost whatever community. The list of block instances is short and mostly block pedoporn.

[–] Emperor@feddit.uk 17 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Yes, you can consider it like a web forum but with the default sort set to "new post" not "new comment" as is done on Reddit. This tends to favour new content over longer discussion, although you'll get active threads like this quite often.

And thank you for choosing feddit.uk, I hope you enjoy your time with us and if you have any other questions then fire away.

[–] taermina@feddit.uk 7 points 10 hours ago

Thank you!

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 15 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Welcome! Yes, it is something like that.

You chose the UK as your instance, so the local communities could already interest you: https://feddit.uk/communities

On top of that, here is a selection of 20 non-political communities: https://feddit.uk/post/22376629

App can be found on https://www.lemmyapps.com/

Finally, there is also !newtolemmy@lemmy.ca

Feel free if you have any questions!

[–] taermina@feddit.uk 9 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Ah, thank you! I downloaded an app first, since I primarily use my phone for everything and apps are just easier. I think the one I'm using is called Boost? It is less confusing than I was worried it might be :)

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 8 points 10 hours ago

Boost is a good one, enjoy!

[–] blackn1ght@feddit.uk 8 points 9 hours ago

Welcome! Great to see people choosing our instance :) Like Blaze said, feel free to ask any questions, it can be a bit overwheling at first!