Each instance can have duplicate subreddits with its own rules and moderators, so you can sub to one or the other, or both. I.e. lemmy.ca can have an aww community and Lemmy.world can have an aww community, but even if your home instance is Lemmy.ml you can comment, subscribe, and post to both version of the aww instance.

[–] JohnOnABuffalo@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Is there a way to show all communities for that topic at the same time? Say when someone posts to any aww community it comes up alongside all other posts in different instances? I think this is where my disconnect is, if a client can see all of them anyway, why not have them collapse down on one another client side so you can see all of what's being posted and not just a slice?

[–] Robotnik@lemmy.one 7 points 1 year ago

It's a brilliant idea and it would help a lot communities to be found.

[–] HikerAdam@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That's actually a great idea. Maybe have a "auto subscribe to similar communities" box when subscribing.

[–] JohnOnABuffalo@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Yeah, I was in a mood when they shut off sync right in the middle of my technobable rant on r/startrek so the first thing I did here was try to find the Star Trek community and found 12 of them but not much discussion going on, eventually found one post but it made me realize how compartmentalized this very open client is. But if a user can see all other communities outside the instance why not just dump everything into one stream like a subreddit while hosting the discussions back to the posters instance. It's still decentralized, but I feel as if it would be a way to cut down on reposts. Say someone on aww @what.eve.rthefuck sees a cute picture and reposts it 12 times to other aww@boobook.ittyshit (among others) it would be quite obvious who is spamming repost content within the same community. I just feel like conversations here could be much more available than they currently are

[–] JohnOnABuffalo@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

Help me ljdawson@lemmy.world you are my only hope

[–] TitanLaGrange@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

the first thing I did here was try to find the Star Trek community and found 12 of them

I suppose that of all communities Star Trek ought to be most strongly in favor of a united Federation.

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

You found the ones here?

https://startrek.website/c/startrek

[–] inverimus@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

I think the idea would be that communities could have tags, and subscribing to a tag would subscribe to all communities with that tag and from there you could still remove any you don't want. This would also help with search and discoverability.

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

A request for this feature has been made to the Lemmy Devs on GitHub a few weeks ago

[–] BurtsBS@reddthat.com 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Thank you for writing this up.

Is there a list of all communities or any reason that one instance is better than another?

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

Here is a list and search for all Lemmy commhnities, even ones your home instance is defederated from.

As for one instance being better than another, it depends on what you value. Size, sign-up procedures, moderation, and what instancea they're federated with are all factors. As an example, Beehaw.org is a larger instance with some popular communities, but they have a strict sign-up process and defederate from a lot of instances. This gives their users a more curated experience, but some people don't like having someone else controlling what they can and can't see

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

Lemmyverse.net

Pick an instance that aligns with your values from here. You can still subscribe and interact with communities made elsewhere.