if there different "linux" communities on different instances? does this mean i have to subscribe to all of them? is there a way to see all content from communities called "linux" from different instances?
or does each "linux" community simply fight for critical mass to become the "main" linux community on lemmy?
I don't dislike the idea that there could be multiple similar communities (for example Linux communities) on different instances. That way if you have beef with one you could sign up to another; in a non-ideal world that strikes me as healthier than having one to rule them all and lots of people bitter about it. I think it's best to leave it to sort itself out organically.
There could be different linux communities on different instances, and to see them all you'd have to subscribe to them and sort by subscribed view. But yeah, in practice most of the time there will emerge one "main" linux community and, if it gets big enough, likely offshoot communities for different philosophies or more specificity.
I feel like if the short version isn't "sub" then it is never going to stick. Reddit doesn't own words but it has set the standard. Sublemmies. That's what it is in my mind now.
It's a nice lighthearted nod to the exodus, and also a nod to the subforums that came before Reddit. Communities may be the "official" name and I try to use it when talking to others, but they'll always be sublemmys in my head.
I wholeheartedly agree with this one. It's also still semi funny referring to them as basically trashcans. But I think as a new user it is just way more streamlined and sensible than calling them "magazines". When I read that first I just could think of like paper magazines and thought they'd be some sort of editorial content, which is highly misleading. Calling them "bins" just makes way more sense and sort of adds to the brand of the platform.
Yeah, in the lemmy source code they are called "Communities"; in the kbin source code they are called "Magazines"; I think Mastodon uses the ActivityPub lexicon and also uses "Groups" in it's source code. I perfer "Communities" because that is how the "Groups" are being used.
I’ve seen “communities,” and my personal conceit is that “like” communities (communities with the same, similar, or synergistic subject matter) are “cohorts” so you don’t have to type “multi-communities”
Might as well keep it simple and call it what it is without the branding. There is plenty about a site like reddit that we should carry forward, but plenty were should leave behind, and redundant jargon is the latter.
I think part of why it's confusing is that we don't have defined names for these things. This is so early in a social media "product" life that there isn't a common understanding. You're now part of making those names. It's a bit exciting but mostly confusing while everyone uses their own terms to mean the same fundamental things. Embrace the chaos!
I don't know, Reddit and Lemmy differ from common social media platforms (I wouldn't really call Reddit style forums social media anyway) in that they are structured around different topics/categories and threads and in that way are closer to earlier newsgroups, bbs's, forums and such. So the main concepts aren't really that new and weird, we have had subforums, topics, groups, channels and such for decades now.
Instances are effectively just different versions of the site, they all communicate with each other and display the same data (roughly), like someone said in a different post, think of it like Email, wherever you made your account being your host domain (An example being look at mine and your username, you are posting from Beehaw, while I'm from Sh.itjust.works, different instances, same content.)
I like board. Communities is too long, and coms sound like communication which armies use, magazines/mags is a bit odd and may be mistaken with the obvious gun reference. Forum is like the pre digg forums (like hardforum.com).
You can kindof think of the fediverse stuff as being similar to email. You and I both signed up to create an account with kbin.social. This is where our account lives and it will show up in our full username (hover over any username) after the second @. You are @[email protected] and I am @[email protected].
OP created their account with reddthat.com so that is where their account lives.
Unlike email however, we aren't sending messages directly to each other - we are instead sending them to a particular "community" which happens to live on the lemmy.ml server. This is possible since each of these hosts are running software which can communicate in a common manner (this is what ActivityPub defines the rules for). You probably got to this thread from kbin's general "threads" page which is able to list posts from other hosts due to them being federated (can communicate what posts they have to each other).
As for kbin.social being put next to the right of the title for this thread, I'm not sure. I think that might just be part of kbin's UI showing where we are viewing the thread from?
The problem is that every "magazine" or "community" or whatever you want to call them (each one using a different name is also a bit of an issue) is part of their own decentralized network. Yes, you might be able to read them from other services, but it still causes a lot of fragmentation. For example when I look into something akin to a news sub for international news, I find [email protected] as well as [email protected]. Both basically do the same thing topically, but both have different submitted content, different users, and oddly in this case even the same owner.
This now begs the question for me as a user: Which one do I subscribe to if I want to stay informed? An article on one side could be submitted or gain traction when it does not on the other. But subbing to both could lead to a lot of duplicate articles being fed to me.
I think this is a huge issue in the whole design philosophy of the fediverse that will hamper the growth of those services. Deciding where to make an account might be something a new user gets around to, but being then confronted by this is very quickly going to turn away the absolute majority of potential users. There needs to be at least a little bit centralization to form major default communities that at least start as a gathering hub for new people. If there's issues with them then people can still create alternatives if the user numbers are high enough, but in its current form I'd have to decide between several places that are essentially the same thing.
As for kbin.social being put next to the right of the title for this thread, I'm not sure. I think that might just be part of kbin's UI showing where we are viewing the thread from?
It seems that if kbin federates a post that doesn't have a link or image and just points to itself, it fills in (kbin.social) as the link pointer, when you view it on kbin. It's a bit confusing at first, should probably be replaced by something that indicates it's a federated "self"-post.
OP is on reddthat (@[email protected]), which is a Lemmy instance, and the community this post is on is [email protected]. Not sure what's up with kbin appearing next to OP's name for you, might be incidental because of kbin's UI or something.
Edit: just looked on kbin for myself, no idea what is up with that honestly, but I see what you're talking about as well.
This is a post to linux community (@[email protected]) by user falcoignis (@[email protected]). You're reading it on kbin since it has federated this post. The default "front page" shows federated feed (Threads).