It’s been a long journey, but here we arrive. Welcome home.

  • nii236@lemmy.jtmn.dev
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    1 year ago

    People are so confused and overwhelmed about the fediverse mechanics though.

    Maybe there is room for a product that is an aggregator for aggregators. Like, a centralised service that scrapes and collects all Lemmy instances into one super instance.

    • hal@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      Its actually simple. Tell them, its like Email. You have an email account at gmail, but can perfectly fine have email conversation with someone on outllook. Lemmy instance = the same as a web email interface of any email provider. Most people will get their head around that.

      • fennec@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        As soon as you have to explain the fediverse to someone using analogies my experience is that most people have already given up. They just can’t be bothered to learn something new.

      • sake@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        I love this. Perfect analogy because it’s literally the same.

        Got to say I’m really excited that nobody can own the master instance of say this channel. If some channel goes rogue, there can be easily a competing instance that challenges the top spot. And the same applies to servers themselves. Everyone has to cooperate or you will be excluded.

      • brewvarlet@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Ohhhh I kept hearing the email analogy but never WHY it was like email. Thanks for the ELI5!

    • l4sgc@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Pardon my confusion since I’m new to the fediverse as well, but isn’t every Lemmy instance like the super instance you are describing? You can access any community on any instance from any other; there are commentors in this thread from beehaw.org, lemmy.world, lemmy.sdf.org, programming.dev, and many others.

      • nii236@lemmy.jtmn.dev
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        1 year ago

        Nah those are like sibling instances. I’m talking about a parent instance that combines all the children instances with a new community that aggregates multiple remote communities.

        Just thinking out loud, haven’t really fleshed out the idea yet.

        • Balthazar@sopuli.xyz
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          1 year ago

          That already exists. ATM, the thing you’re confusing it with is that there are 4-5 “gaming” subs, but eventually if one gets big enough or the others get taken in by one this will happen, and it’ll look like this instance “Technology@Beehaw.org” (p.s. I’m accessing this from Sopuli, so not on Beehaw).

          • nii236@lemmy.jtmn.dev
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            1 year ago

            I guess its just a natural progression of being absorbed by other communities that are larger.

        • Headless3638@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Yeah, I think I get it - there’s a bunch of smaller gaming@<lemmy-instance> kind of things, you’re talking about a master c/gaming that combines all of the smaller lemmy instances of gaming channels, right?

    • patatahooligan@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      I don’t think such an aggregator is required. Interoperability is smooth enough that you don’t have to think about different instances most of the time. I’ve only really noticed two points that would be confusing:

      • the sign up process
      • the “local”/“all” distinction

      So I think what we really need to do to make this platform intuitive to people that aren’t already familiar with it is:

      • Somehow streamline signing up. The process from googling Lemmy to having an account on an instance should not be confusing or intimidating.
      • Filter by “all” by default. The default should cater to the users which are less likely to figure it out themselves. If you don’t understand what instances are and what “local” vs “all” means, then you are probably here for the “all” experience. If you understand and really want “local” you are probably fine having to set it yourself.