Most of us are Reddit refugees, and probably clicking more random links than we ever did before on websites we’ve never seen before. This whole experience feels like the old internet, but also throws up insane red flags with a modern internet perspective. What are the cybersecurity weaknesses we should all be looking for, and...
Use a mail forwarding service to generate disposable e-mails used to sign up, if you accidentally give it to someone else it doesn’t expose any other accounts and can be easily replaced by a new one.
Use a password manager to ensure a strong and unique password.
Use a JavaScript blocker so you only allow the required JavaScript to make the website work and prevent automatic downloads.
I’ve been doing these in general recently and it’s good privacy a security practice. Also slowly replacing my main e-mail address in different service accounts with disposable forwarding e-mail addresses.
Edit: Other than that read a bit more about Lemmy and fediverse workings, verify what instance you’re viewing and navigate to the desired community via your instance as others have mentioned.
I wasn’t sure where to ask so I chose here. The other day I saw a post encouraging people to spread the load on lemmy.world and jump onto other instances....
There's still chaos in terms of instances and softwares. Until we all settle on one software that does the job, and until we have a way to have a single community again, Reddit remains the superior option. There is only one r/RPG, it works on Highlander rules - there can be only one. How many groups in the Fediverse named m/RPG or c/RPG are there? Why must each user be forced to answer that question?
That's what would fix things for me; make the federation 100% behind-the-curtain so that I don't have to think about it. I don't care about the backend, I'm not hosting, the value to me is ad views only, not cash. I'd argue a solid 80% of users on corp-owned social media wouldn't understand even if you simplify it. The fediverse/threadiverse is not a drop-in replacement for Reddit. Until it is, I'll keep one foot in spez's yard. If Meta's Threads product does become an ActivityPub community and solves this issue, I'll move there
.
To get all of your mail from multiples, you had to connect to each of the servers in sequence, download your mail, and then read it offline and reply
Multiplexing meant that you could have a BBS in the NYC area, it would be able to contact and download from one in, say, PA or wherever, and they could each download threads and messages, aka federated content.
Then I'd argue that the fediverse looks more like the multiplexed BBS. I mean, federated is literally in the name. We don't have the pain that comes from using non-multiplexed BBSes here.
You're right, except in cases where I want a different psudonymity; my choice.
No, I'm still right in this case. Your alts can still take advantage of federation and subscribe to magazines on other instances and reply and so forth.
In this case, I can't check for new posts in, continuing with the same example, rpg@. without checking the group from each federated server.
No, not true. That also applies in the "original" case (where you only have one account in the fediverse). This is the multimagazine/multireddit thing already touched upon above. That's legit, but let's assume for the sake of argument these three points: 1) there is a working version of Artemis (the kbin app), 2) it supports multimagazines, 3) there's a json format from the websites that list magazines that can be imported into Artemis to automatically generate a multimagazine for the user that's local to the smartphone.
The above problem is solved, as you can use that Artemis, passing it the magazing listing website, and get a multimagazine set up with all the different RPG magazines. Maybe Artemis even supports optionally autoreloading so as new RPG magazines are setup (either in new instances, or someone makes a /m/TrueRPG on an instance that already has /m/rpg) your multimagazine is automatically updated.
Posts are neither mirrored nor transcluded.
They are to the instances. Some people are going farther and trying to mirror articles between different magazines using bots. However, I kind of feel the multimagazine feature would be enough to check this box.
That's the point I'm getting at. I should be able to just open up m/rpg and have it cover all compatible groups.
We're not there yet, but it's also not too far off.
That said, I find your view that multimagazines are essential to be interesting. I only first heard about multireddits only after I'd permanently parted ways with reddit.
There's still chaos in terms of instances and softwares.
This is actually a good thing. Monoculture is bad, diversity is good.
Until we all settle on one software that does the job, and until we have a way to have a single community again,
Too easy for a single disease to wipe things out in that case.
Reddit remains the superior option
Where one can be permabanned at random, with a non-functional appeals process where it's virtually impossible to get ahold of an actual human? Where you can have the ownership of your sub that you spent years working on seized and taken away and handed over to someone else?
I'd argue that reddit has a different disease, and it's showing why both centralization and monoculture are bad (third party apps being killed off because they never supported anything but reddit itself is an example of the latter).
There is only one r/RPG, it works on Highlander rules - there can be only one.
You're kidding, right? How many subs in reddit have RPG in the name and actually broach the same topic? r/rpg_gamers , r/RPGdesign, r/TabletopRPG, r/StrateyRpg, r/RPGCreation, r/solorpgplay? This last one doesn't have rpg in the name, but - r/Solo_Roleplaying?
If you are really going to push that reddit only has one sub for the role playing game community, then I'm going to need you to explain to me in detail how each of the above subs is different from r/RPG and from each other, and why they are a separate community from any other sub with rpg in the name.
How many groups in the Fediverse named m/RPG or c/RPG are there? Why must each user be forced to answer that question?
Dunno, but how many subs in reddit that have rpg in the name are there? Why must each redditor be forced to answer that question? (The answer to the second is they don't need to answer that question at all - either on reddit or on the fediverse.)
The issue I've noticed first and foremost is that there is more than one identically named group. Don't tell me that rpg@kbin.social, rpg@lemmy.ml, and rpg@foo.bar are different communities. They're identically named communities.
Since lemmy terms a "community" as the same thing as a kbin magazine, but community can also have a more expansive meaning, for clarity I will refer to lemmy magazines and use community in it's more expansive scope.
rpg@foo.bar isn't a real thing obviously but is your standing for an rpg magazine on any other instance.
rpg@lemmy.ml and rpg@kbin.social appear to be two separate magazines, hosted on two difference instances, and owned and moderated by two separate groups of people, but about the same topic - role playing games. If you ignore the instance part of the name, then they have identical names - which makes sense because they cover the same topic.
There is a UX issue on kbin where the instance part of the name is hidden, but there are also kbin styles that fix this.
Getting fixated on the identical name part is getting hung up over a minor technicality. Remember that reddit has a similar issue with very similarly named subs, where you might have /r/X and then /r/TrueX and /r/XOriginal - something that was encouraged by reddit's own policy, where instead of getting involved with a mod of a sub they would just encourage you to make your own sub.
I'd rather have as false positive of a gun user's instance with threads about rocket-propelled grenades, rather than having to go to each group to browse
I think this is legitimate. This was solved on reddit with multireddits but kbin doesn't have an equivalent yet.
If devs and leaders of the ActivityPub community are going to continue pushing the idea that everyone can talk to everyone else, we absolutely need some form of community merging for identically-named communities. For instance, a kbin.social user should be able to subscribe to cooking and see posts from cooking@. , not just cooking@kbin.social. That's a UX issue just as much as a technical one.
Good point. Even if kbin/lemmy don't support it, maybe we can get multimagazines working first at say an app level (like in Artemis).
Don't tell me to just use the "subscribed" view. That doesn't pick up everything in a topic, nor does it help me to find those - again, identically named - communities on other servers.
I wouldn't as that's not what that view is for. You want to view a multimagazine that covers a given topic like rpg rather than see your own subscriptions.
Whenever a new server comes online with an RPG community, they'll be in their own corner.
They can participate as foreigners with another group, but that's not theirs.
They can go as far as to mod magazines in another instance. How are they thus foreigners? This is the point of federation - that equal standing to view, post, contribute, moderate, etc across instances.
If there was a server set up just to host groups, and the rest were for users, that would make sense.
From a centralized, non-federated point of view.
There's no central place for hosting these communities.
Because there is no need for that. I'd point to the example of r/blind - they continue to maintain their sub on reddit but officially the community is also available on their own lemmy instance as well as through their own website. One community, but not centralized anywhere.
I did that back in the day, joining forums and setting up a personal homepage with frames. In theory anyone can join any group, but they have to find it first.
With federation, you don't have to go that far. Communicating across instances works automatically and you only need one account to do so, as opposed to creating a new account on each forum.
I immediately grew tired, trying to find all of the communities related to my interests so I can subscribe to all.
I'd recommend you check out some of the older posts on @RedditMIgration as there are lots of links to community (not magazine but community in the broader sense) run websites that try to solve this by listing all of the magazines on instances.
This is probably simpler and more fruitful than searching manually.
I think that it has to do with lemmmy and instances. When no one has searched for a specific community from your home instance this community isn’t known by your instance. To find a niche community that wasn’t known by your instance you must use the exact name of this community (like !asklemmy for exemple) to find thoses exact names and brosse all communities you can use lemmyverse.net
One of the hurdles to change for users switching from reddit to a federated platform is less content. The logic goes: “smaller community, less content, I can see i’m missing out on stuff over there so I’m not going to switch away”....
I have mixed feelings towards the repost bots. I see no value in pure reposts from Reddit, but I also have no issue with them IF they only post on dedicated instances and mark the account it’s posting from as a bot. Those posts have no engagement. Most people either disable bot posts in settings or block then once they see them. There is nothing wrong with growing communities slowly, but with organic content or only reposting the most interesting stuff.
Depending of your instance, see the local communities, you should have some for “community request” or meta, look for the description of the communities.
You can also request on other instance, doesn’t need to be on your instance. Some can be more restrict then others.
There’s also theme specific instances, like Star Trek, Path of Exile, FOSS… each instance can have his own rules.
I joined Lemmy a few weeks ago when a lot of other reddit refugees were making the switch. A lot of the servers were overloaded, so I just went ahead and hosted my own. My instance is never overloaded because I’m the only user, and because Lemmy is federated I can subscribe to communities on any instance I want.
I’ve been using Lemmy and learning the ropes of the Fediverse and I’m really impressed - especially using wefwef which has replicated my Apollo experience very well....
Lemmy reminds me a lot of the way the internet used to be- smaller, independent communities with more real engagement and less of a content firehose. With so many instances, if you want something, you have to seek it out or start it yourself- with the added benefit of federation keeping everyone connected.
I’m really optimistic that this will get critical mass. I think the concept of federation is great, and I like to think we’re at the forefront of a whole new phase of online community.
For Lemmy, if nobody has subscribed to a community locally, you need to search https://instance.social/c/whatever to get !whatever@instance.social. Once someone subscribes locally, searching !whatever@instance.social works.
It's pretty unintuitive, especially when Kbin lets you search @whatever@instance.social even if that community isn't on your instance yet.
You don't need to do that if that community is already federating with your instance. If its not, it might take a little while for the federation to actually start after you make the search (based on the server infrastructure of your instance and the remaining queue). Try searching again after a bit and it should be there. These quriks should be solved as instances become more stable, and Lemmy/kbin gets further developed.
Hey all, I recently left reddit like many of you. I have a question regarding lemmy and the fediverse on the history of banning and defederation. I have noticed several posts calling for varying communities to be disconnected. were these removal requests as prevalent before the mass migration? Usually I am all for communities...
Personally, I prefer individual users being empowered to easily block instances over instances blocking stuff "for" the users in most cases. Issues:
Users from other instances can still require mod actions. Moderation time is limited. Defederating from more problematic instances can be necessary if they cause more trouble than can be easily dealt with.
It is important for instance owners to achieve a coherent "front page" which includes the wider fediverse. I’m unsure if it is possible to ban individual instances from the frontpage while still allowing users to specifically visit them as they want.
Some instances are legally ambiguous or even contain content fully illegal in some countries.
Note that if you click on an instance, it will show you the various admin reasons for why people defederated.
The one I saw someone asking to be removed (exploding heads) seemed to be more normal discussion with a big extra dose of edgy humor magazines and swear words. This includes various slurs and straight up racism. This very much falls into the category of "I don’t want those here, but I’d prefer if users can still visit them" for me.
Specifically, admins and community moderators of that instance were the problem. This seems like it would quickly fall into the "unfeasible to moderate on a case-by-case basis" category. Therefore, the nuclear option of defederation may be necessary.
Adding /d/domain-name-goes-here to kbin's normal web address will take you to that instance's "homepage" and you can block it there. For example, https://kbin.social/d/feddit.de
Keep in mind, this will only block posts coming from that instance, so you'll still be seeing comments from those users elsewhere, but it should take care of a good deal of it on your feed if you don't mind losing out on the three or four communities there that aren't in german
You can view if user created communites are enabled on your instance here; lemmy.ml/api/v3/site
That link outputs a wall of text, but all the Instance settings are at the top after "local_site". Optionally you can format the output with a json formatter like jsonformatter.org which makes the output easy to read.
In the case for lemmy.ml, you see ["community_creation_admin_only": true] which means users can not create communities. You can check other instances for one that does allow user created communities. Just replace the root name in that link and get the settings there.
The instance I'm on does allow user created communities. Some instances actually state their settings in the sidebar for convenience, the one I'm on does that.
Completely agree. Funding and hosting situation are still very much in flux for most instances, and most instances are so new that admins haven't really had the time to figure out exactly how they want to run and organise things yet. Everything is very much in flux.
These are problems I think will go away naturally as things stabilize and clearer community identities, fundraising methods and organizational norms start forming.
I plan on making two videos, one where I explain how Lemmy works and then how to post in a community. I'm going to do my own research but is there any points you want to give to a new user?
Mastodon is not a social network, which is where I think John and Dare start from. It’s a set of communities which may, or may not, choose to connect to each other. Those relationships are based on shared values and trust: my instance connects to yours because I trust you to moderate effectively, not allow spam, or whatever other ground rules we can agree on. Some communities choose to apply this loosely, and some more strictly (some communities, for example, won’t federate with others who don’t have the same expectations around moderation for everyone they federate with).
you can see what instances your instance vlemmy.net federated with at vlemmy.net/instances and yes diggit.xyz is currently there. you can find some of their communities here or paste a specific community URL from diggit.xyz/communities in your instance’s search box to cause it to federate if it isn’t yet.
i’m deleting this post now; if you have more support questions please use !lemmy_support
True, but the amount of instances will probably scale too. You can have premium instances that cost a monthly fee, ones that solicit donations, maybe ones that run ads. But you'll also always have the passion project instances being ran for a specific community out of the kindness of someone's heart.
Everything needs to generate some sort of value - I imagine a lemmy instance would generate value for you in the form of learning, or maybe the sense of accomplishment from maintaining a community. That differs from how centralised social media generates value in the form of data or money which is usually at odds with the userbase.
Wow. Honestly this makes me seriously contemplate my move to Lemmy. I thought lemmy.world was at least a free speech endorsing server. So now we have the two biggest Lemmy instances out there that are clearly against free speech. Lemmy.ml is moderated by pro CCP mods that remove anything anti-china, and lemmy.world can't even tolerate a sub about conspiracy theories (which we should all know have a tendency of coming true the past few years) and is therefore already starting with stifling free speech.
Yeah, go start your own instance... Not everyone wants to run their own instance just to be able to browse communities on other instances that your current instance doesn't agree with.
Yeah... This is really putting a sour taste in my mouth about Lemmy already.
You do realize that conspiracy is far more than qanon stuff, right? It was an interesting sub to read from time to time on Reddit.
And yeah, I get "just run your own instance", but not everyone wants to deal with their own instance just to be able to freely browse communities without random censorship. I was hoping Lemmy wouldn't be that way. Don't know what it is about some people being so unable to tolerate opposing views from their own...
I read that Kbin defederated with Lemmy because it couldn't initially handle the influx of new users migrating from Reddit, but that it has federated again.
So is it a Lemmy instance, like Beehaw?
I know that Kbin doesn't use communities ("/c/") but uses magazines ("/m/") so I thought it was different.
I also read that there was some new way to post to Lemmy from Mastadon, but I thought those were different, like Reddit and Twitter. But they both rely on something called "ActivityPub"?
So is Kbin similar to Lemmy (by being Reddit-like), but distinct like Mastadon (which is Twitter-like)?
I didn't have a Twitter account, but was a heavy Reddit user. I don't have a Mastadon account, but I'm liking Lemmy. However I have some FOMO about Kbin because I don't understand how it all works together.
Just a random thought experiment. Let's say I have my account on a lemmy instance: userA@mylemmy.com. One day I decide to stop paying for the domain and move to userA@mynewlemmy.com, and someone else gains it and also starts up a lemmy instance....
The new domain owner — if they set up an ActivityPub server instance (e.g. a Lemmy) and got a list of the old user's post URLs — might be able to delete or edit the old user's posts stored on other instances. That is a vulnerability, albeit a small one.
If the old user was still listed as a moderator of communities hosted on other instances, the new domain owner might be able to take over that moderator role.
One way to fix this would be for instances to issue a public-key cryptographic identity to each user, and distribute users' public keys to other instances. Then activities purporting to be from that user would need to be signed by that user's private key.
Users' private keys would stay local to their home instance, so users don't have to do any key management themselves.
This would mean that if an instance goes away (and its key material is destroyed) then nobody can ever act as any of those users again. A new user created with the same username and domain would be a distinct user for all other instances too.
What are the cybersecurity weaknesses of the Fediverse?
Most of us are Reddit refugees, and probably clicking more random links than we ever did before on websites we’ve never seen before. This whole experience feels like the old internet, but also throws up insane red flags with a modern internet perspective. What are the cybersecurity weaknesses we should all be looking for, and...
Where do I find a list of local instances?
I wasn’t sure where to ask so I chose here. The other day I saw a post encouraging people to spread the load on lemmy.world and jump onto other instances....
People in /r/redditalternatives are talking about a "Reddit 2.0" What website would fill that role? (kbin.social)
On Reddit at reddit.com/r/redditalternatives, people are talking about a "Reddit 2.0." What do you suggest?
are some communities on this Lemmy thing inaccesible by searching? If so, how to find them?
I can not believe that there is, for example, no furry communities here - yet there are none in search results…...
What's your opinion on cross-posting?
One of the hurdles to change for users switching from reddit to a federated platform is less content. The logic goes: “smaller community, less content, I can see i’m missing out on stuff over there so I’m not going to switch away”....
how do i create a community?
I’m on Vlemmy using wefwef
What made you pick the Lemmy server you are on?
Does it actually matter?
Do you guys think this is the start of something bigger?
I’ve been using Lemmy and learning the ropes of the Fediverse and I’m really impressed - especially using wefwef which has replicated my Apollo experience very well....
Confused about how lemmy.world and kbin are linked to each other...?
Please be gentle as I am a total noob on this site and I'm still in the process of figuring out how any of this works....
I don’t understand people who say they can’t figure out Lemmy or KBin
Does federation have a bit of a learning curve? No doubt....
banning and defederating communities
Hey all, I recently left reddit like many of you. I have a question regarding lemmy and the fediverse on the history of banning and defederation. I have noticed several posts calling for varying communities to be disconnected. were these removal requests as prevalent before the mass migration? Usually I am all for communities...
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What's the mob policy on Emojis here on the fediverse?
Like a lot of people here, I'm coming from the rexodus and I was just wondering if we still have to lynch people using emojis in their comments?...
How would you explain to a new user how Lemmy works?
I plan on making two videos, one where I explain how Lemmy works and then how to post in a community. I'm going to do my own research but is there any points you want to give to a new user?
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So how does lemmy make money?
I'm not seeing any ads, and these servers certainly have a cost.... So is this place entirely donation based, or what?
Server rules - am I missing something? (i.imgur.com)
I was glancing through the mod log and saw these two entries. Conspiracy theory communities were both removed for violating rule #3....
What is Kbin?
Only heard of it recently is it another federated platform like Lemmy or pixelfed?
Can you steal a user's identity if you gain their old domain name?
Just a random thought experiment. Let's say I have my account on a lemmy instance: userA@mylemmy.com. One day I decide to stop paying for the domain and move to userA@mynewlemmy.com, and someone else gains it and also starts up a lemmy instance....