Kbin is the first Reddit alternative I looked at and i liked the UI so I stuck with it. I kind of assumed everything would be kbin. I thought I understood things. I thought it was kbin and lemmy separate but they federated and so I’d be able to access lemmy stuff from kbin. Which I guess is true. But now I’m confused. I look at all, and I see a post in m/main@sh.itjust.works and the post is from lemmy.world and it’s devs. I’m not subbed to m/main, so did Ernest curate /all and add it? Are people cross posting from lemmy into sh.itjust.works? I feel like I need a drawing or red string diagram.
It’s like a multiverse, or imagine skin cells and how stuff can be transmitted between them, but ultimately part of one greater thing. It’s kind of the shit imo. Whatever it is lol
So I joined one cell, but due to an underlying nerve network, I can see what’s going on in other cells and vice versa, unless someone pops off the limb. Right?
So me reading lemmy devs updates is telling me what’s going on in their cell, but it doesn’t directly affect my cell, yeah?
Pretty much yep. But the info MAY become pertinent. It’s a really awesome idea.
I think of this like game servers.
The site you’re using is your platform (kbin=pc, mastodon=xbox, lemmy=ps). After that, the instances are what servers you connect to (lemmy.ca=psNA, whatever on mastodon=xboxSEA, kbin.social=pcEU. Then, federation is bringing it all together with crossplay.
Made a bit of sense to me, so hopefully this helps!
@SoupOfTheDay Kbin and Lemmy are two different softwares that talk to one another using a protocol called activitypub. This is similar to email if I use gmail and you use outlook we can still send one another email even though we are using software operated by different email providers. The same thing Applies to Kbin and Lemmy different software with very similar use cases that communicates with one another. Please mention me in this thread if you have any more questions for me.
I know you’re using the e-mail analogy to represent how SMTP and ActivtyPub are a common protocol, but I’ve seen the same analogy mentioned several times and I think it only serves to muddy the waters, because it’s incomplete.
@BaconIsAVeg @SoupOfTheDay what part of the analogy is incomplete. Generally want to know because I might be missing something if that’s the case.
Every time it’s mentioned it’s only about sending e-mail to different providers, but the analogy doesn’t cover for example browsing your e-mail inbox and seeing communication from multiple sources. Just covering how one individual can send messages to multiple individuals via a common protocol is only half the picture.
Honestly it’s more like the old mailing lists (Majordomo days), where individuals would subscribe to a list, but that list might also subscribe to other lists themselves, and then you throw a web interface in front of it.
Kbin is not lemmy, but it’s very similar and almost fully compatible.
lemmy.world users can post to sh.itjust.works and vice verse, that’s probably what you’re seeing.
The front page is /all by default. You can change this in setting. You’re probably seeing something in /all from another instance. You can also turn off federation in the sidebar if you’re interesting in ONLY seeing kbin stuff until you turn it off.
But like… how did all get created? Is it literally just pulling from all federated instances?
Your instance becomes aware of the existence of another instance when just one user subscribes to a community there. From then on it will appear in all.
kbin and lemmy are different softwares, but they are both used for link aggregation and the 2 softwares use a common protocol, so they can talk to each other. So there are kbin servers and lemmy servers, and they are all interconnected.
So now we can take this post as an example:
You are a user on kbin.social
You posted this question on /m/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world - this means the community you posted on is actually hosted on lemmy.world
lemmy.world then tells other instances that its federated with that someone just made a post on /c/nostupidquestions on its instance. what kbin calls magazines are called communities on lemmy, hence the /c/ instead of the /m/.
kbin.social and all the other instances will then also show this post, even though it originally was created on a different instance
curious, are there other kbin “instances”, like how lemmy has many?
https://fedia.io is the other big kbin instance. There are probably others, but they’re either not as well-known yet or are personal instances.
Is there a reason to make personal instances versus using kbin.social ?
You get to make the rules if you have a personal instance until the other instances defederate from you.
Also, I see threads that are originating on kbin.social referring to lemmy and lemmings as if we are in lemmy.
They may be posted by people that are on lemmy, you can mouse over their username to see what instance they’re from. Otherwise you can also install the kbin enhancement script with tampermonkey or something that would make anyone who isn’t from kbin have an @(instance) after their name.
I’ll have to do that when I’m on desktop. I’m on iOS safari at the moment.,
Not sure if Firefox for iOS allows for extensions, but if it does, you can install Tampermokey on it and add the userscript. I’m using Hermit on Android to have kbin installed as a PWA, and it supports userscripts in the premium version (a one-time payment). Works well so far.
