What I think could make Lemmy superior to Reddit is the ability to create themed-instances that are all linked together which feels like the entire point. I’ve noticed that a lot of instances are trying to be a catch-all Reddit replacement by imitating specific subs which is understandable given the circumstances but seems like it’s not taking advantage of the full power that Lemmy could have.

Imagine for a moment that instances were more focus-based. Instead of having communities that are all mostly unrelated we had entire instances that are focused on one specific area of expertise or interest. Imagine a LOTR instance that had many sub-communities (in this case “communities” would be the wrong way to look at it, it would be more like categories) that dealt with different subjects in the LOTR universe: books, movies, lore, gaming, art, etc all in the same instance.

Imagine the types of instances that could be created with more granular categories within to better guide conversations: Baseball, Cars, Comics, Movies, Tech etc.

A tech instance could have dedicated communities for news, programming, dev, IT, Microsoft, Apple, iOS, linux. Or you could make it even more granular by having a dedicated instance for each of those because there’s so many categories that could be applied to each.

What are your thoughts?

  • feduser934@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    2 years ago

    By hopping around, do you mean changing your account to one on another instance, or viewing a list of communities on an instance, or something else?

    I don’t feel that changing accounts is necessary because of the magic of federation. But I don’t know how to view a list of communities in an instance without leaving your home instance. That would be a cool feature, but is only really important when you’re initially picking all your subscriptions.

    • notun@lemmy.world
      61·
      2 years ago

      Exactly, it’s really inconvenient right now. And it’s really important for the usability of what OP suggested.

      If I simply link to a cool community I found, like https://beehaw.org/c/programming, you can’t follow that link conveniently if you’re from another instance.

      And I highly disagree with only being important at the start. It’s a big hurdle that stifles growth right now.

      • this@sh.itjust.works
        3·
        2 years ago

        Agreed, what needs to happen is an option that allows users to follow links from foreign instances in their home instance seamlessly. I have to imagine with the ramped up amount of development in lemmy that some of the devs must be working on it.

      • AtomHeartFather@ka.tet42.org
        0·
        2 years ago

        Yes you can subscribe to and read/reply to that community from any lemmy instance. You just need to add it if the instance doesn’t already federate with it.

        Go to ‘Communities’ at the top of your instance homepage then in the search bar put the url of the community you want to add. (example: https://beehaw.org/c/programming)

        This next part is undocumented, and might just be a bug. But this is the magic part.

        On the next page, change the top search dropdown from Communities to All.

        You will see the community you want to sub to in the results. It will say something like.

        Programming@beehaw.org - 0 subscribers

        Click it, then on the top right pane click “Subscribe”

        Done

        • notun@lemmy.world
          01·
          2 years ago

          Jesus Christ. I’m well aware of how you can subscribe to other instances. This is about convenience, with problems arising from situations like I described above.

          • AtomHeartFather@ka.tet42.org
            1·
            2 years ago

            Having some additional messaging about how communities work, and how to subscribe to them would help. I’m sorry that I assumed you didn’t know how to do that. I meant no offense but there’s no harm in providing free information that you (or someone else reading this post) might not know about.

            There’s no way for an instance to know that you have an account on some other instance so the subscribe button assumes you are a local user. Maybe that could be addressed in the future, I don’t know what the plans are.

            At a minimum I would think the subscribe button could have some logic that can detect whether you are logged in or not and then give you some options. Like, log into your account if you have one on this instance, or if you don’t here are instructions for adding this community to YOUR instance.