I’ve introduced two of my friends (not into tech) to Lemmy. Since they’re not into tech this is their first web forum.

I’ve explained the federation thru the usual email metaphore and that’s ok, but to lookup for communities is not quite there on client side.

Let me explain.
He wanted to see all the communities on an instance because that instance is in his native language but he’s registered on another instance. So to see all those communities you must go on instance.domain/communities, copy the name of the community you are interessed in and paste it inside the app/web client to look it up.

And to see all the communities all over the fediverse you must use lemmyverse.net which is a cool site, but still you got to copy paste back and forth to the app.

This could be implementend inside app itself by listing all communities and add ability to filter by things like instance.

Obviously open to discussion about the issue itself and how that could be improved.

Feel free to tag apps/clients devs to ear their opinion too.

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    Non-techie here. It’s true. I have no idea how !instance.domain/community works.

    I understand that I’m on an island. Lemmy.World is a pretty big island, kinda like Austrailia, but it is still an island.

    I can’t just go to otherinstance.otherdomain/community and click subscribe. Or comment. Or anything. That instance should know I’m Lost_My_Mind@Lemmy.World just by the fact that I’m still logged into Lemmy.World, even if I’m on Lemmy.ml

    So if I go to any other instance, I shouldn’t have to do a thing.

    As long as I’m not banned from Lemmy.ml, and as long as Lemmy.ml hasn’t defederated from Lemmy.World, I should be able to log in on Lemmy.World, travel to Lemmy.ml, and immediately be able to comment, upvote, downvote, subscribe, whatever. And when I do these things, even though I’M on Lemmy.ml, my actions will have come from Lemmy.World

    Lemmy/The Fediverse is a great idea. It has a lot of foundationally sound ideas that should be able to continue to thrive for decades. It just needs a userbase.

    I remember in 2000 saying the same things about linux…and it never got that userbase until Android took all the techie sound ideas, and put them behind the curtain. When 16 year old blond valley girl Britney uses her Android phone, she doesn’t know what a terminal is. She doesn’t have to know. She doesn’t have to think about it. She just opens her app drawer and plays spotify. And thats it.

    I know the concept of a techie platform hiding the techie advancements sounds completely foreign to the idea of someone who spent 3 years learning how to techie, but thats what needs to happen.

    Otherwise Britney will get about two sentences into you explaining the fediverse, before her brain turns off.

    If Britney can’t use it, this will have a userbase to reddit, in the same way that Linux has a userbase compared to Mac/Windows.

    Lenny can grow. I feel like the ideas here are built to last. They just need to be more accessable to idiots. I have other issues I feel could be fixed, but I think this one is by far the biggest barrier to entry for most.

    • adONis@lemmy.worldEnglish
      01·
      5 months ago

      login to lemmy.world travel to lemmy.ml and be able to comment.

      See, this is kind of impossible because of security reasons.

      Imagine logging in on gmail, going to facebook (without any further action in between) and being able to read your emails. That would be convenient but catastrophic!

      Yes, I know, FB and gmail are two different things, but the concept of auth is the same. A website saves a cookie in your browser and uses it to check whether you’re authenticated or not. And that website can AND SHOULD only be able to read its own cookies.