It seems https://lemmy-federate.com/ is just wildly popular with people suggesting it and eagerly biting on the suggestion they were given. It seems to just completely subvert the intention of not wasting any storage or space or even energy by federating out communities others did not ask for, or federating in communities nobody on the instance subscribes to, by having bots on instances follow communities. So my understanding is that even if nobody on example.instance cares about [email protected], example.instance still wastes resources on federating it in if someone submitted it here.
I do see that
If you want to add your instance to the list, you can login from top right. If you are a user, you can ask your instance admin to add your instance.
on this page. And I have heard of instances opting out from this. So I am curious: if your instance does not participate, what does that mean? No bots subscribing to communities on your instance so they go to everyone else? How does it work? I looked at https://lemy.lol/c/[email protected] and https://lemmy-federate.com/ and https://github.com/ismailkarsli/lemmy-federate and did not see an explanation. On the list of instances on lemmy federate almost everyone seems to be enabled. So I’m curious how it works. Half of me thinks this chips away at the whole point of decentralization, just making sure every instance federates tons of stuff in regardless of actual user interest on the instance. The other half says people can do what they want with their instance, maybe I just do not understand how it works and it does not cause the problems I think it does, even if I’m right maybe most Lemmy users want it, and that it doesn’t actually impact my life unless I decide to start being an instance host myself (and in that case then I would really need to know how it works, to figure out how my own instance would behave with lemmy-federate and what restrictions I could place on it).
Please let me know if my understanding is wrong, and how it actually works if so, because I have actually tried the provided resources by the lemmy-federate project to understand before coming here and sharing my understanding and disapproval of how it works if it works the way I think it does.
Since you are the creator, could you point me to learn how it works besides “now every post from communities signed up will show up on your instance?”
I’ll also admit part of my prejudice is because I’ll never touch All with a ten foot stick, so I end up not experiencing any benefit personally, and I do not mind checking out communities on their instance if they seem to have no posts on mine.
Thanks for replying civilly by the way, and not just flipping out on me for my position on lemmy-federate. I am not sure I’d have the same grace in your position, which is why I’m incredibly careful about putting things I make out there online in public lol.
Lemmy Federate doesn’t do anything special. It searches and follows communities just like normal users do. The only difference is that it does this from every (registered) instance, for almost every community. The reason I didn’t explain it in more detail is that it has evolved into an admin tool rather than a user tool. Generally, admins know what this tool is for.
However, I can explain a few things that will be useful for you outside of the “All” tab:
Discoverability
Lemmy Federate enhances community discoverability by allowing users to search communities from their instance. Instead of relying on an external site, you can discover new communities while staying within the context of your own instance.
Crossposts
Let’s say that [email protected] is federated in your instance, but [email protected] is not. In this case, you won’t see crossposts from [email protected] sharing the same link as [email protected].
Initial post count
When a community is pulled for the first time, only a certain number of recent posts are pulled with it. If you are the first to follow a community you are interested in from your instance, you will not be able to see all posts from that community.
These benefits are honestly things that do not enhance my personal experience, but I hope others find them useful. I’m probably forever going to be the “not for me but the community has outvoted me so I guess I can let it exist without complaint for the common good even if I personally don’t like it” guy. Thank you for your explanation. You might want to put these benefits somewhere on the Lemmy Federate project sites so people can learn about them.
Do you have to sign a community up to have it put on Lemmy Federate, or is everyone’s community glommed up regardless of whether it was signed up for it? How does this work? I want to know how it works, all the things an admin needs to know, or maybe a mod, not just a list of benefits.
Again, thank you for engaging with me, I realize my questions and bias against it are probably seeping through and making me appear more hostile to you than I am. I don’t really like the tool but I notice a lot of others do and you did put it forward and, I think, create it with good intentions for the Fediverse, and I (have not contributed any code to the Fediverse’s wellbeing) thank you for that.
In order for an instance to follow a community in another instance, both must be registered in lemmy-federate.
If an instance has the “auto add” feature enabled, newly created communities will be added automatically within 1 to 5 minutes. This process is automatic. No action is required from an admin/moderator/user. You can see this from instances page.
If “auto add” is not enabled, any user can add that community manually. If not added, lemmy-federate will not work for that community.
Off topic, no need to apologize this much :)