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/[email protected] 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.
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!
Excellent analogy - tom hanks
That’s actually really helpful. And for once, we get cross platform to PC!
This is the best explanation I have heard so far.
Careful with that analogy. I’m hoping for a lot less flame war on the left side of the equation lol
Hopefully people are able to realize what the corresponding platform is doesn’t matter, it can be anything.
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/[email protected] - 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?
Yes, there’s a few of them. fedia.io, for one. But kbin.social is probably the most active one at the moment.
yes, to view the other kbin instances you can go to the kbin landing page (https://kbin.pub/en), at the top nav bar under instances it’ll show the others.
ah ok cool! I started on lemmy so I’m just finding out about kbin.
There’s a few others, not as many as Lemmy I think. Most of the users are on kbin.social currently.
interesting. thanks!
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.
@GuyDudeman @SoupOfTheDay Not “until”. You still make the rules even after they defederate from you.
It’s a matter of preference. Some people may want greater control over what instances they federate with. Some people just want to tinker with the kbin software and play around with it. Others choose to do it so that can have a custom domain or so they can have a username that’s been taken elsewhere. The beauty of the Fediverse is that it doesn’t really matter that much where you go, since you more or less have access to pretty much everything anyway.
yes. so individual instances are like individual reddit.com websites. if one goes rogue/bad it can’t control the others. likewise, people may prefer smaller instances where they have greater influence/control over the site (either by owning it, or being in closer contact with the admin, etc).
some instances may have rules, or defederate from other instances, that may not be liked, so you might want to switch to something more favorable. for instance, beehaw has strict moderation and defederated from lemmy.world. whereas kbin.social federates with everyone. if you make your own instance, you have control over this.
Kbin and Lemmy are basically web applications. They both use the same protocol to communicate (ActivityPub), which is also used by Mastodon (more of a Twitter alternative). kbin.social or lemmy.world are instances, basically specific servers that you can register to, like you’d register with an email provider. They’re running their respective kbin or Lemmy applications that you use to view and interact with the content on their servers, as well as the other ActivityPub servers, as they’re federated to communicate with each other. There’s plenty of other instances / servers, you can even set up your own ones if you want to. Each one can have their own set of rules too but overall it usually does not matter too much where you go to for your account. However, some instances like beehaw, which is a Lemmy based instance, is heavily defederated & moderated. Sort of a safe space if you will. Communities on Lemmy, or Magazines on kbin, are basically subreddits. Kbin’s microblogs are basically Mastodon threads / toots. The main / all page contains pretty much threads from all federated instances on kbin or Lemmy.
so the main kbin homepage is “all” meaning, everything across the fediverse. that means we see content from lemmy.ml, sh.itjust.works, beehaw.org, lemmy.world, etc.
now, everyone can participate in each other’s communities. for instance this community is [email protected]. you and I are kbin.social users. our comments right now are being posted to lemmy.world. lemmy users can see such and respond to it.
m/[email protected] is a community on sh.itjust.works. similar to how reddit.com/r/gaming is a community on reddit. however, we on kbin.social can also see and interact with that community. when we do so, people can see our username as coming from kbin.social, since that’s what we’re using.
tl;dr:
The site we are on is kbin.social. this is a website running the “kbin” software.
kbin can interact with other “fediverse” websites, such as lemmy.world or sh.itjust.works.
as a result, we see all their contents and users, and vice versa (noted with the @ url afterwards). the other users are not visiting kbin.social in their browser. If the account says lemmy.world they are going to the lemmy.world website, which can see kbin.social content just how we can see their content.
I’m replying to this from Jerboa (the Android Lemmy app), while logged in as my lemmy.ml account.
Federation; it’s great (when it works). 😁
Only issue is I can’t set up my kbin.social account on Jerboa, but eh, it’s still in development, so I’ll probably be able to at some point down the line (or someone’ll make a more general Fediverse app). 🤷♂️
Yeah no, its made by one of the Lemmy developers, unless he suddenly decides to switch to Kbin development, Jerboa will never get Kbin support. Last i saw an app called Artemis was the one being developed for both Kbin and Lemmy
I think of kbin as a web interface that combines Lemmy and Mastodon.
kbin Magazines = Lemmy communities
kbin Threads = individual posts in Lemmy communities
Kbin Microblogs = Mastodon toots
Probably best not to use one obscure social network to describe how another obscure social network works.
Microblogs are a very cool feature, but it’s a shame that it is one button on the top of the page that looks similar to the other buttons that you’d mostly ignore it if you weren’t actively looking for it
On desktop at least, they occupy part of the sidebar on the right also. I wish I could block the random nsfw from there though.
I thought there were also dedicated Kbin magazines that aren’t on lemmy
Yes Kbin has magazines hosted on it’s own servers as well. Lemmy users can access those communities as well like how Kbin can access Lemmy
kbin.social is effectively a Lemmy instance as far as magazines/communities go. Lemmy users can join and post in kbin magazines. kbin users can do the same with Lemmy communities. If kbin used the term “communities” instead of “magazines” it would be much less confusing.
I’d say we can try to normalize terminology, but that would fuck up coding/urls, right?
Disclaimer: I know shit about coding.
under the hood it’s all “activitypub” and works identically. it’s only the end-user gui that has things named differently.
I just realised there is a settings icon at the bottom of the page with a load of options, font size, page colour, infinite scroll, preview images.
Setting kbin as an app on Android it’s a really good app experience
Afaik Lemmy is a protocol used by a bunch of servers; lemmy.world, shitjustworks, lemmy.ml, etc. They’re all (well, mostly) connected to each other, and each hosts various communities that any member can access. You can access it all through kbin, though kbin is different from lemmy. For example, this community is on lemmy.world, and you posted it here from kbin. I saw it and responded from kbin.
“All” gives you all the content your home server has access to.
I hope that’s helpful. I’m still learning myself.
Clarification: the protocol is ActivityPub.
Lemmy is open source software built on the protocol. (Kbin and others are different sofware but also built on Activity Pub)
Instances, Lemmy.world, and Sh.itjust.works are clones of Lemmy running independently but federated.
The protocol they have in common is ActivityPub, the same thing used by Mastodon, Calckey, etc…
So you’re using kbin, but sub’d to the m/c hosted on lemmy.world, and responded to it via your kbin account? Right?
Yeah, I’m viewing and responding to this from kbin.social right now
Yup, that’s correct.
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.
A lemmy.world user posted in a sh.itjust.works community. Then it’s propagated too all federated instances via a protocol called ActivityPub.
Whenever somebody subscribes to a community in another instance, that instance starts sending posts and comments to your instance (kbin.social in your case). The front page of any instance is just the all of the posts and comments that exist on that instance, sorted.
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
As if we are in Lemmy…As a Lemming, I got news for you buddy!
That’s the way I like it honey, I don’t want to live forever!
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 view it as like 2 different movie theaters showing the same movie with one of them streaming it from the other, but then we all get to experience it together as if one big audience live chatting each other. Maybe not a movie analogy.
2 different worlds and their people say hi then start sharing their content and communities with each other. Signing up is like choosing a world to start from, but you can leap to see any planet wherever. Just your starting home is always home.
Think of kbin and Lemmy like gmail and yahoo mail. Two different softwares that do largely the same thing and are capable of talking to each other.
If kbin and Lemmy has a child, would they name it fediverse?
@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.
There should be a Ted talk on this lol
I don’t think “All” feed is curated by anyone, except if your instance is defederating a lot from other instances (like beehaw.org). You’ll either have to curate your own “Subscribed” feed or use “Local” feed which will only consist of your own instance’s (kbin’s) communities.
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.
In mobile browsers, just tap and hold on their username to see the url of their profile. Their instance name is on the right of the
symbol.
