Mastodawn

Is lemmy.world more active than lemmy.ml?

https://lemmy.world/post/141380

Is lemmy.world more active than lemmy.ml? - Lemmy.world

So apologies if this is a stupid question as I’m new to Lemmy. Came from Reddit. I moved to lemmy.world and have noticed that lemmy.ml [http://lemmy.ml] has been popping up as another featured instance. What differs from lemmy.world vs lemmy.ml [http://lemmy.ml]? Is .ml more active? Part of why I ask this is because I downloaded the lemmur client on my phone and it defaults to lemmy.ml [http://lemmy.ml]. (Yes I’m aware that app is no longer being maintained) Again apologies for the stupid question.

TYguy Jun 15, 2023

They're federated so we can interact from both networks I think. It's more populated here so it's more active.

Graphine Jun 15, 2023

Yeah I know we can interact with .ml (which is simultaneously weird and cool) but that answers my question for sure. This place is so cool.

end0fline Jun 15, 2023

I don't know how to describe it, but it just feels right to me.

million Jun 15, 2023

What’s even crazier is that you can also post to Kbin which is a server running completely different software

Graphine Jun 15, 2023

See that's the part that trips me out. I understand the concept pretty well now. What I don't understand is how in the fuck you can interact with Kbin and Mastodon, even though they're built on instances.....I just don't get that. It's amazing.

million Jun 15, 2023

Yeah I am trying to wrap my head around the ActivityPub spec so I can understand the magic

marshoepial Jun 15, 2023

Kbin, Mastodon, Peertube, anything in the Fediverse adheres to ActivityPub standard, which is the protocol that all of these sites use to communicate.

Graphine Jun 15, 2023

On a side note, what exactly is Peertube? I've been hearing things about it but I have no idea what it is. Is it like a YouTube alternative? Or is it like P2P YouTube?

marshoepial Jun 15, 2023

I am going to be honest, i don't really know either, I just included it in my example because I know it's federated

WhiskyTangoFoxtrot Jun 15, 2023

Is it like a YouTube alternative? Or is it like P2P YouTube?

Yes to both. Or, more specifically, it's a piece of software that lets you set up federated YouTube alternatives (just like Lemmy lets you set up federated Reddit alternatives) and uses P2P to save bandwidth for the host. Basically, if multiple people are watching a video at the same time, they'll be able to download parts of it from each other instead of everyone downloading it from the main server.

Rhaedas Jun 15, 2023

The core part of it that they all have their content in a common protocol. How they display it and handle it differ based on the application, but the info itself is the same. The example often used is email - you can use any email client or service, and the email base message will be the same. It just may look a bit different, and some extra features might be lost if your client doesn't support them.

RedditExodus Jun 15, 2023

I don't fully understand it either, but I'm on kbin right now and I can see this entire thread. It's very cool!

chaogomu Jun 15, 2023

Time to break your mind more, I'm replying from kbin.social

It's all interconnected.

PsychoticBananaSplit Jun 15, 2023

Always has been 🌏👨‍🚀🔫👨‍🚀

Pluto_Is_A_Planet Jun 15, 2023

I'm from kbin. just saying hello.

million Jun 15, 2023

Howdy, welcome!

Tununias Jun 15, 2023

I signed up on Lemmy just this week. I’ll be signing up on Kbin and Mastodon next.

PropaGandalf Jun 15, 2023

why tho? Mastodon, okay its a whole different platform but why on kbin? you should be able to follow their instance from here...

Tununias Jun 15, 2023

Ok, thanks for letting me know. I’ll look into accessing kbin from lemmy instead.

Skelectus Jun 15, 2023

You can of course try kbin, in case you like that software better. Kbin communities look like lemmy communities to lemmy users and lemmy communities look like kbin communities for kbin users. It's possible you have already seen and interacted with kbin content without realizing it.

WhiskyTangoFoxtrot Jun 15, 2023

On kbin, they're called "magazines", not communities.

Skelectus Jun 15, 2023

I know, left it out because I didn't want to explain a new term there.

DoucheAsaurus Jun 15, 2023

Hey I'm reading and replying from Kbin right now :)

pips Jun 15, 2023

Fun fact: if you took a sip of beer every time you saw the word "federated" on Lemmy, you would drown.

sтυx⚡Jun 15, 2023

.ml is I believe the 'flagship' instance, so the instance of the devs of Lemmy ;)

.world is an instance run by Ruud and the team! It's just another server with the same software. Just like I am posting this now from u.fail :-)

marshoepial Jun 15, 2023

Not a stupid question at all!

Right now, lemmy.ml is the biggest Lemmy instance and the "flagship" site. There are several other Lemmy instances across the internet. They are all connected with each other - or "federated" - meaning each instance can see all of the posts of any instance it's federated with. Since every instance is federated with each other, you will get the same content no matter where your account is. So even though you are on lemmy.world, you can see everything that is posted to lemmy.ml.

Graphine Jun 15, 2023

Well one of the other questions I had was, I'm seeing things in my feed like Android, catpics, therewasanattempt, and they all "look" like subreddits. They don't look like different instances from what I can tell. So of course I've subscribed to them the same way I would on Reddit.

Is the concept of those the same as subreddits? Or are they just different instances? Or are they affiliated with lemmy.world? How does that even work? Hope that makes sense.

marshoepial Jun 15, 2023

This infographic can explain better than I can:

Graphine Jun 15, 2023

That does answer my question actually! So they are "subreddits" in a sense but they're called Communities. Cool!

And yeah I understood the concept of the fediverse pretty well before but I love the visualization here. Really well done. Will be sending this to my Reddit and Twitter friends to convince them to switch :)

MrAegis Jun 15, 2023

I'm pretty new here. I'd say the concept is the same in the sense that they are each their own community run by their own moderators. However, the all powerful Admins are those in control of the instance.

One interesting example is that Beehaw has started making "Bee themed" community icons which makes it easy to tell when you're looking at one of the communities hosted on their instance.

Someone on Lemmy.world could have another community with the exact same name, you just have to pay attention to the end (and having themed icons also helps).

But it goes even a little farther than that. We can end up with Mastadon (twitter equivalent) users who are also able to comment in these communities. I don't think its working in reverse yet (at least not for Lemmy.ml accounts).

Graphine Jun 15, 2023

See, the cool thing is that by that logic, if hypothetically speaking the admins of Lemmy.world did anything shady or unfriendly to the user, we could just move to another friendly instance without making another bullshit account or moving to a different website, or god forbid a different app.

Not that I think they would, as it's clear to me they can't given there's no actual company. But DAMN do I love options!

FrostBolt Jun 15, 2023

Could one move instances while retaining their own post / comment history? That’s the part that I’m unclear on (new reddit refugee here)

MagicalVagina Jun 15, 2023

My understanding is no. You would need account migration. And at the moment kbin or lemmy does not support it?
Only Mastodon seem to support that.

https://joinfediverse.wiki/Moving_instances

For me this is still a big issue to solve. But hopefully will happen at some point.

Moving instances - Join the Fediverse

Kichae Jun 15, 2023

Lemmy users can't currently follow other users, only "groups" (Lemmy "communities", Friendica "forums", kbin "magazines", Chirp "groups", Guppe "groups", and PeerTube "channels"), which means you can't interact with other fediverse users outside of a group. Mastodon users can post to Lemmy communities (or these other group types), and comment on existing posts, and Lemmy users can interact freely with them within that context.

I haven't heard anything about that changing, though the number of Lemmy users has expanded by several orders of magnitude these last two weeks, and so I imagine the number of contributors to the project will also increase and expand the roadmap somewhat.

slowd0wn Jun 15, 2023

On the flip side, kbin users CAN follow other users. Kbin has a feed like Lemmy, but also the “microblog” which is basically tweets. You can link the microblog to Mastodon servers and follow and interact with users from that platform as well. Mastodon, Lemmy and kbin are all different technologies that are allowed to interact with each other, and we as users get to pick the ones that best fit our needs. It really is an amazing concept

atypicaloddity Jun 15, 2023

Each Lemmy instance (or kbin 👋) is like its own Reddit, all connected together. So you're seeing 'subreddits' from multiple instances right now.

SpacemanSpiff Jun 15, 2023

Small correction. Kbin is not a Lemmy instance. It’s an entirely different backend on the ActivityPub protocol. It federates with “threaded” fediverse sites like Lemmy, and with microblogging sites like Mastodon. Users on kbin can create and interact with both kinds of posts and kbin magazines “Lemmy communities” can natively include both.

Edit: sorry @atypicaloddity I totally misread your comment. Ignore me!

Kichae Jun 15, 2023

I, uh, don't think they were claiming that kbin was a Lemmy instance. To refactor the sentence slightly, it says "Each Lemmmy (or kbin) instance is like it's own Reddit..." which acknowledges that kbin isn't Lemmy.

SpacemanSpiff Jun 15, 2023

Thank you, I think you’re right! I misread it for sure.

D2L Jun 15, 2023

I'm here from lemmy.one and saw this! It is growing quick on me, and I'm older. I am glad I don't have to understand the inter-workings to use it!

NabiscoShredderWheat Jun 15, 2023

It doesn't matter. They all feed into each other. Or don't. Depending on your personal preference.

michikade Jun 15, 2023

I think since lemmy.world is so stable and didn’t have (many) issues when the signup spikes were happening a lot of former Redditors ended up here. lemmy.ml is run by the developers.

Because of the way it all works, and because we can interact with everything we’re federated with, we’re pretty free to choose the best instance for us or even create our own if we wanted to.

Steeltooth493 Jun 15, 2023

I'm also a new Reddit user to Lemmy. I know that we can see other instances when we are logged into our main instance, lemmy.world for example, and we can interact with those other instances like email. Are we required to create a separate account if we want to change to a different main instance instead?

michikade Jun 15, 2023

You do have to create another account if you want to move to a new instance, yeah.

scutiger Jun 15, 2023

But you don't need to create another account to participate on another instance, which is an important distinction for newbies to understand.

Moving to a new instance is not required for participation there unless that instance is defederated.

FermatsLastAccount Jun 15, 2023

Changing to a different main instance requires a new account.

My issue has been that you can't see every post from another instance. For example, I can only see 200 out of the 2k posts on [email protected] when viewing it from Lemmy.world.

mochi Jun 15, 2023

Other instances can see you too. And other Fediverse based platforms. This thread is trending on kbin.social for example, which is where I’m posting from.

Shin Jun 15, 2023

To my knowledge, the dev actively does not want .ml to be the main instance, and because of that a lot of people ended up (and still are) joining .world or beehaw. I fully expect .world to become the default at some point, it statistically has more active users and is outgrowing .ml at a rapid pace.

Valdair Jun 15, 2023

lemmy.world seemed to be the obvious starting point to me when I was first looking at it a few days ago.

FermatsLastAccount Jun 15, 2023

can see all of the posts of any instance it's federated with.

Definitely not all in my experience.

TheAmorphous Jun 15, 2023

For me it was the only one that actually let me sign up. The others just spun forever and ever after submitting.

Preston Maness ☭Jun 15, 2023

I fully expect .world to become the default at some point, it statistically has more active users and is outgrowing .ml at a rapid pace.

The whole point of federation is that there is no such thing as "the default." As soon as that happens, it becomes Just Another Reddit Clone.

deweydecibel Jun 15, 2023

As soon as that happens, it becomes Just Another Reddit Clone.

Yes, and that's what a lot of people want. I feel like some are assuming centralization was something that was done to us, when really it's something users did to themselves. People want to be where everyone else is.

Shin Jun 16, 2023

I get what you're saying, but as of now a lot of people new to the concept of the Fediverse just don't care. They're going to join the instances with the most people. Like the Mastodon migration, this will inevitibly result in a "default" instance regardless of how people feel. Not sure if that'll change, unless something forces people to realize maintaining the decentralized aspect of these servives is very important.

Preston Maness ☭Jun 16, 2023

I get what you’re saying, but as of now a lot of people new to the concept of the Fediverse just don’t care. They’re going to join the instances with the most people. Like the Mastodon migration, this will inevitibly result in a “default” instance regardless of how people feel. Not sure if that’ll change, unless something forces people to realize maintaining the decentralized aspect of these servives is very important.

The masses need not understand the importance of decentralization. Only the admins of the instances do. And when admins seek to compulsively accumulate users en masse, rather than close off registration and route to other instances, it's a pretty obvious tell as to what they're doing.

Shin Jun 16, 2023

Hm, fair point actually. A lot of food for thought, so thanks on that. It does make me want to shift to another instance to keep the power balanced. Though losing all the comments and posts I've made up until this point isn't exactly enticing. Hopefully instance migration becomes better as time goes on.

negi Jun 15, 2023

It looks like lemmy.world has more active users than lemmy.ml now.

https://github.com/maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instances

GitHub - maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instances: Comparison of different Lemmy Instances

Comparison of different Lemmy Instances. Contribute to maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instances development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

ppptan Jun 15, 2023

Sorting this by active users gives you the answer you're looking for better than that github page: https://lemmyverse.net/

Lemmy Explorer

Instance and Community Explorer for Lemmy

youronlyone Jun 15, 2023

First, welcome to the #Fediverse! I'm glad you found your way in the #ActivityPub-based “federation network”.

So, wait… what are these terminologies? And what exactly is the “Fediverse”?

Think of it like this:

Name: Web
Protocol: HTTP
Browsers: Mozilla Firefox, Naver Whale

Then you have the Fediverse:

Name: Fediverse / Fediverse Network
Protocol: ActivityPub (extra info: Before ActivityPub it was #OStatus; before OStatus it was #OpenMicroBlogging )
Browsers: #Hubzilla, #Friendica, #Calckey, #Rebased, #Akkoma, #Foundkey, #Meisskey, #Pixelfed, #BookWyrm, #PeerTube, #GlitchSoc #Pleroma, #Misskey, #Mastodon, #Kbin, #Lemmy, etc.

All these “fediverse browsers”, like Lemmy and Kbin, are commonly referred to as fediverse software. (extra info: Wikipedia calls Lemmy, Kbin, and similar answers-type or Threads-type software as “Link-aggregators”.)

There is no “Mastodon network”. There is no “mastoverse”. There is no “threadiverse”. There is no “Threadinet”, or whichever -verse / -network people are coming up with.

Any software that is using the ActivityPub protocol is part of the “Fediverse network”. Just like how any software that uses the HTTProtocol is part of the Web.

That clear so far?

Now, we go to your question.

Q: I moved to lemmy.world and have noticed that lemmy.ml has been popping up as another featured instance. What differs from lemmy.world vs lemmy.ml? Is .ml more active?

lemmy.world and lemmy.ml are called instances (the terminology used to refer to a fediverse server/service). These two are only two out of many fediverse instances available. In paritcular, these two instances are only two out of probably a hundred Lemmy-based instances available.

What differs between the two? As far as features and functionalities go, none. Since these two Lemmy-based instances are using the same software, they have the same set of features. The only difference would be if one instance fell behind in Lemmy version upgrades.

Since lemmy.ml is one of two flaship servers of the Lemmy software project, naturally it will get the bulk of registrations and content.

For example, before the Reddit Migration, there were already existing communities for many similar Subreddits, and many of those are in lemmy.ml and are very active. So, when Subreddits started to migrate, some chose lemmy.world and other lemmy instances. Which allowed lemmy.world to catch up with the number of users and number of active communities that lemmy.ml already have. AND, some of these are about the same topics/fandom.

So… yep, that's the detailed explanation. ^_^

I hope I wasn't confusing.

DigiWolf Jun 15, 2023

Just FYI for anyone who doesn't know. The "lemmy.ml" instance is "ml" for "Marxist Leninist" and the main dev is a basically self-admitted tanky. So if you don't want any of that, it's probably a better choice to choose one of the other major instances.