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
      2·
      1 year ago

      I don’t understand what you mean. Isn’t the point of federation that one account on one instance is as good as an account on every instance? I’ve never felt the need to hop between instances.

      • notun@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 year ago

        OP’s post is about having specialized instances, making hopping around necessary. It’s not convenient enough as it is.

        • feduser934@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          1 year 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
            5·
            1 year 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 and in the future.

            • this@sh.itjust.works
              1·
              1 year 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
              1·
              1 year ago

              Yes you can subscribe to and read 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 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

    • Stumblinbear@pawb.social
      2·
      1 year ago

      I’m currently working on a Lemmy mobile client and have implemented multi-accounts until it’s easier to do this. Basically you can make multiple accounts on different instances and aggregate the data from them all into a single feed. It doesn’t currently prioritize posting from specific accounts (you just select a primary)–I’m trying to figure out a good way to go about doing it so you can section things off 👀

      • Sal@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 year ago

        Why do you need multiple accounts on different instances. You can have an account join a community on a different instance.

        • socialjusticewizard@sh.itjust.works
          1·
          1 year ago

          Same reason people have multiple accounts on other sites. You don’t always want your comments on local news to intersect your comments in a professional community or your comments on a game site. Storing them on other instances is another small layer of security.