Instead of making an account on one site (reddit) and only being able to use that account on the one site, you can create an account on one instance, and then participate on every other instance that is federated with your instance. Logging in using one account between otherwise isolated websites is federation.
instances: can also be called servers, anyone can host a lemmy code.
community: synonym for subreddit
federation: instances can federate (connect) to each other and their users can interact with the connected instances, they can also defederate (disconnect).
Joined an hour ago. Still unsure about how everything works. Seems pretty cool so far though.
Is there a ELI5 for Lemmy to help us get started?
Instances lemmy.world lemmy.ml lemmy.sdf.org Here’s a huge list of instances: https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/list
Instead of making an account on one site (reddit) and only being able to use that account on the one site, you can create an account on one instance, and then participate on every other instance that is federated with your instance. Logging in using one account between otherwise isolated websites is federation.
Here is what a link to another instance looks like: https://lemmy.world/c/fediverse@kbin.social
Logged into lemmy.word, but we can browse and participate in communities (fediverse) on other instances (kbin.social).
Another example: https://lemmy.sdf.org/c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Logged into lemmy.sdf.org, browsing the piracy community on the lemmy.dbzer0.com instance.
And a good write up on the fediverse: https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/6-23-2023-moderation-proposals
Short version:
lemmy: some sort of opensource type of Reddit
instances: can also be called servers, anyone can host a lemmy code.
community: synonym for subreddit
federation: instances can federate (connect) to each other and their users can interact with the connected instances, they can also defederate (disconnect).