1. Still trying to wrap my head around exactly how the fediverse works. I understand it is decentralized. Are kbin and lemmy somehow intermingled? Meaning am I able to view lemmy content here on kbin and interact with it without having to create an account on beehaw or whatever?

  2. What exactly is the difference between the upvote (and downvote) button and boost? Is boost just upvote but moreso?

  3. Is there a “save” function like reddit had, where you can bookmark posts to your profile?

  4. Is there an android app(s) for kbin?

  5. What are tags and badges? I just left them blank for this post.

  6. Is there anything else that I’m not asking that I should know?

  7. Are the answers to any of this in the FAQ and am I fucking up by not reading it?

Thanks all.

  • themadcodger@kbin.social
    11·
    1 year ago
    1. You have the right idea. A common misconception about the fediverse is “I have a Reddit account, so I should be able to log into everywhere with that.” It’s more the opposite. Your login only works on the instance you signed up on. But that same account can talk to other Reddits, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc. so you don’t really need more than one account. Though I do have a kbin, Calckey (Twitter) and Pixelfed (IG) account.

    One other thing about the fediverse is that new instances don’t magically know all the other instances out there. Someone has to either specifically search for something from the instance or boost it from a different instance. Basically someone needs to be the first person to start the interaction.

    And with the fediverse, bad actors get blocked or defederated at the server level. That means they have no way of interacting with you. It they’re truly bad, and they do and have existed for a while in some form or another, they do eventually become an island no one will interact with besides other terrible people. So when you join an instance check their rules and make an informed decision.

    1. Upvotes and downvotes are meaningless beyond telling the author good job or fuck you. There’s not much of an algorithm in the fediverse; you are the algorithm. Boosts are where that comes in. They bump the post to the top of Active and add points towards Hot. If you go to Mastodon or Calckey (Twitter) you’ll see favorite and boost. Upvotes map to favorites and boost is the same. A common theme around the fediverse is to use favorite/upvotes liberally since they don’t mean anything and we all like being acknowledged. Use boosts to mean “I think people need to see this”

    2. There’s not a save yet, but anything you boost you can find listed in your profile. It’s a workaround for the time being.

    3. You’ve seen by now one is in the works. In the meantime I’m using the mobile web page as a PWA and it works pretty well.

    4. Tags are one place that kbin has an advantage over Lemmy. They don’t do much here, but it’s an important way of finding things in Mastodon/Calckey. When you create a ‘magazine’ whatever tags you put there, they’ll be pulled into the microblogging section of your magazine. That makes it easy for you to interact with people in the fediverse without leaving kbin.

    I haven’t figured out badges yet, but I also forget to look.

    1. Be excellent to each other. Seriously though, this is a new world for us, let’s shape it into something we can so be proud of.

    Also, this whole thing is being done by a guy by himself. There will be growing pains like there were when Twitter first started and when Digg migrated to Reddit. Be patient, he’s doing a lot of great things with limited resources. But this is open source, so if you have the capabilities, you can always lend a hand.

    Hope that solves some confusion.

    • fr0g@kbin.social
      3·
      1 year ago

      Upvotes are upvotes on lemmy and likes on mastodon. Boosts are boosts on mastodon and don’t exist on lemm afaik.

  • Alue42@kbin.social
    5·
    1 year ago

    I’m a new user, too. Came over as soon as I saw r/kbinmigration was banned because I figured that must mean it’s a big deal.

    I had the same questions as you for 2 and 3. For 7: there’s a FAQ? Where? That’s probably helpful. Maybe.

    But also, I figured out what a magazine is, but what’s the difference between a thread, a post, and a microblog?

    • themadcodger@kbin.social
      2·
      1 year ago

      Posts are the top level, so “New user with a few questions I guess”. We’re in a thread right now by me responding to your comment. And microblogs are where it pulls in relevant hashtags from the rest of the fediverse outside of kbin/Lemmy that you can comment on from here in kbin. Each magazine owner sets the hashtags it follows.

  • Aeroatrix
    4·
    1 year ago
    1. I am from a lemmy instance and yes it is intermingled. you can post on lemmy posts and view them from kbin and vice versa, depending on where your account is located and that is how the federation works
    4. I don’t know about kbin but for lemmy it has jerboa as well as lemmur, but that one is broken
      • Xylia@kbin.social
        1·
        1 year ago

        From what I’ve gathered, you can search and results from Lemmy instances will show up in the Kbin search.

        You can also use a url scheme. For example, to connect to the steamdeck community at Lemmy.ml through Kbin, you can go to http://kbin.social/m/steamdeck@lemmy.ml

        The UX isn’t perfect. I’d like more clear differentiation between communities and a better search/discovery for content within the fediverse.

        EDIT: I found a comment from the admin explaining how to search for communities from specific instances

        https://kbin.social/m/fediverse@lemmy.ml/t/9993/Difference-between-kbin-and-lemmy#entry-comment-42149

        • Lohrun@kbin.social
          2·
          1 year ago

          So I understand that to get content indexed from an instance someone has to search for that instance in a particular way.

          I’m having the same problem I did on Reddit though. How am I supposed to find communities that I want to subscribe to? If they aren’t indexed then they won’t show up in all and I won’t have a clue to search for them to get them indexed. If they are indexed I might see them in all and can subscribe… for the most part though finding communities I’m interested in feels like random chance.

          Like I said, I had the same issue finding subs on Reddit. It was a little easier with Reddit because of Google indexing posts and comments but I don’t know how much indexing Google is doing of fediverse stuff because everything is distributed.

          • loreasaurus@kbin.social
            2·
            1 year ago

            That’s the issue I’m currently running into as well. Along with a lot of my communities probably not switching over because they’re very non-technical, haha.

    • jmorlin@kbin.socialOP
      2·
      1 year ago

      Thanks for the reply man. Are there any restrictions on how a kbin user can interact with a lemmy post or visa versa?

      • Aeroatrix
        1·
        1 year ago

        well since the two software have different features i assume there are some things that don’t pass over to the other side like boosts, which i don’t think exist in lemmy will not show up in lemmy

      • justinionn@kbin.social
        2·
        1 year ago

        Thanks so much. It’s obvious when you know it’s there. 😶

        I was looking for some kind of side-menu (maybe with a “+” sign) around the top of my screen.

        I’ve got it now. Thanks so much! ☺️

      • Wisely@kbin.social
        1·
        1 year ago

        Is that the only way to subscribe? Seems there should be a way to subscribe at the top or at least fast scroll down to the subscribe button. Irritating for a new user but I guess it doesn’t matter much once you are subscribed to your interests.

        I also have a problem where the right of posts is cut off my screen in profile mode. Is this meant to only be viewed in landscape?

    • HeartyBeast@kbin.social
      4·
      1 year ago

      If you’re on mobile scroll right down to the bottom of the post you are reading and you will see options to subscribe to the magazine. Hope that’s useful

    • zeste@kbin.social
      3·
      1 year ago

      I’m on Firefox for android but if I click on a magazine link, and then the little hamburger lines at the top left of the screen it takes me to a sidebar where it has the title of the magazine and the icon and a subscribe button.

  • fr0g@kbin.social
    2·
    1 year ago

    am I able to view lemmy content here on kbin and interact with it without having to create an account on beehaw or whatever?

    In the vast majority of cases, yes. Some servers might not decide to talk to each other, but that’s not a kbin/lemmy thing, but a fediverse thing in general and not very prevalent.

    What exactly is the difference between the upvote (and downvote) button and boost? Is boost just upvote but moreso?

    Boosts are used to brodcast posts to your followers. The same as in mastodon or retweets on twitter.

    Is there a “save” function like reddit had, where you can bookmark posts to your profile?

    I don’t think there’s a specific feature for that yet. But if you look at your profile, you can see your own boosts. So you could ise it as a pseudo-bookmark in the meantime (although there’s still a bug in that boost section of the profile which shoumd get sorted the next couple days)

    Is there an android app(s) for kbin?

    No, not yet. I think there are some plans for a progressive web app, but no mobile app proper is being developed yet as far as I know

  • sxt@kbin.social
    2·
    1 year ago

    For #4 at least I think kbin.pub shows there being an app being in progress. Not sure how close to release it is.

    Early days for a lot of this stuff, but I’m pretty excited to see it all develop.

    • aroom@kbin.social
      2·
      1 year ago

      I found an iOS app in development (https://lemmy.ml/c/mlemapp), but unfortunately you can only log into a lemmy account. it’s not compatible with kbin. this is kind of an issue, because we need to catch the momentum and third party app are allies.