Hi all,

I’m new to lemmy and this whole setup, so apologies in advance if this is a stupid question, but I’m trying to work out which instance I should base myself in.

Much like Mastodon, lemmy seems to have the ‘ALL’ view, which as far as I understood it, would pull in all posts from every other lemmy instance. I’ve looked at this ALL view, however, on startrek.website, beehaw.org and lemmy.one, and the ALL view seems to be different for them all, and all with hugely different numbers of comments (smaller instances seems to have an ALL view with more posts with few comments).

Is my understanding of ALL wrong? Should I be looking for an instance that is popular, in order to get a better experience?

Thanks all!

  • vikinghoarder@infosec.pub
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    1 year ago

    From my understanding, the ALL will show posts from “all” the communities that users on your instance have subscribed to.

    If I (assuming I’m on your instance) subscribed to the community “news@polka.lemmy.com”, you, in the ALL you will see posts from “news@polka.lemmy.com” to which I subscribed.

    • Nomad@beehaw.orgOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Hello, thanks for the reply!

      So, if I joined a small lemmy instance and the followed all of the large communities available, they’d all appear in the ALL view for everyone else on that small instance? Feels like whoever stands up a lemmy instance should go and follow all other communities first then, before opening it up to sign-ups?

  • Sockenklaus@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    1 year ago

    I’m probably as new as you are but as far as I understand the ALL page correctly, it doesn’t necessarily show ALL existing posts on all nodes in all communities but “only” all posts in communities that federate to your node.

    Since different nodes have different federation policies, you will see a slightly (?) different ALL page.

    Maybe someone who has more experience can elaborate on this topic.

    • t0fr@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      1 year ago

      I think it’s less than that. It shows All posts from communities members of your instance subscribe to.

      Two instances federation with all other instances might still have different All pages depending on what their users are subscribed to.

      • RomanRoy@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        That is it.

        It must be federated AND someone from your instance must have subscribed to it already.

        If you know for a fact a community you’d like to join exists in another instance (and they are federated between themselves), you can search for it, subscribe to it and then it will appear in the “ALL” of everyone in the same instance as you.

        • Sockenklaus@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yes it looks like you’re absolutely correct.

          I found a thread on the German instance feddit.de that discusses the reasons why the admins blocked pretty much all NSFW instances. Turns out they actually do this exactly because of the behaviour you described and the circumstance that in Germany you are liable for all content that is distributed on your server.

          See: https://feddit.de/post/809707

          • RomanRoy@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            It is a blessing and a curse at the same time. But I’d honestly just block the subs I absolutely don’t want to see, as a user. But I also know some instances might grow to be very toxic.

            I know some things may be hell to administer (I agree on beehaw’s stance on it today), as long as it is not permanent. They said they’re mainly waiting for better modding tools in order to administer more effectively.

            • Sockenklaus@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              Yes I’m with you. I wouldn’t administer an instance even if they’d pay me…

              I can understand beehaw’s step from an administrator’s perspective but as a user I prefer an instance that lets me decide what content. I want and don’t want to see.

  • phario@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    Sorry, so the follow up question remains, which is how do we achieve a more ‘global’ ‘all’ view. Or is the point that once the number of users on an instance increases, then the all view will be better populated?

    Before joining Lemmy, I kept on reading the opinion that it didn’t matter what instance you joined and that smaller was better.

    This seems in contradiction to that advice.