I think it's just that they are more obvious here, so it led to a popular use term. Bigger issue is that they can be kinda annoying and I suspect it might only grow their numbers if they are the default community that potential redditors have as their first experience in lemmy.
I honestly think those are bots and children. I was confused only very briefly by the least accessible explanations known to man, before figuring it out for myself. I just wish more people knew how to link !communities and @profiles.
!communities federation is busted. sometimes the final link is federated which makes it functionally useless for anyone outside the original instance. I haven't been able to figure out why, just don't down vote bomb anyone replying with a working link because it works for you, thanks.
I thought it was just my instance doing it! And everyone downvotes links no matter what. I think it’s something to do with apps opening them in the browser? I dunno