Quick note before starting: although this article is far from comprehensive, I wanted to get something done in time for the next wave of reddit migrants when the third party apps close down.
What you see below was written in anticipation for the same set of questions from new users being asked again and again.
If you want me to add anything in, or make any corrections, comment here and I will do my best to make amendments before I repost it on 1st July. Thanks!
All screenshots were taken using the kbin Web version on chrome for android, unless otherwise specified.
How to use this guide
This article is a work in progress, but what I am hoping to achieve is an easy to follow, quick to consume guide that presents you with the knowledge you need in a somewhat logical order.
To that end, I have divided it up into sections, or 'tiers'. The idea being that once you are confident at one tier, you can move up to the next. So let's start with...
1. Lurker Tier
Intro to subscriptions and magazines (kbin communities)
Don't worry if all these terms don't click with you right away. You might even be able to disregard a few of them. Either way, you can always come back and refer to this later.
A 'magazine' is a kbin community
Magazines contain 'threads' and a 'microblog'
The terms thread and microblog can cause some confusion, so we'll clear that up soon. But first...
A thread is a discussion based on either an 'article' (i.e. text post), a link, a photo, or a video (although video is not yet supported) How to create an article
A 'comment' is a response to a thread
A 'microblog' is a collection of 'posts' that are based on the magazine itself as opposed to a single article, link, photo, or video
Confusingly, a post can still contain things like images, it's just that its replies will appear alongside all the other microblog posts How to upload an image to display on a post
To make good use of the tips in this tier you must have the prerequisite knowledge from tiers 1 and 2.
Tips in this tier may also be quite quirky (e.g. only works on desktop) or require detailed explanations. Or they might be advanced niche tips for users looking to get the absolute most out of kbin.
Although you've reached the end, this article is still a work in progress. If you've any corrections, or feel something is missing, you can reach out to @Friend or post to m/quickstart. Thanks for reading!
@Friend. Do you have any tips for being able identify which instance a post is from? The “@**.” part of an instance name is usually cut off, and often the post title will say “kbin.social” next to it even if it’s not a kbin post. The only way I know for sure to tell is to click on a post and scroll past all the comments.
The post title clearly says kbin.social next to it. By he community label just says “youshouldknow.” It looks the same way from my home page: The only reason I know it’s actually on Lemmy.world is because I scrolled past all the comments, and also it’s in the url (which i am only looking at here because I copied and pasted the direct url for the post.)
Edit 2: I should probably also clarify that I am on mobile, so mouse-over’s are a no-go.
It's sadly very annoying. What I usually do is I long press the magazine name if I'm in the front page. That will show the URL. I otherwise usually just use the URL of the page I'm on (it should have /m/foo@bar -- unless it's a local magazine, in which case it won't display the domain). But I know that isn't user friendly nor likely available on apps.
It needs to be improved. And the UI should stop hiding it (eg, the front page will show "gaming" instead of "gaming@lemmy.ml"), because the domain is a critical part of the magazine name.
@CarlsIII try click on More at the original post and select Copy to Fediverse. That'll get you the originating url. This works for every type of post and comment.
Again, this is all way more work than it would be if the post just showed the instance in the first place. I already know I can find out what instance if I do some scrolling and clicking. I would prefer to just have the “@beehaw.org” added to the community name in the post (and to not display “kbin.social” on posts that aren’t even from kbin. I still haven’t heard an explanation for that.)
@Friend Hopefully this posts correctly. The post was on youshouldknow@Lemmy.world, but it only shows “youshouldknow”, and I have no idea why it says kbin.social next to the title. I’m hoping to be able to tell the name of the instance without having to click a bunch of places first.
Ah ok thanks I understand now. Unfortunately there is no zero-click solution that I know of. The only thing I can offer is the one-click burger menu solution.
I'm putting together a wishlist so I'll add it there :)