2y ago

PSA: if a remote community hasn't been fetched by your instance yet, you need to search for it

I've seen this mentioned a few times already: people wondering why certain communities don't show up in their instance. You need to first search for that community via the magnifying glass icon and type in "!communityname@instance.domain"

Notice the exclamation mark at the beginning. Might take a few seconds. This will teach your instance about the remote community.

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I believe the devs have said they're working on making that work more automatically. Like having it happen as soon as a user clicks a link to it for the first time on your server. And also making links to communities outside your home instance automatically be changed so that it keeps you on your instance where you're logged in.
For example right now if someone on BeeHaw.org clicks https://lemmy.ml/c/memes, it'll take them to lemmy.ml where they're not logged in. They should add /c/ tags like /r/ on reddit, and when someone on BeeHaw clicks something like /c/memes@lemmy.ml, it should take them to beehaw.org/c/memes@lemmy.ml so they can stay signed in and comment/vote/post. You can do this manually right now by creating a link like so:
/c/memes@lemmy.ml/c/memes@lemmy.ml
- Jerboa also needs a lot of improvement with following links. Right now, if I click those links in your comment that are memes@lemmy.ml, my phone assumes they are email addresses and opens my email app.
  
  Wait, they're not e-mail addresses ? /s
- 100% agree. People keep posting communities but manually having to watch for each one is tedious when you’re trying to add a bunch at once
  
  Posting where? And where can you watch?
- I expect some innovation in this regard in the next few months. Rexit will have a big short term influx to the fediverse that will die down, but hopefully some that hang around are the developer types who are being shafted by reddit.
  
  Rexit lol
- Big upvote. I figured out how to follow other communities from clicking the community tab at the top and looking at the URL. But it shouldn't be this hard. It should be way more seamless.
  There's two things I wish this had:
  (This is your suggestion) Lemmy websites and apps should automatically attempt to show external communities within their own website if possible, so that sharing a community from this one will still allow you to join up without further navigating
  When seeing a "subscribe" button on another website, instead of it assuming you want to subscribe from the site itself and telling you to log in, it should first check if you're not logged in, and if you're not, ask if you want to subscribe to it from another instance if it finds any browser cookies for other Lemmy communities.
  With that said, both of these might be against the goals or require the cooperation of an instance, so if we ultimately end up not getting it, well, it's fine-ish.
  
  Other Lemmy sites having access to a cookie that says you're logged in could be a privacy risk for the user.
- @ernest could this work on kbin as well?
  
  AFAIK, it does. But the url structure is slightly different. Instead of
  https://kbin.social/c/memes@lemmy.ml
  It would be https://kbin.social/m/memes@lemmy.ml with an “m” instead of a “c”.
  I’m still learning, so someone please correct me if I’m wrong.
- That would be very nice indeed
- Any idea if there is a delay in community searching? Someone mentioned a newly created community (1 hour ago) on sh.itjust.works and I searched on lemmy.world for it and nothing but I can visit it directly.
  
  Copy the URL and paste it into the search bar of your instance. That will force your instance to "Discover" it. It might say no results but go back to the community page then search the name again
We need a way to search across servers for a community
- Try this: https://browse.feddit.de/
  I’ll agree that fetching a new community is much more awkward than it should be.
- You can do that as soon as your instance knows about that community.
This is a good PSA. Even though it's explained in the sidebar of most (all?) communities, it doesn't feel intuitive at first.
- Actually that's a great idea! I should add that info to the sidebar of mine.
  
  It already is, open your community in incognito mode. It just doesn't show because you're already subscribed.
Am I right in thinking that once you've searched (or subscribed?) to a community on another instance it'll show up in the 'all' feed for everyone else, too? It's a good way to help your wider instance discover other communities!
- Yes. Searching will have it appear but subscribing means comments and votes will start syncing over.
Is there a way to follow a mastadon user via lemmy?
- From what I heard, no (but the reverse is possible)
  
  I think I’m gonna use kbin, seems more featureful, including good integration with the fediverse.
Where's the magnifying glass? I'm very new here and all of this is pretty confusing. Can I get an ELI5? I was able to sign up and I'm not using the Jerboa app on Android and I don't see a magnifying glass anywhere.
- Bottom bar. The list icon next to the home icon let's you search on Jerboa.
- Unfortunately, searching for comms which your server doesn't know yet, is not yet possible in Jerboa. But things are improving quickly.
- You should see it on the top right on the page, i take a screenshot if that doesn't help
  
  New and also very inexperienced- I tried searching for !totk@lemmy.ml but am getting no results. Can someone explain to me like I’m an idiot 😂
And if search doesn't return anything, reload the page! At least for me it magically appears then
Also see this comprehensive write-up: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/61827
Any idea if there is a delay in community searching? Someone mentioned a newly created community (1 hour ago) on sh.itjust.works and I searched on lemmy.world for it and nothing but I can visit it directly.
- Not really. There shouldn't be a delay at all. If it doesn't work something is broken down or you aren't using the correct syntax
  Make sure you search on ALL (not just communities) and write it like !name@sh.itjust.works
- I have in fact noticed a 1-2 minute delay when searching for a completely fresh comunity from lemm.ee. Initially the search turns up 0 results, but trying again in a minute will find the community.
This didn’t work for me on this instance. Can some communities choose not to participate or limit their import? I searched for !aviation@lemmy.ml and several others and nada.
- This has been changed with the latest version of Lemmy. Try this link: /c/aviation@lemmy.ml and check over at lemmy.ml/instances to make sure your instance is not blocked. (It's at the very bottom, I just checked for you and it doesn't look like it).
  Edit: your instance is using an older version. Searching should still work. Try a couple of times. Make sure the search page is /search and use no filters

60 comments