Does it mean that each communities like this fediverse for example is different from another community with the same name in a different instance?
Yes, tho communities with the same name don’t actually have the same name, because the name of the server is included.
That is, for example, this Fediverse on lemmy.world is actually [email protected] while Fediverse on lemmy.ml is [email protected].
If your account is on lemmy.world you just don’t see the @lemmy.world part because the server hides it for you, it does exist anyway.
I think it would be cool if a client would allow communities with the same name in different instances to be “merged” on the app level
Automatic merging would take users choices away, I wouldn’t like that, like there were reasons on reddit for having different communities about the same topic for various reasons, the same could happen here.
Tho having a user feature allowing to merge different communities at will - like the multi-reddit feature does - would be really nice, we’ll get there I think sooner or later.
Yeah exactly my thought. That’s why I wrote to allow it and not doing it automatically.
I think this issue might be a huge user experience problem that puts people back on Reddit. It’s just too confusing or annoying for basic users to deal with.
Correct! Every instance could be it’s own reddit, with it’s own mods and rules. And you can be a part of all of it, or none of it.
It’s a weird way to think of things for those of us who are used to the Diggs and Reddits of the world. There has been somw call for options to ‘consolidate’ or ‘group’ things, but it remains to be seen how or if that’s a reasonable ask.
Yes, as long as they’re on a different instance from each other. Already, there are several duplicates like this.
It can make gathering a sufficiently interactive group noticeably harder when we’re all spread out like this. On the positive side, it also means if one community bites the dust or you just don’t like the atmosphere there for some reason, there are other replacements already established and accessible. Nobody can pull a Spez the way things are set up here.
And it’s not like I can’t just sub to four communities about Hobby instead of one, the effect is still the same. What mostly needs work is discoverability and the repetitive feeds resulting from federated crossposting
