Since it was answered, quick summary:

Communitys have connected instances. If the instance you’re looking for is not yet listed there, you can discover it. Only communities listed as blocked will never pop up in your feed or searches.

Original question:

This probably got asked already, but I couldn’t find exactly the answer I was looking for while searching.

On all the lemmy sites there’s a link to “linked instances” which, presumably, lists all instances that your instance has knowledge of. Does that mean that instances which aren’t listed won’t be accesible? Or does it mean that no user has yet tried to access the instances which aren’t listed.

The way I see it, only blocked instances are inaccessible. Am I correct in that assumption?

Thanks a bunch 🤠

Edit: I’m asking because I’ll want to join some super specific local communities eventually and I’m worried this might be a problem.

  • @MiddleWeigh
    6•2 years ago

    Yea I only been here since last night, but my understanding is that once one person subs to a community from another instance it becomes searchable for everyone in your instance. So we gotta sub to a bunch of communities and make everything more accessible. …you may have to do the manual search method to find those super niche communities at first. The blocked or private instances are cut off though yes. There’s a few mew user guides floating around.

    Please correct me if I’m wrong, I’m new too.

  • @[email protected]
    3•2 years ago

    If you’re specifically looking for NSFW content then you probably should join an instance that allows it in their rules. If you join an instance that bans NSFW content you’ll have a difficult time finding it and some admins also request their users not subscribe to NSFW communities.