this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2023
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Moving to: m/AskMbin!

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They’re both built on ActivityPub and look very similar, but Kbin is talked about like an alternative to Lemmy instead of an instance of it. Is it a fork? Why is it better or worse?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Kbin and lemmy are two different sites. Lemmy is a reddit-style site. Kbin has lemmy-style threads but also mastodon-style microblogs.

They both can interact with each other since they're both a part of the fediverse. Personally, I like kbin.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's kinda silly and holds no real merit, but I like the name Kbin more than Lemmy. Lemmy reminds me of Lemmings and the idea of creatures running off a cliff. Kbin is shorter, doesn't really mean anything, and feels cooler/more technical. Just my 2c though.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think Kbin is a shortened version of 'karabin' (polish for carbine/rifle) - the name of the polish instance

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But was Kbin built from the ground up as it’s own project or is it a fork of something else? And where does Squabbles fit into all of this?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Kbin started as a fork of Lemmy AFAIK

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Maybe in the dim and distant but not now. It's written in a completely different language for a start 🤣

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is not true. Lemmys backend is written in rust, kbin in php.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Argue with the man himself

I'll just say that before starting from scratch, I tried to create kbin as a fork of Lemmy.

https://kbin.social/m/kbinMeta/t/10509/Thank-you-so-much-for-your-support#entry-comment-45119

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Just wish we could see federated content on Kbin. Right now it feels like its own lonely instance while the Lemmy instances are thriving from multiple other instances federating their content.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was here before the federation broke and was able to interact with the rest of the fediverse. Please, be patient, it will come back :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That's great to hear! :) Looking forward to it!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Personally, I think the fediverse just confuses new users and is a big barrier to entry. Id love to see Kbin or a Lemmy instance just be it’s own centralized thing with no federation. But I’ve only had a few days of experience with this so perhaps I will change my tune eventually.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I agree. I think Kbin and Lemmy can learn a few things from how Mastodon operates right now... Very easy to sign up (though there's still the weird barrier to entry of figuring out which instance to sign up for), and then you're exposed to the entire federated Mastodon content pretty transparently.

By contrast, on Lemmy, you have to select "All" to see all communities across servers. And Kbin doesn't currently see federated content at all, so...

And then, ultimately, you're stuck with a new problem that the Fediverse is creating : if I want to subscribe, say, to a gaming community/magazine, which one do I pick? Every instance has its own communities on popular topics.