New to Kbin? Start Here.

Whether you're a Reddit refugee, a lurker, or already a member of the fediverse, Kbin welcomes you! This magazine contains guides from the perspective of someone completely new to the fediverse.

What is the Fediverse?

The Fediverse is a network of interconnected social media platforms that allows people to connect and share content while maintaining control over their data and privacy. Instead of everyone communicating and storing data on one centralized application, the Fediverse utilizes the ActivityPub protocol, enabling interaction between platforms. It's like being able to message someone on Instagram from Twitter!

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Graphic via New_Public

Different apps utilize the same protocol for different purposes. Pixelfed is a platform for sharing photos and videos, similar to Instagram, while Mastodon is designed for microblogging, like Twitter. All these diverse software applications can communicate and share content with each other, including Kbin.

Unlike traditional social media platforms, apps like Mastodon aren't limited to their flagship instances like mastodon.social. Instead, anyone can host their own instance. An instance refers to an independently operated server that connects with other instances to form a federated network. Each instance has its own unique set of rules, moderation systems, and communities, providing users with diverse options to choose from.

It's important to note that when you create an account on Mastodon, your login credentials are specific to the instance you join. This means that your profile, data, and content are stored exclusively within that particular instance. While you can interact with users from other instances through the federated network, your presence and activities remain confined to the instance you are registered on.

Does this mean I have to make an account for every instance?

No. You can interact with all the federated content across the fediverse with a single account. However, you may choose to have different accounts for consuming different types of content. For example, you can have an account on fedia.io for reading threads and another one on neat.tube for watching videos.

What is Kbin?

Kbin is software for the fediverse, similar to the aforementioned apps, but specifically designed for threads, which are organized discussions focused on articles, links, or other media. Kbin also has microblogging capabilities, just like Mastodon, which are called posts. Threads and posts are organized under Magazines, which are similar to subreddits or group communities.

Different instances of Kbin exist, and each has the capability to host its own magazines. For example, the @gaming magazine is different from the @gaming magazine. The same applies to users, where @friendlyuser is different from @friendlyuser.

The Fediverse relies on the sharing of data between instances, which is known as federation.

Federating

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Graphic via @cassolotl

Federating, which means sharing or uniting, between instances occurs when data is requested by users. External media can end up in your instance through various methods, and it is then displayed on your local or federated feed. On Kbin, this is combined into a single mixed homepage, where users can use votes to push the best content to the top. You have the option to enable or disable federated posts appearing on the sidebar.

For more information on posts, threads, votes, boosts, and how media is shared between instances, including the role of tags, check out this FAQ created by @dannekrose.

Finding Communities

Due to the decentralized nature of the fediverse, finding communities can feel overwhelming at first. Here are a couple pages you can use to populate your home feed:

• https://kbin.social/magazines
• https://fedi.directory/
• https://a.gup.pe/
• https://kbin.social/m/AskKbin/t/13198
• https://chirp.social/hashtags?page=1&sort=name
• https://communitywiki.org/trunk

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I hope this is the first in a series of guides posted here in @gettingstarted, created by the users for the users. Feel free to write articles on areas you feel need clarification, as well as ask questions in the comments, or request future guides.

Looking forward to the future of this community!

Lunar2m7