A little more comfortable with Kbin now, but new questions FAQ

I'm glad my first FAQ was helpful for a lot of people new to Kbin and even to the Fediverse. It was made before some federation issues with kbin.social started so I created this new Magazine to help spread the load out a bit for FAQs.

As always, please let me know of any errors and I'll try to update as soon as possible.

#faq #kbinfaqs

Question: How do I search for other Magazines or Communities?

Kbin uses a format for accounts and magazines that is familiar to users of common microblogging platforms like Mastodon, Calckey, or other fediverse platforms like Pixelfed, or PeerTube. All accounts start with an at-symbol "@" followed by the account or group or community name followed by @domain.

This means that to search for a kbin magazine "outerspace" that's hosted on examplekbin.com, you would enter in the kbin search:

@outerspace@examplekbin.com

For Lemmy Communities, it's the same, but Lemmy communities will show a ! at the front instead. Kbin doesn't use this format so to search, change the ! to a @.

Example:
Lemmy community:

!outerspace@examplelemmy.com

When searching for this in kbin, you would change it to:

@outerspace@examplelemmy.com

Question: What options do I have as a user to block or hide content?

As a user you can block:

1. Magazines.

Currently you can block magazines by clicking into the magazine from either the main Magazines link that can be seen in menus in the top bar or navigation bar (note: user settings in the cog-wheel menu will determine which menus will be shown where). Once in the Magazine page, there will be a small "O" with a line through it to the right of the "Subscribe(Unsubscribe)" line just below the Magazine title. The Magazine description/title panel may be to the right or below depending on the device you are using to access.

2. Users.

Block users by clicking on the user's profile and clicking the "O" with a line through it underneath their profile avatar and account name.

3. Domains.

Domains can be hidden from the front page (and possibly elsewhere) by clicking on the domain name next to a thread.

Example:

Uninteresting Article Titles don't get clicked on! (notfunnyexample.com)

In this case, click on the (notfunnyexample.com) to be taken to the Domain view which shows all threads and microblogs that are links to that domain.

In this view, you can also block by looking at the information panel for the domain (either to the right or below the listed content) and clicking the "O" with the line through it below the domain name itself.

From my testing, this seems to mute threads that are links to content on those domains.

Alternatively, you can manually pull up a domain's page on the kbin instance by using the following url pattern:

http://<kbin domain>/d/notfunnyexample.com

Replace <kbin domain> with the domain of your kbin instance and replace notfunnyexample.com with the domain you wish to block.

NOTE: Viewing the domain page will show you the content from the domain. Please be aware that this is currently how it works. I don't know of any way currently to just enter a domain name for blocking without accessing the domain's page on kbin at least once.

To later unblock any of these, open your account's Settings menu and look at the "blocked" tab.

As an Admin:

In addition to the above server admins can block instances as well. You may hear the term "defederate" and this is how an admin does that.

Question: I can't seem to be able to follow a certain account or community not on Kbin. What are some things it could be?

There are a few easy possibilities to rule out.

1. Authorized Fetch

As of right now, kbin doesn't support a feature known as "Authorized Fetch." Sometimes it's called "Secure GET" or other terms. What it means is if the remote instance requires incoming requests to support Authorized Fetch, kbin will not be able to follow that account.

2. Temporary server issues.

Kbin has seen a huge explosion in interest and popularity. As a result, some instances are struggling to handle the increase in traffic. For a while, the flagship instance at kbin.social was essentially disconnected from other instances due to using some anti-dos protection measures. If the instances are extremely busy, it may be a cause for issues in following remote accounts or communities.

3. Allow/Block lists

Some instances utilize "Allow lists" for only allowing certain known instances to federate with. If the kbin instance your account is on is not on such a list on the remote instance, you will not be able to follow.

Similarly, as noted above, it's possible for instances to block ("defederate" ) other instances. If your kbin account is on an instance that the remote instance has blocked, you won't be able to follow.

4. Case-sensitivity

Kbin is currently case-sensitive with regards to accounts and magazine names. This means that if a remote platform does not preserve case in the name, this may cause issues with following the remote account. I believe Lemmy does not preserve case and will convert everything to lower-case. Kbin will treat such requests as for a different account or magazine and can interfere with federation.

Note: This is not a complete list. This is just a quick list of things to check first when seeing issues following remote accounts or content.

Question: I'm coming to kbin from a microblogging platform like Mastodon or Calckey. Are there some parts of kbin that have confused others in a similar position?

1. No public timeline.

Kbin doesn’t have a public timeline like Mastodon does. Everything is part of a Magazine or Group which Mastodon doesn’t have. It’s a very different model from microblogging.

For example, from a kbin account while logged in to kbin, a person could have tons of content they want to see by subscribing to magazines without ever subscribing to a user account.

Some applications used for microblogging have options to "follow an entire instance." From what I understand, those applications and clients don't actually “follow” an instance in the strictest sense. It basically “looks” at the other instance’s public, local timeline similar to what you would see from a browser that opened up the site (without being logged in to that site) and pulls from there.

While kbin will show you content if you open the site in a browser, that’s not a “public timeline” like Mastodon’s.

2. "Upvotes".

Upvotes are actually not specifically defined in Activity Pub. Kbin and Lemmy use “Likes/Favorites/Stars” on a thread/post for upvotes. Downvotes don’t exist at all in the specification so Mastodon and other platforms can’t understand them at all.

3. Sorting of Threads and posts.

By default, when you create a new kbin account and log in, the default "front page" is to see the current "hot" threads. This is not dependent on you having followed any accounts or magazines and is determined by the age of the thread, and upvote versus downvote counts. (As best as I can tell). There are other ways to sort this display of threads to view "top" threads, "newest" threads, "active" threads, and "commented" threads.

Mastodon and other microblogging platforms will display timelines chronologically by default. Third-party clients and apps can of course offer to display content in different groupings, but in general those groupings are still chronological.

4. Moderation is also done at the magazine-level

Magazines will have moderators empowered to moderate content that appears in a specific magazine. Content that appears in other magazines, even on the same instance, will have to managed by moderators of the other magazine or else by the site administrator.