📚 Guide | How should I link to a community?
📚 Guide | How should I link to a community?
There are a lot of different apps / frontends that can show stuff from Lemmy, and they vary in how well they support different link formats. Here is a short explainer:
Each entry below shows you what you should type (like this) and what you will see as a result (after the dash '-').
For each entry, some apps will support it and others will not. It can be helpful to include a few different link formats so that everyone can use the link easily.
NOTE: There is a bug on the Lemmy website right now. If you start typing a community or username, it will try to autocomplete it. DO NOT click that autocomplete, or it will mess up the link.
!community@example.com - !community@example.com
- This is the universal format. If you click this link, the community will open in your home instance.
- This is the recommended method.
- If you are coming from Reddit, it is similar to how you could type
/r/askReddit
[you can put whatever here](/c/community@example.com) - you can put whatever here
- This is another way to make a universal link. If you click this link, the community will open in your home instance.
- This works well if you can't use the method above. For example, if you want to stick a link in a shields.io badge, you can use this technique to still include a universal link.
example.com/c/community - https://example.com/c/community
- This is a hardcoded link. This is what you can copy and paste from the browser. If you click this link, the community will open on a specific instance. Anyone using a different instance (ex. anything except lemmy.ca in this case) will not be able to subscribe right away, and they will need to redirect it first.
- Sometimes you can't use the methods above. For example, if you want to create a nice thumbnail while promoting your community on !communityPromo@lemmy.ca, you will need to use this URL.
- If you use this method, try to use the other methods as well so people have options.
https://lemmyverse.link/c/community@example.com
- You can also use this external tool to automatically redirect users. Once the user clicks on the link, they will be redirected to the instance that they set. This can be great for new users that click on the link, who may not understand what is happening or how the instances work.
- This also works for posts, but I will write up a separate post for those
Some apps can automatically redirect hardcoded links. If you are using the website or a different front end, you can use the !instance_assistant@lemmy.ca browser extension to redirect them too
I'd also add that outside Lemmy you can use https://lemmyverse.link/c/newtolemmy@lemmy.ca which will allow people to set their preferred instance once and then get redirected to the same instance every time.
That service is also the only (as far as I know) reliable way to redirect to a specific post, for example this link should open on the instance you selected: https://lemmyverse.link/lemmings.world/post/2817248. That's because all posts have a local id (local to the instance you're on) in the URL, meaning there's no easy way to detect the post id for your target instance just from the URL. For lemmy.ca the same post is at https://lemmy.ca/post/9315270 (notice the different IDs).
lemmyverse.link
First I've heard it. I love these solutions to address some of the problems with the federation architecture. Props to whoever made this.
Thanks I'll add it!
The post thing should be useful, I'll see about making a separate post about that bit. The only other tool that comes to mind is the !instance_assistant@lemmy.ca browser extension that can redirect the post. I think it searches for the post on the other instance. @cynber@lemmy.ca
Sorry for the delay
Yes it does search from the title/user, but I'm planning to switch to resolve_object in a future update: https://github.com/cynber/lemmy-instance-assistant/issues/52#issue-1934318266
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !newtolemmy@lemmy.ca
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !new@lemmy.ca
Also if you use a hardcoded link, this bot will pop in and tell you to fix it.
Unfortunately, it will pop in even when you use a hardcoded link on purpose
Wouldn't it be nice to introduce something like a codex for bots with a minimal required set of commands. This way bots could implement things like a @nobot command. In this example: If I would write a hardcoded link on purpose but also end my post with "@nobot" the bot would not comment on my post.