Why can’t we have federated identity to login into fediverse instead of creating login for each instance?
It is really clear until a newb tries to use it:
- Someone gives you a link, or you find it in search
- You click on the link, because that’s what you do with links
- It takes you to what you are looking for, but it says you have to log in to comment or vote
- You log in so you can comment or vote
The UX for interacting with off-instance subs is abysmal. What is even worse is that as far as I can tell, there is no way to link a post or comment that is instance relative / instance independent.
there is no way to link a post or comment that is instance relative / instance independent
I’m commenting mainly as a reminder to myself to check back later if someone comes in with a correction.
That said, the answer to this in the long term should be for the front ends (Lemmy UI, Jerboa, Sync for Lemmy, etc.) to be smart about this. My Mastodon app, Megalodon, does it. If you click a link to a post in another instance, it automatically looks up the same post from your instance and takes you there. It’s a little slower (and Megalodon shows you a button to short-circuit it and just go to that URL if you don’t care to be on your instance), but it lets you interact with the post as normal.
Even at the most basic level it is broken - at the bottom of your comment is a “context” button with the fediverse symbol. If I click on it, it won’t take me to the comment on my instance (lemmy.world) but instead is an absolute link to the comment on your instance (Aussie.world) even though the community lives on lemmy.world.
I love lemmy, and I think it has a bright future, but this fundamental problem really needs to be fixed.
You’re probably looking at the rainbow pentagon button, which behaves as you describe. There’s also a kind of chain link button. That one should take you to the context within your own instance. At least on web that’s how it works. Different apps may display differently.
