asudox

1. An instance is a server that runs a federated platform such as Lemmy.
2. You should avoid lemmy.world, lemmy.ml, lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net.
3. Because this is how the Fediverse is designed to work. No way around it.
4. Nothing. They are random names by their owners.
5. Not much unless you specifically choose it and then defend it. For example lemmy.ml or lemmygrad.ml.
6. Mostly no, but yes, it can. You should choose a instance that has good admins, up to date and not lots of defederations
7. Your user gets federated to other instances. Though if your user hasn’t commented on any community, or did but the community is also unknown to most other instances, then your account will not be found. In that case, you can mention such people with this syntax: !<username>@<instance domain>
8. Read above
9. Communities? When someone from your instance subscribes to a community on a remote instance, it is also available for you. If not, you can subscribe to an unknown community with this syntax: !<community name>@<instance domain>. Note that the community will only contain 20 of the new posts and without the upvotes and comments. They need to be fetched on demand via links.
10. Defederation is a thing. Read point 6.
11. Yes.
12. The admins
13. The rules are either in the meta community, on the sidebar or in some external website, which should be linked on the sidebar.
14. You change. You can’t take your comments/posts with you. But you can transfer ownership of your communities. You also can export your settinga and import them in your new account. That includes your subscribed communities, which will be subscribed to once again on your new account.
15. Read point 7
16. There are some services like keyoxide that can help you be identified across supported websites. Digital signatures are also an option.
17. The first one is used to mention someone, the second one is to identify the instance the user is on.
18. Read point 7 and 9
19. Read point 4
20. You can. Display names are optional, changeable names. They can’t be used to tag a community or mention a user, but is just there visually.
21. Nothing. You should have a way to identify yourself across the fediverse. Read point 16.
22. Nothing. There’s no such thing here.
23. Read point 16.
24. Read above