cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/14087065
One quite annoying Lemmy behaviour is when you search for a community that has many results spanning multiple screens (e.g. query “software”), the list is largely clusterfucked with crappy centralised instances that go against the #fedi philosophy (e.g. #lemmyWorld, #ShItjustWorks, #lemmyCa, #LemmyZip, #programmingDev, etc).
I discovered a fix: ctrl-rt-click on every community in the list to open each in a tab. Then click “block community”, then repeat the search. It works the way it should: blocked communities are excluded from search results.
Wish I realised that sooner… would have saved me some effort and frustration in trying to search only for communities in the decentralised free world.
You can search communities with lemmyverse.net. There is an instance filter there.
Yes, that’s a good tip and I use it. But that doesn’t replace the search tool on the stock Lemmy app of the instance. Usually lemmyverse is just a precursor to a localized search.
When you cross-post, there is a pull-down search dialog that has a quite limited number of slots and they’re often filled up with centralised instances. Then it becomes a pain to cross-post. The only other option is to use the full screen search page to go straight to the target community, then paste everything over.
Lately lemmyverse craps out a lot, likely due to popular demand.