this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2025
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Hi,

Lemmy can also function as a blogging platform. Doing this is as simple as creating a community and enabling the option “Only moderators can post to this community”. Now only you and other people that you invite can create posts, while everyone else can comment. Like any Lemmy community, it is also possible to follow from other Fediverse platforms and over RSS. For advanced usage, it is even possible to use the API and create a different frontend which looks more blog-like.

(Source)

Does this apply to PieFed as well ?

Thanks

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[–] artyom@piefed.social 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Sure thing. Although for maximum autonomy you might consider creating your own instance.

There's a user, Perfect Dark, who does regular blog-style posts in the steam deck and gaming communities.

https://blorpblorp.xyz/home/c/steamdeck@sopuli.xyz/posts/https%3A%2F%2Flemmy.world%2Fpost%2F33486016

[–] KaKi87@jlai.lu 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

for maximum autonomy you might consider creating your own instance

Indeed.

In fact, I already created a Lemmy instance for this purpose, but it's not going well : apparently federation isn't working, and there aren't any tools available to determine what's wrong and how to fix it... So now I'm considering the alternative platform that is PieFed.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Piefed uses the same technology to federate, so does Piefed have tools to determine federation problems?

[–] KaKi87@jlai.lu 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

It's not the same code, so maybe the admin UI is more helpful ?

[–] rimu@piefed.social 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

In the admin UI it shows all the activities that are going in and out, and the JSON of each activity can be viewed:

table

[–] KaKi87@jlai.lu 1 points 20 hours ago

So it's already better.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Looks like it is!

But whatever issue you are having with federation is most likely not related to Lemmy itself. Piefed is a solid choice though, so if it helps you get it sorted then great!

For federation issues, I would check various things like where are you hosted (if at home, do you have a public IP?)? Are you hosting in Singapore, China, or other areas that commonly host AI scrapers as many Lemmy instances block IP ranges from those areas? Was your instance set up with a domain name that you have been using since the beginning (if you change your domain name or move to a subdomain then federation won't work). Are you using Cloudflare or similar - if so, be aware that federation is bot traffic, any settings around blocking bots or AI will break federation. Remember your instance has to be publicly accessible to receive anything!

Also see this showing the federation state of instances (enter your own if you are having trouble with outbound, enter a remote one if you are having trouble with inbound then check where your site is): https://phiresky.github.io/lemmy-federation-state/site?domain=lemmy.world

Also see this for showing which instances are having trouble with federation. Set targets along the top: https://grafana.lem.rocks/d/edf3gjrxxnocgd/federation-health-activities-behind?orgId=1&var-instance=All&var-remote_instance=lemmy.world&var-remote_software=All

[–] KaKi87@jlai.lu 2 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

where are you hosted

At Netcup, in Germany.

Was your instance set up with a domain name that you have been using since the beginning

Yes, and it's very fresh.

Are you using Cloudflare or similar

No and never.

Remember your instance has to be publicly accessible to receive anything!

Yes.

see this showing the federation state of instances

All numbers are at zero : https://phiresky.github.io/lemmy-federation-state/site?domain=blog.kaki87.net

see this for showing which instances are having trouble with federation

Hmm, how does that one work ?

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 1 points 18 hours ago

Hmm, how does that one work ?

Instances report the latest activity ID through a public API endpoint. This compares the latest across instances. I can't remember the details, but one thing to remember is that not every instance gets every activity so it's not 100% accurate.

The way federation works is that you subscribe to a community, then that community starts sending your instance new content from the community posted after you subscribe.

If you have no subscribers, then you have no federation.

Check out https://lemmy-federate.com/ for getting federation started. This lets you enter a community and instances that have signed up will have a special account subscribe which causes your community to start sending content to their instance.

You can also post in special lemmy communities for letting people know about your new community.

Hopefully this is all the issue is! Have you tried using your account on your instance for commenting on other instances, e.g. replying to me here?