How come I can't subscribe to something in the fediverse (Kbin) whole on Lemmy's instance?
Try it, when I search [email protected] on the search bar, there are no results, but the community of https://kbin.social/m/functionalprint is very clearly there, and are both a part of the fediverse. What's going on?
If no one from your instance has subscribed to the community, it can not be found normally via search and the content wont be federated to your instance.
To be the first to connect your instance to that specific community: type the real url (https://kbin.social/m/functionalprint) into the search with search setting set to "All" and you should find that community. Then just subscribe and wait for your instance to start federating with that community and you should be able to participate.
Once you have done this others in your instance should see the community listed and can instantly jump in.
Edit: I've explaned this here with a picture.
So if I understand correctly it's not enough for someone to be subscribed to any community from that instance?
Correct. A connection with just one isn't going to dump everything from that server to yours, only the content you picked.
Yup! But remember that Kbin is only 2 months old and a mass migration just started, it will be easier to find communities as your instance grows and users find their favourite communities within fediverse.
We are all "pioneers" in a way and paving the way. Even though Lemmy has existed for 4 years it didn't really have a big user base. Now it is growing rapidly everyday.
Yes, plus the tools to find information and discuss will improve as demand increases. The biggest challenge right now is stability, but once that gets nailed down we should see some interesting branching of things.
Also if no one else from your instance has searched for that community before then you'll have to refresh the search for it to show up