You will have a much easier time if you go to the https://kbin.social/m/kbinStyles magazine and install the QOL tamper monkey script and other kbin improvements. Eventually this stuff will all make it into the codebase.

To view only posts from your subscribed magazines, click the hamburger/3 lines icon next to your username on the top right and there is an option for subscribed.

As for how you know where you’re about to click to, I believe there is a pr on the code git repo to add instance names to both the user and post so it’s more obvious when doing cross instance interactions

And lastly fyi, kbin.social is an instance of the software called kbin

But I can’t figure out how to tell if I’m about to go to a comment section of a posy that’s from a kbin magazine or some other group’s magazine equivalent.

If you look at the sidebar of a thread or magazine (subreddit) you can see the name. It’s also in the url. It’ll be name@url. This is @.RedditMigration or alternatively @.RedditMigration@kbin.social. Other instances have their own groups where the url will appear after it.

I have an account on kbin.social

Correct.

Kbin.social is an instance of. . . Something…

kbin.social is an instance of the “kbin” software. Similarly a site like lemmy.world is an instance of the “lemmy” software.

kbin.social is federated with other. . . instances(?) like lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works.

“instance” is just a fancy word for “site”. So yes, kbin.social is “federated” with those other instances/sites, meaning they share content.

because of this, we who have accounts on kbin.social can interact with posts from communities/magazines/whatever their equivalent is from Instances(?) that kbin has federated with.
the home page on kbin.social is the equivalent of Reddit’s r/all
the home page on kbin.social will show posts from other instances we’re federated with

This is correct.

presumably there is some way to tell whether the post we’re clicking on is from a community on kbin.social, or a community on a different instance

You can hover over the names of either the magazines/communities or the user to see where they’re coming from. there’s userscripts to show this automatically, and the admin mentioned that an official option to toggle it is coming.

some posts, however, have (kbin.social), and then when I click to go to the comment section, it turns out it’s from sh.itjust.works

What you’re looking at is actually the “linked url” of the post, which for text posts are like reddit’s “self posts” and thus just always say kbin.social since that’s what we’re on.

is my language right?

Some corrections: “thread” is the right term as “post” on kbin tends to refer to microblog posts. You’ve got the idea of instances and federation correct.

How can I tell, before clicking on a post, what instance it’s from?

hover over names to see where they’re from.

assuming that both kbin.social and lemmy.world both have a “books” magazine/community/etc., how can I tell if the post on my home page from “books” is from kbin or lemmy?

see above. there’s a userscript to make this easier. it really should be automatically shown. once you’re in a thread/group you can look at the sidebar or your browser’s navigation bar.

how do I see a feed of only my subscribed magazines?

https://kbin.social/sub

I think you got it mostly right.

you can tell where you are/goto by looking behind @

RedditMigration to the “Threadiverse”@kbin.social in green is what i see on feddit