InformaPirata

Thank you to all the developers and instance administrators! 💓

(Shame on those who stir up controversy for ideological reasons, seeking the worst in people who dedicate their time to improving the technology that enables the use of an open social web! 👿🤬)

Be careful—you’re getting a few things mixed up.

Lemmy is software built around the concept of “communities.” A Lemmy user isn’t focused on what individual users write; rather, they are interested in what is being posted within the specific communities that interest them!

Therefore, it makes perfect sense that you wouldn’t see content from Mastodon users if they haven’t consented to being visible to you.

In fact, if a Mastodon user chooses (via opt-out) to post within a Lemmy community, you will see that content—provided that you are also subscribed to that community.

Conversely, a Mastodon user will generally see your content in the following three scenarios:

1. If they follow you, or if they follow someone who follows you.
2. If they follow someone who “reposts” (or “retweets”) your content.
3. If someone on your instance follows you, or follows someone who “reposts” your content.

Note that when I say “someone who reposts your content,” that “someone” could be another Mastodon user, but it could also be the Lemmy community where you are posting. In effect, these communities function as special ActivityPub users; Mastodon perceives them as such—for instance, the community https://lemmy.world/c/fediverse appears to Mastodon as the user @fediverse@lemmy.world.

Bridging the “social-verse” (social networks) and the “forum-verse” (discussion forums) has always been an important goal for me. I’ve made an effort to inform Mastodon users about this through posts like this one: https://www.informapirata.it/2024/01/02/mastodon-tips-how-to-use-friendica-groups-forums-and-lemmy-communities/

…but it’s clear that Mastodon users—and, more importantly, Mastodon administrators—aren’t particularly interested in connecting their users with communities on platforms like Lemmy, PieFed, MBin, or NodeBB. Fortunately, there are some positive developments on the social side:

• There is an app for Mastodon called “Raccoon for Friendica” that makes managing groups easier for Mastodon users. (It’s called “Raccoon for Friendica” because it originated for Friendica, but more importantly, its developer previously worked on an app for Lemmy.)
• A fork of Misskey called “Catodon” offers excellent support for ActivityPub groups, potentially ushering in a new era that bridges the “socialverse” and the “forumverse.”

There are also interesting updates on the forum side: NodeBB now allows administrators to forcibly “move” initial posts into a specific category (in NodeBB, “communities” are referred to as “categories,” but they still function as ActivityPub groups). While this move isn’t visible to other instances within the “forumverse” (such as Lemmy or other NodeBB instances), it is visible to “social” users—because the “category” effectively “boosts” the moved post, allowing social users who follow that community to see it.

I’m not familiar with Piefed, but it would be great if the Lemmy developers took two steps:

1. Introduce a feature similar to NodeBB’s, allowing posts to be moved within a community.
2. Find a way to make this move “visible” across the board—so that it’s not just users on the local instance or those on social platforms who see the change, but also users on other “forum” instances!

However, there could also be negative developments. The most likely risk, in my view, is that the “little dictator” (Mastodon) might decide to implement ActivityPub groups in its own idiosyncratic way—one that is, predictably, incompatible with the “forumverse.” Given how they implemented “quote-retweets,” I’d say that bad news is more likely than good news…

Have you ever tried Flohmarkt? Flohmarkt is a decentralized app for buying, selling, and bartering in the Fediverse that allows you to post items for sale or to give away. Because it’s federated, users of other platforms (e.g., Mastodon) can interact, view listings, and contact sellers directly via private messages.

https://wedistribute.org/2024/08/flohmarkt-federated-market/

oh, a clarification: I’m still @macfranc@poliversity.it

I’m a fan of Lemmy, though I recognize that some limitations could be considered flaws (https://piefed.social/comment/11707767).

However, your perspective must take into account some design (and history) issues with the software you mentioned:

Lemmy barely works with PeerTube [discuss.tchncs.de]

It’s important to understand a few concepts here:

• Lemmy is based on Activitypub groups
• A group works by “resharing” an initial post and all replies to that post
• With some programs (Mastodon’s “socialverse,” Misskey, Pleroma, Friendica, or Pixelfed), you can “post inside a group” only by mentioning the “group user”; with others (Lemmy/Piefed/Mbin/NodeBB’s forumverse, but also Peertube, Mobilizon, or Flipboard), you simply assign a discussion to a group (you can do this easily from the interface). This second mode doesn’t yet have a syntax shared by all the software in the Fediverse.
• Finally, a very important feature of Lemmy is that a post can only be published to one channel at a time. This might seem like a limitation (we’ll discuss it later, when talking about Flipboard), but it’s actually designed by the developers to prevent synchronous crossposting, which can dramatically increase spam.

Lemmy handles the display of Peertube content very well and correctly assigns it to the correct Peertube channel. What doesn’t work well is the update system, which is why Lemmy can’t act as a Peertube feed reader. This isn’t Lemmy’s fault, nor is it Peertube’s, as each handles Activitypub groups differently.

Lemmy doesn’t work with Pixelfed [discuss.tchncs.de]

That’s not true. Lemmy handles Pixelfed very well. Pixelfed users can open threads on Lemmy or reply to Lemmy discussions. However, Pixelfed only shows users retweets made by Pixelfed, not those from other software. Therefore, Pixelfed users cannot access the groups. Regarding your user, I’d like to point out that feddit.it can see it: https://feddit.it/u/NotAHopeInHades@pixelfed.social

Lemmy doesn’t work with Loops [discuss.tchncs.de]

Loops is still a very immature software, with very limited interoperability. I wouldn’t consider it a valid test for certifying Lemmy’s functionality. Regarding your user, I’d like to point out that feddit.it can see it: https://feddit.it/u/spaceotter@loops.video

Lemmy doesn’t work with Micro.blog [discuss.tchncs.de]

I’m not familiar with Microblog, but (regarding your user) I’d like to point out that feddit.it can see it: https://feddit.it/u/akshay@social.learnlearn.in

Lemmy doesn’t seem to work with Flipboard

Flipboard uses groups to manage the “magazines” of the “main accounts.” Magazines are the thematic sections of the main account. Basically, the main account (for example, @NationalGeographic@flipboard.com) publishes a news item, and depending on the topic, it can be published in the “Science” Activitypub group (@science-NationalGeographic@flipboard.com) or the “Environment” Activitypub group (@environment-NationalGeographic@flipboard.com), OR both. This design, intended to maximize visibility on the Mastodon audience, is incompatible with Lemmy’s logic. Lemmy, in fact, as I mentioned before, doesn’t allow synchronous crossposting of the same content across multiple groups.

The same goes for Misskey.

Lemmy handles Misskey very well. And Misskey handles Lemmy very well. I don’t understand the problem.