this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2024
94 points (92.0% liked)

Fediverse

27819 readers
529 users here now

A community to talk about the Fediverse and all it's related services using ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, KBin, etc).

If you wanted to get help with moderating your own community then head over to !moderators@lemmy.world!

Rules

Learn more at these websites: Join The Fediverse Wiki, Fediverse.info, Wikipedia Page, The Federation Info (Stats), FediDB (Stats), Sub Rehab (Reddit Migration), Search Lemmy

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Hey 👋 if you don't know us already, we're building Frontpage; an AT Procol based federated link aggregator. We shipped an initial MVP in closed beta recently and have since been thinking about the road to general availability.

This post is an RFC (Request for Comments) targeted at technically minded folks who are interested in seeing the progression of atproto for non-Bluesky/microblogging use cases. All that's to say the language that follows assumes some knowledge about how Bluesky and atproto work! I've tried to include links to explain what all of the jargon means though, so hopefully it's not entirely nonsense for folks a little less familiar!

When you post on Frontpage, we propose that a mirror post will also be created in your Bluesky account. When you comment on Frontpage, we propose that a mirror reply will be created in your Bluesky account.

Conversely, when you reply to one of these mirrored posts in Bluesky - we will show it as a reply in Frontpage.

Additionally, Bluesky likes will be translated to Frontpage votes and vice versa.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Blaze@feddit.org 38 points 1 week ago

Reminder that as of now, there is no independent Bluesky server open for registration: https://feddit.org/post/2656676

The interoperability issues between Mastodon and Lemmy come from Mastodon, which doesn't really seem interested in correcting that: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/17008

[–] Die4Ever@programming.dev 33 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Unpopular opinion: IDK why people want perfect interop so much, I have a Mastodon account and a Lemmy account, big deal. We've got bigger fish to fry than this. The formats are different enough that you're better off having separate accounts for microblogging and threadiverse.

Interop for similar platforms is a great feature, but for dissimilar platforms I don't think it's actually necessary just a novelty. Also I think people try to push this on new users as some big, useful, important feature, but I think it only confuses the new users.

Also I noticed most of the time when people complain about ActivityPub interop issues, it almost always ends up being Mastodon's fault lol. Probably because they were early to the party and didn't have to worry about interop and standards much back then. At least I hope it isn't malicious lol.

[–] mark@programming.dev 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Don't think this opinion is unpopular at all. It makes sense for platforms that are similar to interop.

Hypothetically like Youtube interop with Peertube (video platforms) or Instagram interop with Pixelfed (photos). Or Threads, Reddit and Lemmy (forums). And Mastodon and Twitter (sorry, but just making a point here 😁)

But yeah, see no reason for interop between platforms with completely different purposes.

[–] m4t@h4.io 4 points 1 week ago (5 children)

@mark @Die4Ever example: im a mastodon user and I follow this topic bc i find it interesting

and i would never create a lemmy account to see your comments, i like having every post (from mastodon, lemmy, peertube, threads, pixelfed) in one single place

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

i like having every post (from mastodon, lemmy, peertube, threads, pixelfed) in one single place

Have you tried http://fedia.io/ ? It has both Mastodon and Lemmy included in one place

[–] aasatru@kbin.earth 1 points 6 days ago

I think in some ways Mastodon is better suited - if you use the list feature actively there, it gets quite powerful. And personally I quite like the way content gets community curated on Mastodon once you follow enough people.

I love Mbin, but scratches a very different itch. :)

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] kplaceholder@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Conceptually, I think the way Lemmy and Mastodon would be able to interop is pretty straightforward: Each thread in either is basically just a tree of replies. They are just shown differently depending on the platform. Furthermore, Lemmy communities show up as Mastodon groups, and Lemmy threads show up as retoots from those groups, which I think is the most elegant solution.

The only issue that makes this interoperation unusable really is that Mastodon groups representing Lemmy communities just "retoot" every single comment, obliterating the TL of anyone who dares to follow those groups. Which as far as I know only happens because Mastodon refuses to be cooperative and properly follow the standards.

As for the other comments asking "why even care about this": I think it's worth as a long-term goal for the Fediverse to entirely separate the "view" aspect from the "content" aspect of platforms where reasonably possible, so that each user can browse all the content in their preferred platform. Not all fedi platforms need to conform to some absolute feature parity, but as I just said, there's basically a one-to-one relationship between Lemmy and Mastodon content, so it is reasonable in this case. I've seen enough people here claim that they very much prefer the Lemmy format to read conversations.

Personally, my Mastodon account has different vibes from Lemmy, and for that reason alone there is a bunch of Lemmy communities I wouldn't subscribe to, but would follow from Mastodon. The only reason why I don't do that is because Mastodon's side of the interop fucking sucks.

[–] tuckerm@supermeter.social 1 points 6 days ago

I think it's worth as a long-term goal for the Fediverse to entirely separate the "view" aspect from the "content" aspect of platforms where reasonably possible

This perfectly describes my ideal fediverse, too. Pretty much everything we're doing here is posting text; it can be a comment on someone else's text, or a comment on a video, or a top-level post in a community, or a top-level post on your microblog (which is basically your own community where you're the only top-level poster). IMO the type of fediverse server you choose should be based on which one has the best UI for the viewing and posting you'll be doing most often, but they should all be able to show everyone else's content as much as possible.

If I need to, I'll create separate accounts for separate interests, like one for games and one for professional things. But I'd like to use the same account for following indie game developers (on Mastodon) and gaming communities (on Lemmy) and commenting on game review videos (on Peertube).

[–] ademir@lemmy.eco.br 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The only issue that makes this interoperation unusable really is that Mastodon groups representing Lemmy communities just “retoot” every single comment, obliterating the TL of anyone who dares to follow those groups. Which as far as I know only happens because Mastodon refuses to be cooperative and properly follow the standards.

Pleroma/Akkoma deal better with this, The groups there only retoot the main topic, and the answers you only see If you open the main topic, then you see all the threads.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 3 points 1 week ago

That's great

[–] erlend_sh@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (3 children)

One thing that seems to go unappreciated in the comments is the simplicity of this interop proposal: It is essentially about enabling quote-posting of link-aggregator(Groups) posts.

Bluesky + Frontpage will work this way, and I believe it’ll work exceedingly well. If the ap-net corner of the fediverse isn’t interested in this kind of interop, fair enough. To me however the promise of seamless interop between my social apps was what brought me to the fediverse, so that’s the version of the fediverse I will pursue.

[–] tuckerm@supermeter.social 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I also want interoperability between microblogging and threaded services, but unfortunately I'm a little skeptical about the account mirroring concept. Or, at least, I'd like more details about it.

Do users need to opt-in to have their accounts mirrored, like how they do with brid.gy right now? If there are a bunch of users with Bluesky accounts that don't have Frontpage accounts, that would mess with the ability to have all comments showing up between the two services, and it would prevent some people from posting a comment on someone else's comment if one of the commenters has not opted-in to have their account mirrored. Or, can a plain Bluesky account comment on Frontpage threads, but not start a thread?

I like the idea of being able to quote-post link aggregator threads to your Bluesky account, but I think ideally this would only require one account. Which would mean you could also use your Bluesky account to start a thread on Frontpage.

[–] timconspicuous@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 days ago

Sorry for the late reply, but I wanted to address your question -- I think one misunderstanding is: in a sense there are no Bluesky accounts and there are no Frontpage accounts, there are only atproto accounts. Whether you make a post on Bluesky or Frontpage or Whitewind or Smokesignal, all of them get collected in the same repository. Here is a neat atproto browser which can display this, this is the account of Frontpage founder Tom Sherman and you can find all of his collections there: https://atproto-browser.vercel.app/at/tom-sherman.com

[–] Tywele@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I also think that this is how it should be. Initially I thought I wouldn't need multiple accounts for the fediverse. Right now I'm more active on Bluesky than on Mastodon so it would be great to have an AT Protocol equivalent to Lemmy/Reddit and all that without having to create a new account for it.

[–] AsudoxDev@programming.dev 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Bluesky is not a part of the fediverse. If they don't want to use standards and the devs cry about how it is absolutely impossible to integrate the features of ATProto into ActivityPub, then they can fuck off.

[–] Tywele@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

How does your comment relate to my comment?

[–] AsudoxDev@programming.dev 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

How does it not relate to your comment?

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Seems quite relevant indeed.

To the stance above: if people prefer to have a unified experience managed by a corporation, that's okay.

There are enough people on the Internet to keep a few places actives. The Fediverse and Blueskey can coexist.

[–] Tywele@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Yes and that's why I don't understand their comment and even less why it gets downvoted. They seem to complain about something to me that I didn't even mention and the topic was not about combining ATProto with ActivityPub or whatever.

Maybe relate wasn't the right word. English isn't my native language.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 3 points 6 days ago

Reading the thread again, I guess it comes from

Initially I thought I wouldn’t need multiple accounts for the fediverse.

Followed by

Right now I’m more active on Bluesky

Some people might have understood it as "The Fediverse failed, Bluesky is better". As I said, to me it's okay to prefer one or the other, but some people are less tolerant.

[–] Tywele@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

I never said that Bluesky is part of the fediverse for example and the rest of your comment seems to me like it should be directed to OP or devs of ATProto and not me.

[–] AsudoxDev@programming.dev 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Who said I directed my complaints to you?

[–] Tywele@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Why did you write your comment as an answer to my comment then if it's not directed at me?

[–] AsudoxDev@programming.dev 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Bluesky is not a part of the fediverse.

That is directed at you, but is not a complaint.

The rest is my own rant at the devs, not directed at you.

[–] Tywele@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 days ago

Then you misunderstood me because I know that Bluesky is not part of the fediverse. With my comment I was trying to say that I would be happy to be able to communicate solely in ATProto apps with one account instead of with multiple accounts in ActivityPub.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

the promise of seamless interop between my social apps was what brought me to the fediverse, so that’s the version of the fediverse I will pursue.

That's fair.

For some other people the appeal of the Fediverse is to be able to manage the instances themselves, and Bluesky still isn't there yet on that side (and probably won't, as it would prevent them from generating revenue if someone can just open a server and connect to their network)

[–] timconspicuous@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 days ago

Bluesky still isn’t there yet on that side (and probably won’t, as it would prevent them from generating revenue if someone can just open a server and connect to their network)

I don't think that's necessarily true. As fas as I know there are no plans to inject ads, they are planning to create a marketplace for custom feeds (think "premium" feeds) and labelers and such where they would take a cut. You would obviously still be able to purchase access to them from other servers. But this goal seems kinda lofty, not sure if it can be viable.

[–] schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business 6 points 1 week ago (7 children)

I have a question, and I'm legitimately asking in good faith, because I am confused by this obsession about Mastodon compatibility.

Basically, why?

Mastodon doesn't give a shit about being a good citizen and very much has issues they've said they won't fix. And frankly, if Mastodon devs don't appear to care, why is everyone else so concerned about it?

Let them silo into their own little safe space, and maybe push people to use other platforms that ARE willing to be good Fedi-citizens.

(Also I hate how Masto-user posts show up with the @s and endless hashtags: they don't conform to how Lemmy posts look and work, and I'd legitimately consider just blocking all the Mastodon posters until they don't look and feel weird and out of place.)

[–] DerisionConsulting@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 week ago

Yeah, I think Lemmy and Mastodon should be made even more separate than they are currently, they are different platforms with different styles, goals, and uses.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

And frankly, if Mastodon devs don’t appear to care, why is everyone else so concerned about it?

Some people think that because Mastodon and Lemmy are both using ActivityPub, Lemmy could gain some users if Mastodon users could interact with Lemmy.

But this seems to overlook that microblogging and link aggregation are two very different ways to interact with content.

Reddit probably has the highest reserve for potential Lemmy users, just because they are more used to link aggregators.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[–] i_am_not_a_robot@feddit.uk 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I don't think automatic crossposting is a good idea. However some way to "boost" Mastodon posts onto Lemmy would be good. Mbin has a way of boosting but can't assign a magazine. Something like that may work though. Mastodon can already boost Lemmy posts.

[–] aasatru@kbin.earth 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I think support for boosts is a game changer for interoperability. As a Mastodon user I wouldn't really want to follow a community even if it was well implemented, but I'm happy to follow users who boost content I'm interested in.

Boosting content is the way posts spread on Mastodon. If anyone follows me from Mastodon they will see all the content I boost; if they enjoy it, they might re-boost to their followers and the ball starts rolling. And that's how you suddenly get comment sections where Mastodon users are actively participating.

[–] tuckerm@supermeter.social 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I've found that, currently, this kind of works and kind of doesn't. I've boosted a few lemmy and mbin comments from my Mastodon account, and it shows up in feeds just like you would expect it to. Unfortunately, the parent post of the thread only shows as a link to the lemmy/mbin thread, rather than showing the full text of the original post. So it's hard for people to see the context of the comment.

Mastodon appears to see lemmyverse comments the same way it sees Mastodon comments, but the top-level post that started the thread is somehow different.

[–] aasatru@kbin.earth 2 points 4 days ago

Yeah, it works better for comments than for actual posts for sure. And then they need to work outside of context and all that.

I think sharing of posts might be better suited for quote posts, if that's ever integrated.

[–] tuckerm@supermeter.social 2 points 6 days ago

I'm hoping that this will "just work" when Mastodon gets quite-posting. You could take a Mastodon post, and then quote-post it into a community by mentioning that community's name.

This would create a separate thread of replies, which is good. A person shouldn't be able to suddenly thrust a bunch of community replies onto someone else's post. So basically it's what quote-posting is for, but sharing it with a community instead of just your own followers.

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Why isn’t anyone mentioning Kbin? Isn’t that basically already a lemmy/mastodon mix

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 8 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Even on Mbin, the microblogging and link aggregator are two different parts of the software.

If someone from Mastodon posts to an Mbin magazine, it would still look "out of the place" the same way it would in a Lemmy community

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] noodlejetski@masto.ai 4 points 1 week ago

@erlend_sh hello from Mastodon!

load more comments
view more: next ›