If there was a Reddit/Lemmy style website (where people create communities for various subjects but it’s all available from the same website using the same credentials) with forum style discussions

Isn't this just Discourse?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'll go take a look, but isn't it just the software behind the various forums and you need separate credentials for each one?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It has ActivityPub support so it is connected to the fediverse in some ways. Lemmy doesn't work with it though AFAIK because Lemmy doesn't support posts made outside communities.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Why doesn't discourse simply make their different topics into communities is the question

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I mean you could equally ask why does Lemmy not support posts outside communities? It's on both parties to interoperate I think. Lemmy also uses a specific extension to ActivityPub while Discourse's posts and Mastodon's posts and such are pretty standard, but still not picked up by Lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I think Mastodon is very far from standard. Way I hear it from the developers, it's lemmy that is following the Apub standard. But I will disclaim that I'm not an expert to judge either way.

As for the posts outside communities? That makes sense lemmy-wise I think. Where would those posts be? But it doesn't make sense for Discourse, since they are indeed separated into topics.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

I think Mastodon is very far from standard

I think it's much closer to standard than Lemmy and I've looked into it quite a bit recently. ActivityPub is unfortunately quite focused on microblogging. Honestly lemmys way of doing it is a little hacky.

As for the posts outside communities? That makes sense lemmy-wise I think. Where would those posts be?

I actually think it's quite straightforward, they'd just be on a users page. This is actually how Reddit has also done it ever since they introduced the feature (much before they enshittified everything else).

You can think of it like every users profile being a community of its own but only the user itself can post to it. Just conceptually speaking.

That would also let you follow users just as you can follow communities.

[–] Feathercrown 3 points 2 months ago

We need this for sure

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Not gonna lie, I'd love for better integration between services, but I am fairly sure I saw lemmy devs adamantly insisting they're following apub and mastodon is doing it wrong so 🤷

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Its not that anyone is "doing it wrong" and Mastodon doesn't really support Lemmys communities either. So Lemmy works in a bit of a funky way that doesn't match most other fediverse services.

Its just a bit strange that Lemmy does not support the more common posts outside communities since that is how most of the fediverse works, so we're kinda missing out on a lot of content that we can't see on Lemmy.

This is the FEP Lemmy uses but most other fediverse services do not use it and Lemmy does not support anything that doesn't use this FEP. So again, it's not that Lemmy is doing something wrong, but Lemmy is not supporting how most of the rest of the fediverse functions.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

OK, so is lemmy out of standard or not? Like I can understand why lemmy doesn't support apub notes, as it's out of scope, but why does mastodon support articles badly?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

ActivityPub is an extensible protocol. It is not just one thing. Lemmy only supports posts that follow that extension I linked above. That extension has a definition and Lemmy follows it so in that way it is "standard". But it is an extension, not part of the core protocol.

Mastodon and most other fediverse services do not support this extension.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Sounds like mastodon and other services ought to really support this extension though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Sure. But lemmy would still not show Mastodon posts outside communities even if they supported that extension. Both parties need to move towards each other.