Just because the ActivityPub protocol lets Lemmy and Mastodon interact doesn’t necessarily mean they should… Of course, I say that as we interact between the two!! It’s an interesting design dilema that I’m sure will receive more thought as the platforms grow
this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
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@vhstape @lmorchard What it means is that every interesting conversation also adds an interesting conversation to Mastodon.
People can interact with those discussions on the platform that suits them best.
So if you're an ex-Twitter user on Mastodon, it appears as a post. If you're an ex-Redditor on Lemmy, it appears as a thread.
And the magic of the Fediverse is that those ex-Redditors can engage with ex-Twitter users in conversations that wouldn't take place had they remained on Twitter or Reddit.
Yes, you are totally right! I do think that there is an ideological disconnect, though, since Lemmy is more of a long-form text site and Mastodon is more of a podium-and-audience deal. Perhaps if content was “cross posted” instead, that might help separate things. Just rolling off the top of my head
That's the beauty of the Fediverse: you don't have to force anyone to be in the same platform to interact with each other, just like e-mail. Everybody is free to choose the service they prefer without cutting ties with other people.
Friendica and Hubzilla go even further because they can reach Diaspora.
Wait, what?!? I'm so lost!? I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually just by trying things but it sounds like you're saying if I follow you on Mastodon I'll see your Lemmy comments start to show up? AND I can reply to them over there? I've just tried that but it doesn't seem to be doing that? I'm very new to both so I'm just barely starting to wrap my head around the possiblities.
Yeah, I checked the Github and there are a few open issues right now labeled 'enhancements' and 'federation' which talk about how posts from Mastodon (and other software) should be displayed on Lemmy and vice versa. So it's at least on the radar and a known problem from the Lemmy side.
Honestly the biggest problem for me with reading Lemmy threads from the Mastodon end is exactly what the OP said, but I have no clue if Eugen plans to change how post threads are displayed in timelines on Mastodon and its forks.
Yeah, it would be nice if Mastodon eventually handled rendering group threads a little better and meet something like Lemmy part way. I can imagine that different kinds of services using activitypub will end up looking strange through each others' lenses, but there could be some interesting crossovers
(Also I kinda forgot that my post from a mastodon instance would show up like a top-level post over here 😅)