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How Lemmy could interop with Mastodon, as imagined in Frontpage + Bluesky

Hey šŸ‘‹ if you donā€™t know us already, weā€™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 thatā€™s to say the language that follows assumes some knowledge about how Bluesky and atproto work! Iā€™ve tried to include links to explain what all of the jargon means though, so hopefully itā€™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.

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

I donā€™t want Lemmy and Mastodon to interopā€¦

erlend_sh OP ,

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 itā€™ll work exceedingly well. If the ap-net corner of the fediverse isnā€™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 thatā€™s the version of the fediverse I will pursue.

FundMECFSResearch , (edited )

Why isnā€™t anyone mentioning Kbin? Isnā€™t that basically already a lemmy/mastodon mix

Blaze ,
@Blaze@feddit.org avatar

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 ā€œout of the placeā€ the same way it would in a Lemmy community

FundMECFSResearch ,

Makes sense. But your feed contains both mastodon posts and lemmy posts iirc?

Blaze ,
@Blaze@feddit.org avatar

The homepage contains the communities (e.g. Lemmy): fedia.io

The microblog page contains theā€¦ microblogs (e.g. Mastodon): fedia.io/microblog

Thatā€™s why I said itā€™s two different views, you canā€™t have everything at the same time, itā€™s one or the other

kplaceholder ,
@kplaceholder@lemmy.ml avatar

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 ā€œretootā€ 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 ā€œwhy even care about thisā€: I think itā€™s worth as a long-term goal for the Fediverse to entirely separate the ā€œviewā€ aspect from the ā€œcontentā€ 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, thereā€™s basically a one-to-one relationship between Lemmy and Mastodon content, so it is reasonable in this case. Iā€™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 wouldnā€™t subscribe to, but would follow from Mastodon. The only reason why I donā€™t do that is because Mastodonā€™s side of the interop fucking sucks.

i_am_not_a_robot ,
@i_am_not_a_robot@feddit.uk avatar

I donā€™t think automatic crossposting is a good idea. However some way to ā€œboostā€ Mastodon posts onto Lemmy would be good. Mbin has a way of boosting but canā€™t assign a magazine. Something like that may work though. Mastodon can already boost Lemmy posts.

Die4Ever , (edited )
@Die4Ever@programming.dev avatar

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

Interop for similar platforms is a great feature, but for dissimilar platforms I donā€™t think itā€™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 Mastodonā€™s fault lol. Probably because they were early to the party and didnā€™t have to worry about interop and standards much back then. At least I hope it isnā€™t malicious lol.

mark , (edited )
@mark@programming.dev avatar

Donā€™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 šŸ˜)

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

Die4Ever ,
@Die4Ever@programming.dev avatar

yea idk, itā€™s maybe like a fun bonus sometimes, but itā€™s kinda like trying to put the square peg into the circle hole (where it doesnā€™t fit, unlike the famous meme video lol)

nate ,

@erlend_sh Cool to see things being built with AT. For what my thoughts are worth, I think that having Frontpage posts showing up on Bluesky would be benificial. It'd probably make it feel like it has a lower barrier to entry and increase interactions/discussions across the different communities.

P.S. replying here with Friendica which is taking advantage of similar cross compatibility.

Also, just a curiosity, how good is AT's cross compatibility without workarounds? Obviously if you guys are considering I assume it works, but I've been curious how well things play together. Nostr has NIPs to solve the issue, and ActivityPub is a little tempermental, but with AT's repo style accounts I've wondered how well everything interacts across different implementations.

Blaze ,
@Blaze@feddit.org avatar

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

The interoperability issues between Mastodon and Lemmy come from Mastodon, which doesnā€™t really seem interested in correcting that: github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/17008

noodlejetski ,
@noodlejetski@masto.ai avatar

@erlend_sh hello from Mastodon!

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