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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.

noodlejetski ,
@noodlejetski@masto.ai avatar

@erlend_sh hello from Mastodon!

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

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.

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)

m4t ,
@m4t@h4.io avatar

@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

mark ,
@mark@programming.dev avatar

That sort of aggregating would make more sense in an RSS reader. RSS feeds are exactly for that purpose.

But a platform aggregating from an infinite amount of sources that dont really relate to one another just seems odd.

m4t ,
@m4t@h4.io avatar

@mark you can't reply, share or even like a post with a rss reader, I believe one of actititypub goals is to replace rss

personally, I follow an important amount of users and then class them into mastodon lists (tech, politics, movies, news...)

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.

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.

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

Fitik ,
@Fitik@fedia.io avatar

@Blaze I just want to note that it's a feature request on GitHub right now, it was already implemented on KBin (even tho in a bit weird way), so it's definitely possible

https://github.com/MbinOrg/mbin/issues/484

@erlend_sh @FundMECFSResearch

Blaze ,
@Blaze@feddit.org avatar

Thanks!

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.

Blaze ,
@Blaze@feddit.org avatar

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.

Thatā€™s fair.

For some other people the appeal of the Fediverse is to be able to manage the instances themselves, and Bluesky still isnā€™t there yet on that side (and probably wonā€™t, as it would prevent them from generating revenue if someone can just open a server and connect to their network)

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

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

aaaaace , (edited )

Tried Masto and Pixelfed, left after The Great Sellout to Meta. Trying Lemmy for now but itā€™s limited in breadth and scope.

Iā€™d like to see a fedi digest app more than anything, gathers it all up and presents it. Then if I want to interact I can sign up for one of them. But first I want to see where things are.

In general, the technically-discerning arenā€™t going to care as much about quantity, more about quality and features.

Iā€™d like to block every wealthy narcissist and never read their name or see their troubled insane faces in posts, Iā€™m fed up with the narrative on both sides and have other interests.

So if Frontpage gathered it all up and filtered out the paid narratives and shills I get to choose, while letting me follow interesting minds, Iā€™d be very interested.

If it had a prominent link to which instance, it might become clear what instance and software is best for me.

Right now I like Piefedā€™s ability to filter and not Lemmys militaristic intentional inability to do so.

Masto filtered, but doesnā€™t migrate well and now federates with the shitasses on Meta, which I donā€™t want to consort with or support. If I want to sign up for Meta itā€™s not hard, but I havenā€™t ever done so and donā€™t need coercive help from fake empaths running .social instances. Iā€™m not a farm animal, Stux.

I think the fedi got it backwards, new users need to browse first to find what they want. I get it as a techie kind, but right now itā€™s forbidding to many with all the unknown choices.

If Frontpage, someday, can also interpolate comments and vote between the softwares that survive, thatā€™d be a nice thing to add to a browser thatā€™s already familiar to new users.

But I think itā€™s way early for that. Kbin is already in the past, Mbin may or may not be a true continuation, the Meta connection nay not be worthwhile for their investors, bluesky is still a pig-in-a-poke for me.

One thing that is missing, again, is a digest to browse.

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