this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2024
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Mastodon handles lemmy communities a bit strangely, doesn't it? (lemmy.world)
submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I know that communities don't translate well to Mastodon, I just find it a little odd how it seems to be a firehose of all comments in a community when viewed in Mastodon. I was expecting it to "repost" posts submitted to the community and have comments in the replies to those posts. Just something odd I was thinking about.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (2 children)

This is because of the way Lemmy solves the "missing responses" problem. ActivityPub doesn't mandate a specific way to federate likes and responses, but the way Mastodon does this causes every server to have different replies and likes.

Lemmy forces the comments and likes to federate by boosting every one of them from the community actor, therefore ensuring that every server sees every comment. On Mastodon, you only see comments made by people someone on your server follows.

This leads to another rather annoying Mastodon problem, where someone will ask a question or pose a problem and will get a million of the same replies because everyone replying thinks they're the first to come up with an answer (as their server shows a small subset of replies). It can look like a storm of reply-guys and probably doesn't help Mastodon gain any popularity.

Lemmy and Mastodon both do this correctly from a spec point of view, but it's an example of how two correct implementations of the same spec can still have trouble interoperating.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (2 children)

It is definitely strange to be on a small server. I'll be like, "wow! This post has 67 likes!" Meanwhile if I view it from a large server it will actually be 1.4k

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

So does that mean that it's unusable to host an instance on mastodon just for yourself?

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

Not at all. You can still search and see everything that you federate with, but posts, likes, etc. will not populate on your server automatically unless you follow them. Otherwise, the entire fediverse would have to populate every minute on your personal server. I don't know how Lemmy handles that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I don’t know how Lemmy handles that.

You also have to subscribe to communities to get their content.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 months ago

That depends on what you want your experience to be. I run a teeny instance, don't give a shit about a Twitter-like experience, and am happy getting content only from my direct follows. It's great!

If you're expecting a deluge of bullshit from randos, definitely go register at one of the big ones instead!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

That's exactly why I don't like Mastodon.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (2 children)

So what's the solution in regards to threading comments rather than having them as top level toots?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Use Lemmy to read Lemmy, unless Mastodon implements threading (which they probably won't).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I have a Mastodon account on a niche server that I'm slowly starting to have feelings for and I have a Lemmy account on a niche server that I have feelings for. It's not using one for the other, it's just about being able to have the best federated experience.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

Mastodon would have to implement support for this.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The automatic hashtags in lemmy since v 19.4 makes it much easier.

See a quick post from me on it here: https://lemmy.ml/post/17563476

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Is this a setting? I'm not seeing it for all posts/comments when I check from mastodon.

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

Only available on Lemmy from 0.19.4, you might be seeing posts from servers using a previous version

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Okay, after testing this some more, it seems that the hashtags are there, they're just not displayed.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Whose responsibility is it to thread comments? Lemmy or Mastodon?

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

I think it’s entirely on mastodon.

They don’t have a “subscribe” mechanism. Only following. And so everything coming from a group like a lemmy community looks like it’s coming from someone you follow, so you see all of their posts.

The alternative, which is also a general problem on mastodon, is that you wouldn’t be able to see any of the comments at all, because you’re not following the users making them.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Is there a likelihood that mastodon will change things?

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

They have a groups implementation on the road map. How long it takes, I don't know ... but mastodon aren't fast generally, so it's not happening soon in all likelihood.

Lemmy devs have taken a look at their spec for it and stated that it's not at all consistent with lemmy's implementation of communities over AP ... so even when it lands it probably won't help that much, at least at first.

Lemmy's communities aren't the only groups on the fediverse. The friendica/hubzilla groups have the same problem with mastodon's handling of groups (they're the only platforms apart from k/mbin that does both groups and users). Mike Macgirvin, the original dev of friendica/hubzilla, doesn't have a high opinion of mastodon's commitment to sensible standards (actually he's been quite scathing in the past). I haven't seen him comment on mastodon's plans for groups, but given his prior criticism I take it as more likely than not that mastodon will do groups in their own way and in a way that won't work well with the other group-based platforms.

Sorry for no links ... this is all impressions and recollections.

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

I've just been reading a bunch of stuff on GitHub, Codeberg and even the AP Discourse. Mastodon implementing FEP-400e while everyone else has already implemented FEP-1b12 is honestly quite shite and wholly disappointing. You would think Mastodon would go out of its way to ensure a healthy Fediverse and instead they actively work against it. Seriously, WTF Mastodon?!?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

From what I've gathered, there's a decent amount of widespread bitterness out there about mastodon and gargron's choices exactly like what you've just expressed.

Mastodon is gargron's personal project. He runs exactly how he wants to and doesn't care too much about what others think. Except it's the one big player on the fediverse and has been put there because of a lot of other people's work and adoption.

It's influence and dominance over the fediverse is likely a serious problem because of exactly what you're talking about. There was a moment last year when fedi-enthusiasts kinda realised that some platform diversity is likely necessary in the fedi microblogging space. Some efforts were made (firefish was the one I was closest to), but no real inroads were made.

Personally, I'd like to help the threadiverse (lemmy and other group-first platforms) provide that diversity. I think these platforms can grow into providing user-based features similar to k/mbin but in a way that's not beholden to the microblogging baggage of twitter while also providing other features, structures and spaces.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I was really hopeful about FireFish and then it kinda went to hell. That said, Lemmy has done well to stand firm. Hopefully we continue to see growth in that aspect. Looking at what Discourse and NodeBB are doing, perhaps the Threadiverse will have to the numbers to force Mastodon to act like a team player.

One thing I'll say though. If the apps for the other microblogging services didn't suck, I think more people would use them.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yea I was part of the firefish hype from pretty early ... it was a sad moment for the fediverse.

Discourse and NodeBB developments are definitely awesome to see!

The other microblogging services have apps? Like akkoma ... has a mobile app? Is that what you mean?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

IceShrimp is still pretty good

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

yea, heard good things.

The thing about firefish is that at the time there was still an energy among newcomers to mastodon to look for and even build new things. It's death and the way it happened genuinely burned some people I think and definitely let an opportunity slip.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This thread would've been better on ML where it's in the developers line of sight

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

This needs to be fixed by Mastodon developers, and I doubt they browse Lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Thanks for jumping in

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Indeed, definitely not ideal

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Off topic: why are you on sopuli this week?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Reddhat has a few speed issues since version 0.19.5, sopuli is faster. I really hope I'll be able to get back to Reddthat, but for the moment I'm here

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Meanwhile, Mbin's over here like, "what am I? chopped liver?"

It's basically Lemmy and Mastodon rolled into one.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The main issue I see with Mbin now is the lack of apps for iOS. I know there is Interstellar for Android, do you know if there is any planned for iOS?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

As a person who uses Mbin on iOS, I'm really surprised no app support is an issue for people. It's really easy for me to use in the browser. I'm not saying this to put down people who want an app, I want to understand what an app would have that makes it better. I'm curious.