Thank you to all the developers and instance administrators! 💓

(Shame on those who stir up controversy for ideological reasons, seeking the worst in people who dedicate their time to improving the technology that enables the use of an open social web! 👿🤬)

Be careful—you’re getting a few things mixed up.

Lemmy is software built around the concept of “communities.” A Lemmy user isn’t focused on what individual users write; rather, they are interested in what is being posted within the specific communities that interest them!

Therefore, it makes perfect sense that you wouldn’t see content from Mastodon users if they haven’t consented to being visible to you.

In fact, if a Mastodon user chooses (via opt-out) to post within a Lemmy community, you will see that content—provided that you are also subscribed to that community.

Conversely, a Mastodon user will generally see your content in the following three scenarios:

1. If they follow you, or if they follow someone who follows you.
2. If they follow someone who “reposts” (or “retweets”) your content.
3. If someone on your instance follows you, or follows someone who “reposts” your content.

Note that when I say “someone who reposts your content,” that “someone” could be another Mastodon user, but it could also be the Lemmy community where you are posting. In effect, these communities function as special ActivityPub users; Mastodon perceives them as such—for instance, the community https://lemmy.world/c/fediverse appears to Mastodon as the user @fediverse@lemmy.world.

Bridging the “social-verse” (social networks) and the “forum-verse” (discussion forums) has always been an important goal for me. I’ve made an effort to inform Mastodon users about this through posts like this one: https://www.informapirata.it/2024/01/02/mastodon-tips-how-to-use-friendica-groups-forums-and-lemmy-communities/

…but it’s clear that Mastodon users—and, more importantly, Mastodon administrators—aren’t particularly interested in connecting their users with communities on platforms like Lemmy, PieFed, MBin, or NodeBB. Fortunately, there are some positive developments on the social side:

• There is an app for Mastodon called “Raccoon for Friendica” that makes managing groups easier for Mastodon users. (It’s called “Raccoon for Friendica” because it originated for Friendica, but more importantly, its developer previously worked on an app for Lemmy.)
• A fork of Misskey called “Catodon” offers excellent support for ActivityPub groups, potentially ushering in a new era that bridges the “socialverse” and the “forumverse.”

There are also interesting updates on the forum side: NodeBB now allows administrators to forcibly “move” initial posts into a specific category (in NodeBB, “communities” are referred to as “categories,” but they still function as ActivityPub groups). While this move isn’t visible to other instances within the “forumverse” (such as Lemmy or other NodeBB instances), it is visible to “social” users—because the “category” effectively “boosts” the moved post, allowing social users who follow that community to see it.

I’m not familiar with Piefed, but it would be great if the Lemmy developers took two steps:

1. Introduce a feature similar to NodeBB’s, allowing posts to be moved within a community.
2. Find a way to make this move “visible” across the board—so that it’s not just users on the local instance or those on social platforms who see the change, but also users on other “forum” instances!

However, there could also be negative developments. The most likely risk, in my view, is that the “little dictator” (Mastodon) might decide to implement ActivityPub groups in its own idiosyncratic way—one that is, predictably, incompatible with the “forumverse.” Given how they implemented “quote-retweets,” I’d say that bad news is more likely than good news…

Have you ever tried Flohmarkt? Flohmarkt is a decentralized app for buying, selling, and bartering in the Fediverse that allows you to post items for sale or to give away. Because it’s federated, users of other platforms (e.g., Mastodon) can interact, view listings, and contact sellers directly via private messages.

https://wedistribute.org/2024/08/flohmarkt-federated-market/

oh, a clarification: I’m still @macfranc@poliversity.it

I’m a fan of Lemmy, though I recognize that some limitations could be considered flaws (https://piefed.social/comment/11707767).

However, your perspective must take into account some design (and history) issues with the software you mentioned:

Lemmy barely works with PeerTube [discuss.tchncs.de]

It’s important to understand a few concepts here:

• Lemmy is based on Activitypub groups
• A group works by “resharing” an initial post and all replies to that post
• With some programs (Mastodon’s “socialverse,” Misskey, Pleroma, Friendica, or Pixelfed), you can “post inside a group” only by mentioning the “group user”; with others (Lemmy/Piefed/Mbin/NodeBB’s forumverse, but also Peertube, Mobilizon, or Flipboard), you simply assign a discussion to a group (you can do this easily from the interface). This second mode doesn’t yet have a syntax shared by all the software in the Fediverse.
• Finally, a very important feature of Lemmy is that a post can only be published to one channel at a time. This might seem like a limitation (we’ll discuss it later, when talking about Flipboard), but it’s actually designed by the developers to prevent synchronous crossposting, which can dramatically increase spam.

Lemmy handles the display of Peertube content very well and correctly assigns it to the correct Peertube channel. What doesn’t work well is the update system, which is why Lemmy can’t act as a Peertube feed reader. This isn’t Lemmy’s fault, nor is it Peertube’s, as each handles Activitypub groups differently.

Lemmy doesn’t work with Pixelfed [discuss.tchncs.de]

That’s not true. Lemmy handles Pixelfed very well. Pixelfed users can open threads on Lemmy or reply to Lemmy discussions. However, Pixelfed only shows users retweets made by Pixelfed, not those from other software. Therefore, Pixelfed users cannot access the groups. Regarding your user, I’d like to point out that feddit.it can see it: https://feddit.it/u/NotAHopeInHades@pixelfed.social

Lemmy doesn’t work with Loops [discuss.tchncs.de]

Loops is still a very immature software, with very limited interoperability. I wouldn’t consider it a valid test for certifying Lemmy’s functionality. Regarding your user, I’d like to point out that feddit.it can see it: https://feddit.it/u/spaceotter@loops.video

Lemmy doesn’t work with Micro.blog [discuss.tchncs.de]

I’m not familiar with Microblog, but (regarding your user) I’d like to point out that feddit.it can see it: https://feddit.it/u/akshay@social.learnlearn.in

Lemmy doesn’t seem to work with Flipboard

Flipboard uses groups to manage the “magazines” of the “main accounts.” Magazines are the thematic sections of the main account. Basically, the main account (for example, @NationalGeographic@flipboard.com) publishes a news item, and depending on the topic, it can be published in the “Science” Activitypub group (@science-NationalGeographic@flipboard.com) or the “Environment” Activitypub group (@environment-NationalGeographic@flipboard.com), OR both. This design, intended to maximize visibility on the Mastodon audience, is incompatible with Lemmy’s logic. Lemmy, in fact, as I mentioned before, doesn’t allow synchronous crossposting of the same content across multiple groups.

The same goes for Misskey.

Lemmy handles Misskey very well. And Misskey handles Lemmy very well. I don’t understand the problem.

A blog requires a platform designed for blogging. Staying within the realm of federated software, the three natural alternatives are:

1. WordPress, which, thanks to the plugin that makes it compatible with Activitypub, has achieved a level of perfect integration with the Fediverse.
2. Ghost, which, federated a few months ago, is not only a blogging platform but is also specifically designed for creating mailing lists based on the Substack model.
3. Writefreely, which, despite being natively federated, is extremely focused on distraction-free writing and therefore has some seriously limiting features.

Friendica

As for Friendica, I’m a huge fan of that software and manage the second-most active instance in the entire Fediverse. I can assure you that I know it well and appreciate all its most important features. But don’t be fooled by the fact that some call it macro-blogging software. In fact, if you visit a Friendica account’s profile, it’s not possible to filter the Timeline of their posts from the Timeline of the posts they’ve reshared. So, you could virtually create a page like this:

https://poliverso.org/profile/saio

But you could only do that if you don’t share too much other content, otherwise the result would be like this:

https://poliverso.org/profile/notizie

which would be much more confusing 😅

However, Friendica is a very powerful software that allows you to republish your blog feed, as well as automatically reshare your federated blogs. Here I’ve listed some very interesting Friendica features for blogging:

https://poliverso.org/display/0477a01e-1366-ebfd-2002-91a370393480

So, to recap, if you want to use Friendica to create your blog, you can: you can create a new account. Remember to define it as a “page account,” if possible, but also remember that when you reshare content you like, it will appear on your profile page. However, if you don’t need the full suite of tools that characterize a social media platform, you’re better off using WordPress.

Sharkey

We’re talking about software with a very nice interface, but it’s still a social networking software. Being essentially a fork of Misskey, it also has a section for creating static pages that can be easily viewed from outside the Fediverse, but these pages can’t be federated with Activitypub 😭. Ultimately, it seems even less suitable for creating a blog. If you absolutely must use a Fediverse social media platform, then you’d be better off going with Friendica!

Hubzilla

PS: There’s also a software called Hubzilla, which is compatible with Activitypub, although it has developed its own communication protocol. I’m only mentioning it because it’s a feature-rich and well-designed product, but its interface is quite complex and unfriendly, so although I’ve chosen to mention it, I can’t recommend it as an alternative.

I agree.

Of course, today Friendica is the most suitable software for managing local communities, thanks to the support of Activitypub groups and event calendars, in addition to the possibility of managing accounts shared between multiple users.

However, it must be recognized that it is a cumbersome and counterintuitive interface. If you want to create a project of this kind based on Friends, you must plan for continuous support from the administrators.

At the moment I would not exclude Friendica, but I would also evaluate other solutions:

Lemmy

It is not a social network and users cannot follow other users but can only follow communities. However, it is probably the easiest software in the Fediverse and is made specifically for creating communities.

Mbin

The interface is still dramatically confusing, but users can also follow other users. If it were possible to modify the interface and make it more pleasant, it could be a great option.