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Mastodon handles lemmy communities a bit strangely, doesn't it?

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

    • 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.

      • Is there a likelihood that mastodon will change things?

        • 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.

          • 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?!?

            • 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.

              • 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.

                • 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?

                  • They don't have apps and the sparse few apps available aren't as good as Moshidon.

                  • IceShrimp is still pretty good

                    • 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.

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