Hey 👋 if you don’t know us already, we’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 that’s to say the language that follows assumes some knowledge about how Bluesky and atproto work! I’ve tried to include links to explain what all of the jargon means though, so hopefully it’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.
Reminder that as of now, there is no independent Bluesky server open for registration: https://feddit.org/post/2656676
The interoperability issues between Mastodon and Lemmy come from Mastodon, which doesn’t really seem interested in correcting that: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/17008
Unpopular opinion: IDK why people want perfect interop so much, I have a Mastodon account and a Lemmy account, big deal. We’ve got bigger fish to fry than this. The formats are different enough that you’re better off having separate accounts for microblogging and threadiverse.
Interop for similar platforms is a great feature, but for dissimilar platforms I don’t think it’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 Mastodon’s fault lol. Probably because they were early to the party and didn’t have to worry about interop and standards much back then. At least I hope it isn’t malicious lol.
Don’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 😁)
But yeah, see no reason for interop between platforms with completely different purposes.
yea idk, it’s maybe like a fun bonus sometimes, but it’s kinda like trying to put the square peg into the circle hole (where it doesn’t fit, unlike the famous meme video lol)
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 it’ll work exceedingly well. If the ap-net corner of the fediverse isn’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 that’s the version of the fediverse I will pursue.
the promise of seamless interop between my social apps was what brought me to the fediverse, so that’s the version of the fediverse I will pursue.
That’s fair.
For some other people the appeal of the Fediverse is to be able to manage the instances themselves, and Bluesky still isn’t there yet on that side (and probably won’t, as it would prevent them from generating revenue if someone can just open a server and connect to their network)
I also want interoperability between microblogging and threaded services, but unfortunately I’m a little skeptical about the account mirroring concept. Or, at least, I’d like more details about it.
Do users need to opt-in to have their accounts mirrored, like how they do with brid.gy right now? If there are a bunch of users with Bluesky accounts that don’t have Frontpage accounts, that would mess with the ability to have all comments showing up between the two services, and it would prevent some people from posting a comment on someone else’s comment if one of the commenters has not opted-in to have their account mirrored. Or, can a plain Bluesky account comment on Frontpage threads, but not start a thread?
I like the idea of being able to quote-post link aggregator threads to your Bluesky account, but I think ideally this would only require one account. Which would mean you could also use your Bluesky account to start a thread on Frontpage.
I also think that this is how it should be. Initially I thought I wouldn’t need multiple accounts for the fediverse. Right now I’m more active on Bluesky than on Mastodon so it would be great to have an AT Protocol equivalent to Lemmy/Reddit and all that without having to create a new account for it.
Bluesky is not a part of the fediverse. If they don’t want to use standards and the devs cry about how it is absolutely impossible to integrate the features of ATProto into ActivityPub, then they can fuck off.
How does your comment relate to my comment?
How does it not relate to your comment?
I never said that Bluesky is part of the fediverse for example and the rest of your comment seems to me like it should be directed to OP or devs of ATProto and not me.
Who said I directed my complaints at you?
I don’t think automatic crossposting is a good idea. However some way to “boost” Mastodon posts onto Lemmy would be good. Mbin has a way of boosting but can’t assign a magazine. Something like that may work though. Mastodon can already boost Lemmy posts.
I’m hoping that this will “just work” when Mastodon gets quite-posting. You could take a Mastodon post, and then quote-post it into a community by mentioning that community’s name.
This would create a separate thread of replies, which is good. A person shouldn’t be able to suddenly thrust a bunch of community replies onto someone else’s post. So basically it’s what quote-posting is for, but sharing it with a community instead of just your own followers.
I think support for boosts is a game changer for interoperability. As a Mastodon user I wouldn’t really want to follow a community even if it was well implemented, but I’m happy to follow users who boost content I’m interested in.
Boosting content is the way posts spread on Mastodon. If anyone follows me from Mastodon they will see all the content I boost; if they enjoy it, they might re-boost to their followers and the ball starts rolling. And that’s how you suddenly get comment sections where Mastodon users are actively participating.
I have a question, and I’m legitimately asking in good faith, because I am confused by this obsession about Mastodon compatibility.
Basically, why?
Mastodon doesn’t give a shit about being a good citizen and very much has issues they’ve said they won’t fix. And frankly, if Mastodon devs don’t appear to care, why is everyone else so concerned about it?
Let them silo into their own little safe space, and maybe push people to use other platforms that ARE willing to be good Fedi-citizens.
(Also I hate how Masto-user posts show up with the @s and endless hashtags: they don’t conform to how Lemmy posts look and work, and I’d legitimately consider just blocking all the Mastodon posters until they don’t look and feel weird and out of place.)
And frankly, if Mastodon devs don’t appear to care, why is everyone else so concerned about it?
Some people think that because Mastodon and Lemmy are both using ActivityPub, Lemmy could gain some users if Mastodon users could interact with Lemmy.
But this seems to overlook that microblogging and link aggregation are two very different ways to interact with content.
Reddit probably has the highest reserve for potential Lemmy users, just because they are more used to link aggregators.
I mean, I’m not opposed to more users from larger platforms, but right now it’s a shitty experience for Mastodon users trying to follow a Lemmy community, and it’s a shitty experience for Lemmy users when a Mastodon user posts into a community too.
You need BOTH sides to make concessions and fixes and changes to make the experience not shit, and like, that will is just plain not there.
I also agree that the use cases of the platforms are wildly different and that leads to some added friction, but if the software actually interoperated well you could probably fix that with just polite social pressure.
But, well, neither side of this “interoperability” is… useful, and Mastodon doesn’t seem interested to fix it.
I also think recruiting new users might be a more useful use of time than trying to just rely on poaching them from somewhere else, but uh, I couldn’t tell you really how that should or could be done.
Agreed with most of your points
I also think recruiting new users might be a more useful use of time than trying to just rely on poaching them from somewhere else, but uh, I couldn’t tell you really how that should or could be done.
/r/RedditAlternatives is basically the one place we have now. We mention Lemmy there regularly, so hopefully over time it will work.
That’s kind of my comment: pulling from Reddit is probably pointless. If you’re still on reddit at this point, there’s nothing short of Spez showing up and killing your cat that’s going to make you leave.
The Fediverse in general needs to think about being more than just a ‘we copied twitter’, and a ‘we copied youtube’, and a ‘we copied instagram’ and of course a ‘we copied reddit’ collection of things, because you can’t pull people from the thing you’re copying unless you’re better in some way that a normal person will care about.
And I use all these fedi-things to the (mostly) exclusion of the commercial versions, but if we’re being very honest, they’re all carrying a lot of rough edges still.
The Fediverse needs to be able to define and sell itself to people without having to say ‘we’re like x’. If you can’t explain what you’re doing and why someone should care in a way that makes them care, nobody will.
(This is what I get for spending time with people who do marketing stuff, I guess, lol.)
If you’re still on reddit at this point, there’s nothing short of Spez showing up and killing your cat that’s going to make you leave.
There are a few reasons why people on Reddit prefer to stay there rather than move elsewhere
- the other place lacks content
- the other place does not have their specific niche communities
- Reddit is still okay to use
We are kind of working on the first one (and anyway, the only way to get content is to get more and more users)
For the second one, that’s something even harder to tackle. !newcommunities@lemmy.world tries to fill that gap, but same as above, it needs more users.
The third one is the most interesting. At some point in the future, Reddit is going to kill old.reddit. By that time, people will look for an alternative, and if they know about Lemmy, they’ll give it a try.
unless you’re better in some way that a normal person will care about.
Lemmy is better than Reddit on the following points:
- Third party apps actively developed
- No ads hiding as posts
- Cleaner web interfaces
It’s just not enough at the moment, as stated above.
Yeah, I think Lemmy and Mastodon should be made even more separate than they are currently, they are different platforms with different styles, goals, and uses.
It should be a toggle able setting but whata the issue with @ and # ?
I mean, by themselves, nothing.
The issue is the posting and visibility requirements for a Mastodon post lead to some ugly garbage when translated here. You get shit like
@community @user1 @user2 @otheruser Yep, I agree, this could be better #hashtag #hashtag2 #hashtag3 #hashtag4
Which uh, is not really parsed in any meaningful way, and is 75% noise when put into the format Lemmy uses for a post and/or reply.
I think tags need to be interoperable so tags become sudo communities
@erlend_sh hello from Mastodon!
Why isn’t anyone mentioning Kbin? Isn’t that basically already a lemmy/mastodon mix
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 “out of the place” the same way it would in a Lemmy community
Makes sense. But your feed contains both mastodon posts and lemmy posts iirc?
The homepage contains the communities (e.g. Lemmy): https://fedia.io/
The microblog page contains the… microblogs (e.g. Mastodon): https://fedia.io/microblog
That’s why I said it’s two different views, you can’t have everything at the same time, it’s one or the other
@Blaze@feddit.org 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@lemmy.world @FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone
Thanks!
@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.
If I understand correctly, there’s a central pump running behind the scenes in any AT implementation. You feed content into the central hub, and it pumps it out to everyone connected to it. Bluesky itself provides the one major pump that feeds its network right now.
So in that sense, Bluesky is a centralised network with decentralized users.
Frontpage is building a different pump, spreading different kind of content to a different type of platform. So there’s no obvious connection between the Bluesky pump and the Frontpage pump - that’s why they’re talking about bridging in the post.
It almost seems a bit silly - in order for two AT hubs to talk, you need to build a bridge for them. At that point, you could might as well have built an AP protocol and made it work with Bridgy.fed.
Furthermore, all “instances” running Frontpage would process data through the same central hub. If that goes down or they run out of funding, it’s all over.
I’m applauding the Frontpage crowd for trying something new. But I’m not entirely convinced I see the benefit compared to what we’re doing over here.
I don’t want Lemmy and Mastodon to interop…
Though luck, they are interpretations already and have been doing it since the beginning.
The first comment I ever made to a Lemmy community was via Mastodon - that’s how I found out about Lemmy in the first place.
Tried Masto and Pixelfed, left after The Great Sellout to Meta. Trying Lemmy for now but it’s limited in breadth and scope.
I’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 aren’t going to care as much about quantity, more about quality and features.
I’d like to block every wealthy narcissist and never read their name or see their troubled insane faces in posts, I’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, I’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 Piefed’s ability to filter and not Lemmys militaristic intentional inability to do so.
Masto filtered, but doesn’t migrate well and now federates with the shitasses on Meta, which I don’t want to consort with or support. If I want to sign up for Meta it’s not hard, but I haven’t ever done so and don’t need coercive help from fake empaths running .social instances. I’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 it’s forbidding to many with all the unknown choices.
If Frontpage, someday, can also interpolate comments and vote between the softwares that survive, that’d be a nice thing to add to a browser that’s already familiar to new users.
But I think it’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.
The Great Sellout to Meta.
Is this Great Sellout in the room with us right now? Because Meta did implement an open protocol into Threads, but it has been widely blocked by other ActivityPub instances. That is not a “sellout”.
Sounds like your principles will only lead you off social media, perhaps the internet entirely?
