No, groups really are for #Mastodon, not just #Lemmy.
In fact, you can post to a Lemmy group, and interact with it, from Mastodon.
RE: sopuli.xyz/comment/14883420
Communities are for Lemmy and hashtags are for Mastodon.They each make sense in their proper context.
Hashtags do not replace groups.
No one moderates them. They’re easy to hijack and spam. And there’s simply no permanence to them.
Which is why, if you actually want to discuss something, it’s better to tag a group. For example, if you want to be part of an actual PC gaming community on the Fediverse, it’s better to tag @pcgaming@lemmy.ca than #pcgaming.
This needs to be common knowledge because people new to the Fediverse do not know about groups. Hell, I’d say people who have had Mastodon accounts for years still don’t know. And that’s a shame.
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TBH I think a lot of people (including me) have a very sketchy idea of how the different bits of the Fediverse link together... I'm still a bit vague about how my #Mastodon and #Pixelfed accounts could work better together.
There's a lot of *assumed knowledge* about the #Fediverse ... and people don't want to ask 'stupid' questions because they don't want to 'look stupid'. There needs to be easily accessible and explicit step by step instructions *to get people started*.
Where could I find a group about #ux or #humancentredesign for example? Or #photography ?
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@Coolmccool The best way to explain #Pixelfed is that it’s an Instagram-like front-end for the Fediverse. But practically speaking, it’s Mastodon if pictures were a requirement on Mastodon. You interact with a Pixelfed account from Mastodon in much the same way you interact with another Mastodon account, or how you’re interacting with my Akkoma account right now. It really is just like email.
Regarding group topics, the best way to find them is to do a search on a place like lemmy.world or lemmy.ca. For example, uiux@programming.dev is one. And you can find the URL here:
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@jwcph @Coolmccool The best way to understand the Fediverse is not as a collection of servers but instead as actors that implement activities.
You are an actor. A Lemmy community is an actor. A bot is an actor. An app is an actor.
All these things do certain activities. One activity is to like a post. Another activity is to repost.
And all these apps like Mastodon are just presenting these actors/activities in a certain format.
Hope that explains things.
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No, those concepts aren’t for everyday users. It’s for developers. For the same reason a homeowner doesn’t need to know the ins and out of architecture, an everyday user does not need to know about the architecture of the Fediverse.
Nevertheless, it’s how ActivityPub works—and I will go more in depth in a future thread for those who want to know.
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@Coolmccool That's not what people are asking - they're asking "How does it work *for me*?".
"Like email or phones" again still only explains in the abstract, that you can connect with anyone in the same way as those things. It still doesn't explain how to use it or how it solves the things people would like to solve.
People are asking for a driver's license & you're telling them how a combustion engine turns gasoline into mechanical motion.
@jwcph @Coolmccool I’ve explained how to use it: you submit to a group from Mastodon by tagging. In fact, you’re using it right now. Look at one of the accounts you’re mentioning.
Did you not read the original post?
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They each have their own interfaces that work best for their communities and content types. You're always missing something trying to access one from another.
Communities are for Lemmy and hashtags are for Mastodon.
They each make sense in their proper context.
@deegeese Communities are not exclusive to any one platform: you can use Lemmy with Mastodon, and many people do.
Group actors are now an ActivityPub standard.
I've mostly been on the Mastodon corner of the Fediverse, and I think you're right... this isn't wildly known and/or has been explained poorly.
I've had the sense there's more to groups on the Fediverse, but nobody's really mentioned where to find high quality active groups and how to interact with them outside of the ones on a.gup.pe.
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@group@exampleserver.com.
@nikkiana I, for one, would definitely love that. Started reading this thread thinking I knew how the fedi worked and now I feel lost again. After using lemmy, pixelfed, and mastodon I assumed lemmy was just doing weird shit to be more like reddit, but groups are a thing? How are they different from a user or a hashtag? How are they created and moderared? If mentioning the group makes me publish there, how is is joined, following the "account"? So groups are like auto-boost bots?
Sorry if it's too many dumb questions, we definitely need better guides for this. Seems like a useful feature wasted
The tricky part is, the group-supporting fediverse software and the microblogging software need to improve how they interact for this to be as good as it could be.
Right now Mastodon barely supports group users/actors/accounts, however they're called, translating stuff from Lemmy's format in a rather clunky way. Meanwhile Lemmy also has to roughly translate Mastodon's format to its own, working pretty well all things considering, but leaving clear artifacts (subject line/first line repeating, community mention remaining shown, etc.).
@BenDoubleU But again, a big reason I recommend groups over hashtags is because you can remove spam from a group, whereas with a hashtag, you cannot.
So… will that increase spam? Not if moderators actually do their jobs.
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It’s not “throwing the onus onto someone else.” The onus has always been on us.
@atomicpoet @BenDoubleU I feel it's worth pointing out in this context that from the perspective of a Masto server, this thread features several accounts with no avi, bio, follows or followers. I assume they're the Lemmy accounts?
As a Twitter vet I've developed an aversion to engaging *at all* with newly-created accounts lacking properly fleshed-out profiles!
But it's still cool there's these options. Perhaps the integration will improve?
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@breakfastmtn Thanks. So far I've tried Friendica, Misskey and Hubzilla, as well as three different Mastodon servers. So I do understand that Masto is not the whole fedi.
It's just that so far as I was concerned, "Lemmy" is a dead rock star who had a penchant for Nazi memorabilia.
I'd never heard of it as a fedi service until Chris' post, yesterday! 🤷♂️
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@The Sleight Doctor 🃏 You should check it out. Lemmy's great! Interoperability is terrific but I think the way information and discussion are displayed in Lemmy* is superior for deeper dives and being "in" a discussion. Not at all a knock on Mastodon, which is perfect for what it is. They're just trying to be different things that have different strengths 😀
- PieFed and mbin too, the other "threadiverse" projects
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@breakfastmtn Thanks for the tips! I'm always looking to "spread out" my online presence. Been stung before by entrusting way too much to one service, then having to abandon all my hard work overnight.
That's why I'm here. 😊
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Also it whould be neat to somehow see from the handle itself if it's a group or not. It's the case with the classic å.gup.pe, but I can't derive that from lemmy.ca without having to look it up.
I also find it father difficult to find groups, because the default ActivityPub-Search doesn't work that way and groups are just special users.
That's why I like a.gup.pe, it sounds a bit like Gruppe in german. Which doesn't help internationally, something like gro.up oder a subdomain including group whould be helpful and make the seqrch for groups easier, because then it's part of the name.
I think this is also more of a comprehension problem in the Fediverse or the mastodons that are closing themselves off
If you always think a little outside the box, then #lemmy is already a term.
That's what happens when you shorten communication about the Fediverse to ‘mastodon only’, it excludes so much that would help
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@atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org@fediverse@lemmy.world@mapto@masto.bg
Michael Chrisco
in reply to Chris Trottier • • •Chris Trottier
in reply to Michael Chrisco • • •nikkiana
in reply to Chris Trottier • • •I mean, in a lot of cases it's not obvious what type of Fediverse software you're interacting with, and it strikes me depending on what the UX of your favored Fediverse entry point uses, there are different conventions of acceptable use.
People who expect microblogging length answers sometimes get offput by a blog length or message board length response, microbloggers could seem out of pocket with their brief replies to someone who primarily uses a conversational message board style, etc.
Chris Trottier
in reply to nikkiana • • •@nikkiana But this is why people have to be trained out of their mental models away from how social media is supposed to “work”.
I’m someone who writes long posts all the time. When I started, people complained. Now everyone who follows me expects to see long posts.
Basically, it should be assumed that a post that appears on Mastodon may not be from Mastodon. And Mastodon should make that assumption apparent.
Mathias Hellquist (Friendica)
in reply to Chris Trottier • • •@Chris Trottier
I most often read and interact with Lemmy content from my Friendica instance. Just to complicate things further. Or, perhaps, to reinforce your point that the platform itself shouldn't be of importance, and shouldn't matter. 😀