@teezeh You’ll have to Google it because I don’t have the mental bandwidth to keep re-explaining it.

@atomicpoet I know that it is called Pixelfeld. Just wanted you to edit your hashtag typo

@teezeh It’s not a typo. It’s called Piefed. It is not like Pixelfed whatsoever.

@atomicpoet hmmm, I'll have to dig into that some more then.

I am coming from the mental model of things like Mastodon, Pixelfed, and Lemmy - all of those seem to require their own account. I can't take my social.lol account and just go.

Any maybe I'm not explaining it right. I am thinking more of using one account as a central identity that can interact with the different ActivityPub services natively.

Evan :nonbinary_heart: You should be able to cross post from Mastodon to Lemmy by tagging the community name. Replace the ! with @. But in my experience, this has been spotty with Lemmy.

Piefed, however, can consistently cross post from Mastodon and has not failed me yet. Which is why I prefer Piefed over Lemmy. That and better moderation tools and community portability.

@atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org I know I'm missing out... But I'm not sure if it matters.

@atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org Would my life be improved with any of what you are talking about? You're talking about forums, and the forums that I have been interested in the past have been ones that are often hard enough to even get people involved with them. Not that a "big" broad platform isn't of interest. I've tried to run such things.

Thanks for not asking for that answer.

Jigme Datse And I’m not sure how you define what matters.

Jigme Datse I’m just speaking from experience. After starting several communities on Piefed, I’ve found it surprisingly easy to get people engaged.

Cross-posting there has actually led to more thoughtful comments—often from folks who share my exact interests.

That’s been my story. Yours may be different.

@atomicpoet @lippyduck

...right...?

@Mark_Harbinger @lippyduck Mastodon doesn’t officially support communities yet, and treats them almost like user accounts. You could subscribe but you’d have to replace the `!` with `@`, and functionality would be limited. That’s why I ask.

@atomicpoet @lippyduck

Ahh, Thank You for the explanation! From your OP ("just the Fediverse") I believed what you were describing was integrated.

But you were posting about apples and I was trying to find oranges. Now it makes sense.

I'll google the Lemmy server thing and explore it. It truly does sound interesting.

Thank you again for helping me understand.

Peace!

@Mark_Harbinger @lippyduck Nothing is integrated like it is on a centralized service because the Fediverse is largely open source. It’s a bazaar, not a cathedral. A little bit disorganized, sure. But also more cool and interesting stuff.

@atomicpoet @Mark_Harbinger Ah. I feel it was fair to assume it would work on Mastodon since it was posted on Mastodon. Thanks for clarifying. Didn't particularly want to subscribe to anything but thought it was time to see how it actually worked.

lippyduck Mark Harbinger Actually, this wasn’t posted on Mastodon at all—I don’t use Mastodon. I use Akkoma.

You’re seeing it on your Mastodon account because Mastodon isn’t a closed system. It’s part of the Fediverse, which lets different platforms talk to each other. So my messages don’t “work on Mastodon”—you’re receiving them because Mastodon and Akkoma can communicate.

Same idea with Lemmy and Piefed. They’re not Mastodon add-ons. They’re their own platforms that can talk across the Fediverse.

@atomicpoet @Mark_Harbinger Right. Funny I didn't twig that you aren't on Mastodon though I see why. I'm familiar with the concept of Fediverse and some of the other systems/applications out there. I thought your post would be an opportunity to try it in practice.

lippyduck Mark Harbinger Ah! Well, if you’d like to see this in practice, here’s a post that originates on my Akkoma server. Notice the handle tagged at the end:

Which resulted in the post being crossposted to Piefed:

Which automagically gets federated to Lemmy:

You can also see it on mastodon.social if you search for @videogames@piefed.social—but it won’t look as nice as on Piefed or Lemmy.

@atomicpoet @Mark_Harbinger Very impressive. Thanks.

@lippyduck @atomicpoet

Agreed. Much appreciated for the explainer

However, the fediverse is also still a techno-feudal fiefdom (run by various admins).

That there is a plurality of instances and admins is a mitigating factor for the worst symptoms of technofeudalism; but it isn't *necessarily* any more indicative of democratic values (free speech, representation) that Bluesky or even Xitter.

If we ever get democracy back, it will have to include (truly) public-owned and -run Social Media.

Mark Harbinger lippyduck There’s actually a few co-operatively owned Fediverse servers operating. I, myself, am starting one up for PeerTube.

No matter how you slice it, there is a cost for running a Fediverse server. Which is also true of anything on the Internet. And also life.