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.

@fediverse@lemmy.world

  • deegeese@sopuli.xyz
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    5 hours ago

    Communities are for Lemmy and hashtags are for Mastodon.

    They each make sense in their proper context.

      • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
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        3 hours ago

        I have heard of the opposite. Mastodon users can see and comment on lemmy posts, but i have yet to discover how to view mastodon post from lemmy.

        If it is indeed possible can you or anyone elaborate how to?

        • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 @pawb.social
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          3 hours ago

          The mastadon user posting the thing needs to tag the Lemmy community in their post and then it will show up like any other post on Lemmy. You wouldn’t even know it’s from Mastodon unless they said so in the post.

          • catloaf@lemm.ee
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            2 hours ago

            You can usually tell it’s from Mastodon because it’s got a couple dozen hashtags scattered throughout the post and a dozen more users and communities tagged.

        • Kichae@lemmy.ca
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          3 hours ago

          You have misread their comment and understood it backwards. AP’s saying people on Mastodon are engaging in Lemmy discussions.

          There is no way to follow Mastodon users from Lemmy. Lemmy simply does not work that way.

          • OpenStars@piefed.social
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            2 hours ago

            Hrmmm… at a (strong) guess, PieFed does. You can follow anything, like a community, post, comment (even ones you do not own), or a user account. You would get Notifications triggered every time they post something, I believe. Including comments as well as posts, but again just a guess.

            It’s a great way to follow a low-volume something or other! At higher volumes… it can get a bit much, but at least the tools are available, and you can always wipe all Notifications at once if need be.

      • deegeese@sopuli.xyz
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        3 hours ago

        You’re not the first to suggest it, but I still haven’t seen anyone do more than linking one from the other. This feels as inconsequential as posting a Twitter screenshot on Reddit. Is there a deeper integration possible?

  • ElectroVagrant@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    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.).

    • Chris Trottier@atomicpoet.orgOP
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      4 hours ago

      @ElectroVagrant@lemmy.world With time, that stuff will be ironed out. Group support is in Mastodon’s road map. Now Mastodon develops very slowly, so take that with a grain of salt. But the point is that groups are coming to Mastodon… eventually.

  • BenDoubleU@lemmy.radio
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    4 hours ago

    I’m all for it as long as people know that posting on something like mastodon and tagging a lemmy community will then make a post in that community. Could make for great discussions, but could also lead to a lot of posts/spam in the communities.

    • Chris Trottier@atomicpoet.orgOP
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      4 hours ago

      @BenDoubleU@lemmy.radio 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.

      • BenDoubleU@lemmy.radio
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        3 hours ago

        As an instance owner and moderator: that’s a horrible way to look at things. Just throwing the onus onto someone else is irresponsible.

        • atomicpoet@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          I’m an instance owner too (see atomicpoet.org and akkomane.social). Speaking as an instance owner, it’s our fundamental job to moderate. 

          It’s not “throwing the onus onto someone else.” The onus has always been on us.

  • CoolMcCool@mastodon.au
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    5 hours ago

    @atomicpoet @fediverse 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 ?

    • Chris Trottier@atomicpoet.orgOP
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      4 hours ago

      @Coolmccool@mastodon.au @fediverse@lemmy.world 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:

      https://programming.dev/c/uiux

    • Steve@communick.news
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      4 hours ago

      I have literally zero interest in cross pollination between social media types.
      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.

      • shnizmuffin@lemmy.inbutts.lol
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        If you have zero interest in the fundamental architecture of the fediverse, why are you in this community? You’re probably interacting with “cross pollination” way more than you realize.

        • Steve@communick.news
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          3 hours ago

          I follow topics and have discussions on Lemmy, keep up with individuals and announcements on Mastodon, and look at cool photos on Pixelfed.
          None of my accounts are following anything on other systems.

          The reason I’m in this community is for discussions like this. We disagree on the nature of using he fundamental architecture of the Fediverse.
          I think using Mastodon to engage in Lemmy discussions is extremely awkward without the threading to keep it all organized. Equally, Lemmy is designed specifically around following communities. Following individuals on Mastodon breaks the pattern of the feed. And good luck following either Mastodon accounts or Lemmy groups in Pixelfed.

          However, having multiple decentralized servers within each system, is plenty of reason for the Fediverse to be better than a centralized platform. They don’t Need to interoperate with each other.

            • atomicpoet@lemmy.world
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              3 hours ago

              Mastodon is terrible for topical discussions because people don’t use groups. But they can if they knew how to use them.

              You may say the system was not designed for cross-pollination, but the fundamental system is not Mastodon, and it’s not Lemmy: it’s ActivityPub.

              Now do all these apps implement ActivityPub imperfectly? Yes. But eventually, some app will get it right—ideally one that will let you choose your preferred UI/UX on the fly.

                • atomicpoet@lemmy.world
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                  3 hours ago

                  Not only is it possible, there’s lots of Fediverse software that’s just designed to be a “dumb server” akin to Nginx. For example, appy:

                  https://appy.cat/

                  Now the reason this stuff hasn’t caught fire yet is because we’re just now moving away from “Fediverse = Mastodon”. So the idea of federation itself isn’t just a paradigm shift, it’s a complete system shock that disrupts our mental models for how social media is supposed to work.