What is the current state of Discourse to threadiverse federation?
Fediverso
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I found this article from earlier this year: https://blog.discourse.org/2025/04/discourse-and-the-fediverse/
However, I haven't come across that much content from Discourse platforms over here on Lemmy/Piefed. Is there more work to do with the plugins, or should we work with organizations running Discourse to help them connect with us?
For example, the threadiverse communities for OpenStreetMaps is relatively small, and being able to see / contribute to community.openstreetmap.org would be amazing.
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I found this article from earlier this year: https://blog.discourse.org/2025/04/discourse-and-the-fediverse/
However, I haven't come across that much content from Discourse platforms over here on Lemmy/Piefed. Is there more work to do with the plugins, or should we work with organizations running Discourse to help them connect with us?
For example, the threadiverse communities for OpenStreetMaps is relatively small, and being able to see / contribute to community.openstreetmap.org would be amazing.
I don't see Discourse on https://fedidb.com/software
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I found this article from earlier this year: https://blog.discourse.org/2025/04/discourse-and-the-fediverse/
However, I haven't come across that much content from Discourse platforms over here on Lemmy/Piefed. Is there more work to do with the plugins, or should we work with organizations running Discourse to help them connect with us?
For example, the threadiverse communities for OpenStreetMaps is relatively small, and being able to see / contribute to community.openstreetmap.org would be amazing.
Nodebb is the forum that federates
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I don't see Discourse on https://fedidb.com/software
It does federate for sure but implementation looks quirky.
https://piefed.social/c/3d521c685515520f5f5e6b7046fade13@meta.discourse.org
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Nodebb is the forum that federates
Discourse does too.
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I found this article from earlier this year: https://blog.discourse.org/2025/04/discourse-and-the-fediverse/
However, I haven't come across that much content from Discourse platforms over here on Lemmy/Piefed. Is there more work to do with the plugins, or should we work with organizations running Discourse to help them connect with us?
For example, the threadiverse communities for OpenStreetMaps is relatively small, and being able to see / contribute to community.openstreetmap.org would be amazing.
From a few(3) places that I have asked, It's either they can't due to enterprise hosting requirement on discourse servers or they don't want to due to controversy (CSAM).
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I found this article from earlier this year: https://blog.discourse.org/2025/04/discourse-and-the-fediverse/
However, I haven't come across that much content from Discourse platforms over here on Lemmy/Piefed. Is there more work to do with the plugins, or should we work with organizations running Discourse to help them connect with us?
For example, the threadiverse communities for OpenStreetMaps is relatively small, and being able to see / contribute to community.openstreetmap.org would be amazing.
First of all it's opt in so they have to enable it. Second it's currently broken federating with lemmy. I think they developed it with mastodon in mind. I've already reported how it doesn't federate properly to them last year
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I found this article from earlier this year: https://blog.discourse.org/2025/04/discourse-and-the-fediverse/
However, I haven't come across that much content from Discourse platforms over here on Lemmy/Piefed. Is there more work to do with the plugins, or should we work with organizations running Discourse to help them connect with us?
For example, the threadiverse communities for OpenStreetMaps is relatively small, and being able to see / contribute to community.openstreetmap.org would be amazing.
As far as I can see, you can ask questions and follow categories if the admin sets this up.
Here is an example: events@forum.fedimins.netYou can only post if you connect your Fediverse account to the forum.
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I found this article from earlier this year: https://blog.discourse.org/2025/04/discourse-and-the-fediverse/
However, I haven't come across that much content from Discourse platforms over here on Lemmy/Piefed. Is there more work to do with the plugins, or should we work with organizations running Discourse to help them connect with us?
For example, the threadiverse communities for OpenStreetMaps is relatively small, and being able to see / contribute to community.openstreetmap.org would be amazing.
Discourse decided to do its thread context in a way that's currently incompatible with projects like Mbin or Lemmy. Those expect threads to be represented by some kind of post (Page, Article, Image, etc objects), while Discourse decided to use an OrderedCollection, with the first item being the opening post.
Even if Lemmy decided to add support for OrderedCollection threads, there's another issue though: the barrier for initial federation is too high. Discourse only gives you the fediverse handle of its categories, but to federate them in, you need their JSON-LD URL, not the handle. And Discourse decided to use separate URLs for its HTML and JSON-LD pages, with no way to derive the latter from the former. So to initiate federation with a Discourse category, you have to manually do a WebFInger query to get its URL to then give it to your instance. I think most people probably fail this hurdle, either out of laziness or lack of know-how.
Also, I don't know about Lemmy, but the Mbin instance I'm using seems incapable of processing Discourse categories anyway. Not sure why that is.
That means Lemmy is entirely reliant on Discourse users replying to posts that are visible to Lemmy, similar to Lemmy-Mastodon interaction. But with less users, hence less overall interaction frequency.
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As far as I can see, you can ask questions and follow categories if the admin sets this up.
Here is an example: events@forum.fedimins.netYou can only post if you connect your Fediverse account to the forum.
Do you see any content on that page? I'm looking at !events@forum.fedimins.net but I don't see anything except the title and icon
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Discourse decided to do its thread context in a way that's currently incompatible with projects like Mbin or Lemmy. Those expect threads to be represented by some kind of post (Page, Article, Image, etc objects), while Discourse decided to use an OrderedCollection, with the first item being the opening post.
Even if Lemmy decided to add support for OrderedCollection threads, there's another issue though: the barrier for initial federation is too high. Discourse only gives you the fediverse handle of its categories, but to federate them in, you need their JSON-LD URL, not the handle. And Discourse decided to use separate URLs for its HTML and JSON-LD pages, with no way to derive the latter from the former. So to initiate federation with a Discourse category, you have to manually do a WebFInger query to get its URL to then give it to your instance. I think most people probably fail this hurdle, either out of laziness or lack of know-how.
Also, I don't know about Lemmy, but the Mbin instance I'm using seems incapable of processing Discourse categories anyway. Not sure why that is.
That means Lemmy is entirely reliant on Discourse users replying to posts that are visible to Lemmy, similar to Lemmy-Mastodon interaction. But with less users, hence less overall interaction frequency.
Thank you for the detailed explanation, that makes sense :)
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I found this article from earlier this year: https://blog.discourse.org/2025/04/discourse-and-the-fediverse/
However, I haven't come across that much content from Discourse platforms over here on Lemmy/Piefed. Is there more work to do with the plugins, or should we work with organizations running Discourse to help them connect with us?
For example, the threadiverse communities for OpenStreetMaps is relatively small, and being able to see / contribute to community.openstreetmap.org would be amazing.
@otters_raft I suggested on a few forums that I belong to that using the plugin might be useful and federating content would be a good idea - What I got back was fairly negative feedback - e.g people thought it would cause people who don't have accounts on the relevant forum being able to spam the forum and get around repuation requirements (not true I understand) - but also a kind of - query why federation would be useful - with an assumption people would just come to the forums and monitor them directly. -
Discourse decided to do its thread context in a way that's currently incompatible with projects like Mbin or Lemmy. Those expect threads to be represented by some kind of post (Page, Article, Image, etc objects), while Discourse decided to use an OrderedCollection, with the first item being the opening post.
Even if Lemmy decided to add support for OrderedCollection threads, there's another issue though: the barrier for initial federation is too high. Discourse only gives you the fediverse handle of its categories, but to federate them in, you need their JSON-LD URL, not the handle. And Discourse decided to use separate URLs for its HTML and JSON-LD pages, with no way to derive the latter from the former. So to initiate federation with a Discourse category, you have to manually do a WebFInger query to get its URL to then give it to your instance. I think most people probably fail this hurdle, either out of laziness or lack of know-how.
Also, I don't know about Lemmy, but the Mbin instance I'm using seems incapable of processing Discourse categories anyway. Not sure why that is.
That means Lemmy is entirely reliant on Discourse users replying to posts that are visible to Lemmy, similar to Lemmy-Mastodon interaction. But with less users, hence less overall interaction frequency.
Hey! Thanks for the concise reply. There's a lot of technical stuff I can say about Discourse and such, but because I am the maintainer for NodeBB it is probably in my best interest to keep my mouth shut as we directly compete!
Anyhow, the
OrderedCollectionstuff is actually all from me. I've been working as part of the Threadiverse working group to bring intercompatible formats to all threadiverse software, which besides Discourse and NodeBB, includes Lemmy, Piefed, and Mbin.The
OrderedCollectionenables software (like NodeBB) to quickly backfill entire topics. This is a huge problem on the microblog-side of the fediverse, and is not really a problem on the theadiverse, since there is already strong support for synchronization. However, smaller instances often do run into issues where they can't ever "catch up" on old posts because there's no way to get those posts. (e.g. start following a new community, you can't read any of the old content)To that end, Lemmy and Piefed have (or soon will) ship code to allow software to backfill using
OrderedCollections. They don't use them yet, but they will provide them. It helps software like mine because I will then be able to see entire threads from communities I don't even know about or follow. It's a huge boost to discovery! :smile:> while Discourse decided to use an OrderedCollection, with the first item being the opening post.
NodeBB also does this, but they're not incompatible per se. You'll see NodeBB topics showing up just fine on Lemmy and Piefed (see activitypub@community.nodebb.org or general), and that's because NodeBB does the extra step of announcing OP and replies, just like Lemmy/Piefed.
Importantly, Discourse does this too, but because of the inability to find Discourse categories, I don't think it's easy to follow them. Chicken and egg, really. The way the AP integration in Discourse is built-out, it is more insular by design. Threads from Discourse only ever go out to the fediverse, you can't post in from the fediverse. That makes those communities much more insular by design and severely limits discovery.
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Nodebb is the forum that federates
Heckin' yeah it is. :sunglasses:
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@otters_raft I suggested on a few forums that I belong to that using the plugin might be useful and federating content would be a good idea - What I got back was fairly negative feedback - e.g people thought it would cause people who don't have accounts on the relevant forum being able to spam the forum and get around repuation requirements (not true I understand) - but also a kind of - query why federation would be useful - with an assumption people would just come to the forums and monitor them directly.
This is an important thing to consider, and why NodeBB decided to even pursue federation at all.
It's arguable that we've reached the point at which forums cannot organically grow due to the ubiquity of social media. Depending on who you ask, we've reached that point 10+ years ago already.
It's becoming increasing imperative that forums federate or risk dying due to attrition. Forums used to be the social network for niche topics. Facebook (with Groups) and Twitter (with hashtags) started competing, and Reddit (with subreddits) made another huge dent.
There are some communities that fear integrating with AP will cause their local communities to become flooded with just anybody. Those fears are unjustified, but understandable.
Gli ultimi otto messaggi ricevuti dalla Federazione
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È Natale… poi arriva Capodanno… e subito dopo la Befana.
Un trittico di giorni che, per chi ci crede o no, ha un potere strano ma reale… quello di rallentare il rumore e far respirare la testa.Allora dichiariamolo ufficialmente, un periodo di pausa e leggerezza. Un periodo in cui proviamo, anche solo un po’, a essere più positivi verso tutti. A rispondere con un sorriso invece che con un muro. A dare spazio a ciò che unisce, invece che a ciò che divide.
Perché l’anno nuovo è lì, ormai e io voglio che qualcosa cambi.
Lo so… sembrano i soliti propositi che si ripetono ogni anno. Ma stavolta lo sento diverso. Non so se in bene o in male, però so una cosa con certezza… io ci voglio entrare dentro, in questo 2026, con intenzione e coraggio.
E la mia scelta è chiara.
Voglio dedicarmi più che mai al #Fediverso italiano. Non per “fare scena”, non per parlare… ma per fare. Per migliorarlo, anche solo di un centimetro alla volta. Più accoglienza, più collaborazione, più comunità, più persone che si aiutano invece di farsi la guerra per niente.Ci riuscirò?
Qualcuno seguirà l’esempio?
Chi già ci sta provando avrà voglia di unire le forze?Non lo so.
Però so che vale la pena provarci. E che certe cose cambiano solo quando qualcuno smette di chiedere “chi lo farà” e decide “inizio io”.
Io ci sto.
E tu?🙏
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Sondaggione
Sono curioso di sapere cosa ne pensa la mia bolla di #fediverso italofono su questo.
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@macfranc
Grazie per averci fornito questo strumento così potente! Ora dovremo utilizzarlo il più possibile affinché se ne diffonda la conoscenza e una tale opportunità venga sfruttata da tutti.
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@gsohn @henninguhle ich kann’s mir gerne mal anschauen. Es gibt verschiedene Optionen wie man die Posts im Fediverse „gestalten“ kann!
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@henninguhle Ich wollte einfach nur mal die Einbettungsmöglichkeit ausprobieren.Darüber hatten wir ja beim BloggerCamp gesporchen. Finde es aber blöd, dass bei mir der komplette Beitrag angezeigt wird.
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@gsohn @blog @pfefferle @mthie @linos @ichsagmal.com
Ich hab das gar nicht kritisiert. Ich fand das gut, weil ich dadurch noch den einen oder anderen Denkanstoß bekam.
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Ich habe eine Rezension über den Beitrag geschrieben. Journalistisch üblich. @henninguhle @blog @pfefferle @mthie @linos @ichsagmal.com
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@blog @pfefferle @mthie @linos
Jaja, ich bin bisschen "late to the party". Nachdem der @gsohn / @ichsagmal.com das Ganze jetzt nochmal eingeordnet hat, ergibt der Artikel durchaus noch mehr Sinn.
Aber sind nun die Template-Schlagwörter sinnvoll oder nicht? Und liest man nun komplette Artikel im RSS / im Fediverse? Gehört das "zum guten Umgang"?
Ich verstehe schon, dass diverse Themes von WordPress unterirdisch zu lesen sind. Aber ich tue mich halt etwas schwer damit, dass das Alles vollständig sonstwo augespielt wird und nicht mehr nur bei mr.
Jaja, es ist eine Sache des Umdenkens, das ist mir schon klar. Nachdem aber solche Sachen wie die VG-Wort gar keine Rolle mehr spielen, könnte es mir ja auch egal sein, wo man mein Zeug liest.
