What is the current state of Discourse to threadiverse federation?
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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.
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@stefano @fediverso @mynotes @itnotes you even can't add the setup/setting information on every post's footer. And the Fediverse's biography section is mostly to have a short intro on who you are.
If you are an author you can say you are an author, but if you have to say why you write this genre rather than another, why you wrote this setting and what it means to you, you need a site anyways. A pinned post on fediverse can help, but you must give the readers the ability to read it. Maybe on header or footer of your RSS, you can add your about / mission / contacts page...
I'm maybe an old-fashion person, but if I follow someone on Fediverse I'd like to know in detail whom I'm talking to.
Even without being a very specific story author like I am, if I'm reading John Doe's posts and find photos only, if I read on his intro "I'm a photographer, this account is to share the photos I take", if he is discussing with me in a crowded topic, I won't follow his account as, being blind, I don't have interest on pics.
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@elettrona @fediverso @mynotes @itnotes Interesting. I haven't considered this as I'm mainly writing (at least for now) separate contents (that can live inside a single post).
I'll try to think about it.
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@stefano @fediverso @mynotes @itnotes Interesting point of view. Give readers the opportunity to use their own tools. Rss, even text to speech apps which read feeds aloud, etc.
I'm considering to adopt same method in my own space, but I have a doubt: what about the setup? I mean: the site talks about a fictional context, and if you haven't read the "about" page, you may misunderstand if reading just the last chapter because you followed the instance when I published chapter 10. So, how to guarantee readers to understand everything, whenever they start reading?
We must get used to a public who goes to sites less and less. How to create an effective "about" / bio space?
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RE: https://fediway.com/@honeywinter/116266645464096630
It was a blast, super inspiring, many learnings and great people. Stay tuned! #fediverse #socials #digitalsovereignity #publicSpaces
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@grahamperrin I'm using lists - or "the bell" - to try to keep up with the timeline.
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@stefano followed, thanks!
Just one problem, and it's not you: I can never remember how to get Mastodon to show me who I follow (I imagine that I should prune something …).
Oops.
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@stefano Very nice!
