What is the current state of Discourse to threadiverse federation?
I found this article from earlier this year: blog.discourse.org/2025/04/dis…
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 and the Fediverse!
Two years ago, we started working on a plugin that brings Discourse and the Fediverse closer together. Discourse communities are online spaces that facilitate open collaboration and communication.Penar Musaraj (Discourse)
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Die4Ever
in reply to Otter Raft • • •I don't see Discourse on fedidb.com/software
or on lemmy.fediverse.observer/allso…
Fediverse Observer checks all sites in the fediverse and gives you an easy way to find a home from a map or list or automatically.
lemmy.fediverse.observermisk
in reply to Die4Ever • • •It does federate for sure but implementation looks quirky.
piefed.social/c/3d521c68551552…
AI
piefed.socialBlaze (he/him)
in reply to Otter Raft • • •like this
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Pamasich
in reply to Blaze (he/him) • • •like this
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Blaze (he/him)
in reply to Pamasich • • •julian
in reply to Blaze (he/him) • • •Re: What is the current state of Discourse to threadiverse federation?
Ludrol
in reply to Otter Raft • • •db0
in reply to Otter Raft • • •Tealk
in reply to Otter Raft • • •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.net
You can only post if you connect your Fediverse account to the forum.
Otter Raft
in reply to Tealk • • •Tealk
in reply to Otter Raft • • •Pamasich
in reply to Otter Raft • • •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.
Otter Raft
in reply to Pamasich • • •julian
in reply to Pamasich • • •Re: What is the current state of Discourse to threadiverse federation?
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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abeorch
in reply to Otter Raft • •Fediverse reshared this.
julian
in reply to abeorch • • •Re: What is the current state of Discourse to threadiverse federation?
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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abeorch
in reply to julian • •Fediverse reshared this.