@julian sorry to multi-post but I forgot to say: although I can find your post from my Mastodon account and reply to it, I still haven't worked out how I would do the reverse from here. In fact I'm not sure if I can follow a Mastodon account (or perhaps more usefully, a Discourse or Lemmy topic or even a topic or account on a different NodeBB instance) from a NodeBB account at all, is that possible yet?

@caesar the Discourse link you posted raises another issue.
Its a similar thread to this one, but it has additional posters, and any edits made in my posts arent reflected.
So these conversations arent fully federated when there are some posts in that thread missing from this one.
Out of interest @Omega, did you start your post on Discourse or on this site?

As an example as the disconnect between the thread on Nodebb and Discourse, @bumblefudge@socialhub.activitypub.rocks bumblefudge's post is missing from nodebb sites thread.

Is the goal to duplicate all posts in all places so they stay in sync?

@eeeee The lack of complete federation is another very good point that makes federation less-than-intuitive. From my Mastodon instance the situation is worse, none of @bumblefudge posts nor any others from SocailHub appear in the thread. (See https://indieweb.social/@julian@community.nodebb.org/112972609579702339)

I suspect most of the federation problems mentioned in the last few posts are the "fault" of Discourse – BrowserPub fails to find anything at https://browser.pub/https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/explaining-the-fediverse-is-a-hard-problem/4462/4 – but in the end the user doesn't care whose fault it is when something doesn't work, they just think federation is confusing and broken.

@caesar@indieweb.social the sync issue from Discourse is a little different... That's achieved via a category syncing mechanism that is unique to Discourse and NodeBB, right now that's broken and I have to wait until @angus@socialhub.activitypub.rocks comes back to address it.

Same with the links in Discourse being unsearchable. They'll have to fix that.

@caesar@indieweb.social you can load remote content from the fediverse via NodeBB, just enter the permalink into the search bar.

For users, enter the handle in the users page search bar.

@caesar @caesar@indieweb.social I've manually pulled in @bumblefudge@socialhub.activitypub.rocks and @sortekanin@socialhub.activitypub.rocks's posts now.

@eeeee I am native posting only

Omega, From your descriptive posts I thought you were a writer, but now a Physicist!
Many talents

@eeeee I always get a Schrödinger's cat vibe off these fediverse topics am I the only one?

Personally I think the word
Federated is being used as if it was the word disseminated, which to me is more apt descriptively

“your post is disseminated across multiple platforms at once… this is the fediverse… and you are like a sun and each post a ray of light that eventually reaches planets... soon disparate planetary religions spring up worshipping your name spanning light years across the galaxies”

Maybe not the last bit

Here is an edite version of the wiki entry:

The fediverse is a collection of social networks that can communicate with each other using a common protocol. Users of different websites can send and receive status updates, multimedia files and other data across the network.

How about... the fediverse is like building a bunch of interstates between big websites

@omega said in Explaining the fediverse is a hard problem.:

@eeeee I always get a Schrödinger's cat vibe off these fediverse topics am I the only one?

Absolutely, you never know if fediverse posts did or didnt propegate, until they are observed! Haha

Hmmm @sortekanin@socialhub.activitypub.rocks is it possible for whatever reason your posts no. 6 and no. 10 in this topic, were not originally available for me to read yesterday/ but I am reading them today, one was a reply to me (but saw no notification) other than I scrolled past too fast.

@eeeee Ha ha maybe you answered my last post as I was writing it!

One thing that hasnt really been tested yet, is volumes, and the data that needs to be shared if say contribitors are on different networks.
On your physics theme then the data share is potentially exponential as more people join the conversation.
A thread with 100 different origin posts and the updates required to keep everyone in sync

@eeeee When you wrote Explaining the fediverse is a hard problem.:

a thread with 100 different origin

Do you mean each post originating post actin was on a different platform but the entire thread of 100 post is potentially equally visible on each of those different platforms?