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
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.
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.
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.
@Steve @shnizmuffin I follow one Lemmy community through my Mastodon account because it is mainly a casual chatty daily thread group. It +is+ weird, and not ideal as it doesn’t show images for some reason, but I still kindof like that way of reading. I’ve got a separate Lemmy account for a bunch of Lemmy communities, and that works better generally. But I do like that they interoperate to some degree.
I also follow a bunch of hashtags and like them too. I find it all brilliant tbh, and love that it exists and isn’t controlled by fucking billionaires.
For real. He replied to my Akkoma post, which tagged this Lemmy group. 😆
Which I would never respond to on Mastodon, as it’s terrible for discussions.
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.
That would be cool. Might be useful. Not sure it’s really possible.
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.
That’s entirely dependent on the interface switching, or some kind of universal interface. That’s the part I have serous doubts about. Keep in mind you have to make a single interface that work better than all the others on their respective native systems. I’m not sure that’s possible.
You don’t need to make a single interface, just a “meta-interface” that allows you to switch UIs on the fly.
That’s entirely doable within a client.