I am still learning this whole thing and I ended up creating accounts here and on Mastodon. Is that necessary or do I automatically have a Mastodon username with my Lemmy? I used the same stuff on both accounts, can I merge them or something?
Edit: thanks everyone, I can’t respond to each comment while I’m at work, but I appreciate every one of you!
I get that there are different apis for Lemmy and Mastodon (and maybe Lemmy and kbin), but I’m interested to know why you can’t create a server that supports both/all apis. Even if it’s not possible to support the correct ui on a website, why am I not allowed to log into an app that would display all the ui correctly regardless of whether your account is from mastodon/lemmy/kbin.
Because they’re all different applications. I think the confusion here is between ActivityPub the protocol, and the applications that actually use it. The applications that use AP are all different, they have different data structures, hell mastodon and Lemmy/kbin are completely different at a conceptual level. They just communicate with each other via AP, but once they receive the AP message they convert it into their own data structures and concepts. And you should note that AP is technically a communications protocol, it doesn’t prescribe how stuff should be stored or sorted after an object is communicated between two servers and doesn’t really prescribe a way to browse through the historical activities of a person. These are things implemented by the application you’re using. So it’s not like you could just write an app that combs through all that data available on the fediverse, you’d need an instance that federates with all these places, then an app that uses that instance. Technically feasible but so far nobody’s done it yet, but you can see how some people reply to threads on Lemmy via Mastodon.
you make a great point, and not understanding this was the source of my initial confusion here. Looking at all the activitypub implementations listed here really helped it ‘click’ for me https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub
Memmy (and wefwef) is for lemmy instances only, while kbin can access both lemmy and mastodon communities.
@toasteranimation when kbin finally gets apps, will I be able to log into them with my mastodon account but see the “correct” ui for lemmy and kbin?
I don’t think so. you’d login with your kbin account (I think)
@toasteranimation i wonder if any app will ever be able to support that
I think maybe look at it the other way around. We should hope that one account at your preferred place (whether it’s kbin, mastodon or lemmy) be able to access everything. So if you have a mastodon account, you can already access content in the lemmyverse, albeit a bit clumsy. This is not possible from a lemmy account, afaik.
So once everything is united, you would be able to see content from anywhere in a format you enjoy through your one account
@toasteranimation I feel like that’s what I’m asking for. I create one account, and then use it to log into a mastodon app to see things in a mastodon layout, and use it to log into a lemmy app to see things in a lemmy layout, etc. Currently I have one account that can only log into mastodon apps, and for some reason can’t log into lemmy apps.
Ok it’s early! Sorry for the misunderstanding. Yes, you can only log into mastodon apps with your mastodon account, but you CAN browse lemmy communities through mastodon and even interact with them. I’ve seen videos of people doing it, but on desktop not mobile.
@toasteranimation I’m actually replying to this from my mastodon account on a mastodon app, so I’m perfectly aware it’s possible. The layout is just suboptimal. I’m just wondering why can’t/if an app can be created that I log into with my mastodon account, but shows a layout like lemmy.