Tails: A Place on Lemmy for Mastodon Posts
from freamon@endlesstalk.org to newcommunities@lemmy.world on 15 Feb 2024 15:02
https://endlesstalk.org/post/22932155

Given the shared underlying protocol, I didn’t like that if I saw something interesting on Mastodon, and wanted to post it on Lemmy, I’d have to screenshot it and/or re-attribute it to me rather than the original author.

Tails is an experimental community. Instead of announcing just what a Lemmy user has posted, it announces what a Fediverse actor has posted. This means that, so far, it’s featured posts from Mastodon accounts like Mr Lovenstein, warsandpeas, George Takei, Low Quality Facts, and other interesting people. Lemmy users have been able to reply to the author, and have also replied to those other Mastodon accounts that responded.

You can see for yourself at !tails@lemmon.website

(the usual rules apply: if you’re the first person on your instance to do this, you’ll likely get a blank screen or an error. Wait 10 secs or so, press refresh, and you should have it).

#newcommunities

threaded - newest

spiritedpause@sh.itjust.works on 15 Feb 2024 15:11 next collapse

Great concept! Btw in addition to this, if you post something on Mastodon and tag the lemmy community in the post, it posts it to Lemmy directly.

freamon@endlesstalk.org on 15 Feb 2024 15:40 collapse

I’ve seen this happen occasionally, but it doesn’t always look great, and relies on them having heard of Lemmy in the first place, obvs.

CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org on 15 Feb 2024 15:58 next collapse

Neat! Subbed.

Annoyed_Crabby@monyet.cc on 15 Feb 2024 16:24 next collapse

George Takei, the one that dress as futuristic japanese emperor and insult millions of people by telling how stupid they are, is on Mastodon?

Subbed.

Die4Ever@programming.dev on 15 Feb 2024 16:38 next collapse

Is this open source?

freamon@endlesstalk.org on 15 Feb 2024 16:50 collapse

Not yet, no.

Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz on 15 Feb 2024 16:56 next collapse

Tails? Like the Tor operating system?

freamon@endlesstalk.org on 15 Feb 2024 17:45 next collapse

Lol, no. I’ve decided that they should be exclusively referred to as Tails OS (they’ve yet to formally agree).

The name comes it being a Community that follows People (so flipping the usual relationship in a heads/tails kinda way, but also tail as a synonym for follow).

Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz on 15 Feb 2024 21:55 collapse

I mean it’s a bit of a stretch.

THE_MASTERMIND@feddit.ch on 16 Feb 2024 10:12 collapse

Not bit it’s a very big stretch

LunchEnjoyer@lemmy.world on 15 Feb 2024 23:46 collapse

Must admit, I too instantly thought this was about the Operating System… Nice idea though, I’m in 🌻

livus@kbin.social on 16 Feb 2024 10:05 next collapse

Cool!

@freamon can mastodon users not normally see when we tag them on lemmy? They can on kbin.

freamon@endlesstalk.org on 16 Feb 2024 10:54 collapse

They can, yes. The lemmy instance that a particular user is on handles that. This community is mostly about getting the posts and comments into lemmy in the first place.

livus@kbin.social on 16 Feb 2024 11:04 collapse

@freamon I get it. That's something I like about kbin, the "microblogs" sections are all mastodon content.

MBM@lemmings.world on 16 Feb 2024 18:58 next collapse

Really love that this is a thing. Also, not sure where to best report this, but I’ve noticed that it doesn’t show all Mastodon comments, and replies to Lemmy comments don’t make it over to Mastodon

freamon@endlesstalk.org on 16 Feb 2024 19:42 collapse

Mmmm. It’s the instance that people are on on that’s doing (or not doing) much of the work there. If you comment on a post, the instance will send 1 copy to me (who’s responsible for federating it out to other Lemmy instances) and 1 copy to Mastodon for the post’s author.

If you reply to a Lemmy comment, it doesn’t send it to Mastodon because it’s not for the author (in much the same way that you don’t get replies to replies in your inbox if you’re the OP of a Lemmy post). For local posts, both Mastodon and Lemmy show the local comment tree, but neither can show every Fediverse interaction because they never hear about them.

Likewise, if you reply to a Mastodon comment, your instance will send it to the comment author, but not the post author, so won’t appear anywhere under their post.

As for Mastodon comments on Lemmy … it depends. I follow some accounts, so when I post them to Lemmy, top-level comments come through automatically (again, though, I never hear about replies to replies). Other content is just stuff I’ve seen and grabbed. I often post the existing replies, but not if they’ve turned Authorized Fetch on, and I don’t typically go back and check for more later.

Pixel@lemmy.sdf.org on 17 Feb 2024 18:23 collapse

Hi, I’m new to some of this stuff and I’m a little confused. How does it decide which mastodon posts to include? Are you deciding that or can anyone do it?

freamon@endlesstalk.org on 17 Feb 2024 19:03 collapse

It’s me deciding. Recommendations for interesting people on Mastodon to follow are welcome (either in this post, or the sticky ‘About this community’ post).