You're in luck, I've learned a thing or two about this.

NodeBB categories do not follow activitypub group actors. Form category actors are not community groups and so aren't really compatible. NodeBB follows account style actors and remove group posts are not imported the same as local posts.

In order to get group support working on a wide variety of platforms, the software needs to have a wide variety of dialects that it knows how to deal with.

By "following", do you mean using the "Follow" button on something that looks like an account profile? That hasn't worked for several versions now.

You need to Track a Lemmy community as if it were a Category now. Search for test@feddit.it using "In categories" from the drop-down menu on the search page, click on the community, and then click on "Not Watching" and select "Tracking" instead.

@sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net @kichae@wanderingadventure.party

No, be careful. We have a terminology problem.

@ska said that there are some remote categories on our NodeBB citiverse.it. Among these, for example, is the category https://citiverse.it/category/test@feddit.it, which represents the Lemmy @test@feddit.it community, which can be found at https://feddit.it/c/test.

So the category https://citiverse.it/category/test@feddit.it is none other than the community https://feddit.it/c/test. (In exactly the same way, the category https://activitypub.space/category/fediverse@lemmy.world is none other than the community https://lemmy.world/c/fediverse.)

The problem @ska pointed out is that for a few months now, if a Lemmy or Piefed user publishes a post on https://feddit.it/c/test, the category https://citiverse.it/category/test@feddit.it takes this into account and represents the post. On the other hand, if the post is published by a social media user (mastodon, friendica, etc.) the category doesn't republish it.

As I already told @julian this is a pretty serious problem, especially since in the past I could at least "move" the conversation manually to the "remote category"; but unfortunately (due to an architectural choice I completely disagree with... oh well! <img class="not-responsive emoji" src="https://community.nodebb.org/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f622.png?v=b3bda0f1f23" title="" /> ), for about ten versions now, it's no longer possible to "move" conversations to just the local categories.

But it should be clear that the main problem is that my system can no longer categorize social posts published in Lemmy categories!

PS: It seems to be a problem with our instance. In fact, I ran some tests:

1: from mastodon to Piefed
https://activitypub.space/topic/6a216416-fa81-49b2-8026-a14feda26556/decentralized-social-media-what-creators-need-to-know-about-web3-platforms

2: from Friendica to lemmy.ml
https://activitypub.space/topic/ebca3327-5273-405c-a5e9-0bd31099d684/decentralized-social-media-what-creators-need-to-know-about-web3-platforms

3: From Mastodon to Lemmy.World
https://activitypub.space/topic/5a2cce1e-64d1-4061-bab6-7043a157ace8/decentralized-social-media-what-creators-need-to-know-about-web3-platforms

And the activitypub.space nodebb catches them all.

On the other hand, citiverse.it doesn't catch a single one! <img class="not-responsive emoji" src="https://community.nodebb.org/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f625.png?v=b3bda0f1f23" title="" /> <img class="not-responsive emoji" src="https://community.nodebb.org/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f926.png?v=b3bda0f1f23" title="" />

1: https://citiverse.it/topic/9f8bf755-ffcd-4bbd-9d89-41f5ccac93a5/decentralized-social-media-what-creators-need-to-know-about-web3-platforms

2: https://citiverse.it/topic/7dbfdd67-c46c-4e56-bae6-36ad406fb71d/decentralized-social-media-what-creators-need-to-know-about-web3-platforms

3: https://citiverse.it/topic/4a6b8296-c735-4201-8369-78a5d7d9bfb9/decentralized-social-media-what-creators-need-to-know-about-web3-platforms

@informapirata indeed, I fixed a number of federation issues between NodeBB and Lemmy, in v4.14.0, and again since. I'd recommend updating to the latest stable version and running those federation tests again.

In general, moving topics between remote categories is disallowed because it's misrepresentation. You're limited to moving uncategorized topics to a local cid, topics between local cids (of course), and cross-posting topics to local categories.

There are some gaps in federation, as @informapirata states. I've been actively working toward finding and closing those gaps.

@informapirata @sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net @kichae@wanderingadventure.party

@julian thanks so much for all the work you've put into ActivityPub for NodeBB, it's genuinely appreciated!

Since you mentioned running federation tests again on the latest stable: we're on 4.14.2 and we're still seeing a concrete issue.

Symptom: informatica@feddit.it (and, similarly, other remote categories) doesn't receive native community posts automatically and new posts always end up in World instead of the category, even though the category is being watched locally.

You can see it directly here: https://citiverse.it/category/informatica@feddit.it : posts there are stuck since June 21st, but https://feddit.it/c/informatica gets several new posts every day, and if we search for them on citiverse.it they do show up, just filed under World instead of Informatica.

Is this one of the gaps you're already tracking? And is there anything worth checking on our end (settings, logs) before assuming it's core-side and happy to pull whatever diagnostic info would help.

> @julian said:
>
> In general, moving topics between remote categories is disallowed because it's misrepresentation

I respect all your work @julian and admire the fact that you've never made a mistake so far. However, regarding moving discussions from one category to a remote category, you're making a error in your judgment.

I may be the one who's missing the point, but if you're available, I can explain in detail all the reasons why allowing the move to a remote category doesn't inconvenience anyone but has only advantages, while preventing this categorization has only disadvantages.

Let me know if you'd like me to continue my argument. Otherwise, if you think it's pointless, I won't continue.

@informapirata ah! I realize that there may be a difference in understanding here.

I think when you are asking about moving topics to a remote category, you're intending to also share that discussion to the remote category, yes?

So, for example, you see a good discussion that comes in uncategorized, and you share it with a community on Lemmy.

Yes?

It makes sense, but I am not able to do that from a protocol point of view because there's inadequate federation vocabulary to achieve this.

So I could make movable, but it won't show up on Lemmy or Piefed unless that software supports whatever vocab I come up with.

So it's partly a technical limitation as well.