julian

There is, but I am not sold on giving up entirely on the idea simply because disparate communities might not want to talk to another.

I agree that treading lightly is paramount, but the benefits of cross-community interaction could very much be worth it!

One thing is for sure: making this an opt-out is not the way forward.

That’s one of the issues that need to be worked through. It’s a totally legitimate concern.

In cases where communities with polarising viewpoints discuss the same topic, it would lead to inter-community disputes and exacerbate some instance relationships.

One solution would be to have the original community be responsible for moderation, and moderation actions from cross-posted communities only affect their “view”, so to speak.

I don’t know what the answer is quite yet.

Hmm… that’s nice, but the comments are still separated.

It would be better if the separate reply chains were integrated but I know there are potential issues that need to be thought through.

Yes. It is being worked on, and you are not far off.

Respondents here have mentioned that Piefed and Lemmy list cross-posts in places, sometimes in the community listing, sometimes in the post itself.

That’s missing the point, which is that the conversations should be combined.

Take it a step further, though. You shouldn’t have to combine posts, they should all be the same post.

So how do we get there? Both Piefed and Lemmy do this internally, and don’t expose this to other instances. NodeBB (aka me) is hoping to explore this question and put in the protocol research to make this a reality. I’ll be working together with members of the Forum and Threaded Discussions Working Group about these things. (forum-wg@community.nodebb.org)

The issue (as usual) is buy-in from Lemmy and Piefed (and don’t forget mbin!) We all have to move in lockstep so that nobody gets left behind.

We’ve only just started discussions on how this might work, but hopefully we’ll be able to make this a reality soon.