Comment on lemmy should tots let you post things to your own user profile
rglullis@communick.news 5 days agoit’s not part of the Lemmy model.
It’s not part of the model yet. There is absolutely nothing stopping it from being implemented, and it could be very useful to do so.
This whole “Lemmy is only for doing this one thing, Mastodon is only for this other thing, Matrix is for this other thing” mentality is frankly short-sighted. There is a common standard that can allow application developers to implement multiple use-cases, we do not need separate accounts/services/clients for each of that.
If that were the case, we would never have webmail and everything would have to have its own specific client that could talk with only one specific server.
Kichae@lemmy.ca 5 days ago
The thing is, mbin is right there if you want that kimd of functionality. There isn’t really a reason why everything needs to evolve into omni-applications. It’s better to have a broad ecosystem that has something for everyone, rather than a monopoly that’s servibg everyone a compromise.
Just look at the Twitter mugrations in 2022, and the clammor for quote posts. Misskey was right there, giving them exactly what they wanted, but you couldn’t speak the name of anything that wasn’t “mastodon” because everyone is brand focused and context blind.
What OP wants exists. It’s right there. It’s just not named Lemmy.
rglullis@communick.news 5 days ago
To go back to the webmail example, we could have said “no need for hotmail/gmail because Eudora or Pegasus already exist.” “No need to have Google Maps because MapQuest already has a desktop client”.
Yes, we didn’t really need any of these, but the problem with this thinking is that it assumes that the progress of software application is linear and “intelligently designed”, when it reality it much closer to how actual life evolves, by testing many different adaptions and keeping those that make them more fit to their environment.
It doesn’t matter that kbin already have certain functionality if its main developer was a control freak who was holding back its evolution and its users had not trust in him. There were other features that it was lacking (no API, no third-party clients, not easy to deploy, moderation tooling, etc) and still do. We can not just tell someone “what you want is on kbin, use that instead”, because there will be different use-cases that kbin does not fulfill.
Software co-evolves. Lemmy should “steal” from mbin, as it should steal from Pleroma, or Mastodon/PixelFed is now “stealing” things from Bluesky. This is wasteful, but is at least robust.
If software was “intelligently designed”, we will not have any server-side platforms and just have “Generic ActivityPub servers” that can handle the messages being passing around actor inboxes, and we would all be using client-side browsers that are aware of the ActivityPub vocabulary. But this will be like the GNU/Hurd of the Social Web, and saying that server software should have each only have one defining feature is a recipe to have the whole ecosystem ossified.
hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 5 days ago
I'm not sure about that argument. I mean there are right and wrong tools for a job. There are people constantly trying to drive in a screw with a hammer. They might be better off with a screwdriver. We could also devise a multitool, or not do it. Ultimately, if just the right tool is in front of you, you'd better have a specific reason why not to use it... I can see one general argument, and that's competition is good or more general tools are good. But that's kind if what MBin is...
Not having server-side platforms is a very interesting argument. I mean most users are using smartphone apps anyways... I don't know why we bother with translating everything twice and doing that many server-side things. ActivityPub with it's concept of inboxes and outboxes is kind of designed to run with a minimal server and do most logic and rendering client-side anyways.
rglullis@communick.news 5 days ago
That’s the thing. The “better” tool isn’t right in front of me. OP didn’t know about it.
And if they did, they would have to do the whole “which instance to join” dance, again.
And after they joined the instance, they would have to find a mobile app to use. (oh, oh, there isn’t one)
And after they said “fuck it, let’s just use the web UI”, they’d be like "okay, I can follow people from mastodon and I can follow Lemmy groups, but if there is an user that is on Lemmy, it still means that they can only post things to groups. (IOW, incomplete interoperability resulting in functionality silos)
Wouldn’t it be a whole lot simpler/easier if Lemmy had the capability to let the user create posts without referencing any group? Even if it wasn’t the main feature, it could be implemented at the server and documented just enough for those working on alternative clients. The “purists” that don’t care about the functionality would still keep their tools intact, but the others would greatly benefit.
Kichae@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
So instead, it’s “let’s beg Lemmy to fulfill these use cases that it currently does not”. Got it. Makes total sense, and is not internally incoherent at all.
Definitely not just arguing for a monoculture.
rglullis@communick.news 4 days ago
Definitely not arguing for a monoculture. You are overreacting and reading whatever you want, instead of what I’ve actually written.
I’m not saying “people should leave mbin and use only Lemmy as the end-all solution”. I’m saying “those who are already on Lemmy should not be forced to adopt yet-another tool just because some other alternative fulfills one use-case better”.
mbin might make some of what Lemmy does and it makes some of what Mastodon does, but it is not a perfect replacement to neither. There is always a cost to adopt any new piece of software (and I’m not talking about price, here). If some users are happy with it, by all means let them continue using it, and I hope it keeps improving. But to think that is reasonable to tell everyone “Lemmy doesn’t do this, use mbin instead” is like saying “Linux is not good on the Desktop, use Windows instead”.