agnos.is Forums

It's an interesting idea. Could be a way to catch interest and education.

How would this work on the NodeBB side? Multiple categories associated with one topic?

In my ever-continuing use of NodeBB as a single-user Fediverse instance, here are some things I've noticed. Both things I've already talked about before, and some new things. These are some suggestions for functionality or perhaps plugins.

1. Confusion between following remote categories as a user and the synchronization options in category settings as an admin. I think the category synchronization should be repurposed somewhat. The suggestion from @[email protected] was to perhaps rework it as a cross-posting feature.

   • Right now, the feature relies on the other ActivityPub endpoint to be able to follow the NodeBB category, which (notably Lemmy) does not always work.
   • Making a "proxy user" is a pretty common solution to this, used by Misskey etc. One single system proxy user can follow all remote categories, and then NodeBB itself can handle the synchronization.

2. Lack of posts. This is a general problem for single-user instances, and it's why things like relays and Fedifetcher exist. Support for relays would help a lot, but a Fedifetcher-like plugin/function would be even better.

   • Fedifetcher works by loading posts from the source server, and finding all the replies there. It then executes a search against your own server, which fofrces your server to load the reply. This should work just fine for NodeBB, because searching post links causes the posts to load.
   • But Fedifetcher relies on platform-specific APIs (Mastodon, Misskey, etc). So I think this would be a good candidate for a NodeBB plugin.

3. Slotting posts and topics into local categories. To me, this feels like the holy grail of integrating the traditional forum experience into the Fediverse. It's something I've brought up before, and someone was working on a plugin, but I'm not sure it ever got finished.

   • It would be amazing to add a function in the admin settings under category settings to make a list of remote ActivityPub actors that get posts slotted into the category automatically.
   • Any incoming note from that actor will be automatically put into the specified category.
   • This shouldn't need to rely on altering or updating any synchronization stuff, because it can work with any incoming post. The framework for receiving remote posts is already there.

These are all just ideas, and maybe some discussion can be had on them before I start embarking on a path of attempting to make some NodeBB plugins .

@[email protected] It would be good for outgoing posts if cross posting is used for synced categories. But it doesn't solve the problem of incoming posts. For that, it would make sense to still slot incoming posts based on the sync setup. But there is still the problem of Lemmy not accepting follows from category actors.

@[email protected] Cool, I can now load it. Another question: I have a bunch of lemmy communities (and also a few "null" entries) stuck on "pending" in the category synchronization settings. Pressing remote/delete doesn't do anything. Is there an easy way to get rid of them by editing the database?

Also, are there plans to merge the federation synchronization and new remote category following stuff together into one cohesive set of functionality?

@[email protected] Yes, maybe? https://forum.agnos.is/category/[email protected] for example. Maybe it's not federated? Since I don't see anything about what fediverse handle to use like in the ActivityPub forum.

Yep, shows up now on my end. Maybe check other categories too?

@[email protected] I was able to access it from a Lemmy instance. So it is federating, at least partly. But interesting to know that Mastodon has issues with it...

One thing that might be helpful is that NodeBB gives an invalid ID error when trying to follow the category via the sync function in admin settings. Stack trace shows it's the error being thrown when trying to follow (activitypub.js line 43).

So, this URL does work: https://forum.agnos.is/category/[email protected]

Maybe it has something to do with the activitypub category being a sub-category of nodebb development?

@[email protected] could not run it in dev mode directly because of docker compose, but did set NODE_ENV to development and got verbose logs. Only thing that shows up is:

2025-05-03T19:35:59.553Z [4567/53] - warn: Route requested but not found: /category/[email protected]

@[email protected] Will this be pushed to the Docker registry simultaneously?

I'm seeing issues with loading remote categories. I can't load the NodeBB bug reports category at all, and for the ActivityPub category, I can find it in my world category search, but I get a 404 when trying to load it. Also can't load [email protected] for example.

It seems the NodeBB development board is the only one really federating for me. Any way I can solve this?

I am running beta2 of 4.3.0.

@[email protected]

@[email protected]

When a post with a link on it federates, it seems NodeBB doesn't capture the link. Is that true? Or is it hiding the link somewhere? I always have to go to the original post to find the link?

Is it also possible to add remote communities to the main forum list? Or merge them into existing local categories?

With the upcoming improvements to federation and handling of remote communities, will it now be possible to have Lemmy categories sync into local categories of the NodeBB instance?

After restarting NodeBB, I can load the category, though. Maybe some deadlock on initial import of the community.

Not specifically that URL, no. Now I just tried it. It resulted in a deadlock in Postgres.

2025-04-08T12:42:10.933614676Z 2025-04-08 12:42:10.933 UTC [32590] DETAIL:  Process 32590 waits for ShareLock on transaction 35424413; blocked by process 32626.
2025-04-08T12:42:10.933621228Z 	Process 32626 waits for ShareLock on transaction 35424434; blocked by process 32590.
2025-04-08T12:42:10.933624695Z 	Process 32590: 
2025-04-08T12:42:10.933626920Z 	INSERT INTO "legacy_object" ("_key", "type")
2025-04-08T12:42:10.933629244Z 	SELECT k, $2::TEXT::LEGACY_OBJECT_TYPE
2025-04-08T12:42:10.933631398Z 	  FROM UNNEST($1::TEXT[]) k
2025-04-08T12:42:10.933633432Z 	    ON CONFLICT
2025-04-08T12:42:10.933635396Z 	    DO NOTHING
2025-04-08T12:42:10.933637329Z 	Process 32626: 
2025-04-08T12:42:10.933639423Z 	INSERT INTO "legacy_object" ("_key", "type")
2025-04-08T12:42:10.933641588Z 	SELECT k, $2::TEXT::LEGACY_OBJECT_TYPE
2025-04-08T12:42:10.933643603Z 	  FROM UNNEST($1::TEXT[]) k
2025-04-08T12:42:10.933645586Z 	    ON CONFLICT
2025-04-08T12:42:10.933647519Z 	    DO NOTHING
2025-04-08T12:42:10.933654783Z 2025-04-08 12:42:10.933 UTC [32590] HINT:  See server log for query details.
2025-04-08T12:42:10.933656978Z 2025-04-08 12:42:10.933 UTC [32590] CONTEXT:  while inserting index tuple (6227,69) in relation "legacy_object"
2025-04-08T12:42:10.933659042Z 2025-04-08 12:42:10.933 UTC [32590] STATEMENT:  
2025-04-08T12:42:10.933660966Z 	INSERT INTO "legacy_object" ("_key", "type")
2025-04-08T12:42:10.933663000Z 	SELECT k, $2::TEXT::LEGACY_OBJECT_TYPE
2025-04-08T12:42:10.933664863Z 	  FROM UNNEST($1::TEXT[]) k
2025-04-08T12:42:10.933666666Z 	    ON CONFLICT
2025-04-08T12:42:10.933668430Z 	    DO NOTHING

I've successfully managed to find and track https://sh.itjust.works/c/localllama from my instance. But when I try, for example, https://lemmy.world/c/technology, I can't find anything. These Lemmy communities DO, however, show up as users on my NodeBB instance. Is there something I'm doing wrong? I tried going directly to /category/@[email protected] too.