From mastodon to follow an account or a community on lemmy you use the @name@server format and there is no difference between a community name and a user-name

so i was wondering if anyone tried and checked what happened

  • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
    16·
    11 days ago

    On Lemmy? Nothing, works fine. On Mastodon? Not sure, maybe someone in a Mastodon community would know.

    • Mannivu@feddit.itEnglish
      71·
      11 days ago

      They would be identified by their instance. You can’t have two identical usernames in the same instance. So you won’t have John@mastodon.social twice. Buy you could have John@mastodon.social and John@mastodon.world, for example.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        5·
        10 days ago

        That’s not the question though. The question is what if I make a user called “@Lemmy@lemmy.ml” (i.e. this community)? That’s probably allowed on Lemmy, but since Mastodon doesn’t have the concept of communities in nearly the same way, what would happen?

        • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.comEnglish
          3·
          10 days ago

          That’s not how Lemmy works. Lemmy uses Actor URLs of https://host.tld/u/user which is referenced via @user@host.tld, and communities are https://host.tld/c/community referenced as !community@host.tld. So there is no overlap.

          @ex_06@slrpnk.net

          !lemmy@lemmy.ml

            • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.comEnglish
              11·
              10 days ago

              I don’t follow… Lemmy and Mastodon both require port 443, so a single hostname of lemmy.ml can’t run both. Lemmy and Mastodon handle users the same way, just Mastodon doesn’t have !communities.

                • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.comEnglish
                  11·
                  9 days ago

                  Ohhhh. My understanding is initial @ in Mastodon is only required for users, and would default to user over community, while leaving off the initial @ would do community. I have not validated that in the source, though.

  • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catEnglish
    111·
    11 days ago

    What should happen: The backend checks if you’re trying to create a community that has the same name as a user, or vice versa, and refuses to do it because that would be confusing, since a lot of ways of referring to an entity on Lemmy use the exact same format for the user and the community.

    What does happen: Have fun with confusing!

      • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catEnglish
        1·
        5 days ago

        Just wanted to let you know: I was trying to resubscribe to !world@lemmy.world so I could say something. I went to the search box, typed “world@lemmy.world”, got a bunch of results including world@lemmy.world at the end, clicked on it, but it was the user @world@lemmy.world, not the community. I couldn’t find the community in the list.

        It’s no kind of difficulty to work around the problem, of course. But it was a clear instance of me wanting the software to do something, the software messing up because it’s allowing multiple entities with the same identifier to exist, and me having to go back and try another way. It actually couldn’t find the community when I limited the search to communities, either, and I had to type the URL. No idea what that’s about. But yes, it’s a cause of minor malfunctions like this.

        • davel [he/him]@lemmy.mlEnglish
          1·
          5 days ago

          When you do a search, the default is “All,” which is why your search results had a bit of everything. If you had chosen “Users” or “Communities” then you would have gotten only users or only communities, respectively.

          • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catEnglish
            1·
            5 days ago

            It actually couldn’t find the community when I limited the search to communities, either, and I had to type the URL. No idea what that’s about

            https://lemmy.ml/search?q=world%40lemmy.world&type=Communities&listingType=All&page=1&sort=TopAll

            Notice no community result.

            https://lemmy.ml/search?q=world%40lemmy.world&type=All&listingType=All&page=1&sort=TopAll

            Also no community result. On my instance, I could scroll to the end of the list, and when the call to the resolve endpoint returns, the user but not the community gets added as a single entry to the very end. Like I say, no idea what that’s about, although it seems to be a bug distinct from the bug I’m describing,

            https://lemmy.ml/search?q=https%3A%2F%2Flemmy.world%2Fc%2Fworld&type=Communities&listingType=All&page=1&sort=TopAll

            Also doesn’t work? That’s a little strange, honestly. Like I say, no idea. I’m just describing the somewhat different but also wrong behavior I see on my instance.

              • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catEnglish
                1·
                5 days ago

                why would you be searching for it? You already have it!

                Because the search UI is how Lemmy chooses to expose the concept of resolving a network resource which you may or may not already have synced to your instance. That’s, arguably but not definitively to me, a design bug separate from the original design bug I was talking about, or whatever it is that’s causing it not to work right now.

                You can see by opening up the developer tools and doing a search for world@lemmy.world. It’ll submit two requests: One to /api/v3/search, and one to /api/v3/resolve_object. For whatever reason, that second call is only returning the user @world@lemmy.world, but not the community, for me right now. Am I misremembering somehow? This is how I have always located communities, to subscribe to them, when I’m not sure whether they already exist on my server. Typing the full URL https://lemmy.world/c/world still works, and returns what you would expect in the response.

                I didn’t choose to put that functionality in the “search” UI. The Lemmy developers did. I kind of get the idea behind it, I’m not 100% sure it’s a design flaw, but it was definitely surprising to me to find it there, originally.

                So tell me: If I “already know the user or community I’m looking for,” I know what to type, but it might not exist on my server… how do I subscribe to it? What UI do I use? I know of one answer; if you know of a different answer than the one I’m aware of, it will be news to me.

      • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catEnglish
        9·
        11 days ago

        I made an SMTP server that treats email addresses as case sensitive. When it gets mail for Philip@ponder.cat, it refuses to deliver it to philip@ponder.cat, and it allows users to create himbo@ponder.cat and Himbo@ponder.cat as two distinct addresses. Within my server, it’s not confusing at all. Outside of my server, there be dragons.

        • Billegh@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          10 days ago

          You joke, but gmail does this with dots in email. There is no difference to gmail between fartmaster@gmail.com and f.a.r.t.m.a.s.t.e.r@gmail.com. Not really any dragons here, but can create confusion if you’re unaware.

          • Björn Tantau@swg-empire.deEnglish
            2·
            10 days ago

            Nah, Gmail does the exact opposite of what their server does. Gmail is extra lenient with how an address may look. While their server is extra strict.

            • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catEnglish
              3·
              10 days ago

              Correct. Gmail is doing it right, by anticipating how their server’s behavior might confuse people or lead to email going to the wrong mailbox, and making extra complexity to make sure the behavior makes sense. Lemmy is doing it wrong, in this instance.

    • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.comEnglish
      1·
      9 days ago

      What formats are the same? Users are /u and @ while communities are /c and !. No overlap to check for. Mastodon is where the confusion comes in.