Chebucto Regional Softball Club

I wonder if it is related to the recent change that showed an "in reply to" bar above a post? I've noticed that that is sometimes empty too. > Searching the posts community.nodebb.org URL did not pull the post and its comments. It should've, what URL did you specifically try to pull? This URL should pull the entire topic: * `https://community.nodebb.org/topic/d9a56cb0-3d17-4d72-a9f7-592421e1c9d1/what-s-a-good-lightweight-good-moderation-tools-foss-forum-system-these-days` This URL (the original post's original URL) should pull only the OP: * `https://mastodon.neilzone.co.uk/users/neil/statuses/113991455813168788` ---- As for my comment being empty, does it come back if you restart your NodeBB? Not that you should need to, just want to see...

Hi [@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk](https://community.nodebb.org/user/neil%40mastodon.neilzone.co.uk), thanks [@andyprice@mastodon.social](https://community.nodebb.org/user/andyprice%40mastodon.social) for the shout out. I recommend NodeBB as it's one of a few forums that are still maintained and evolving. The latest version brings support for federation, allowing communication between it and any other software that supports ActivityPub (such as Mastodon, Lemmy, etc.) We focus on the lightweight and fast aspects of forum software. Communication should be seamless, and the software should be lightweight.

[@scott@loves.tech](https://community.nodebb.org/user/scott%40loves.tech) same shortcoming as finding the category for following, the handle isn't exposed. Also not all categories federate so whatever solution we adopt has to also communicate if a category is local only to the instance. [@freamon](https://community.nodebb.org/user/freamon)

[@freamon](https://community.nodebb.org/user/freamon) ah, I see. Yes we could experiment with putting the handle underneath the category name. [@scott@loves.tech](https://community.nodebb.org/user/scott%40loves.tech), we're talking about categories here, not users.

[@freamon](https://community.nodebb.org/user/freamon) open to suggestions on how to expose this to the end user. If accessing the content from fedi the handle is irrelevant, since it's part of the AP actor payload. I'll admit I didn't really consider the use case of someone accessing the forum directly and looking for the handle to follow.

[@deadsuperhero@social.wedistribute.org](https://community.nodebb.org/user/deadsuperhero%40social.wedistribute.org) Any user (of any type) can submit posts to a category. They need only mention the category. e.g. Mention [@testing-ground](https://community.nodebb.org/category/4/testing-ground) here, and when received by NodeBB, it should automatically be slotted in that category.

I didn't want to go as far as allowing categories to follow individual actors, because categories are for topical discussion and individual users tend to be less focused on a single topic. So categories can follow other `Group` actors only. That is by design. However, a category is an actor, and anybody can follow it. They just need to know the handle, which is set in the admin panel and by default is _usually_ the same as the "slug", which is the human readable bit in the url. e.g. "General Discussion"'s slug is `general-discussion`. I do have to expose this to the frontend, though. It is not immediately apparent this is so. Share your thoughts in this GitHub issue opened by [@panos@catodon.social](https://community.nodebb.org/user/panos%40catodon.social) https://github.com/NodeBB/NodeBB/issues/13126 [@deadsuperhero@social.wedistribute.org](https://community.nodebb.org/user/deadsuperhero%40social.wedistribute.org)

[@deadsuperhero@social.wedistribute.org](https://community.nodebb.org/user/deadsuperhero%40social.wedistribute.org) said in [Hey @julian@community\.nodebb\.org I'm currently experimenting with a NodeBB setup that has ActivityPub enabled\.](https://community.nodebb.org/post/https%3A%2F%2Fsocial.wedistribute.org%2Fobjects%2F36f5ebc8-dc59-492d-9076-eaa421455571): > I saw that documentation was a little bit sparse, and just wanted to expand my understanding. Can you tell me more about which sections need fleshing out? Writing documentation is hard for technical folk like me, but if you let me know what exactly needs more detail, I will be happy to write something up. Also paging [@panos](https://community.nodebb.org/user/panos), who might be able to do the heavy lifting on that one!!

[@deadsuperhero@social.wedistribute.org](https://community.nodebb.org/user/deadsuperhero%40social.wedistribute.org) sorry for the delay! I'm vacationing in Mexico with the fam post-FOSDEM (not entirely my plan to make them back to back, but that's how things fell into place!) Will respond separately to your original post.

[@silverpill@mitra.social](https://community.nodebb.org/user/silverpill%40mitra.social) when discussed with Nutomic about this, I made the case that 1b12 is excellent for synchronization. 7888 (and 171b, etc.) are good for backfill, in cases where there is no 1b12 implementation available.

For those who were unable to attend this past weekend's Social Web After Hours event held at HackerSpace Brussels ([@hsbxl@mastodon.online](https://community.nodebb.org/user/hsbxl%40mastodon.online)), I've uploaded a re-recording of my presentation, which you can check out here! Sadly, there was no live recording of the rather lively session, so you'll just have to take my word for it https://spectra.video/w/xwCSYfZh1mJY64zJ9GngbE If you're looking for just the slides, you can get them here as well * [Slides (PDF warning)](https://community.nodebb.org/assets/uploads/files/1738635204524-the-fediverse-is-quiet-let-x27-s-fix-that.pdf) Thank you [@deadsuperhero@social.wedistribute.org](https://community.nodebb.org/user/deadsuperhero%40social.wedistribute.org) for the PeerTube instance!

[@jiejie@mastodon.social](https://community.nodebb.org/user/jiejie%40mastodon.social) good question! The answer ultimately lies in how you want to communicate with your audience. Each option is different and it's hard for you to know which software is the best fit. That's why even when I say NodeBB sits somewhere in between microblogs and blogs, NodeBB might not be the right solution, yeah? What kind of site do _you_ want to build, how in depth do you want to go, etc.?

Lastly, there are so many others in the long-form text space who were not at FOSDEM, but are open and willing to work together! [@rimu@mastodon.nzoss.nz](https://community.nodebb.org/user/rimu%40mastodon.nzoss.nz) (PieFed), [@scott@authorship.studio](https://community.nodebb.org/user/scott%40authorship.studio) (Hubzilla), Mike MacGirvin (whose handle I forget at the moment) and so many more. Just because you weren't here does not mean you were forgotten. Your software was mentioned and discussed too!

[@tommi@pan.rent](https://community.nodebb.org/user/tommi%40pan.rent) let's all just give up and keep pressing this button 

[@esk@hachyderm.io](https://community.nodebb.org/user/esk%40hachyderm.io) obv. yesssss join us

I should also mention that we had great conversations with the Mastodon team (hi [@renchap@oisaur.com](https://community.nodebb.org/user/renchap%40oisaur.com) and [@dave@upp2.com](https://community.nodebb.org/user/dave%40upp2.com)!), and their commitments to working towards better support for long-form text is evident. Good vibes all around.

Among the fediverse there are microblogs (your Mastodons, Misskeys(+forks), etc. Then there are the long form peeps. We managed to all find each other at FOSDEM 2025. Pictured is [@matt@writing.exchange](https://community.nodebb.org/user/matt%40writing.exchange) (Write freely), [@pfefferle@mastodon.social](https://community.nodebb.org/user/pfefferle%40mastodon.social) (WordPress), and yours truly (NodeBB). We also had some good conversations with [@johnonolan@mastodon.xyz](https://community.nodebb.org/user/johnonolan%40mastodon.xyz) (Ghost), but I wasn't quick enough with my camera Let's move the state of long-form text on the open social web, forward! 

[@eeeee](https://community.nodebb.org/user/eeeee) I believe LemmyBB was a proof-of-concept, to show that Lemmy as it existed back then was able to be represented in the front-end as a tradtional forum. But also, nutomic (who _may_ have made LemmyBB? not sure.) is a busy person who has a day job and doesn't work on lemmy full-time

[@Kichae](https://community.nodebb.org/user/kichae) I'm not seeing an issue (although I haven't done exhaustive testing) between my test instance and this site. Can you let me know one of your federating categories, so I can try to set up a sync?

[@arachnibot@nodebb.arachnibot.com](https://community.nodebb.org/user/arachnibot%40nodebb.arachnibot.com) said in [Is ActivityPub too complicated?](/post/https%3A%2F%2Fnodebb.arachnibot.com%2Fpost%2F16): > Mainly wanted to sync remote group actors to a category for organizational purposes. Yeah that's a great use case, and definitely what it ought to be used for. Let me look into nodebb-to-nodebb folllowing, that _definitely_ should be working!