@julian@activitypub.space didn't mean to do any of these things, sorry you felt that way. It was genuine puzzlement, because I know you're serious about NodeBB and its fediverse integration. Again, if you want my credentials to investigate from my account since you can't reproduce it, I'll be happy to provide them. Take care.

@julian@activitypub.space I am not talking about this, I am talking about all the rest of the serious problems I describe above: communities' and users' posts not being fetched, and my "World" feed having turned into a global feed that seems to show me posts from the whole fediverse, except for accounts I actually follow! I have notified you about these problems since November and I don't understand how that's acceptable to you.

@julian@activitypub.space do you have any updates on this? Sorry if I'm being pushy, but there are two communities where I want to suggest NodeBB, but I really can't do it if there is a possibility of accounts getting so messed up on the fedi side, with nobody knowing how to fix them. I can give you my credentials on your server too if that would help you figure out the problem.

@caohuak@moon.lonewolf.zone will do, thanks! @general@activitypub.space @liaizon@social.wake.st @silverpill@mitra.social @julian@activitypub.space

@caohuak@moon.lonewolf.zone @liaizon@social.wake.st @silverpill@mitra.social @julian@activitypub.space @general@activitypub.space huh, here it still doesn't want to:

@julian@activitypub.space I can also report back about remote communities after I unfollowed and refollowed them, there was a new post in the Lemmy community I follow 5 hours ago but again it wasn't fetched by NodeBB. Still shows the last post to be from 10 days ago.

@julian@activitypub.space btw someone in the Sharkey devs' channel noticed something interesting: Through https://activitypub.academy/ (which is a testing mastodon instance with an activity log), when I follow a Firefish user, it shows Firefish sending back an Accept. Same with Mastodon. But when I followed a NodeBB user, while the follow went through, it doesn't show an Accept being received from NodeBB. Tested this myself as well.

@julian@activitypub.space thanks, I informed them!
This still leaves serious issues that are on NodeBB's end though. This is my "World" page rn - posts from accounts and communities I follow aren't fetched (I'll report back on the communities after the refollow), and I'm getting random posts in my feed instead:

@julian@activitypub.space yeah, this was the least important one, but I think that the problems with following/posts not being fetched/follows not going through are pretty important, these are essential parts of federation.

@julian@activitypub.space right, after more testing, I'm pretty sure that the accounts that appear in the followers/following pages (with the profile pictures) are correct, the problem there is with the number on the left menu.

@julian@activitypub.space in case this helps narrow it down, I followed 2 more accounts, and now my "following" page shows 6 accounts (from 4 before), but the menu on the left still says 7, it wasn't affected.

@julian@activitypub.space oh and also World has recently decided to show all incoming posts, similar to the Global/All servers timelines in other platforms, instead of posts from the accounts I follow. I can't seem to find a way to get a feed of accounts I follow.

@julian@activitypub.space in the two groups I follow, the last post seems to be 9 and 10 days ago, whereas both have had new posts daily since then. I unfollowed and refollowed them, to see if it changes anything. BTW I think I found a bug in the process: "View original" for this group https://community.nodebb.org/category/showerthoughts@lemmy.world seems to point back to the same (nodebb) page.
But it's not just with groups, I'm having serious issues with accounts too. My profile: https://community.nodebb.org/user/panos shows I have no followers, but if you click it it shows 3. "Following" says 7 but shows 4. My main account (which I follow) through NodeBB shows 0 posts, while I'm posting daily more or less. It also shows that this user joined on 25 Nov 2025, but was last online on 8 Sept 2025
I followed my NodeBB account from Mastodon, it went through as expected. I try to follow it from Firefish and Sharkey, they show "pending" and don't go through (and ok, Firefish is abandoned, but Sharkey is a popular platform - and I suspect the same probably happens with the upstream Misskey).
All of those render my account completely unusable for federation. And it's not that I might have screwed something up with the setup of NodeBB, this is on your official community, that you are maintaining. I understand that I might be the exception and other users probably have a flawless experience, but it's hard to take the risk that some users may face similar problems. I really think it's important to figure out what causes these issues and to iron them out.

@julian@activitypub.space haha, just the main differences! I have gathered that in Discourse you can't follow fedi users, and you can't be followed as a Discourse user from fedi, which is a huge difference in favor of NodeBB (although, as you know, I'm facing serious issues with this feature, which makes me a little reluctant to suggest NodeBB for its fedi integration - https://github.com/NodeBB/NodeBB/issues/13840 ). Hopefully this will be solved at some point, so what are the rest of the big differences?

Does anyone have any experience with both #NodeBB 's and #Discourse 's #ActivityPub / #Fediverse integrations? I am wondering what each can and cannot do. I am familiar with NodeBB's federation but not with Discourse's one. It would be great if there was a comparison chart, but I haven't managed to find anything like that. Thanks!