Maybe an upgraded mBin is what I'd prefer?
I'd like to have a platform that can read as many different Fediverse platforms as possible. The three main Forumverse platforms can interact with Pixelfed and Mastodon and whatnot, but that could be made work a bit better still. This is merely a matter of development resources. There are platforms that can do what I wish for, but all of them have their cons:
- mBin supports having both Forumverse communities (or, "magazines", as mBin calls them) and Mastodon posts in the same feed. I really like that! But, it doesn't support all of Mastodon's features, such as quote posts. At the same time, mBin is also lacking in its support of PieFed/Lemmy posts and comments: It is especially annoying to me that it doesn't show images in comments, but replaces them with links I need to click in order to see the image alone and then press the browser's back button to see the comment itself - sans the image again, of course. And also, mBin does not support polls, mBin does not support Flairs, etc. But missing the images in comments is a deal breaker for me, when it comes to Forumverse comments. And not supporting quote posts is a deal breaker regarding Mastodon compatibility.
- PieFed is planning to support Mastodon posts "sometime in the future, soonish". It was originally planned for early 2026, but it's gotten pushed down the priority list and probably won't happen during 2027.
- Friendica can kind of do what I want, but its UI is incredibly complex to actually use. And it does not properly show Forumverse communities in the same feed where it shows everything else. And I really do not understand why the hell not. But also, when a user interface is as randomly built as that of Friendica, usually also the backend behind it is a tangled mess - this means, I don't really trust the data security of Friendica. With that kind of spaghetti UI design, it's likely to also have bugs that enable taking over people's user accounts. And also, I don't like it how Friendica forces me to @tag people in every comment that I write under Forumverse posts. Nor that it doesn't even show all comments!
So, give me a platform that supports as many different Fediverse platforms at once as possible, and does that so that any new features of any platforms will be supported within two months of them having appeared on some platform. And give that a simple clean UI that allows me to blend microblog toots and Forumverse posts in one unified feed. I believe that would get a lot of people to move from Fecesbook to the Fediverse. And that would make the world a tad bit more democratic.
(And for any devs: I know I'm asking for much here! What I'd like to see would take an incredible amount of programming resources. Especially the part where I'd wish for any new features invented by devs of other platforms to be implemented only a couple months after their original appearance elsewhere. But, this is a post about what would be ideal, not so much about what would be realistically possible. But maaaaybe, maybe if a more inviting attitude to attracting as many new capable programmers as possible would be used on some platform, something like what I dream of could become reality? You'd need a core group deciding what gets implemented and a very large group of mindless programmer monkeys and graphical design monkeys who would do the actual work of turning the ideas into reality. Now all main platforms - PieFed, Lemmy, mBin and Mastodon - are programmed by closed inner circles that want everyone to have a good grasp of the whole project, instead of anyone actively searching for any new capable hands to delegate parts of the programming to.