I found this neat comparison site https://arewedecentralizedyet.online contrasting fediverse and atmosphere. Related discussion on HN:
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That’s funny. Competitive vs. concentrated.
If you look at activitypub.space, which claims to be entirely federated, but you can’t participate from your federated account: you have to register first with an email. 
Dear activitypub.space: your “technical discussion” space is not granular enough, so we cannot really federate with it in the SocialHub: you should match our granularity: ActivityPub, ActivityPub > Client to Server, ActivityPub > Server to Server, Standards > Fediverse Enhancement Proposals, Programming (and one per language) and Software (and one per software). And if you allow me (@how@socialhub.activitypub.rocks) to participate, then you could claim you’re fully federated. Otherwise you’re just deterring people from having constructive conversations about ActivityPub development in a share space. Thank you.
Dear @how@socialhub.activitypub.rocks, you are not able to proactively participate in ActivityPub.space discussions because Discourse has limited to no content discovery features.
An admin needs to set up the category to category federation in order for them to exchange content.
I was able to pull this thread in so I am able to reply (and you should be able to respond back if you mention me in response.)
I’m able to participate fine from the my mastodon server: Emelia 👸🏻: "@julian@activitypub.space It's great this doesn't…" - Hachyderm.io
Which appears here: To Do List | ActivityPub.Space
Yes, that is why I listed the categories we can federate. 
I already federated some, but obviously the “technical discussion” is way too vast to match any of ours here.
But I mean: I should be able to register with my Fediverse handle and not an email. In Discourse, you can do so, and it stages the user. Then if you have another existing user, you can merge the accounts.
@how I don't want to register an account on any of these platforms, I want to be able to participate from my existing fediverse account! And I can on both SocialHub and activitypub.space (although both platforms currently have some major bugs that affect participation).
The discussions on @laurenshof substrate post are an interesting compare-and-contrast.
28 posts by 14 posters on activitypub.space](https://community.nodebb.org/topic/cd9c1acf-033d-4844-9e60-022ac7706364/new-socialhub-and-the-substrate-of-decentralised-networks), with 28 posts by 14 posters,
15 posts by 8 posters on SocialHub
It would be interesting to investigate why some of the posts that are showing up over there aren't showing up over here (and conversely), that probably reflects some bugs somewhere.
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Indeed it seems discourse-activitypub is lacking discovery compared to NodeBB. Why is that so, and how can it be fixed?
@thisismissem @devnull @angus @silverpill @trwnh do you have any idea?
Of course, this is what I meant.
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What do you mean by discovery?
I guess the ability to catch ongoing conversation branches from the original. I didn’t explore what @jdp23 was mentioning, nor whether there is a way to visually map conversations from an original post, but any of those would be useful in understanding why there is such a discrepancy in posters from NodeBB and from Discourse. Or is it simply that people involved in the NodeBB follow each other and not here?
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Please don’t ping me about stuff I’m absolutely not involved in, I am doing enough already. The discourse team can easily look to other fediverse software should they wish to improve AP discovery and integration features
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I would not have pinged you had you not intervened in this conversation.
I simply stated that there is not a bug on NodeBB’s side as I can interact fine from another AP server (one I do contribute to)
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Silverpill, to put it bluntly, Discourse broadcasts content to the fediverse. It does not provide functionality for users to discover new content via follower relationships.
The only way content outside of the local instance appears is:
- If it is in direct response to an existing topic
- It is 1b12-announced by a synchronized category (requires admin setup)
- I think maybe Discourse can also follow users (this also requires admin setup)
These decisions essentially make Discourse federation one-way, severely limits reach and precludes organic discovery of new content.
So, Discourse needs to be able to follow remote groups?
I still don't quite understand the problem. In my view, broadcasting content is the primary function of a Group, and I don't like when random fedi posts appear in the "Latest" timeline: https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/latest
so the original link asked the question “are we decentralised yet”, and reading all these comments makes the think the conclusion is “yes were extremely decentralised and this makes everyone very happy”
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@laurens indeed, we are decentralized(complimentary) but also decentralized (derogatory) and most of all decentralized (frustrating)
EDIT: and also decentralized (confusing).
On #SocialHub my guess is nobody will see the edits! SECOND EDIT: the joke's on me, people DO see the edit there!
On other platforms, people seeing my post may or may not be able to see yours, and almost certainly won't be able to see most of the rest of the thread!
I know, I know, "just like email" ... but not in a good way.
… its a decent attempt at more humane tech in any case.
I would push back on that a bit Julian insofar as this topic itself, and the various places folks are interacting with it from, demonstrates that Discourse’s federation is not one-way. You shared your thoughts from NodeBB for example.
I think the difference you’re describing is essentially a difference in view about how forums should interact with the fediverse. Your view is that forums should interact in an identical way to how stream based platforms like Mastodon interact with the fediverse, i.e. the software is essentially just a medium for both incoming and outgoing content. Taken to its logical conclusion, it essentially doesn’t matter what software you’re using, or what community that software is connected to, all interaction is inherently global and all software is just a tool for that global interaction. Or to put it another way, full decentralisation.
We decided to not go fully in that direction with the Discourse ActivityPub plugin just yet. We will likely add that as a feature, but part of the reason why we didn’t prioritise adding the ability for to accept any incoming content, is because of a tacit idea that the role of individual communities, i.e. individual forums, matters vis-a-vis the broader community of the fediverse.
I would still emphasise that this doesn’t mean we won’t add that as a feature, i.e. the ability to have full decentralisation. But I don’t think it’s inherently obvious that forums, in their roles as communities, should interact with the fediverse in exactly the same way that stream based platforms do.
One of the things this makes me reflect on is what is the nature of community in those various conceptions? The “software is just a medium” view does involve an implicit understanding of community, even if not frequently stated. I’m not saying that view is wrong, just that I think it’s worth considering what role the different mediums (i.e. the different software platforms) play in that dynamic.
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This aligns with my preference too, and is more in line with the general idea of Personal social networking as well, which is the starting point for Social experience design (SX). I recently ported information to Social coding commons on “Community has no boundary” paradigm, seeing the fediverse as a Spiral Island, an archipelago of intricately connected small communities.
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I would just note, as an aside, that if folks want SocialHub to be a fully decentalised platform, i.e. accepting incoming as equally as it publishes outgoing, please share that here and I can prioritise that in the work I do on this Discourse AP plugin and this site in the next wee while.
Perhaps this is a community that should be inherently decentralised, given its role in the ActivityPub ecosystem. Horses for courses as they say.
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