My experience with the Fediverse has only been through Mastodon, through which I struggled to find a community I really gelled with. Either it was supper overwhelming with meme posts or NSFW, or it was too chill to the point of nothing. Or, it was hyperfocused like FOSS/Linux and became uninteresting after awhile. May try again, but I think I will explore the other fedisites like Plemora or Calckey to see if I like it better.
I love the pace of a forum. I grew up primarily with GameFAQS and some lucid dreaming forum, and honestly it was very formative in teaching me how to write and use critical thinking skills, as well as how to respond to a variety of temperaments. I stopped participating in online forums awhile ago, and while I loved Reddit as a resource, I never felt inspired to participate. In the same way, there are an incredible number of forums dedicated to a certain topic, and are extremely valuable, it would be annoying to make an account for all the things I am interested in.
I like what lemmy is becoming. Glad to find system that makes interacting with people enjoyable.
sure! most of this functionality is in the search box. You can paste a URL and have it show up right in Lemmy. For example, you can post the URL to my profile, or search for my username and see my posts there (or you should be able to I thought, I just tested it and it doesn’t show my posts but it does offer to send me a message)
Edit: This seems to work better between Friendica and Mastodon, but as development continues between platforms I’m sure it will work even better!
Edit 2: So I just tested it in reverse, I can see a feed of a Lemmy group in Mastodon. I think Lemmy just needs some more development time and love and it will be able to do the same :)