One of the things that the recent addition of the Feeds feature highlighted was how many cross-posts / duplicate posts there are. When you display posts from linux@lemmy.world, linux@programming.dev, linux@lemmy.ml, etc all the cross-posts make it get repetitive, really fast. The same thing happens on the home feed too although it's a bit less obvious because there's a wider range of subjects involved.
Except now, it doesn't, because PieFed de-duplicates your feed! And your home page, and your topics. Attached to this post is a screenshot showing how it works out - an article posted to 7 different places is only shown once despite me having joined most of those communities.
We're still figuring out whether it's a good idea to merge all the comments from all the cross-posts into one page and how to do that in a way that respects the different culture/rules in the communities that the posts were made in. It's a tricky UX and social question.
I've held off on adding a cross-post function to PieFed until now but it'll be added soon.
Ragrding merging comments, I think it's best to keep it as it is - let the user choose which thread they are in and which comment section they participate in. :)
Edit: I stand corrected - they have been merged and I love it.
more importantly: different communites, different rules. If i want serious discussion on a topic, i can visit the community that enforces serious discussion. if i want some fun with it and see memes and shitpost comments to that topic, i go to the other community.
but i can not have a serious discussion post if it is enriched with memes from an other community.
i LOVE getting an overview of cross-posts. this allows me to learn about other communities, how active they are and how important or wide-spread a topic might be.