huh, actually, in the activitypub protocol, user IDs are actually URLs. so the actual user id would be https://discuss.tchncs.de/u/basxto or https://lemmy.ml/c/lemmy

if it displays you something like “@basxto@discuss.tchncs.de”, that’s just because mastodon/lemmy uses a translation service that converts the convenient way to write account IDs to URLs under the hood. activitypub should be fine with a user and community existing with the same name, because their URLs are different. https://lemmy.server/u/name vs https://lemmy.server/c/name

nvm i’m stupid. i followed the wrong account. i tried following the @shitpost@lemmy.world account when i actually should have followed the @lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world account. note the subtle difference in account names. it’s entirely a fault on my side.

thanks, i’ll try it out and report back