My Discovery
While poking around InLeo, which mostly preserves the features of the old LeoFinance front end, I noticed that there is a Threads tab at the top of each community.
So, I visited the Texas Community and posted a Thread there. Next, I visited the same community through another front end to see if threading would create a multi-containter thread there. The answer is no. Threads live within comments on blog posts by @leothreads. There is no direct connection between Threads and individual communities.
Instead, what InLeo does is use Tags to link Threads to each community. So, if you tag #texas within your Thread, it will show up in the Texas Community threads when you visit that community via the InLeo front end.
If you visit via any other front end, you will not see Threads for that community.
What This Means For Community Members
I always wondered why LeoFinance had a Communities tab on the side. Now in InLeo, it occurs to me that the idea is that you use the InLeo front end to write posts to your community. In this way you qualify to earn LEO tokens. That never clicked for me until now. I was always under the impression that one would need to post in the LeoFinance Community to earn rewards.
To clarify, I could write blog posts in the Texas Community, for example, using InLeo to earn LEO tokens.
And by using Threads within a Community, it creates a "channel" for those threads. It filters out all other threads that aren't tagged with that community's tag. It squelches other conversations.
Now things start to make sense to me about why InLeo is less about Finance and more focused on Threads. Until now, I had not considered using InLeo as a general front end for interacting with communities. Now this has changed.
Alternatives
To be fair, PeakD has added a chat feature that is also available to communities. However, there are no rewards in it. And it doesn't operate through the Hive blockchain in the way Threads does. I wouldn't mind using it. However, depending on the community, it doesn't seem to have much use. I think they could do a better job of promoting the chat.
Ecency has also introduced Waves. I understand Waves will eventually have a standalone site. I think they would benefit by adding a Waves tab within communities when using the Ecency front end.
Much Utility
I believe what I have discovered has long been available to users from before the launch of InLeo. However, I had never stumbled upon any blog post explaining these things. So it's new to me. And this adds much utility to my presence on the Hive blockchain. I feel less divided between my Leo friends and the rest of Hive.
Posted Using InLeo Alpha