> As such, Mastodon does not realize that all of those are the same channel and the same post.
I'm usually quick to point fingers at Mastodon, but I'm not sure if this time they are at fault.
Mastodon (and most of ActivityPub current server software) does push-based interop. This means that any notification that I receive corresponds to one different activity being POST'ed to my actor inbox.
I'm not familiar with ZOT, but I'd be curious to know what is causing this.