I'm curious -- has there been thought given to making some kind of simple HeyFollowMe button on web pages that could work as smoothly as RSS buttons did for RSS using folks back in the day?
Ideally not requiring one to copy and paste a URL into a #Mastodon search box or type your home server address into a Follow dialog box on another site's page.
I'm assuming there's some reason such a thing isn't already out there.
When there is no queue, if the process fails, the inbox can just respond with a 500 server error and the sender will resend it.
But with a queue, by the time the inbox responds, it doesn't know if the process will fail because it hasn't run yet. So the sender won't retry whether it fails or not.
So, should it have its own retry logic when there is a queue?
I really by and large have mostly lost faith that anything short of a miracle will get #ActivityPub to where I would like it to be, and the forces working against success here are just hard to even look at
I support the groups that are trying to define a way forward, and I suspect in many, many ways the battle is lost until and unless one of those efforts succeeds well enough to define a better way forward, and there's no way to know what that would look like or if it is even possible.
actually couldn't you implement asks on fedi by having a public/unlisted post that just doesn't appear in timelines and is only sent to the non-shared inbox of the person you're are asking to? answers could be regular quote posts and because the post is public when the quoted answer post gets sent other instances will be able to fetch it then
I am so thankful that anyone can create their own Fediverse instance at any time so that they aren't beholden to the thought police on Mastodon.social.
Seriously, if you value your freedom of opinion, get out of there. They don't care what you think and will ban you for thinking the wrong thing...😒😑
Make your own instances. It's the only way to keep our power and freedom on Fedi.
hihiiiiii~ nice to meetcha!!! here's my #introduction post!!
I'm a #trans gal (pronouns: she/her) from the UK (British-Indian to be specific ig)~
I'm also a PhD student (graduating August 2024) working on programming languages research (though I work in formal verification, brain too small :aqua_cry: to understand category theory)
I do a lot of #drawing (see my pfp!!!), like #anime and #manga, esp those with good trans representation + #yuri ofc (recss welcomeee!!). I also play video games, but I suck and my computer is a potat :blobbee_nom_potato: so can't play anything too intensive~ love indie gamess, rpgs esp!!!
Before my egg cracked, I guess I liked #programming and was obsessed with the #OCaml programming language? I even wrote my own #activitypub server in it~ (look up OCamlot!!), Nowadays I guess I like #Racket and #lisp, but tbh I don't do it much outside of work lol
I also do #gamedev on and off in my free time (the bg of my profile is a chara from a game I'm working on), but I've never finished a projectttt cause I keep on procrastinating tooo muchhh :aqua_cry:
Hehee happy to meetchaaa~~ hope to make new frens :NepHappy:
@rapha3l I'm not really sure, to be honest, but I got a feeling that it's sort of both.
What I know for a fact, is that it's the same as if you entered the remote post's URL into your Mastodon instance's search bar. But I'm not 100% sure what doing this does to federation.
AFAIK, 'federation' isn't a binary matter. I.e. it doesn't appear to be a question of two instances exchanging everything or nothing.
As far as I can tell, federation (at least in the context of Mastodon) is based on who follows whom and what. That's why, for example, even though I follow several people on mastodon.social, I still need to fetch many replies from there.
So, I think that's what's happening here: The two instances will be federated in that they are aware of one another, but they won’t be exchanging every message going forward.
That is my understanding anyway. I hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong.
I love when Fediverse scrapers get Fediblocked MULTIPLE times then start making new instances under obscure domain names to hide their data stealing...🤬
Awakari created a new instance on Indy.rest on June 24. 4 days after I called for Fediblock on their other attempt at ban evasion (awakari.app)
Indy.rest seems to be down at the moment. However, given their track record, this is a required block if you value your data not being sold.
I wish #Mastodon / #ActivityPub had like, native, seamless, keep-the-old-timestamp post migration between instances tbh. I do miss my .ART backlog.
Even though #Bluesky is only allowing self-hosted PDS instances (right NOW*), you can take your backlog and social graph with you when moving within #ATProto
it's often so complex to add #ActivityPub to an already existing platform (for example #WordPress ) and it gets even more complex if it is not built for social media 😱
For example
Deleting Users from the Fediverse, that still exist on the blog.
Delete the whole blog from the fediverse, but take temporary plugin deactivations/deletions into account.
It's kinda gross to see these corporate walled gardens intentionally misrepresent their Fedi integrations and just start using Fediverse in their PRs like their a genuine Fedi participant.
Looking at you, BlueSky and Threads. BlueSky lied about being decentralized and uses Brdigy Fed, a third party bridge to Fedi made by one man, to say they're decentralized. Threads keeps adding fake Fediverse interactions and promoting them as legit Fediverse interactions. They "added" replies from Fediverse without mentioning that they're private and can only mention 1 person or it won't be federated...🤦♂️
If you intentionally misrepresent your integrations for clout, you're doing nothing but harboring mistrust here on Fedi.
And....my hype for Threads replies has immediately been killed.
Replies are only shown to the OP. It's something but all this fake integration crap is starting to piss me off now...🤬
Edit: Confirmed. Replies are only shown to 1 person. You can't mention multiple Threads users and have them see it publicly. This is ridiculous at this point...🙄
My logs are actually rammed with entries like the above. It's not a helpful UA, so what is it doing? Being a POST I'm pretty certain it's not crawling but I'm also not following all that many (if any in fact) Threads users?
@jan I think, funnily enough, that this is Facebook following ActivityPub more closely than Mastodon - specifically the parts around Inbox Forwarding, which Mastodon doesn't do.
It's the reason people invent things like #FediFetcher
And, of course, blogging has this! There is a comment form at the bottom of this page - and I moderate it. If you post something stupid, I don't have to subject my audience to your inanities. I can (and do) block users from commenting.
ActivityPub doesn't have this (yet). It's much more like a public mailing list. I can block or mute you - which stops me from seeing your abuse - but doesn't stop anyone else from seeing it.
Should ActivityPub have something similar? Yeah, I reckon so. I'd like to be able to say "Anyone I know want to go to the pub tonight" and only have mutuals reply. I want to prune away spam or repetitive replies. It would be helpful to have a conversation in public that other people can't interrupt.
The UI would be complex. And the social model needs a bit of work. And there are some technical challenges around syndicating which replies should be included.
But, ultimately, social media should respond to the needs of its users.
What's the #activitypub server software landscape like these days? It's been a while since I've checked and I want to know what people are running and what's new in the past couple years
Interesting new ActivityPub project called @hollo for a single user instance!
It still has to build features that are required for mass adopting (blocking and muting aren't implemented yet) but I'm really interested in single user instance software that's somewhat minimalistic so whenever it's fully released, I might try it out!
I always used to dream of one day having my own social media site. I just never wanted to have to deal with the asshats that would show up.
Fediverse lets me have that experience while being able to block anyone that I want for any reason at any time.
The biggest issue I've come across so far would be ban evasion. There's 20,000+ instances so if someone wants to stalk you, it's trivial to do so. I wish there was a clear way to stop that, but as someone that has no programming knowledge, I'm not sure it can be done...
The same thing can be said about who is reading or using your data. There's just no way to accurately have that information unless you keep your account locked and post "Followers only".
Just a quick overview of different social media platforms, the word decentralized, and what it means.
In my opinion, decentralization requires 2 parts: the spread of data over multiple sources AND your complete control of where that data is distributed.
That being said, Fediverse IS decentralized because there's 20,000+ instances that can host the data AND can control where that data goes, if they want. This still means that you have to run an instance to have complete control, but running an instance is cheap and easy enough.
Nostr is also decentralized with your data going to hundreds of relays, but the control just isn't there. On Nostr, instead of instances exclusively hosting the data, there's relays that each user has to connect to. You can choose which "relays" have that at first. However, if anyone from your relay is also connected to another relay and boosts your posts, it will get relayed. Also, there's no surefire way to edit or delete content on Nostr. Some apps let you "request" a deletion, but it's not certain that it will be honored.
Threads is NOT decentralized because even though they allow sharing TO the Fediverse, there's currently no way to control which instances will see that data. There is blocking for individual users, but with a decentralized platform like Fedi, that's not enough.
BlueSky, on the other hand, is NOT decentralized by default. You CAN have control of your data if you host a PDS, but that data can only be used on BlueSky right now. There is the 3rd party "BridgyFed" that users can use to federate their posts to Fediverse, but beyond blocking individual users, BridgyFed is in control of which instances will get that data.
All-in-all, Fediverse is currently the only social media platform which allows nearly full control over your data and where it goes. This platform is the future. I just hope everyone else sees it that way soon enough.