The long-running Fediverse group service Guppe (https://a.gup.pe) will shut down on 31st May 2023 if it doesn't receive enough funding to cover its costs:
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@riaschissl@feditips Chirp groups can be followed like a regular Mastodon account but posts in the group can be manually moderated, members can be manually approved and there can be multiple admins per group. You can also choose to hide group if 18+ content. Guppe does not have those things.
@rm4
> Chirp groups ... can be manually moderated, members can be manually approved and there can be multiple admins per group
Ah yes, I remember Chirp, thanks for jogging my memory. I don't think Guppe is necessarily the best tool for starting a new group today. In fact the first thing I'd suggest to the a.gup.pe admins is to disable new groups. But the existing groups are part of the history of the 'verse and it would be good to preserve them intact.
@rm4@feditips they have enough differences that it's good to have multiple options (and honestly it's good to have multiple options anyway, that's the whole point of decentralization)
Mastodon groups is not the same as Guppe groups, they work in different ways.
And, even if they were the same it is really dangerous to hand over all the Fediverses features to the same development team. The point of the Fediverse is to spread out across many servers and many kinds of software, so that no one has power over it all.
Also many servers don't run Mastodon software. Guppe is server agnostic, whereas Mastodon Groups seems to require a Mastodon server.
Mastodon groups are still upcoming. They're not out yet and God knows when they will be. Until they're out and widely used, and perhaps even after that considering their differing purpose, Guppe will still be relevant.
If Mastodon groups aren't federated properly, what's the point? It should operate a lot the same as existing platforms with (public) groups, like a.gup.pe or Friendica, or at least support them.
@datatitian
"If you want to support Guppe and prevent it shutting down..."
I can pledge $20 for this year at least.
> Guppe’s source code is available if anyone would like to operate their own server in its stead
Can we migrate Guppe groups to a different server? Such that we can still look at the Guppe actor to see the group's posting history? I'm guessing not, due to dependence of fedi IDs on domain names. But if it was possible, many small servers could replace one?
@feditips
"It’s a common question how this differs from hashtags. The difference is a hashtag is a passive tool, it helps you organize posts from within your existing network, while Guppe is an active tool, it actively distributes posts across the fediverse in order to help you grow your network."
@feditips@datatitian An @mention is an opt-in activity. @mentioning a public group in a post is actively asking for that post to be widely distributed to any number of unknown people. If that post could be reliably identified as being relayed by a public group, it would surely be ethical to treat it as public, and include it in a search system, wouldn't it?
@strypey@feditips@datatitian If you are actually worried about ethics of a search system why not ask for explicit consent rather than trying to weasle around making "public" pull a lot of ethical weight. The explicit use of a mention is to reference the mentioned party or call their attention. It is a far cry to take a desire for that explicit action, even when that action is directed at a very visible entity, and call it fair consent to algorithmic analysis.
@Matt5sean3
Funny you should pop up here, I was just going to invite you to comment 😅
Did you read the full article I linked, and all the posts in the thread? Without that context, or an existing familiarity with Guppe groups, the logic of what I'm proposing may not be clear.
@Matt5sean3
> making "public" pull a lot of ethical weight
Let me ask you this. If an activist group you're campaigning with puts out a press release, do you want news media to ask for explicit consent before publishing it? If not, why not? If your group has a website making the arguments for your cause, do you expect search engines toask for explicit consent before indexing it? If not, why not?
A post is not a press release, so it's not analogous. Do you think I'm writing a press release right here?
If I have a website I do expect that ethically built web crawlers will respect robots.txt. Website building has a bit more of a learning curve than social media posting, so it's not as unreasonable to expect a person to know it out the gate, but I would say that it's not an ideal system on that account. Better opt-in with #yesbot than opt-out with #nobot.
@Matt5sean3
I'm really not enjoying this conversation. Maybe something about your hectoring tone, or your tendency to imply that anyone who doesn't agree with your particular framing is out to do harm. I will persist because I think the topic is important, not just to the fediverse, but to public discourse generally. But I'd really appreciate it if you could dial down the combative attitude a bit.
@strypey@feditips@datatitian I at least agree that the topic is important, which is perhaps part of why I come off aggresively. There is much potential for harm as search changes dynamics on the Fediverse even if it is built with stellar intent. It is a highly sought after feature. Someone will do it, but whoever does it needs to act cautiously or else potentially cause a lot of otherwise unnecessary strife.
@Matt5sean3
> There is much potential for harm as search changes dynamics
I'm aware. But I guarantee you that everything we fear is already being built and used in private, limited only by what's technically possible. No amount of haranguing people for openly discussing the design of an ethical search system can prevent that (you've been a little prickly, but elsewhere in the 'verse I've seen some ridiculous abuse aimed at people just taking about possibilities).
@Matt5sean3
So what is within our power to mitigate the harm of search?
Encrypt all private messages or don't offer them
Educate people that anything unencrypted is public and being searched, for better or for worse, whether that's done openly as part of community-driven fediverse apps, or quietly by spooks, or ad-funded companies like Meta implementing AP
have open, honest, and friendly discussions about respectful ways to do search on public posts
You're absolutely right that most of the things being discussed in the mastodon space are already built. Search and quote posts are both controversial, but also both old news on a number of fediverse platforms.
@Matt5sean3
> A post is not a press release, so it's not analogous
I was asking clarifying questions to figure out if we disagree on where the public/ private boundary lies - and the need for explicit consent kicks in - or we disagree that the public domain exists at all. There's no point in making arguments about where to draw the line been private and public if you don't believe anything is inherently public. For example...
@Matt5sean3
> Better opt-in with yesbot than opt-out with nobot
I get the logic, but it ignores that putting a website online (without password protection) is an act of publishing. Like putting out a press release, it's reasonable to think it's public and meant to be discovered, unless it explicitly says otherwise. The practical result of a yesbot is that although most people want their website discovered, it only gets indexed if they know to put a yesbot in.
Understanding "yesbot" would then be one more point in understanding the operations of the Fediverse. It's not even a fraction as complex as present fundamental aspects of ActivityPub such as which servers your post federates to.
@Matt5sean3
>.Understanding "yesbot" would then be one more point in understanding the operations of the Fediverse
We're not talking about the fediverse here. We're talking about traditional websites. Without some answers to the deeper questions I'm asking about the public/ private boundary - for media in general not just the 'verse - we're just going to keep talking past each other.
What Guppe is still doesn't make a difference in that respect. Even for Guppe explicitly, it is a tool for overcoming limitations of federation and sharing explicitly to the group, not for facilitating search.
Guppe's usage of @ still falls within the scope of the usage of @ of bringing attention to the mentioned party. Granted, that party is broader than the @ functionality is usually used for.
@Matt5sean3
> Guppe... is a tool for overcoming limitations of federation and sharing explicitly to the group
Right, but who is "the group"? With Guppe, it's anyone who follows the group, ie anyone in the 'verse, ie potentially any member of the global public. So as with putting a website online, posting to a Guppe group is an act of publishing. People may not realize they are @mentioning a Guppe group and publishing to the world, but that's a UI and education problem.
Looks like what happens here is that somegroupname _at_a.gup.pe when “mentioned” in a post distributes to those people who share a mutual followership of somegroupname_at… So these people by virtue of their mutual follow form a “group”, 🙂 , not sure how different that would be if they were to share a “hashtag” for that matter.
@strypey@feditips@datatitian Now, if you setup a bot that indexes posts that mention a purpose made account, it would be cumbersome and end up with some bad UX screw when it comes to replies because that is not what mentions are designed around. However, such an indexer I would say is fine provided it ignores mentions of itself at the start of replies as likely accidental.
@Matt5sean3
> an indexer I would say is fine provided it ignores mentions of itself at the start of replies as likely accidental
This solves the UI problem of people not realizing they're posting to an indexer. But it doesn't solve the problem of people not knowing their reply went to a Guppe group and is being being spread to the group (ie the world). Unless Guppe ignored replies too, but what if I want my reply to go to the group? This is the crux of the problem.
@Matt5sean3
The software has to make a default assumption about whether posts are intended to be discoverable (share replies with the group), or not discoverable (ignore replies). In either case, users who want the opposite have to a) know the default, and b) give an explicit command to get the opposite. The debate about search is at root, a debate about which default makes the most sense for the fediverse as a whole. Is it a publishing tool or a private chat tool?
@Matt5sean3
We need consensus on this for all fediverse software. Because if different apps make different assumptions about whether the default is public or private, chaos ensues. The lack of a feature like text search in Mastodon doesn't protect privacy one iota if even one other fediverse server package provides it.
ActivityPub does not work that way. Until people are following between servers the posts don't get sent between servers and even then it's only for particular users. Using relays avoids this a bit, but not every instance is hooked to every relay. It is not instant.
If server runners, some of whom are the exact people opposed to the expansion of these sort of discovery features and are most likely to pay attention, don't like it defederation is what ensues.
If you still want the reply to be indexed you could move or repeat the mention to anywhere else in the post than the top where mentions in most current UIs presently have them, which shows intent simply enough.
@feditips dumb question, isn't the necessary level already archived (and by a lot) ?
I still think it's good to give it some spotlight even if that's the case, I'm only wondering if its survival (and middle term durability) is assured.
@feditips@datatitian oh nevermind, it's clearer in the "budget" tab, the first chart mix monthly costs with yearly donations.
So not it's not enough yet.
@feditips hey @datatitian looking at https://opencollective.com/guppe-groups now shows a balance of $2229.78 which is 11+ months at 200$ a month. Does this not atleast make it make sense to make an announcement that its not shutting down at the end of this month?
As far as I know, they work in different ways. Mastodon Groups seems more like a closed forum kind of thing?
Guppe is more like a discussion list which distributes interesting posts across the Fediverse.
Also, it is not clear if Mastodon groups will work outside Mastodon. It's very important that the Fediverse remains diverse and open to non-Masto server types.
And on top of that, it's really really important that we aren't relying on Mastodon for everything.
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