Greetings, kbeans! I wanted to inform you that Kbin Link is now available on the Firefox Extension Store. If you're interested, you can find more information about it here: https://github.com/driccio98/kbin-link....
I was initially introduced to Mastodon a few years ago by a close friend and picked up on it quickly given the benefits of not having to deal with advertising, or being shown what a mega-corporation thought I should have to see through algorithms. I have since found a great instance over on cupoftea.social that promotes quality...
hariette@tech.lgbt - #kbin + #lemmy app is coming along. Here's a preview of the upcoming beta. This is less than a week’s worth of work, so it’s only up from here 😉...
Why YSK: making the most of the fediverse means aggregating content from as many places as possible, but it's not an intuitive process right now, especially for those using apps like Jerboa or Mlem....
r/Firefox is doing it right - The mods announced they were reopening the #subreddit, but made it so new posts could only be pictures of foxes or red pandas…then said if people wanted to post about technical stuff, to do it on their kbin.
THAT is how you do it. The subreddit is so there, but functionally unusable, and there’s direction to the new place. #Reddit
Many people are asking me, "How will #ActivityPub ultimately be #Meta's own undoing?"
Meta's current business model is not built for an open protocol like ActivityPub. It's very much dependent on them owning and controlling the network effect of services like Facebook and Instagram.
Not only does Meta want to collect all your personal data -- they want to control it too. They enforce this control through proprietary APIs. In this sense, they're not different from Twitter and Reddit.
The point of ActivityPub is that services, such as #Mastodon, #Kbin, and #Calckey, can depend on an open protocol instead of a proprietary API.
What if I, the admin of calckey.social, don't like what a dev is doing? Well, too bad. The protocol is open. I might be able to twiddle with my own server, but I can't do jack with anyone else's.
And what if I'm a greedy asshole who wants to monetize the user data on my server? Too bad for me, everyone on my server can migrate elsewhere.
This is not how Meta does business. In almost all ways, ActivityPub is counter to their business. Yet, here they are -- wanting to join the Fediverse.
The tech industry is awash in stories of big corporations that own proprietary tech that become undone by open standards.
Remember IBM's dominance of PCs? It was undone by the EISA standard.
Remember Novell's dominance of networking? It was undone by the bundling of TCP/IP in operating systems.
Remember AOL's dominance of online services? It was undone by the World Wide Web.
ActivityPub is yet another standard that pierces the opaque walled gardens that largely depend on proprietary technology owned by one company. And Meta happens to be one company that owns an opaque walled garden.
If history is to be repeated -- and usually it's worth learning from history -- then Meta opening the door to ActivityPub is company suicide. It's the first domino to fall before everything else in their catalogue of walled gardens also falls. Contrary to popular opinion, creating an ActivityPub enabled social network does not "kill" ActivityPub -- it validates it.
As it happens, I've known quite a few people who work at Meta. I have a little insight into what they're thinking.
Most folks at Meta know very well that Facebook will eventually die. But not just Facebook, Instagram too. Social networks, by their nature, are generational and transient. They have a shelf life.
Meta very much wants to build the app that kills Facebook and Instagram.
They have to build it because they can't acquire competition. That will raise the ire of regulators.
Likewise, Meta have already tried to leverage their own proprietary APIs to build compelling platforms. We've already seen this with the likes of Portal and Oculus.
What's apparent is that, even for a Big Social company like Meta, it is extremely hard to build a network effect from scratch. Sure, billions of people use Facebook and Instagram, but it was a whole lot of work for Meta to do that themselves.
And what was the end result of building Facebook and Instagram's network effect? More regulation by governments.
Thus, ActivityPub gives Meta two things it craves: the ability to piggyback on the network effect of an open protocol, and the ability to head off regulators by saying, "Hey, we don't own this protocol -- we're no different from Mastodon and Calckey."
Again, open protocols usually mean the demise of big corporations who leverage success through proprietary APIs. And ActivityPub will be no different.
Meta joining the Fediverse means that Automattic was right to build ActivityPub plugin for WordPress. It also means competitors, such as Apple and Microsoft, should probably start investing in ActivityPub.
What else does it mean? That small developers should start building apps that appeal to people who use Meta services. They should build these apps based on garden-variety ActivityPub -- because Meta can't own or control ActivityPub.
One of the cool things about the #redditmigration & the rise of #Kbin & #Lemmy is it is a big positive to both the #threadiverse and the existing users on the Fedi:
On the Threadiverse side: Lots of brand new blood from fleeing Reddit new users now discovering the Fediverse for the first time. New blood. New ideas.
On the Masto/Fedi side:
I think many are seeing REAL federation from/to an entirely other type of Fedi platform for the first time in the wild.
It really works. Opening eyes.
I really loved @FixedFun 's idea for the kbin mascot, so I decided to refine it a bit and make some color alternatives. All credit to them for this wonderful idea! I merely refined it. Note, the circles beside the logo are just a color pallete swatch, not actually meant to be apart of the logo....
PSA: If you're a Mastodon user visiting a kbin site and see something you want to reply to, you don't have to have an account there to participate in the conversation.
Click on More > Copy URL to Fediverse > Paste it into the search field of your Mastodon instance > Interact just like any other post.
All because of the power of federation and ActivityPub! :masto_dance:
I'm curious about the demographic makeup of Kbin. As we are still in it's infancy I feel that most lean towards a certain way, so I made this survey just now to find out. I encourage you to join in, and you can skip any and every question if you so choose. You can view the results at the bottom of the page.
It took 4 months and 50 code commits, but my federated version of reddit (written in #python) can now follow and be followed by instances of #kbin and #lemmy!
Getting #ActivityPub working has been ... a journey.
Yep, it looks like there is a XSS vulnerability with Lemmy that has been widely exploited, allowing the attackers to steal cookie credentials including potentially those of the site admins.
Some other non-compromised Lemmy instances have taken themselves offline until a fix is available.
Kbin is not affected as far as I can see.
If you have a Lemmy account, don't use it at the moment!
@ernest how do I report a Magazin on kbin.social ? There is a usere called "ps" who is posting to his own "antiwoke" Magazin on kbin.social. Please remove this and dont give them a chance to etablish them self on kbin.social. When I report his stuff it will go to him because he is the moderator of the magazin? Seems like a...
Yet another question people are asking me: "How can I, a common person, help hasten the demise of #Meta through #ActivityPub?"
Again, I want to re-emphasize this. #Fediblock is not an all-purpose tool. It's useful as a hammer. But in this scenario, we don't just need a hammer. We need drills, pliers, saws, and blowtorches.
That said, we must protect communities that choose to defederate from Meta. Which means that if those servers don't want to receive messages from any Meta-owned services, we must not only be respectful of that, we should make damn sure that those servers are quarantined from Meta. So much of the success of fighting Meta will require safe spaces from Meta.
The next thing we need is lots and lots of nodes. Currently, we only have ~25,000 nodes on the Fediverse but we need more. Preferably, these nodes should be small, agile, and well-moderated. If you have the finances and/or skill to run a node, it's important that you do so. To compete with Meta, we need to build scale -- and the easiest way to build scale is by adding more nodes to the Fediverse.
What will also be key is lobby servers. These will be servers specifically set up for migrants from Meta-owned services to help onboard them towards the rest of the Fediverse. To run such a lobby server, they need to be welcoming, moderated well, and free of the elitists and gatekeepers that poison so much of the Fediverse currently.
How to get people from Meta to try out the rest of the Fediverse? We need people willing to be ambassadors on #P92 who are ready and willing to evangelize the rest of the Fediverse. Folks like @tchambers are very good at this on Twitter, and I have no doubt that we can do the same with P92. Except this time we'll have the benefit of federation already happening 😉
Now if there's one thing I've learned about the growth of the Fediverse it's that bad corporate decisions pay dividends. We've already experienced waves of migration from Tumblr, Twitter, and Reddit. And I have no doubt that it's only a matter of time before Meta makes another corporate mistake -- as they tend to do.
In which case, we need to strike fast. When another Cambridge Analytica happens, we need to remind everyone on Meta about the lobby servers that are on standby, and ready to take them on. Unlike previous migrations, let's not be unprepared for this. Let's be especially prepared since Meta plans to join the Fediverse.
Finally, we need more devs. Specifically, we need devs willing to build innovative server and client software that takes aim at Meta. And to do that, we need to support the devs that currently exist -- show evergreen devs pondering whether they should invest here that we, as a community, are appreciative of our current devs.
If you like #Mastodon, #Calckey, #Kbin, #Friendica, etc., it's important that you open up your hearts as well as your wallets and fund the next stage of Fediverse development.
This will take a lot of work. But if you want to fight Meta, challenge their dominance of social media, this is what must be done.
Personally, I'm hyped about the future of the Fediverse -- regardless of whether Meta eventually lives to tell the tale.
On KBin we have the ability to add tags to posts. These can either be directly added using the “pound” sign octothorpe, as in #KbinMeta. You can also add tags using the “Tags” field when creating an article, link, or photo. The second method will append the tags to the end of the post when the post is federated....
Introducing Kbin Link: Navigate between communities with ease
Greetings, kbeans! I wanted to inform you that Kbin Link is now available on the Firefox Extension Store. If you're interested, you can find more information about it here: https://github.com/driccio98/kbin-link....
OC How did you end up finding kbin? Did you migrate here from Reddit?
I was initially introduced to Mastodon a few years ago by a close friend and picked up on it quickly given the benefits of not having to deal with advertising, or being shown what a mega-corporation thought I should have to see through algorithms. I have since found a great instance over on cupoftea.social that promotes quality...
Hariette Test driving the release candidate for v0.2.0 of #ArtemisApp: (@hariette@tech.lgbt) (tech.lgbt)
Click through for a screenshot of #ArtemisApp....
Appollo inspired App Artemis preview (tech.lgbt)
hariette@tech.lgbt - #kbin + #lemmy app is coming along. Here's a preview of the upcoming beta. This is less than a week’s worth of work, so it’s only up from here 😉...
YSK how to subscribe to kbin magazines from lemmy
Why YSK: making the most of the fediverse means aggregating content from as many places as possible, but it's not an intuitive process right now, especially for those using apps like Jerboa or Mlem....
How does reputation work on KBin?
I'm a little confused about how the upvote/downvote system works as related to your reputation on KBin. Can someone explain?
I refined FixedFun's mascot design for Kbin. Thoughts? Feedback? (More pics/alts in post!)
I really loved @FixedFun 's idea for the kbin mascot, so I decided to refine it a bit and make some color alternatives. All credit to them for this wonderful idea! I merely refined it. Note, the circles beside the logo are just a color pallete swatch, not actually meant to be apart of the logo....
We want to move away from Reddit, is kbin suitable?
Update: we're live @rimworldporn...
OC The demographics of Kbin | Survey (take.supersurvey.com)
I'm curious about the demographic makeup of Kbin. As we are still in it's infancy I feel that most lean towards a certain way, so I made this survey just now to find out. I encourage you to join in, and you can skip any and every question if you so choose. You can view the results at the bottom of the page.
Lemmy and Kbin: The Best Reddit Alternatives? (www.pcmag.com)
Love Reddit but tired of what's happening to it? We check out Lemmy and Kbin, two open-source fediverse alternatives that are growing fast.
BestOf Community created to represent the Fediverse. As the fediverse expands, the best content may become dispersed. This community will collect the most insightful posts and comments found on the Fediverse. (lemmy.ca)
As moderator, we will let the community manage the content and decide what is worthy of the frontpage....
"Antiwoke" magazin on kbin.social posting bullshit like "how to end Wokeness" and "Time to reject the extrem trans lobby harming our society" How to report ? he is the moderator of that magazin. (calckey.social)
@ernest how do I report a Magazin on kbin.social ? There is a usere called "ps" who is posting to his own "antiwoke" Magazin on kbin.social. Please remove this and dont give them a chance to etablish them self on kbin.social. When I report his stuff it will go to him because he is the moderator of the magazin? Seems like a...
A guide to kbin.social
Welcome to kbin.social!...
YSK adding tags will make your posts more discoverable on the wider Fediverse
On KBin we have the ability to add tags to posts. These can either be directly added using the “pound” sign octothorpe, as in #KbinMeta. You can also add tags using the “Tags” field when creating an article, link, or photo. The second method will append the tags to the end of the post when the post is federated....
OC PSA: Lemmy Explorer now supports proper linking for non-kbin federated Communities!
You can now use Lemmy Explorer to easily look up Communities and generate kbin-friendly links!...