It’s been a busy week for fediverse news, with a long update. Three articles this week, as well as quite some other news and interesting links.
Next week I’ll be hosting a livestream together with Framasoft, to ask them questions about PeerTube. The event will be livestreamed on PeerTube, on Wednesday, Dec. 13th, 6-8 pm (CET). You can already send in your questions now, simply by posting them with the #PeerTubeAMA on the fediverse. See you there!
5 years of Mobilizon
An end, as well as a new beginning for Mobilizon. With the latest update, Framasoft adds a variety of new features, and hands the project over to a new team. Read the update below
The bridging between the different decentralised social networks remains one of the more interesting developments, as they point towards a future of the fediverse that is more complex than just a single platform ‘winning’. In this piece, I take a look at Mostr, the bridge that connects the fediverse to Nostr, and the complex questions about culture and safety that arise.
A blog post by Lickability, the design agency that works on the official Mastodon apps, that explains the design process behind Mastodon’s reply safety features. It explains the thought process behind the design, and compares it to how Instagram, Twitter and Youtube are handling somewhat similar features.
SocialInbox is a new feature of Distributed.Press which integrates a website’s comment section with federated social media platforms like Mastodon. Distributed.Press is an open source publishing tool that can help send out your website content to the decentralized web. With SocialInbox, websites can now become part of the fediverse, in a similar way to how the ActivityPub plugin makes WordPress websites part of the fediverse. With the Social Inbox, your website becomes an account on the fediverse that can be followed, and posts can be interacted with as with any Mastodon post, which gets send back to your own website.
Erin Kissane and Darius Kazemi have announced that they will be running a new project, titled Fediverse Governance Successes & Gaps. The project looks to find more information about the current governance models in the fediverse, as well as the gaps in infrastructure that are present for the governance of the new generation of social networks. The goal is to create a practical handbook as well as whitepaper on governance.
SURF, the Dutch IT cooperative for education and research, has extended their Mastodon pilot for another year. I spoke to them this spring about the pilot, here. For the next year they will be focusing on adoption of the fediverse by participation organisations, as well as working on taking the next organisational steps of going from pilot to a regular service that SURF offers to their members. More information in their interview with PublicSpaces, in Dutch.
Social network Spoutible is adding cross-posting to different networks. They have added Bluesky, and are now in the process of adding support for Mastodon. This is not full federation, as likes and comments are not carried over. Neither is Mastodon fully supported yet. It does however provide an indication of where social networks are headed, with more and more connections between networks. WeDistribute has more info, here.
Catodon is an new and upcoming fediverse platform, based on Firefish, that is currently in development. It is being worked on by some of the team that used to contribute to Firefish. As the firefish.social flagship server continues to struggle with serious technical issues, more forks of the project (such as Sharkey) are springing up.
The links
IFTAS, the non-profit organisation that helps support the fediverse moderator community, and has a Moderator Advisory Council to help guide the organisation. They are looking for someone with moderation experience who can contribute, with stipend available.
The ActivityPub Community Group held a meeting together with the Community Group for the Solid protocol, looking for ways to join forces. The notes of the entire meeting can be found here.
Pixelfed is working on making their Collections feature directly accessible and followable via Activitypub.
The third episode of Flipboard’s Dot Social podcast is out, this time with Ian Forrester, about the BBC’s experiment in the fediverse.
Another German government has joined the fediverse, this time the federal state of Baden-Württemberg.
Kbin app Artemis has shut down after the developer disappeared, WeDistribute reports.
The Mastodon.nl server has a blog post that discusses server size, and the tradeoffs that come with it. In Dutch.
That’s all for this week, thanks for reading. You can subscribe via email below, or laurenshof@fediversereport.com if you want to follow this blog with your fediverse account.
Why the hell are people I know who make ethical choices about everything - from the food they eat to how they travel to the clothes they buy - so INCAPABLE of doing that for the tech choices they make?
For goodness sake: Threads is owned by Meta. That ALONE is reason enough to not use it. And there ARE alternatives!
recently, i read that insta's birdcage replacement site is about to introduce hashtags containing several words with so spaces between them > many people joining the discussion were furious: "this is not compatible with the fediverse" etc...
now this is interesting: the composer inside kbin's tags section has no issues with hashtags containing multiple words - only the first term will be retained though ...
yesterday, i took ownership of the "workers' rights" magazine on kbin.social > you can find it here: kbin.social/m/workersrights
since i consider workers' rights to be of international importance, i try to get away from an english-only, anglocentric perspective > attempting to counter english dominance on the fediverse, i added the hashtag "hartal" ("strike" in many south asian and southeast asian languages), aiming at a better discoverability of non-english posts at least on this specific subject
if you send me the term for "strike" in a language other than english, i will add the term as a hashtag to the kbin magazine mentioned above > contributions from the global south are especially welcome!
To H&M, Bestseller, Next, Primark, C&A, Uniqlo, M&S, Puma, VF Corp., PVH, Walmart and Zara, and all international brands producing clothes in Bangladesh:
@geraineon
this seems to be a kbin bug: you tagged me in a reply to the original post, and i received no notification > only saw it after reading your reply above
@geraineon
had one more look at sakurajima.social, and yes! you are right, and i was wrong, maaf ya ...
on your instance, you can indeed find all replies to your original post - the way they show up is handled differently from kbin where you can see more replies at a glance, without having to open each conversation separately
and hm, I think I know why. When I first hit reply earlier, I didn't tag you and then I realized kbin doesn't automatically tag the person that is being replied to, so I edited the post to tag your username. Editing a post doesn't notify you I guess! And it doesn't federate.
Wow #Fediverse, thanks for the help! I am genuinely surprised at how close the results were. It looks like the recommendation is to try out the #Threadiverse (#Kbin and / or #Lemmy) first - but only by 1.8% over #Peertube! Y'all must know that I've been getting frustrated with #Reddit lately. I also appreciate the recommendations for other things to explore.
Now the question is Kbin or Lemmy? Or both? (any thoughts?)
@seanbala The #kbin dev has finally returned and started updating again, so I'd give that one a shot. It combines micro-blogging with link aggregation. Best of both worlds!
A few days ago I downvoted someone's comment, and the next day I happened to notice every single comment I've ever made had at least one downvote. All from the person I dared to downvote the ONE time. I straight up asked why they did it, and they seem to think I'm an "obvious" troll account that "apparently just exist to...
Also, even if they wanted to I don’t think voting could be made anonymous at this point, either. I’m not a programmer in any sense, but I imagine it would totally break federation. Total anonymity would probably need to be a feature from the start.
Kbin at least puts it out there so you know it’s not totally anonymous. Sometimes I wonder how many lemmy users are unaware of this because the software doesn’t make it apparent.
On reddit about 8 years ago there was a bunch of discussion of how people were running automated scripts to downvote everything by people they didn't like or whatever.
And reddit had to build in a safeguard so those automated script downvotes no longer counted. Those kinds of shenannigans would be much easier to spot in kbin's current system.
if you take out the downvotes, the upvotes must go with it. but also, kbins algorithm isnt over-programmed and calculating, i see varying levels of upvoted and downvoted comments mixed together and i like it that way so everyone is included. on kbin, if youre downvoted, its usually been for good reason as far as ive seen, and ive also never had to go LOOKING for downvoted comments that are buried like on reddit. they are right there on kbin. the 'algorithm' is no algorithm. its honest
Title. “lmao internet points” and all, but what is the point of participating in a community that sees assumptions and other commonly non-harmful commentaries/posts as “bad” this easily? Do folks in here are really that needy of self-validation, even if it means seeking such from something completely insignificant like...
something completely insignificant like internet points
Nothing has any value until someone gives value to something.
I give value to my reputation points - it's a force that drives me further into coming up with and posting content 😁 And sometimes I enjoy comparing my points to someone else!
I started fediverse with Lemmy but moved to kbin pretty much because of the reputation system being here.
Don't get me wrong though - I don't care that much about downvoting and I don't let it affect negatively on my behavior. At the end of the day, regarding other people in the Internet has more value to me than Internet points 😌
Case in point, Ernest had to take a month off kbin development to handle things in his personal life. I, too, have abandoned open source projects due to lack of interest. I think people incorrectly assume that the internet offers a level of permanence unmatched by real life, when in fact it only highlights the ethereal nature of anything people build.
Entertainment Sector Unites to Oppose European Law That Would Ban Geo-Blocking (www.hollywoodreporter.com)
OC test with hashtags containing several words
recently, i read that insta's birdcage replacement site is about to introduce hashtags containing several words with so spaces between them > many people joining the discussion were furious: "this is not compatible with the fediverse" etc...
How Reddit Crushed the Internet's Largest Protest (youtu.be)
Open letter to brands producing in Bangladesh (cleanclothes.org)
To H&M, Bestseller, Next, Primark, C&A, Uniqlo, M&S, Puma, VF Corp., PVH, Walmart and Zara, and all international brands producing clothes in Bangladesh:
I'm starting to see some serious downsides to being able to see who downvotes you.
A few days ago I downvoted someone's comment, and the next day I happened to notice every single comment I've ever made had at least one downvote. All from the person I dared to downvote the ONE time. I straight up asked why they did it, and they seem to think I'm an "obvious" troll account that "apparently just exist to...
Alright, I'm gonna "take one for the team" -- what is with the "downvote-happy" users lately?
Title. “lmao internet points” and all, but what is the point of participating in a community that sees assumptions and other commonly non-harmful commentaries/posts as “bad” this easily? Do folks in here are really that needy of self-validation, even if it means seeking such from something completely insignificant like...
After Radio Silence, Kbin App Artemis Shuts Down (wedistribute.org)