I'm glad to announce the release of version 2.53 of #snac, the simple, minimalistic #ActivityPub instance server written in C. It includes the following changes:
New user feature to search by post content (using regular expressions) or tag.
Added some (partial) support for Event object types.
Minor fixes: Allow unboosting your own posts (contributed by khm), CSS fixes for the Dillo browser (contributed by kvibber).
Part of my frustration with #ActivityPub and one of the things I find baffling giving everything else in it: the lack of tools for backpressure.
Backpressure is fundamental in building reliable distributed systems (c.f., Notes on Distributed Systems for Young Bloods). From a C2S perspective I get why it wouldn't need to be specified, but from a S2S federated protocol perspective its absence is frustrating.
All that it says is to take care not to overwhelm others and a bit on rate limits
@mikedev said in Part of my frustration with #ActivityPub and one of the things I find baffling giving everything else in it: the lack of tools for backpressure.:
And of course as mentioned we use them for conversations so that everybody sees the same view of the discussion. It's a very under-utilised organisational mechanism and that seems odd. They're quite useful.
Ah yes, that was what I was referring to, a collection for a conversation. It certainly does seem under-utilised but I wasn't entirely sure whether that was true or not.
Are you aware of any other implementors that expose a collection for a collection of a topic's content?
Today was a great set of meetings and discussions, moving the #Fediverse forward. Nice to reconnect after too long with @chrismessina - and to meet @snarfed.org@snarfed.org @J12t@anca@frozencanuck in person, lots more connections to make tomorrow. It is an exciting time in the #ActivityPub and #MastodonAPI ecosystem!
So its done! I finally released a fairly easy to install (from scratch) Hugo based Static Site generator with full ActivityPub support.
It has step-by-step instructions on how to set it up for your own blog or static website.
One of the coolest features for me, other than having your static site blog posts show up as posts in the Fediverse is the support for interacting with those posts. Any replies you leave, likes, or boosts will show up in the "comments" section of the website on the page associated with the post. How cool is that!
Flipboard curators have seen over 100,000 boosts, likes and replies from people across the fediverse since April 11. Given this positive signal from the community, today we're federating another 100 accounts representing more than 2,500 Magazines about everything from climate to culture. Read more here:
@molly0xfff is a leading cryptocurrency critic, but get to know her and you’ll see she’s anything but cynical about the future of the web. Hear why this researcher, writer and software engineer thinks so in this fascinating conversation with @mike:
@fediversereport Thank you for sharing. It is exciting to see what is happening! I think your point at the end is really worth considering: is #Bluesky and the #ATProto interested in multiple apps or is it merely a vehicle for microblogging? I don't have technical background, but I suspect that the decentralization for BSKY is more for show than practice. Critique #ActivityPub all we like but I do think the commitment to platform diversity is there and is practiced.
More Excellent developments on the good work being performed on #NodeBB and interoperability with #WordPress instances endowed with the #ActivityPub plugin:
Just tooted from my toot.community account, announcing the existence of this one. I suppose I forgot that #ActivityPub is pretty chatty. It took the whole server down in a couple of seconds.
Everything #tech has an overhyped cycle (usually in the beginning of its introduction to a critical mass but not always).
If you’re reading this on Mastodon then you’ll likely rightly think about #AI#Apple etc.
But also #Mastodon#ActivityPub#WordPress etc also had theirs. Maybe you weren’t around for them. And these (and more) have settled into reasonable realistic expectations. It’s a pattern.
Point? Maybe none. But pointing out overhype maybe is something some don’t bother with.
I keep seeing people lamenting being unable to game a following together because of a lack of algorithm.
What you're saying resonates with me because I never wanted that. Never joined a commercially run, centralized, social network, because I never saw it as a "network".
#ActivityPub means, when I follow someone (or someone follows me), I'm building my own social network out of people I personally want to associate with.
That value is worth well more than an algorithm could provide.
No. Just, no. Not #VPN, nor any other technology is a solution, because the problem is much deeper than that. The US banning TikTok is just the beginning, they will simply continue expanding #censorship of any content the government finds objectionable. We may soon find governments like the US passing legislation that running an #ActivityPub server of any kind is illegal "terrorist activity" before long, and all NATO countries will follow suit (they must, or else risk losing NATO membership).
And of course the stated reason for the US blocking whole portions of the Internet is for "cypersecurity" reasons. Anyone with half a brain knows the real reason is to try to prevent sharing knowledge across borders, because that is the real threat to the politicians and their bosses.
It is really no different than what countries like China does with their Great Firewall, or what Iran does whitelisting only certain blocks of the Internet that exists outside of their borders, also for "cybersecurity" reasons. Of course the US government will continue to cite censorship of free speech as a reason that countries like China or Iran are inherently evil. This deranged political double-speak is the norm nowadays, as "antisemitism" is used as a justification to arrest Jewish people who protest war at their universities, but I digress.
@ramin_hal9001 I suspect you are right re #activitypub
Anything the US cant control or manipulate is a problem
With #tiktok , foreign ownership provided the "justification",
With activitypub servers i expect they will find something to do with copyright or moderation of illegal content rather than just admit that if an american corp doesnt control it and manipulate it to the satisfaction of the Amerocan government, then it must be banned
Hablando de #Threads, @Badluck. Mucho parloteo con la federación con #ActivityPub pero como nunca uso las líneas de tiempo locales ni federadas no me he cruzado con nadie de allí y a día de hoy no tengo ni idea de si el dominio está bloqueado desde la .social o si sencillamente ha sido cuestión de azar.
Very happy to announce that @tomcoates and I have been given a #SummerOfProtocols grant to develop an end-to-end encryption (E2EE) protocol for #ActivityPub DMs, including a reference implementation and a report to submit to the W3C SocialCG.
Is there an #activitypub or #mastodon developer hangout place that people think is useful?
(In particular I'm trying right now to figure out if there is a protocol magic I can do to make infosec.exchange stop continuously telling me about the deletion of a particular profile I have never interacted with.)
Why I prefer reading #GhostBlog blogs to #Medium and am looking forward to their #ActivityPub networking. I'm not sure if Medium authors remember this is the first impression that many of their blogs will see-- a good part of the page covered with a popover.
Former CEO of Twitter wanted to build a social protocol no-one can control, like SMTP or HTTP for social media. Bluesky’s ATProto was supposed to be an open source protocol that Twitter could eventually utilize, but then Musk happened and Bluesky started taking it to the wrong direction and everything fell apart in Dorsey’s mind.
A very revealing interview. I now see even more future in W3C’s ActivityPub.