I'm pretty sure that the #Fediverse is one of the first social networks I've been on that didn't ever ask me to betray any of the people in my address book.
Bitte diesen Tröt teilen/retröten, falls Ihr Mastodon noch nutzt. 🦣❤️ Hintergrund: Möchte gerne mal ein aktuelles Lagebild. 🚀 Ziel ist es, perspektivisch herauszufinden, wie wir als Mastodon-User:innen hier in Zukunft weitermachen können. 🙏 Besten Dank im Voraus! 🥰
I'm happy to announce version 2.25 of #snac, the simple, minimalistic #ActivityPub instance server written in ANSI C. These are the changes:
Federation with other instances have been improved by collecting shared inbox information from input messages more thoroughly.
Fixed an obscure bug that caused connection rejections from some instances.
Some rules regarding incoming messages have been tightened; messages that are not related to the user are not added to the timeline. This has to be implemented because some ill-behaving ActivityPub implementations were found injecting unwanted messages to user inboxes.
Messages from MUTEd users are rejected as soon as possible with a 403 Forbidden HTTP status.
Fixed a minor bug regarding the scope of the 'Update' activity (edited posts were sent to more recipients that it should).
More aggressive input sanitization (some posts were found that included strange ASCII control codes).
Added "Open Graph" HTML meta tags for better previsualization of snac links from other social media.
I'm a bit embarrassed of announcing version 2.22 of #snac, the simple, minimalistic #ActivityPub instance server written in ANSI C, which fixes some bugs, one of them pretty nasty:
Fixed a bug with the Delete button in the web interface: sometimes, instead of the post (as the user intended), the follower was deleted instead 🤦
Fixed a bug in the command-line option follow (and probably others), that made it fail silently if there was no running server.
Fixed a crash under OpenBSD (a recent change needed a new permission to the pledge() call that was forgotten).
If we want the network of apps to grow, developers needs to talk together and find consensus. This initiative looks like it's moving in the right direction!
Well, that's it. My #akkoma instance social.fellr.net is no more. It couldn't even delete my old account properly without getting a timeout on the database. Man, I really don't like the way it's designed. I know it's better for the #fediverse if not every instance is #mastodon, but at the moment there is nothing better in terms of reliability. Again, #gotosocial is very promising, but needs a bit more features. They're coming though! #fediadmin#meta
We talk a lot about #Lemmy, but has anyone heard of #Aether? Just found it on @privacytools. I just want to know if anyone has used it and what their experience was like.
It appears that it is peer-to-peer but uses its own protocol unfortunately and not #ActivityPub.
Fun guide on creating an alias domain for your Mastodon account. That is, if you happened to be @alis and wanted (say) @me to redirect to that account, this is how you’d do it.
(It works, incidentally, and takes about two minutes to set up. Try it!)
Is there a federated wiki-hosting project? Something that allows you to edit many independently-hosted #wikis with one account? Preferably with ActivityPub integration for easy sharing on the fediverse?
Updated my old formatting fix for the WordPress ActivityPub plugin to now be its own little plugin that uses a custom shortcode to output posts the way I like them.
Feel free to take the code and tweak as needed for your own nefarious purposes.
One of the most exciting tech developments at the moment is the advent of the #Solid web standard, which lets people "store their data securely in decentralized data stores called Pods. Pods are like secure personal web servers for your data."
Is it technically possible for #ActivityPub to support the Solid standard? Or this would be something apps like #Mastodon should implement?
「 In an attempt to self-host a low-cost fediverse node, I started with GoToSocial, but later decided to switch to Mastodon for better compatibility. This transition presented some challenges and got me thinking about whether existing web frameworks are well designed for linked data services 」
I don't think people appreciate the role that #OperaSoftware played in fostering the #OpenWeb and #IndieWeb during the first #browserWar (when the #OperaBrowser was still built on their proprietary #Presto engine), and a fortiori the role it had in their demise (when they switched to being “just another #WebKit/#Blink skin”), despite their browser never even reaching a 3% market share.
I have no problems imagining a different timeline, where #ActivityPub had been already a better-established thing, and the demo #OperaUnite applications for media and photo sharing had implemented basic support for it, resulting in self-hosted lightweight alternatives to #PixelFed or #FunkWhale.
And this is actually the vision I have an ultimate goal for the #Fediverse, one where, thanks also to client support, hosting and participation become even more trivial than setting up a static website.
Sometimes I wonder how different things could have been if the timing had been different. When #OperaUnite was first announced, #ActivityPub wasn't a thing yet, StatusNet had just been born, diaspora* didn't exist, and the only other major bidirectional federated protocol was XMPP, that had existed for 10 years and was in the process of being #EmbraceExtendExtinguish-ed by Facebook and Google.
If #activitypub is implemented on #tumblr I wonder if subblogs will be part of the #fediverse in addition to the main blog. I know I'm ignorant on the technical side of things, but it would be great if subblogs could be part of the Fediverse as well...
@ajsadauskas Across the internet, there's a host of niche communities on message boards and web forums, using platforms such as phpBB and its various competitors.
Is there scope to get these communities on the Fediverse?
Over the past couple of weeks, I've been trying out Lemmy (lemmy.ml ), which is basically a Reddit-like platform on the Fediverse. (For those reading this on Mastodon, this post is actually a reply to a post on Lemmy, meaning you can read it on Lemmy, on Mastodon, or elsewhere!)
It's shown me that the concept of a Fediverse -connected discussion forum certainly can work.
So is there scope to either add ActivityPub to any existing message board software platforms?
Alternatively, is there scope to develop a fediverse-connected general purpose message board platform?
Hi, everyone. I've just released version 2.24 of #snac, the simple, minimalistic #ActivityPub instance server written in ANSI C, that includes the following features and bugfixes:
Sending non-public messages is now much easier: a checkbox to post a message to only those people mentioned in the message body has been added.
Fixed an over-optimization bug that caused some mentioned recipients to be skipped.
Added some new administrator tweaks: email notifications can be globally disabled.
Hot take/rant time for #ActivityPub with the news that #Meta plans to dip their toe in the water.
I would view Meta as an existential threat to a non-corporate, AP-based #fediverse in large part because of the immaturity of and lack of interoperability in the AP spec itself.
Why?
Because when you have that big of a fish involved in your space made up of small players, the big fish gets to set the rules unless you have some pretty strong protections in place.
I'm happy to announce version 2.21 of #snac, the simple, minimalistic #ActivityPub instance server written in ANSI C. This time there are a bunch of things:
Users can now specify an expire time for the entries in their timelines (both their own and others').
Added support for sending notifications (replies, follows, likes, etc.) via Telegram.
Followers can now be deleted (from the people page in the web interface). Yes, to stop sending in vain your valuable and acute posts to those accounts that disappeared long ago and flood the log with connection errors.
The internal way of processing connections have been rewritten to be more efficient or, as technical people say, "scalable". This way, snac is much faster in processing outgoing connections and less prone to choke on an avalanche of incoming messages. This is a big step towards the secret and real purpose of the creation of this software: being able to host the account of #StephenKing when he finally leaves that other site.
The note action from the command-line tool can also accept the post content from the standard input.
Usage tips: never reply to toxic people (apply the MUTE button to them). Enjoy a coffee. Smell the sea. Listen to Mahler. Spend a bit less time in social media and a bit more with your loved ones.
Lemmy shows how Fediverse-connected message boards can work. So is it time for a Fediverse-connected general purpose message board platform (like phpBB)? Is anyone working on this?
I'll elaborate on my thoughts further in my reply below, but I'm keen to hear what everyone thinks of this concept