@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

Ciantic

@Ciantic@twit.social

Developer. This is my main account for the time being. I have six profiles now on Mastodon, sigh.

I will remove followers who haven't posted anything.

#Rust, #FSharp, #CSharp, #DotNet, #TypeScript

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

rileytestut, to random
@rileytestut@mastodon.social avatar

It sucks reading all the Mastodon vs Bluesky takes because the whole point of decentralized social media was that it didn’t have to be a zero-sum game. Yes Mastodon is more nerdy and yes Bluesky is more “normal”, but if they all used ActivityPub then everyone could win!

But instead of contributing to the open social web, Bluesky decided to fork the ecosystem with their own proprietary protocol :/ And now we’re headed for the same siloed world as before

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@rileytestut There is a difference with the two:

ActivityPub is built as 1-to-1, i.e. content goes to your followers primarily via follower lists. This is a reason why some are hostile to search here because connections are point-to-piont.

Bluesky's protocol is one-to-many and everything is public. It prioritizes sending content to a big-data-gathering indexer where everything is searchable.

This simple difference makes a huge change in how they can be implemented and scaled.

matthauger, to internet
@matthauger@mastodon.online avatar

For over a month, Mastodon held steady at ~1.2M MAUs (after a months-long decline). Now, MAUs are dropping again. The effect?

https://api.joinmastodon.org/statistics

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@matthauger I do predict Bluesky to win over the people I came to follow here, but since it's invite-only I doubt it will yet affect MAU.

There seem to be wild assumptions about what Bluesky can do, however, e.g. regarding moderation.

Example: https://blue.amazingca.dev/?username=malwaretech.com&postid=3jv47rukqe62c Marcus Hutchins points out that is losing because of reply-guys driving out the minorities, but that's equally true in if they let in anybody.

rolle, to fediverse
@rolle@mementomori.social avatar

The only thing we currently don't see on is the media, especially local media. But I kinda don't miss the media being entangled in social media so much. It often doesn't bring any extra value to it now that I think of it.

Seeing the handles like this make me think "oh, they're on Twitter, I wonder what they are doing there" and that's about it. I probably wouldn't follow push-style posts anyway.

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@rolle @taymaz Mastodon should thrive to be something else. I don't think it's going to happen for Mastodon if Bluesky succeeds, which is fine. I have been tracking where media goes, and US media is very eager to do accounts in Bluesky: NPR, Washington Post, The Nation, Time, The Intercept, The Onion... and the list goes on already in Bluesky. It's wild how well they've gotten the US media landscape, even though the app is basically a single broken textarea with glitches.

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@taymaz @rolle There is some of "Not Invented Here" syndrome, but Bluesky is also a fundamentally different way to build a social media where all content is searchable and indexable. For this reason, Bluesky can do big-data-firehose that everything is public.

With ActivityPub at the protocol level, it assumes the 1-to-1 connections, this creates a cultural clash where some think it's not okay to index content and make it searchable.

paul, to random
@paul@tapbots.social avatar

Bluesky pre-bans Trump!
https://fortune.com/2023/05/05/twitter-competitor-bluesky-says-no-heads-of-state-allowed-yet/

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@paul Maybe they are talking about the beta phase. Anyhow, are you saying that @joebiden is welcome!

tchambers, to internet

Lots of good discussion on and going on. These four questions dominate my thinking:

  1. Can the ATProtocol really scale and federate? This is a very open question.

  2. Can BlueSky's ATProtocol moderation work at scale? Or even NOT at scale? Blurry still.

  3. Can the and improve its UX and UI experiences faster than the these first two things occur?

Lastly:

  1. How quickly do robust Fediverse/ATProtocol bridges emerge?

cc: @activitypubblueskybridge

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@mergesort @tchambers @activitypubblueskybridge I would prefer moderation coalitions, in Mastodon it's a shame you can't benefit from a moderation of a good server if you host your own instance.

To solve this Bluesky & Mastodon could have coalitions of moderators. Any server or individual could join the moderation coalition for a membership fee.

atomicpoet, (edited ) to internet
@atomicpoet@mastodon.social avatar

is finally testing federation with "allow-listed servers".

They're finally taking the step of decentralization.

Many people will naysay this. But it's absolutely better that they move to decentralization than not do it.

https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/5-5-2023-federation-architecture

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@atomicpoet I read the same post

1.) I noticed that they plan to open a federation in the future for "all". Hopefully no allow-listing anymore after that.

2.) You can somehow use server-to-server federation, even if it's not default:

> "BGSs instead of server-to-server isn’t prescriptive. The protocol is actually explicitly designed to work both ways."

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@atomicpoet But it says in last phrase it works both ways, I can imagine a lot of users want to use BGS, but some might want server to server.

rodhilton, to random
@rodhilton@mastodon.social avatar

The constant-threats-to-defederate thing is going to kill this place, seriously.

Defederating an instance is an extreme measure and it should only be taken in extreme circumstances.

Finding out I might stop getting posts from people I explicitly follow because they happen to be on an instance being defederated by mine all because a bunch of admins I don't know got in a spat over a user I don't follow is just about the most annoying value proposition imaginable.

https://federate.social/@mattblaze/110317006852580015

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@eisfunke @rodhilton qoto.org doesn't defederate:

"We do not silence or block other Fediverse instances based on agenda, politics, or opinions held by their staff or users."

"Offending servers will only be silenced, not blocked, blocks will be reserved for technical assaults only such as DDoS attacks"

It's still moderated server and tries to stay in the good graces of most servers (not all because some servers disagree them).

https://qoto.org/about/more

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@rodhilton @eisfunke Yes, it has been defederated by some, but I have checked that not by big instances.

You can't expect all instances to "not defederate", they are made of people, and they don't want to see content from other servers then it's their right.

Defederating is good thing, it defuses tensions, that's what makes this better than Twitter. Groups can block other groups, and then they don't quarrel anymore.

davidbisset, to fediverse
@davidbisset@phpc.social avatar

Hearing more about some of the smerkness on from more tech podcasts.

@viticci summarizes what I’ve seen pretty well.

video/mp4

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@davidbisset @viticci Bluesky, Mastodon... decentralized and federated systems will end up looking like society if they get big enough.

Mastodon has more FOSS crowd, because they got through the initial hurdles more easily.

That's why we need algorithms and stop gaps, like "don't show replies until 10 minutes after posting", shuffle replies, hide some replies from people I don't care...

The more people the platform has, the more noise filters you need.

andyn, to random
@andyn@social.lol avatar

Discord is moving away from messy usernames into more unique names / account names. I’m going to think positive and believe that this is their first move towards adding a public timeline feature so I can stop jumping around social networks and just drop them all to use only Discord.

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@andyn Are the people you want to follow posting on Discord? I follow Mac/Tech people and I don't see them ever going to post on Discord's public timeline unless Discord is planning to federate with ActivityPub or Bluesky.

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@andyn Good point about people focused. Twitter was always like that, and Mastodon seems to emphasize people too. Groups are coming to Mastodon, but it really looks like Bluesky is sucking up the audience I came here to follow, so groups are coming a bit late.

However, I think these are not mutually exclusive, I'd ideally want to follow topic-related things and fewer people. Just because I like reading about some aspects of politics and world events that are hard to find under topics.

Ciantic, to rust
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

Steve Klabnik is working on library for https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35820974

stefan, to fediverse
@stefan@stefanbohacek.online avatar

What's one unique thing about the fediverse server/community you're a member of?

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@stefan Twit server rules say specifically, that everything is public:

"Please understand - you have no privacy on this server or anywhere on Mastodon. It's not designed to be private. Assume that anything you post here, including DMs, are publicly visible."

This was added after a discussion with @leo and @alex in , mostly because the server software was not tested, and might have flaws I think.

Not sure I agree fully, because federation might assume some parts are private.

GossiTheDog, to random
@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social avatar

Everybody, I just want to say I’ve joined the Woke-Shitposter Coalition.

video/mp4

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@GossiTheDog It's missing Meta's ActivityPub Barcelona, which is like a double-agent, or chaos agent.

stroughtonsmith, to random
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

RSS clients need mute filters too.

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Also inclusion filters, e.g. show only posts containing "word", sometimes I follow RSS feed to follow a topic, not all items.

Green_Footballs, to random
@Green_Footballs@mastodon.social avatar

What could possibly be Bluesky’s rationale for making a user’s block list PUBLIC?

Are they trying to enable harassment and stalking?

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@Green_Footballs FYI, Mastodon did that too:

https://queer.af/@erincandescent/110281568560542394

"Mastodon federates blocks to the target's server, and there are a whole bunch of servers out there where if you block one of their users, a whole bunch of people turn up to harass you."

It seems to be, that not even Mastodon knows how to do this right.

atomicpoet, to random
@atomicpoet@mastodon.social avatar

Mastodon has successfully sold 12 million people on the practical use of decentralization because they see it in action. And they love it.

Bluesky’s biggest fans think decentralization is horseshit—and they’re hostile to it being implemented.

This is a bad omen for Bluesky.

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@atomicpoet How influential is "Senior PowerPoint Engineer" in Bluesky though?

I'm more concerned that Bluesky is the for-profit company doing decentralized protocol. They might not want to create open & free client API and make strings attached for federation.

paul, to random
@paul@tapbots.social avatar

I'm too lazy to Bing these.

Is Bluesky still funded by Twitter?
Are they open sourcing the server stack or just the protocol?

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@ummjackson @paul Biggest problem is that it doesn't yet federate. The protocol is still half-baked. Identity seems most solid, but that's tiny detail.

Secondly, it isn't a non-profit, so they don't probably have the same incentive as Mastodon to make its client API open & free.

https://mastodon.uy/@djpeluca/110271973853799850

jerry, to random

Lots of new signups today. Welcome everyone. It has me curious about the cause, though.

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@jerry ActivityPub was also on The Verge's podcast just yesterday:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/activitypub-is-the-next-big-thing-in-social/id430333725?i=1000610671175

Nilay Patel said he has Mastodon.social account, but he is still cooling down and not using any short messaging platform... but he has come out multiple times supportive of ActivityPub.

bigzaphod, to random
@bigzaphod@mastodon.social avatar

I was invited to Bluesky a few weeks ago and followed one person and posted exactly once yet somehow people are following me so there must be decent discovery, I guess, or maybe lots of bots?

The app looks clean and familiar to Twitter users and I imagine this is the primary reason why everyone is suddenly interested in it.

I wanted to change my password and could not find a way to do it. I just checked again this morning and I still cannot find a way to change my password. So there's that.

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@bigzaphod Yes, Mastodon should copy more Bird Site Like features. Familiarity is key, even if it's superfluous to us coders.

A good start is this Bird UI CSS: https://github.com/ronilaukkarinen/mastodon-bird-ui

Server operator plumbs in that CSS and voila, much easier.

Ciantic, to UX
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

I don't understand this trend, why would you punish your existing users by downplaying the sign-in button?

There are multiple sites that hide the log-in / sign-in button and emphasize account creation to a point where it feels like they are punishing the existing users.

The only reason I can come up with is that they wrongly assume existing users are always logged in, so they don't need to press it again.

Example from The Guardian's page.

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