@matt@writing.exchange
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

matt

@matt@writing.exchange

Photos, words, privacy, and the open web. Dreaming of another future. ๐Ÿ“ Brooklyn

Founder https://musing.studio / https://writing.exchange/@write_as :writeas:
Lead dev https://writing.exchange/@writefreely :writefreely:
Co-organizer https://gram.social/nycphotostroll
Admin @ https://Writing.Exchange

Toots are searchable. #fedi22 #writing #stories #poetry #software #fediverse #web #photography

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

matt, to fediverse
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

Still in development, but got replies working! Once it goes live, replies from the fediverse will show up on Remark.as.

Last major issue is to add some basic moderation. Already got instance-level blocking done so I can easily defederate from bad servers, but want to make sure we can handle any potential abuse from individual users too.

matt,
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

@liaizon so Remark.as is really just an experimental UI layer for commenting on Write.as-hosted posts. Behind the scenes, everything is Write.as/WriteFreely.

When it's fully fleshed-out, I think all the social functionality you see in Remark.as will simply be rolled into WriteFreely. Feedback so far is that many people don't want a totally separate interface / app for commenting and interacting with posts.

fraying, to random
@fraying@xoxo.zone avatar

The irony of Wordpress, the self-described guardian of the open web, causing anyone who gives a shit to pull down their old Tumblrs and blogs to avoid getting sucked into the AI bullshit machine, is really something.

matt,
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

@fraying @bedast Not an expert on their implementation, but from the description, they probably only have content that came from directly interacting with a wordpress.com-hosted blog, e.g. fediverse likes and replies / comments.

Since the WordPress plugin is more for broadcasting content to the fediverse and less for consuming it (i.e. can't "follow" from your WP blog), their data collection is probably limited to that at the moment.

matt, to random
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

For federated comments on @write_as, I'm gonna start with just exposing Remark.as comments to the fediverse. This should at least get the basic data there, though you still won't receive replies from Mastodon etc.

Then I'll work on receiving replies from the wider fediverse, and finally moderation tools. We'll see how it looks with replies showing up in the Remark.as UI, and then maybe move to showing comments on blog posts themselves.

matt,
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

Maybe we can start collecting basic stats on likes and boosts from the fediverse before getting to full comment support. That'll at least be easier -- won't have to worry about abuse and spam.

Just not sure where to show those stats. Maybe just to the author on their posts, like we do with views.

matt,
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

Made a bunch of progress on this today โ€” now we're accepting and tracking the number of likes you get from the on @write_as!

It's just not displayed anywhere. So that's the question โ€” where do you want to see the number of likes you've received?

I know many people use / Write.as to avoid likes and normal social media stuff. So should we just display the number on your stats page? Only to you on the post (e.g. next to "views")? Only in social spaces like Read.Write.as?

matt, to random
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

Made it to Brussels for ! Will be hacking on some stuff today, but looking forward to seeing everyone and going to some talks tomorrow.

matt,
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

On a similar note, FOSDEM always falls right around Feb. 2, which is the day I launched @write_as back in 2015 (before it was WriteFreely).

It's pretty wild that I've been working on this for nine years, and really amazing to see all it's grown into. I never expected any of this when I started it way back then.

kushal, to random
@kushal@toots.dgplug.org avatar

I am wondering who all are already here for ?

matt,
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

@kushal I'm here! ๐Ÿ™‹โ€โ™‚๏ธ If you have some time in the next few days, would love to meet!

matt, to random
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

Will be in Brussels this week for ! It's been too long. If you want to meet up, let me know! Would love to grab coffee or a beer and chat.

havn, to mastodon
@havn@writing.exchange avatar

I spend so much of my time posting on here struggling with the 500 character limit. And while I get it can be good to "get to the point" - but that can be at the expense of nuance or being polite...

So, do anyone know of any good #Mastodon instances with a high character limit?

(Also, I seriously think you should increase it here, @matt. Come on, it's an instance for writers! We can be trusted. ๐Ÿ˜‰)

#Instance #Allheimen

matt,
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

@havn hah I'd love to! But unfortunately with us being on managed hosting, we can't customize our setup too much.

matt, to random
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

This week, after 3 years of work, I finished a giant project migrating a long-running publication to @write_as. ๐Ÿฅณ

Besides getting this site on the platform, a ton of new features and improvements came out with the whole project -- from supporting team publishing to custom layouts.

I'm really excited to see the site up and flying, but also to be freed up again to focus on Write.as, @writefreely, and the rest.

matt,
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

The first thing I'm going to do is get the next @writefreely release out (v0.14). It's been almost a year since the last one (!!) and there are a ton of fixes and improvements that have been waiting too long.

Look for that tonight or tomorrow. I want to get a few more fediverse-related features in there before getting this out the door.

reiver, to random
@reiver@mastodon.social avatar

@matt

I created a small pull-request for WriteFreely

https://github.com/writefreely/writefreely/pull/758

It addresses an issue I had when I was trying to set up a development environment for WriteFreely.

https://github.com/writefreely/writefreely/issues/757

@writefreely

matt,
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

@reiver Thanks for submitting that! Though it looks like the repo was deleted, so I can't review / merge anymore...

reiver, to random
@reiver@mastodon.social avatar

@matt @writefreely

Would you be OK with me adding a web-based password-reset functionality to WriteFreely?

So that someone (including the admin) could reset their own password from the web?

...

I could show you the design mockups before coding anything.

So that you have a chance to approve anything done.

matt,
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

@reiver That would be great! I'd say you could focus on the admin side, as I've already built a user-facing one that I'll port over soon.

If you want to get that started, please start a conversation on the forum here: https://discuss.write.as/c/development/7

matt, to random
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

I'm looking for a little help working through some database scaling issues with .

On our Write.as instance, we're up to 4.25 million rows in our posts table, and it's causing problems for some individual blogs with 9,000+ posts.

I have an idea of what some bottleneck queries are. But wondering if there are easy db optimizations we might make (indexes, etc.), and if anyone can help identify what they might be.

Boosts appreciated!

matt,
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

@isotopp Thanks for reaching out! It's MySQL 5.7, running as a service so getting access to the box is a little more difficult.

Slow queries are on now, but logging to a file I can't figure out how to get access to unfortunately.

I made a little progress and discussed the issue a little more here -- would be curious if you have any other input, or if you think partitioning the table might be worth it: https://github.com/writefreely/writefreely/issues/741

matt, to random
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

Oh wow, why am I just now trying Vivaldi?

dave, to random
@dave@social.masto.land avatar

All I want is a playground with an open API and enough creative users to try out new ideas from developers.

http://scripting.com/2023/07/06/134151.html

matt,
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

@dave @davew Agreed, and I think we have a pretty good space for it here. If anything, I think we just keep building what we want to see.

(Also just a heads up, some paragraph anchor links in this post have this at the end: ...html#aNaNNaNNaN)

matt, to threads
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

Okay, so exploring I can start to see some surveillance vectors for them when they join the fediverse.

matt,
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

Now if they supported ActivityPub today and I followed my Masto account from Threads, they might eventually be able to imply that these two accounts belong to the same person. Maybe I use the same URL on my profile, etc.

And of course, they can see everyone I follow. Anyone can -- it's part of the ActivityPub spec. Here ya go, if you run this command:

curl -H 'Accept: application/activity+json' https://writing.exchange/users/matt/following?page=1

matt,
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

Suddenly Meta can see a much wider social graph for me. They can find any alt accounts. They can recommend those to the people I know on Threads / Instagram / Facebook -- or to complete strangers.

If those strangers hate me or people like me, oh great, now I'm facing all kinds of new harassment from this poorly moderated meganetwork.

(Obviously many people in marginalized communities have already explained this to us all. All credit where it's due, I'm just walking through the mechanisms here)

matt,
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

I don't think this is the last threat Meta poses with their new product, but it's just the one I've thought through most so far.

Basically, when they join the fediverse, interacting from our non-Meta fedi might be the same as when any app asks you to upload your contacts list to "invite friends": You're giving away your social graph, which supplies the recommendation algorithm, which informs the behavioral models, which helps them target the ads.

matt,
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

Of course, our fedi "address books" / social graphs are already public information, if we each don't enable the option to "Hide your social graph" in Mastodon (this seems to make the data inaccessible). So anyone can already do this -- it's probably just been more limited until the behemoth showed up.

matt,
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

But as fediverse admins and developers, maybe now it's worth thinking specifically about these threats to privacy posed by bad actors like Meta.

I can imagine a future where these big players coexist on the network (for those who want it) -- where we use Threads to our advantage to show off the promise of an open social network, and get more people on more humane tools that make up fedi today, while severely limiting the damage companies like Meta can bring to this space.

matt,
@matt@writing.exchange avatar

But whatever the goal, nothing stops us from continuing to make strong communities and build new tools around the people who call the fediverse home, like we always have. /fin

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