panos

panos, 4 months ago to fediverse

Ugh, I really tried to stay out of #fediverse drama but I guess I have to say a few things. Most of you know me as a #firefish core team member, so I think I owe it to the admins of almost 500 firefish servers out there and to the almost 5000 members of firefish.social.

So, yeah, if you haven't noticed, things aren't looking good for firefish. Its owner, Kainoa, has practically abandoned the project, which had its last stable release out on July. My last message to them was a week ago, and I haven't heard back since. Firefish.social, besides the other severe technical problems it's had due to mismanagement in the last few months, now also has serious federation issues. I hope Kainoa is well irl, but this is irresponsible and unacceptable.

I hear some of you saying "but you're in the core team too, don't try to put the blame elsewhere!". So I have to explain what being a core team member in firefish meant. Kainoa invited me, Namekuji and a few others to be part of the "core team", but kept all decisions and responsibilities. We didn't co-own this. We never shared donations. We were just volunteers, who were honestly trying to make it a great project. This didn't work well due to concentration of power to one person, who didn't keep their promises. I don't mean to be harsh to Kainoa, I mean we knew they were only 19 when they started the project. Still, it's a bummer to anyone who chose to trust and support Firefish. This includes myself.

I don't know if it's early to consider firefish a dead project, but it sure seems like that for a few months now. Maybe it can be resurrected, idk. It's all up to Kainoa.

In the meantime, Namekuji and I are starting #Catodon, which will have some differences with Firefish, and will include many changes I had discussed with Kainoa but were never implemented. If you decide to stick with us, we promise to be serious about this. I strongly believe in the fediverse and its potential, and I want to build a great platform for it. This was my goal when I chose to be involved in Calckey/Firefish. It's still my goal with Catodon, only this time I can stand behind it 100%, as the project will be co-managed by Namekuji and me. If Firefish left you with a bitter aftertaste, we hope we can build a better relationship and prove ourselves worthy of your trust. Catodon will go public in a matter of days, possibly even hours. We'll have more to say about its direction then.

In the meantime, I just wanted to share my apologies for any inconvenience regarding Firefish, as I'm still technically a core team member, whatever that means. But frankly, I tried so hard to make things go differently - but there's only so much you can do when it's someone else's project. I'm really sorry for how things went.

But this is not the end of the fedi journey for me. I'm super excited about the chance to do some things right this time with Catodon. Life goes on, I guess! Hope to see you soon on our #codeberg repo, so we can start a new creative adventure together =)

​:catodon:​ xx

evan, 16 days ago (edited 15 days ago) to random

Has the Trump campaign coordinated with the Netanyahu government to keep the war in Gaza going because it hurts President Biden's re-election prospects?

#EvanPoll #poll

panos, 1 month ago to mastodon

Small rant about small character limits in fedi, like #Mastodon's 500 limit, just because I had this discussion recently.

I think it makes no sense for the #fediverse. This is a criticism towards #ActivityPub as well, which defines notes as short posts, around a paragraph.

How did "microblogging" came to be? In the early internet we had no limitations like this. If you wanted to post something (say in a forum), you could usually just write what you wanted, as long as it needed to be (there might be technical limitations, but not a conscious limit of "you should express yourself in under xxx characters". How did this become a thing?

#Twitter started as a platform where you could post via SMS, hence the initial character limit was 140. But nowadays we don't have technical limitations like that. So why do software designers still feel the need to restrict users in such a way? I believe it is a failed concept, one that has been surpassed in practice. If people want to write 1000 or 5000 characters, they will. And they do. That's how "threads" are born. OK, sometimes a person consciously wants to split a post in parts, but most of the times it is just to go around the platform's character limit. So if the goal is to have a platform where people express themselves in 500 characters or less, then this design fails hard, because you can't force people to do that if they don't want to. If I want my posts to be short, I will make them short, no need to restrict me. If I want to make a longer post once in a while, I will also post it, I will just have to hit reply as many times as needed for all of my text to reach my followers.

The problem with this, besides that it's impractical and gets in the users' way, is that it actually does the opposite of what might be expected: Instead of not serving long texts to users, you serve them in multiple posts, creating clutter in the timeline. And this way they can't avoid getting the whole text in their timelines, even if it's something they are not interested in!

The simplest and most obvious way to handle this is letting users write their posts, however long they want to make them, and only show the first xxx characters in the timeline, with a "Show more" button. This way users can express themselves in the way they prefer (it's their wall/social feed after all!), and their followers are not served several consequential posts about something they might not care about. It's one opinion, one post, it should come to my timeline once, and then I can decide if I want to click on it and read all of it.

It's funny, but my early fediverse experience was vastly improved when @atomicpoet moved from mastodon.social to calckey.social. I loved reading his posts, but they tended to be long, so I would be online and a new post by Chris would come, and I'd be like "oh here we go again". Because it would fill up my timeline, and it wasn't practical either, because I would read the first paragraph, then wait until Chris typed the next paragraph, and in the meantime I might have seen other things and I had to go back to what I was reading 5 minutes ago and then wait 5 more minutes for the rest of his train of thought. This is not how any of this should work! A person should take their time and write down their thoughts, and then post them on their account. And I should be able to see the start of that post, and click on it and read it at its entirety if it seems interesting to me.

Why are we keeping up with an unnecessary limit, when there is no technical reason for it any more? Plain text takes practically zero disk space (and will take up the same space -basically more- if split in different posts). We post photos that take up kilobytes or megabytes.

When users are forced to go around your design in order to communicate their thoughts, this means there's something wrong with your design. There are people who prefer writing shorter posts. There are people who sometimes want to post something longer for their followers to read. It's still a post, it serves the exact same purpose, it's not like "posts MUST be short, anything over a paragraph is a blog post". I regularly write longer posts, because I want to expand on my thoughts. It doesn't mean I care about keeping a personal blog, or that I think anything longer I write is blog-worthy. I might be talking about whatever, and it can be as significant (or insignificant) as my one paragraph posts. It's even more futile to try to enforce a limit like that in an open network as the Fediverse. People will just build tools to overcome it, as has happened, and many platforms offer much longer character limits. Many Mastodon servers have also manually changed that limit, kolektiva.social for example is a Mastodon server with a 10K character limit. It comes from an actual need, people might also want to post an announcement or whatever longer text.

Basically, the only real reason I can think of for limits like that to exist in today's platforms, it's because short content is more easily "consumable". So I get it as a choice for #X or #Threads, they want addictive, fast-to-read content, witty responses etc to keep their users in their platforms for longer, to show them more ads and keep tracking their interactions for longer. And this is probably how they found out that this restriction is good for them and makes their platform more addictive. It's easier for them to "sell" easily digestable content. It makes sense as a design choice, for their corporate targets.

But why on fedi? If you don't care about longer posts, you can ignore them and not open them. If you prefer following people who only write short posts, then do that. If you don't like that I write longer posts, feel free to unfollow me, and customize your fedi experience to your needs. But why have made-up restrictions like that forced upon users? Are we building something for easily digestible content, trying to make it as addictive as possible, or are we here for communication, according to the users' needs?

panos, 4 months ago to random

Alright, now that catodon.social is live (welcome new members!), let me explain some of the first changes we've done so far in #Catodon, compared to #Firefish.

We really tried to make the platform easier to understand and less overwhelming for new members. So we changed some icons and also some basic terminology:

• Antennas are now Custom feeds
• Channels are now Forums
• Pages are now Blog posts
• Boosts are now Reposts
• Local timeline is called "This server" and Global timeline is called "All servers"

We also tried to cut down on menu items. So Lists and Custom feeds are now only accessible from the timelines, Groups are only accessible through Chat (which is the only feature they are used in anyway), Clips are now called Collections and are placed in a tab under Bookmarks. That's four menu items less, without losing any functionality! But we also removed a fifth item, Gallery, which was very half-baked and rarely used in most Firefish servers. Its functionality can more or less be covered by Blog posts.

There is no "Social" timeline: Instead, we have incorporated Social's functionality in Home. Posts from the local server are now displayed by default in Home, so that new users aren't greeted with an empty timeline. You can change that in Settings, so the Home timeline either works as follows only, or as "Social" in Misskey/Firefish.

There are other changes as well and there are more coming as we're preparing for our first official release, but these are some of the most striking ones you will see!

​:catodon:​

panos, 3 months ago to bluesky

OK this will probably be an unpopular opinion, but regarding the #bluesky #bridge and whether it's ok to be opt-out... For me the discussion doesn't make much sense because this is how fedi works. When you enable federation, your posts are federated to any activitypub-supporting server, unless you opt-out by fediblocking. Do you approve all of these servers? Do you agree with their ToS? Have you read the ToS of all of them, or know where they belong to? No. I know this might make you insecure about your data, but it's better to be honest than create a false impression of control, which then feels attacked when Threads or Bluesky appear. I understand that somebody may not want their content appearing in Zuckerberg's or Dorsey's platform. But they could already be running an AP server that's federated to your server, and you will never know. This is what we signed up for, adopting an open protocol and using software that federates with everyone as the default. And tbh I like it this way - an opt-in federation would be a disaster for smaller servers, it would practically be impossible to federate. By using an AP-enabled server, I'm telling everyone that it's ok to interact with my content - unless I actively block them. It doesn't include an agreement for how or from whom this content will be used. The fact that both servers run AP-compatible software is only a technicality. So if Bluesky implemented AP support it would suddenly be ok that interacting with their users would be opt-out, like with every AP server?

Don't get me wrong, I understand that everyone wants to be in control of their social circle, and I support you if you want to block Threads or Bluesky bridges. But I don't really see how it's unethical to have a bridge that is opt-out, just like any other AP-server. Our only "agreement" is using an open protocol, not any common ToS. ActivityPub is not ethically superior by definition, anyone can adopt it, and we have the right to block them, and this is all by design, it's not a different corner of the internet, everyone in the internet can use the protocol and see/display your public content. The drama every time some server does basically what we allowed them to do and we don't like it, is getting really old quickly. It doesn't "protect" fedi, it only makes it hostile and boring. If you're concerned about who sees your content, please run a followers-only account and control your followers. Running a public account in an openly federated platform and then getting angry when you don't agree with every single server you're federating with is a recipe to make sure you'll be angry for years to come.

panos, 1 month ago to random

Alright, I know I haven't given many updates on #Catodon, because frankly there's not a lot to say. We're reorganizing, reprioritizing etc. Things are going slow. I haven't given up on the project, I think we have an interesting approach which is worth exploring, but we're short on human resources atm. Hopefully this will change and things will get exciting again, but we're not there yet. I'll let you know.

However, I wanna talk about another project I'm also sort of involved in lately - #Iceshrimp! So Iceshrimp also started as a #Firefish fork but they are currently rewriting the whole thing on .net/C#! Both the backend and frontend are being rewritten in C# - the frontend on Blazor. AFAIK this is the only fedi project written on .net and I'm really curious for the result!

This has been announced many months before, and Iceshrimp-js is in feature freeze, to allow all efforts to concentrate in the rewrite. Many people were skeptical because it's a huge project - which is true. So let me tell you that finally #Iceshrimp's rewrite will be entering beta soon - meaning, probably before the month is through!

This will practically be a brand new fedi platform, with a UX similar to Firefish (at least initially), with great Mastodon API support for compatibility with existing apps, hopefully with much better performance and a cleaner codebase. I'll keep you posted on how things progress!

panos, 1 month ago to threads

The idea that everyone should defederate #Threads is basically the idea that everyone who uses #ActivityPub chose a completely and perpetually surveillance-capitalists-free web space, so that's what we should ensure. This is a false assumption - and if it was true, then this wouldn't be possible in the first place. We chose to use an open protocol, knowing that anyone could also use it and reach us. And that's why we have blocking. You can't control the #fediverse, it's an exercise in futility. But you control your account and your server. You can choose what reaches your screen or your users' screens, but that's it. Other people will do what they want, no matter how angry you get. You can't force people to federate with Threads, but you also can't force them not to. Even if every known server blocked them, if people want to follow accounts from Threads, they will just make a new server that federates. No point in getting angry with reality. Maybe ActivityPub wasn't exactly what you thought. But a social network that can control who enters is definitely not a network built on open federation. To make sure Meta or Tumblr or whoever stays out of your network, create a centralized network. This is the only network you can control.

panos, 4 months ago to politics

The talk about US #politics is very interesting in a sense (or very boring, in others). Capitalism has brainwashed people this much, that even people with good intentions fall for its ideologies and support them. So most posts I see on the subject are about how important it is to go vote for the "democratic" candidate in order to fight "fascism". The democratic candidate who supports a genocide in #Gaza - but apparently people think that defeating #Trump is more important than killing children.

I'm sorry, both sides support fascism. Break out of the brainwashing. I know Trump is much worse in many aspects. But both sides represent billionaires who don't care about your lives. You have no reason to support them. If you want to beat fascism, go find real people and do it together on the street, not through the state's ballot. Organize with your local antifascists and anarchists. Or be a consumer and supporter of billionaires' politics, as they continue destroying our lives and the planet.

panos, 1 month ago to dotnet

I promised I'd be giving updates on #Iceshrimp's #dotnet C# rewrite -a brand new fedi platform really- so here's where we're at at the moment! The backend's basic functionality is more or less finished, although there will undoubtedly be stuff to fix and improve during beta. So theoretically you could use it, but we don't have a frontend yet so you could use it only with masto apps atm. However, the frontend is where the focus is going now, and we plan to have a basic/working frontend soon so that we can release our first beta in a couple of weeks or so!

We expect performance and server requirements to be comparable to #Akkoma. Things are about to get exciting!

panos, 3 months ago to random

New #Firefish release! And this is the new official account for the project, under naskya's leadership, give them a follow if you want to stay updated. Best of luck in the new beginning! 🚀

RE: info.firefish.dev/notes/9pdqi3rjl4lxirq3

panos, 4 months ago to random

I've noticed some people refer to me as a dev, although I never claimed to be one. One person even accused me of not having recent commits in Firefish. So... I have to confess I am not a dev.

My role in Firefish was community manager/project coordinator. But isn't it interesting that people assume I'm a dev because I was in the core team? It's so often that community-driven open source projects are run only by devs, that people just assumed I am a dev too. And, with all the respect to the wonderful dev community, I think that's kind of a problem.

You see, an open-source project needs much more than coding. My role in #Catodon will include coordinating development, designing features, testing, communication and feedback from the community, managing issues on the repo, decision making, moderating catodon.social, participating and moderating the matrix channels and I'm sure more will be added to that list. Devs may or may not be good at these things - and this clearly affect some projects. Being a good dev doesn't necessarily mean being good at everything around running an open source project, and that's ok. There's a reason companies hire project managers when developing software. You can add every community request out there - if you don't keep UX on your mind and don't have a consistent vision for your software, it will end up poorly designed and bloated.

So, I have to warn you - I may not be suitable to answer your more technical questions! We have a support channel for that, and our lead dev Namekuji is more knowledgeable about the coding aspect - while other devs, who are interested in our direction, have already reached out and are starting to work with us. So hopefully we will soon have a lively dev and admin community where we can support each other.

I'd say that one of my main goals in Catodon is to offer a safe, inclusive and laid back environment where open source devs will be able to cooperate and contribute in a productive way. Making open source code is a wonderful gesture, you are sharing your work for everyone to freely use. And it deserves to be done in a well organized and self-fulfilling way! Good communication is not always easy, but it's definitely worth trying. We have incredibly talented coders here that can do wonders when working smoothly together. That's the mindset with which we'll be trying to make Catodon a community-driven project.

panos, 3 months ago to fediverse

I'm looking into #ActivityPub platforms to share music on, and it seems like only #Funkwhale does that. But to be honest it does seem a little confusing to new users for me. I wonder if anyone's using #Peertube for audio files/music and what's their experience. Its youtube-like interface seems far more familiar to me, and I still mostly listen to music on youtube tbh (never made a spotify account). Any thoughts/suggestions welcome, thanks.

panos, 4 months ago to random

How does Libre Translate compare to DeepL translation in #firefish? I've only used the latter, since Libre Translate support was added after we had set it up.

panos, 3 months ago to random

I've started watching Google's UX Design course and, while it's well made and easy to understand, I hate how it's all about getting a job and creating more sales. For example, it talks about how accessibility helps websites be "consumed" more easily. I know it's made by a company, so I guess it was to be expected, it just has great reviews, and I guess courses from colleges will more or less have the same mindset, after all they're also businesses and need to ensure you'll get profit from your "investment". It's another example of how capitalism shits on everything we love. I'm trying to learn more about UX to help build a better experience for people, and I'm getting taught how to become profitable for a company. The education system is education on the system.

panos, 4 months ago to random

I'm thinking that maybe it would be better to call Replies "Comments". It kind of feels cozier and less strict to me. Might also help with distinguishing posts and reply posts a little more in the users' heads - it wouldn't be enough on its own, of course, but it could be a step in the right direction. The current timeline behaviour sometimes feels a lot like a big chat, and we could offer a better social media experience by moving to a more post-centric feed.
WDYT? Does this make sense?
#Catodon

panos, 4 months ago to random

There's a vision behind #Catodon: To build a software that will be as self-explanatory as it gets, so that you can invite your (irl or from other platforms) friends to your community and they will instantly feel familiar. People tend to not like change; they like sticking with what's familiar. So when they enter a fedi server and they see all the confusing terminology and buttons they don't understand what they do, it's just one more reason for them to give up and go back to facebook or wherever. Not everyone will want to come to your fedi community, but for those who are willing to try something different, let's at least not put unnecessary obstacles in their path. They're attempting to feel at home here - let's make them feel at home.

panos, 3 months ago to random

Alright, I think we now have a better idea of what's happening with #Firefish, so I might as well give a small update. Kainoa quit, and left the project to naskya, who is a person I appreciate very much, as they've always been kind and polite and willing to help. I also think they're very devoted to Firefish, and basically were the last person actively caring about the project. As far as I know, they intend to keep maintaining and developing Firefish, and a new stable version will finally soon be released. This is great news, as you don't need to worry that your server is running unmaintained and vulnerable software. So, alarm off everybody, no need to abandon ship.

As for us, we're standing by our decision to rebase #Catodon to #Iceshrimp. The changes we want to do are long term plans, but we've started redesigning some things and, whenever we are ready, I hope we'll show you something worth your attention. So yeah, firefish, iceshrimp and catodon are all alive and valid options (the first two to be precise, for the time being). All projects share code fixes and I think we're on very good terms, here in our corner of the fediverse. Enjoy the ride.

panos, 1 month ago to random

Some news from the #Firefish front! Kainoa (former lead dev who has been absent for several months now) finally passed control of the donations platform to naskya, the new owner of the project. I'm happy to report that Firefish is becoming a healthy project again, and that members of the community have stepped up to get the development going. For those who didn't migrate to other platforms during the project's crisis: You're safe and in good hands.

RE: info.firefish.dev/notes/9s1n283sb10rh869

mondoweiss, 8 days ago to Palestine

Congressional aides say that the Biden administration will send Israel another $1 billion in weapons and ammunition.

https://mondoweiss.net/2024/05/biden-is-sending-israel-another-1-billion-in-weapons/

#Palestine #Israel #Gaza
@palestine @israel

panos, 4 months ago to mastodon

I know that people who run #firefish servers are probably somewhat frustrated right now, since the project's last stable release was back in July. I do hope Kainoa gets more active and things start rolling again, however I checked the closest alternatives/firefish forks. Another thing that makes open source software great: you never run out of options!

So, #Iceshrimp still pretty much looks and feels like firefish, but they've added some nice (performance, mostly) improvements and also have better #mastodon api support. They also plan to do a full rewrite, which is quite an ambitious project. It's certainly a project worth watching.

#Sharkey on the other hand started as a firefish fork (from what I understood) but rebased to #Misskey v13 (Firefish had cut ties with upstream misskey on v12) and is building on top of that. This is also a great option if you like Misskey's direction but want improvements like post editing.

And finally with #Catodon, which is in the making and will soon be another option, we're taking a different approach. We'll implement some improvements from Iceshrimp, like the great work they've done on mastodon api support, but in general we won't exactly be taking the "improved misskey" direction. Instead, we'll be using Misskey/Firefish as our starting point, but we also want to simplify some things - as well as build extra functionality on top of the essentials. So some of the less important and useful features will be removed in order to offer a more consistent and user-friendly experience.

More on specific changes we're doing in a few days!

panos, 2 months ago to fediverse

We know development hasn't been as fast as we'd hoped for due to lack of time, so we are looking for someone to work together on this! If you're a #dev who's interested in the #fediverse and would like to be part of an upcoming and creative project, send us a message!

RE: catodon.social/notes/9qqowcuygslkanui

panos, 4 months ago to random

If this hadn't just happened to me, I'd say this was set up. Had no idea about that project.

RE: https://catodon.social/notes/9o4ugilsvxg0owm3

panos, 4 months ago to random

A question for fedi server admins: How long is your server's name (as you've written it in your control panel, I mean)? Is there a reason why someone would want to use a very long server name? Thanks!
#FediAdmin

panos, 3 months ago to random

Kinda big day tomorrow as catodon.social's getting updated to our latest dev version, since our announced rebase to #Iceshrimp is finished, which means that, if everything goes well, after tomorrow catodon.social will have all of the performance improvements of Iceshrimp, including full Mastodon API support. It took us back a few weeks but we think it was worth it, and now we can resume development towards our first release.
#Catodon