aidan_walshNov 3, 2022
Dan Hon

First news organization to stand up its federated Mastodon server with a trustable domain (e.g. http://follow.washingtonpost.com) and accounts for its staff for people to follow gets a prize.

Also, proposal for a standardized domain for news orgs, e.g. follow.bbcnews.com, follow.nytimes.com, and/or autodiscovery of a mastodon server for a parent domain e.g. a socialnetworks.txt

#mastodon #media #news #newstech

Oct 28, 2022 at 7:00pmWeb
Show threadDan HonOct 28, 2022
Hey @jkohlmann and friends, you're already on this, right? :)
Show threadDan HonOct 28, 2022
Wrote this up in today's newsletter: https://newsletter.danhon.com/archive/4230/
s13e17: A Proposal for News Organization Mastodon Servers and More

s13e17: A Proposal for News Organization Mastodon Servers and More 0.0 Context Setting It’s Friday, October 28, 2022 in Portland, Oregon and it is a grey,...

Show threadGeorge HotellingOct 28, 2022

@Danhon it's worth noting that Mastodon speaks ActivityPub, which means that news orgs may be able to publish to Mastodon from their existing CMS without running a Mastodon server.

My WordPress blog posts to Mastodon, but it doesn't *run* Mastodon. Not through a 3rd party bot, but by using the ActivityPub plugin to let people follow it in Mastodon.

Show threadDan HonOct 28, 2022
@george publishing over ActivityPub still requires an account -- on a Mastodon server -- to publish to though, right?
Show threadGeorge HotellingOct 28, 2022

@Danhon kind of. You need an account on *something* but it doesn’t have to be Mastodon.

@georgehotelling is WordPress. If you follow it you get new posts in your feed, that are sent out by the ActivityPub plugin.

You can follow PixelFed and PeerTube accounts on Mastodon, but they are running non-Masto apps and don’t require an extra Masto account for cross-posting

Show threadDan HonOct 28, 2022
@george @georgehotelling oh duh, it's just Wordpress posting a feed itself. Got it.
Show threadGeorge HotellingOct 28, 2022

@Danhon bingo. That's what excites me about Mastodon, ActivityPub, and the Fediverse. It's open and you can expose a *lot* of things through it.

It reminds me of RSS in the early days, and fills some of the gaps left by Google Reader.

Show threadOblomovNov 5, 2022
@george @Danhon
And if you're feeling nostalgic you can actually get RSS feeds out of the post streams on some #fediverse platforms! (#Mastodon for sure)
Show threadTon ZijlstraNov 3, 2022
@Danhon @george My WP blog is its own ActivityPub instance. With my WP user name as user currently (which is why I don't really use it as it exposes non-obv user names). In practice I crosspost from WP to a separate Mastodon account, but none of that is really needed. WP can be its own instance.
Show threadRoyGreenhiltOct 28, 2022
@george @Danhon Hey george, what plugin do you use in wordpress for mastodon postings? I was using a social plugin for a while, but the developer went AWOL.
Show threadGeorge HotellingOct 28, 2022

@RoyGreenhilt @Danhon https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/

Replies come in as blog comments too, which is neat

ActivityPub

Connect your site to the Open Social Web and let millions of users follow, share, and interact with your content from Mastodon, Pixelfed, and more.

WordPress.org
Show threadRoyGreenhiltOct 28, 2022
@george @Danhon oo excellent. I'll check it out. Danke.
Show threadKevin MarksOct 29, 2022
@Danhon you missed the rel=me verification built into mastodon - if you link the author's byline page on the website to the mastodon page and back, you get a green tick ✅ in the mastodon profile. This can also verify other non-mastodon urls.
Show threadDavid WheelerOct 29, 2022
@KevinMarks @Danhon can it be in a <head> element or does it need to be a regular anchor element in the body?
Show threadDavid WheelerOct 29, 2022
@KevinMarks @Danhon Ah, found https://barrd.dev/article/add-a-verified-website-to-your-mastodon-account-using-link-tag/, added a <link rel="me" to the ole blog.
Add a verified website to your Mastodon account using link tag : barrd.dev

Add a verified website section to your Mastodon profile with the green box and a verified tick using a link tag in the head.

barrd.dev
Show threadJoe Roberts (They/Them)Oct 28, 2022
@Danhon There already is autodiscovery for mastodon, mind. Standard is returning a 301 on requests to /.well-known/finger or something like that.
Show threadDan HonOct 28, 2022
@twofirstnames Doh, of course there is! That makes a ton of sense :)
Show threadKadinOct 29, 2022

@twofirstnames @Danhon That seems like a very roundabout way to do what DNS SRV records are designed for.

You can add as many SRV records to your domain as you need, each pointing to a server (and port!) that hosts the service.

They also have a mechanism for specifying "priority" and "weight", for load balancing and failover.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRV_record

SRV record - Wikipedia

Show threadJoe Roberts (They/Them)Oct 29, 2022
@kadin @Danhon sure, though in this case web finger is a standard for asking ‘who is this person and where can I find them’, so keeping it in HTTP makes sense imo.
Show threadAngelosOct 28, 2022
@Danhon looks like the DNS is not propagated in EU yet 😀
Show threadDan HonOct 28, 2022
@AngelosArnis It was an example! AFAICT nobody has done this yet.
Show threadAngelosOct 28, 2022
@Danhon doh that makes sense, also my dyslexia
Show threadnevOct 28, 2022

@Danhon As an occasional reporter I've been pushing for this for ages, I'd LOVE to see local news orgs get on this.

There was one aimed at journos, but it got taken over by anti-vaxxers, the usual.

Show threadMichal Migurski 🍉Oct 28, 2022
@Danhon Yes to this. #yes #goodidea #followfriday
Show threadDan HonOct 28, 2022
@migurski I HAVE GOOD IDEAS, YES, CAN FINISH WORK FOR THE DAY NOW.
Show threadJosh Holden 🏝Oct 28, 2022
@Danhon Brilliant. Agree 100%.
Show threadstux⚡️Oct 28, 2022

@Danhon That would be awesome!

Than I could finally delete @washingtonpost 

Show threadToonOct 28, 2022
@Danhon autodiscovery is already possible using a /.well-known/webfinger redirect I think
Show threadDan HonOct 28, 2022

@toon I think that works for accounts / how the Mastodon server itself does autodiscovery, but not necessarily from a server to discover the Mastodon server domain itself. Unless I'm reading the docs wrong. I don't see a /.well-known/ redirect for activitypub.

Shorter: I think webfinger is just for users?

Show threadToonOct 28, 2022
@Danhon it’s meant for users but a client could use it to find out the ActivityPub server and redirect to it’s homepage I guess. But you’re right
Show threadJoachimOct 28, 2022
@Danhon the French media Numerama opened its own instance in 2019-2020, but closed it down because of the high price tag for an independent media. It was hosted on social.numerama.com
Show threadDan HonOct 28, 2022
@joachim maybe second time's the charm?
Show threadJoachimOct 28, 2022
@Danhon I hope so! cc @numerama
Show threadNiLaceOct 28, 2022
@Danhon I don't see the point in that, to be honest. Media companies setting up accounts for their stuff for the fediverse to follow? Don't get it.
Show threadRob FahrniOct 28, 2022

@Danhon Dan, we’ve had similar thoughts. 😃

https://rob.crabapples.net/2022/10/12/federated-vs-centralized.html

Federated vs. Centralized

Show threadDan HonOct 28, 2022
@fahrni yes! Though I'd argue you inherit more trust from an existing societally well-known org domain than bootstrapping from a new TLD.
Show threadDavid ChartierOct 28, 2022
@Danhon Oh that’s a BRILLIANT idea!
Show threadIvan Sagalaev Oct 28, 2022
@Danhon (technical note) HTML has built-in discovery via <link rel="...">, but nobody seems to use it outside of a couple historical use cases.
Show threadsteve.rssOct 28, 2022
@Danhon just earlier i was thinking wouldn’t it be great if mastodon.gov.uk existed
Show threadAlexOct 28, 2022
@stevenjmesser @Danhon if we can't manage single domain email, then I have my doubts.
Show threadPeter BurkholderOct 29, 2022
@stevenjmesser @Danhon very tempted to set up mastodon.cloud.gov this week and see what happens
Show threadTod RobbinsOct 28, 2022
@Danhon I like the format of social.{newsroomName}.{TLD}| and the idea of a socialnetworks.txt or social.txt
Show threadThomas Vander WalOct 28, 2022
@Danhon this is really good! Much needed. It would be great is it worked like Jaiku, where you connect and subscribe to what you have interest in. Looking forward to this.
Show threadJon LeibowitzOct 28, 2022
@Danhon an actual prize?
Show threadJon LeibowitzOct 28, 2022
@Danhon It'd be interesting to see incentives or encouragement for public sector adoption.
Show threadDan HonOct 31, 2022
@jon oh go on, sure :)
Show threadspeesOct 28, 2022
@Danhon ooh I like this. it's like corporate email addresses: self-managed but still official.
Show threadMichael VealeOct 28, 2022
@Danhon cc @emilybell
Show threadMatt MascarenhasOct 29, 2022

@Danhon Oh yeah, I'll chip in for this prize!

I've also been pondering this kind of thing for political entities. Not sure of an equivalent in news, but in (UK) politics:

• Each party hosts a server
• Parliament hosts a server (incl. one for independents)
• Following elections / appointments, the Parliament one gets populated with the very accounts of members from the party servers

If this multi-membership were possible, then also subdivide the Parliament one for, e.g. committees, govt, etc.

Show threadJustin MyersOct 29, 2022

@Danhon My one counterargument, as someone who occasionally spins things up at subdomains of a major news org (but is not speaking for that org in this post):

Should we expect people with established networks/followings to migrate to that "work" instance when they become staffers somewhere, and what happens to those networks when they leave those jobs?

(Email has similar issues, for similar reasons—but there's less friction in having both a work email and an alt, as it were.)

Show threadKadinOct 29, 2022

@Danhon Not sure why you'd want the explicit subdomain. We don't usually have "[email protected]" addresses anymore; "[email protected]" works fine.

DNS SRV records would be the obvious way to point users/clients to a specific server (like MX records do for mail, but more flexible).

Show threadbhorstOct 29, 2022
@Danhon @kadin If the subdomain displays an aggregate public feed for all the site’s creators, it becomes a good interface to find them and explicitly follow them. Also, for users without a fediverse account, they can read all the microcontent from a news provider at this location.
Show threadHans-CeesOct 29, 2022
@Danhon is there a reason why if I share this post to twitter, it does get the url right, but does not copy the text from the post into the tweet.
Makes cross-posting less nice?
Show threadDeadly HeadshotOct 29, 2022
@Danhon
I've been saying for a while that the domain BBC.social is free. Imagine having toots sent to @[email protected] read out on air instead of tweets...
Show threadnevOct 29, 2022

it occurred to me that while i think news organizations should absolutely run their own federated social media servers…

given how columnists, specifically, have reacted to being put on the same level as the plebs on twitter (i. e. completely melting down and losing their shit), columnists should NEVER join fedi. they would instantly die

Show threadbhorstOct 29, 2022
@Danhon Using the word “follow” for this subdomain is elegant and good for casual users (instead of something that feels like tech jargon to them). It creates an easily remembered sentence because it’s a verb, which makes for good promo / marketing: “Follow the Washington Post at follow.wapo.com!”
Show threadbhorstOct 29, 2022
@Danhon WaPo would be a good news org to do this first, because of the rivalry between Musk and Bezos… 😁
Show thread+bonifartius 𒂼𒄄Oct 29, 2022
@Danhon i'd instablock that domain. never talk to journalists.
Show threadJeff JarvisOct 29, 2022
@Danhon Also: First news organizations to put share-it-on-Mastodon (Discord, Planetary, etc.) links on news stories gets a big pat on the back.
Show threadSeth GosslerOct 29, 2022
@Danhon I'll add money to the pot. Or is the prize a hug?