blaineNov 12, 2022
"Mastodon sucks because any one of the 5000+ communities can set their own rules and might accidentally deprive people in that community of my witty hot takes for a reason I personally believe to be flippant" isn't the sick burn that the Twitter user with 50k followers thinks it is.
Show threadPelle WessmanNov 12, 2022

@blaine A slight problem with federated micro-Twitters versus fully decentralized IndieWeb setups in a way.

Mastodon instances amplify their users in a different way to actual independent web pages / the IndieWeb.

But still, yeah, you’re right. I’m just sad that eg the WebFinger setup ended up a lot less static site friendly than the original and is much more catered to micro-Twitters than to actually independent sites.

Show threadblaineNov 12, 2022

@voxpelli ❤️

For me, the webfinger stuff was/is just an idea - how can we give people an online name that they control?

(There's some new thinking in this direction that is very exciting, and I think better than any of our previous approaches!)

Show threadPelle WessmanNov 12, 2022

@blaine Yeah, I remember WebFinger itself never really being intended to be a spec in itself, rather just a pattern for how to apply Host Meta rules to usernames

Which new thinking are you referring to? IndieWeb ones? Crypto ones? Browser based ones?

Show threadSebastian LasseNov 14, 2022

@voxpelli @blaine

Please also note that webfinger is not part of any ActivityPub spec.
https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/#conformance
It is just a masto thing.

But the fediverse is so many wonderful softwares.

ActivityPub

The ActivityPub protocol is a decentralized social networking protocol based upon the [ActivityStreams] 2.0 data format. It provides a client to server API for creating, updating and deleting content, as well as a federated server to server API for delivering notifications and content.

Show threadPelle WessmanNov 14, 2022
@sl007 @blaine Yeah, OStatus was WebFinger, WebSub, ActivityStreams and Salmon. I guess ActivityPub has replaced the three latter?
Show threadSebastian LasseNov 14, 2022

@voxpelli @blaine

well, for ActivityPub an URL is enough.
Just as it should be.

Only mastodon needs webfinger.

Show threadblaineNov 14, 2022

@sl007 @voxpelli the http spec also doesn't have anything to say about html, nor does webfinger say anything about ActivityPub, as it should be. Webfinger isn't "just a masto" thing, either - any social software will need to use the pattern if adoption and sharing is a concern.

It's perhaps best to think of webfinger as "DNS for people"

Show threadSteveNov 14, 2022
@blaine @sl007 @voxpelli Speaking of DNS... for email, I use my own domain name and I can use any email service provider I want and switch the provider by changing the DNS MX records. I wish there was something like that for the fediverse so my identity doesn't change when I move to another instance.
Show threadblaineNov 14, 2022
@steve @sl007 @voxpelli you can do that now! I don't have the link handy, but I've seen at least one guide to doing this without hosting your own instance. The tooling is really basic right now, but will get better. ❤️
Show threadPelle WessmanNov 14, 2022
@blaine @sl007 @steve here’s a link to how @[email protected] does it: https://tantek.com/2022/301/t1/twittermigration-bridgyfed-mastodon-indieweb
#TwitterMigration, first time? Have posted notes to https://tantek.com/ since 2010, POSSEd tweets & #AtomFeed. Added one .htaccess line today, and thanks to #BridgyFed, #Mastodon users can follow my #IndieWeb site @[email protected] No Mastodon install or account needed. Just one line in .htaccess: RewriteRule ^.well-known/(host-meta|webfinger).* https://fed.brid.gy/$0 [redirect=302,last] is enough for Mastodon users to search for and follow that @[email protected] username. Took a little more work to setup Bridgy Fed to push new posts to followers. Note by the way both the redundancy & awkwardness (it’s not a clickable URL) of such @-@ (AT-AT) usernames when you’re already using your own domain. Why can’t Mastodon follow a username of “@tantek.com”? Or just “tantek.com”? And either way expanding it internally if need be to the AT-AT syntax. Why this regression from what we had with classic feed readers where a domain was enough to discover & follow a feed? Also, why does following show a blank result? Contrast that with classic feed readers which immediately show you the most recent items in a feed you subscribed to. Lastly (for now), I asked around and no one knew of a simple public way to “preview” or “validate” that @[email protected] actually “worked”. You have to be *logged-in* to a Mastodon instance and search for a username to check to see if it works. Contrast that with https://validator.w3.org/feed/ which you can use without any log-in to validate your classic feed file. Why these regressions from the days of feed readers? - Tantek

Show threadSteveNov 14, 2022
@voxpelli @blaine @sl007 Thanks for the link. It looks like the fed.brid.gy bridge/proxy is the magic sauce. Maybe I could self-host something like that instead of a full instance to make my user id portable.
Bridgy Fed

Bridgy Fed is a bridge between decentralized social networks like the fediverse, Bluesky, and web sites and blogs.

Show threadPelle Wessman
@steve @sl007 @blaine That’s my plan. Will have my main home in the IndieWeb and then bridge it to the Fediverse.
Nov 14, 2022 at 5:36pmWeb