Mastodawn

ernest Jun 10, 2023

@feditips Oh man, that's really funny! :D

SleepyCatten Jun 10, 2023

@feditips Thanks for making me aware of Kbin

I was only previously aware of Lemmy, which (as you've covered yourself) is not really a viable option.

Sibachian Jun 10, 2023

@SleepyCatten @feditips why is kbin more viable than lemmy? i checked kbim just now and at first glance it's both slower and has a less polished interface.

pieceofthepie

Jun 10, 2023

@Beiz @SleepyCatten @feditips There's me thinking the exact opposite 🤣

https://mstdn.social/@feditips/106835057054633379

@Beiz @SleepyCatten

Kbin is very new, give it a bit of time.

The reason I'd recommend Kbin instead of Lemmy is that Lemmy's lead developer seems to have... um... problematic behaviour...

FediTips has moved! (@[email protected])

Content warning: Please don't use Lemmy :( Human rights, oppression

Mastodon 🐘

Sibachian Jun 10, 2023

@feditips @SleepyCatten i agree that those issues are issues and why i have had difficulty using lemmy for years and been unable to recommend it. but those "issues" are largely the old, small, userbase of lemmy and not the platform itself. i’m aware that the admins of lemmy has long taken a passive stance to propaganda and i can't fault them for wanting to keep the project alive by remaining neutral. they even federated with wolfballz for a long time before it got far too toxic.

Sibachian Jun 10, 2023

@feditips @SleepyCatten @tin of course it's not a problem when they federate. but i am of the opinion that criticism should be where criticism is due. beside that. right now the fediverse is having a second opportunity for mass adoption, and complicating the platform choice by having some kind of community war between lemmy and kbin is not a good idea. it slows down adoption. which mastodon devs did intentionally in the first wave, and from a marketing PoV, that’s... not the best choice.

Jungle George 🌴🌳🌲🍃Jun 11, 2023

@feditips @Beiz @SleepyCatten this is why I choose to go with Kbin over Lemmy

时变局正宗青柠派🍋Jun 10, 2023

@feditips
so.. shall we use lemmy more

Chris Jun 10, 2023

@jiangshanghan @feditips
Yes we should.

TheDude Jun 10, 2023

@feditips I don’t think fediverse is going to enter the general vocabulary.

@TheDude

I think it could? Email and the web are open standards in general vocab, and they aren't corporate brand names.

Mauve Jun 10, 2023

@feditips @TheDude I mean, it has the word "Fed" in it. May leave a rotten taste in many a soul's mouth.

Ian Molton Jun 12, 2023

@feditips @TheDude @mauveavenger Yeah, All those Star Trek nerds must HATE it...

Nick

Jun 10, 2023

@feditips since yesterday I didn't even know that such alternative exists. Seems reddit doesn't know about Streisand effect

Reiner Jung 🇬🇱 🇺🇦 🇪🇺Jun 10, 2023

@SkierniewiceBoi @feditips dictators always try to control what is communicated in their realm. However, there is always a way around their control. In the end they lose.

msgbi Jun 10, 2023

@feditips @charles_ex

Yeekasoose Jun 10, 2023

@feditips what an admirable bastion of free speech

https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/

Kathrin Jun 10, 2023

@feditips

This is a long read, but it very succinctly explains why these things inevitably always will happen on centralized systems:

@Kathrin

Yes! People who enjoy the article should follow the author at @pluralistic

Ian Molton Jun 10, 2023

@feditips @Kathrin There was a time when TikTok *wasnt* shit?

Kathrin Jun 10, 2023

@spyro @feditips

I know you're being facetious but TikTok likely appeals to a different demographic and within that audience, it was great - for a time.

Ian Molton Jun 10, 2023

@feditips @Kathrin I understand some people liked the format. But TikTok as a *platform* was an Obvious Plant from day one...

Kathrin Jun 10, 2023

@spyro @feditips

If you're referring to the data harvesting (aka spying), then sure. However, that applies to pretty much any other platform as well.

Kacey Jun 10, 2023

@spyro @feditips @Kathrin It has its place 😝

Neilh90 Jun 10, 2023

@feditips they're absolutely shameless

phi1997 Jun 10, 2023

@feditips
They really are Twittering this

Starry Starry Knight Jun 10, 2023

@feditips Good to know that #Kbin is excellent enough to be a worthy competitor = threat...

sub_o Jun 10, 2023

@feditips reminds me of twitter trying to suppress mastodon migration

Richad A Jun 10, 2023

@feditips One day those with money will realise that social media is a network of human beings, and that human beings have free will. Attempt to control them and they will find alternatives. Humans are the Internet. Humans are nature, and nature always finds a way. Instead of blocking the Kbin thread they should address the reason for which people are thinking of leaving in the first place.
One day they might. For now they throw methanol on an invisible fire. When night falls they will see the danger and error of their ways (The danger being a loss of user engagement, and user eyeball numbers).

HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴Jun 10, 2023

@feditips
@stefan

(1/2)

#RedditCensorship takes #Elmo's #BorgSite approach and has area eliminated #Fediverse entry.

https://mstdn.social/@feditips/110519237586930084

Act now to protect your content and use the #Fediverse's #FOSS alternative:

#Kbin (1):

EDIT/UPDATE:
I needed to remove #Lemmy as an alternative due to its dubious stance towards human-rights abuses, as explained in the next toot.

https://mastodon.social/@HistoPol/110516948024413608

(1)
You can find further useful information on Kbin...
#JoinTheFediverse.net
#jointhefediverse

Fedi.Tips (@[email protected])

Apparently Reddit has now banned a subreddit dedicated to the Fediverse Reddit-alternative Kbin: https://sakurajima.moe/@chikorita157/110517156242412322 If you're on a centralised platform like Reddit, this is what they can do. Centralised platforms have all-powerful leaders who can do whatever they want, and you have no alternatives if you disagree. The point of the Fediverse being on lots of servers is that each server's power is limited. If you disagree with one server's actions, you can move. #Fediverse #Reddit #Kbin

Mastodon 🐘

HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴Jun 10, 2023

@feditips @[email protected]

(2/2)

...gathered by FediTips here:

https://mstdn.social/@feditips/110521303082388526

and here

https://mstdn.social/@feditips/110521173541159652

PS:

Reason for #Lemmy's removal:

I have removed my indirect endorsement of #Lemmy. They have a very dubious stance towards human rights and do not object people celebrating #Stalin's birthday, a man who directly and indirectly killed 6-9 million people.
Besides, they apparently are die-hard communists, supporting the Kremlin (#tankies).

https://mstdn.social/@feditips/1068350

Fedi.Tips (@[email protected])

p.s. Have had lot of people asking similar questions, so here are some answers: Kbin's website is at https://kbin.pub, they have a flagship server at https://kbin.social. There's no app yet, but you can use Kbin servers through their websites. The lead developer of Kbin is @[email protected], at the moment that's the account to follow for news on the project. If you want to help Kbin there's a donation link at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/kbin, and programmers can help at https://codeberg.org/Kbin

Mastodon 🐘

Stefan Bohacek Jun 10, 2023

@HistoPol @feditips Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I don't know if there are any Lemmy instances worth promoting, but because of the way the site currently works, I've removed it for now.

HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴Jun 11, 2023

@stefan

You are very welcome. I support this decision, but it was not mine to suggest.

I agree with @feditips that it matters greatly who gets the proceeds of #donations and the visibility from sites like yours that, in turn, could generate (marketing) proceeds.

HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴Jun 11, 2023

@feditips

PS: IMPORTANT UPDATE

More serious issues with #Lemmy have surfaced regarding #DataPrivacy, which I have posted in my thread here:

https://mastodon.social/@HistoPol/110522257089980041

xs4me2 Jun 10, 2023

@feditips

It is in the design, centralised platforms should be discouraged. Its just not safe when going beyond a certain size and also not democratic. Substandard hence. Rules and regulations can help here, given the potential high impact we have seen with these platforms on society…

Acetopheles Jun 10, 2023

@feditips guess they really are fearful of people moving off Reddit after all.
Surely they should support a free and open internet...

The idea of people hating and leaving Reddit terrifies them. If Reddit was such a great platform they shouldn't have anything to worry about. Yet years of never delivering on promises has finally and justly come back to haunt them.

Gwyn Jun 10, 2023

@feditips LOL, Reddit going full Twitter.

SocialSpirit

🍁Jun 10, 2023

@feditips sorry for a really dumb question on Kban…how do I sign up with my mastodon user name? What’s the proper format? I keep getting a “match format” message. I’m not sure why I’m struggling with. Mastodon was a breeze compared to this. 😔

@SocialSpirit

If you want to sign up on another server, you need to create an account on that server.

Your Mastodon account is tied to the Mastodon server where you signed up, you can't use it to sign in on any other server.

It's like with email, you can't use your Gmail account to sign in on Yahoo Mail, even though you can send emails between Gmail and Yahoo Mail accounts.

SocialSpirit

🍁Jun 10, 2023

@feditips ok, I think I understand that, but when I look at users on kban it displays their other instance info as well (eg: FEDITIPS @[email protected]). I’ve just created a kban account displaying USERNAME @[email protected] which isn’t what I want. Does that make sense or am I totally missing something. Thanks for your patience, I don’t know why I don’t get this.

@SocialSpirit

The users you can see with other instance info are on other instances. They may not be on Kban at all, or they might be on different Kban servers.

The idea of the Fediverse is people are spread out on thousands of different servers, but the servers communicate seamlessly so that people from many different servers can have conversations together.

You and I are on different servers but we are able to talk like this, because the servers we signed up on communicate with each other.

SocialSpirit

🍁Jun 10, 2023

@feditips ok, Thanks for this.

@feditips @SocialSpirit the bit that's always stumped me is why I've got to have one profile per fedi app rather than a single unified profile. That's the part that isn't seamless.

FediTips has moved!Jun 11, 2023

@cooopsspace @SocialSpirit

You don't need an account on every service.

One account will usually let you interact on other services. From your point of view it will look like you're just on Mastodon, but you're actually on other services too.

For example, if you want to comment on a PeerTube video, you can do that from Mastodon. From your point of view it will look like a Mastodon thread, but when you go to the PeerTube video's own page the comment you made on Mastodon will be there.

FediTips has moved!Jun 11, 2023

@cooopsspace @SocialSpirit

For example if you go to @theatticdwellers you'll see PeerTube posts, even though they look like Mastodon posts from your point of view. If you like them on Mastodon, it will appear as a thumbs up on PeerTube. If you reply to one of those videos, it will appear as a comment on PeerTube.

@feditips @SocialSpirit but if I have a @pixelfed account because I prefer an Instagram like interface - I suddenly can't see text posts at all. So if I want text posting and to be able to upload photos... But I also want pixelfed to be my app of choice there is currently no way to do that without multiple accounts with no way of unifying them under one persona.

@Fedi.Tips @SocialSpirit :mastodon: I guess what @Coo-Ops wants is not simply to be able to interact with users on other projects (or "apps" because they sound like someone for whom the Fediverse is an obscure black box with a bunch of mobile apps on the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store sticking out) from Mastodon.

It sounded more like they want full user access rights on all #Fediverse projects with one account on one instance. Upload videos to any #PeerTube instance, upload songs to any #Funkwhale pod, upload podcasts to any #Castopod instance, create and moderate communities/magazines on any #Lemmy or #kbin instance, create and moderate public and private forums on any instance of #Friendica, #Hubzilla or #Streams, create and edit articles and wikis on any Hubzilla hub and so forth. All only with one login on one instance of one project, preferably #Mastodon.

This simply is technologically impossible. It's like having a user account on one phpBB forum and still being able to post on every forum in existence, regardless of whether it runs phpBB or vBulletin or Discourse or Flarum or whatever.

In order to have full user rights on any one Fediverse instance, you will need an account there. Even if there was a unified login system so that you actually log into 20,000+++++ Fediverse instances when you log into one, you'll still need an account.

This would mean two things.

For one, whenever a newbie comes over from Twitter to Mastodon, and they create an account on mastodon.social, accounts on all other instances of all other Fediverse projects must be created automatically with the same credentials.

Now you might say, "I don't need an account on EVERY instance!" No, but you MAY need an account on this instance or that instance because you've just stumbled upon it, and you want to use it as if you have an account there. And ANY instance out there could be "this instance or that instance".

Besides, whenever an aspiring admin starts up a new instance of any Fediverse project for the first time, and be it something fairly obscure like (streams) which only supports #ActivityPub as an optional plug-in, it would immediately have to create 12,000,000++ user accounts automatically so that every Fediverse user has full user rights on this one particular instance as well. I mean, someone on #Akkoma could find your one-minute-old (streams) instance and decide it's a nice place for a public forum.

I think it's clear that this is unrealistic.

Netzgemeinde/Hubzilla

@jupiter_rowland so I'm a tech person who likes photography and runs a blog.

I've got WordPress with activity pub, need Mastodon for text posts, but thoroughly enjoy the interface of Pixelfed where I may post photos.

If someone replies to me on any of the others I won't be notified on my main account. Where is my main one even? There's not even a way to see my blog and pixelfed content under one feed because I'll "appear" as three different people regardless.

I guess I've not seen a way to link the three together and say "this is me" as a whole. Merely appearing as three different accounts in three different worlds posting three or more content types.

@Coo-Ops That's because neither your WordPress blog nor your Pixelfed account even know that your Mastodon account exists. They have never in their lives heard of one another. They have never come into touch with each other. So they can't magically know who and where you are on other projects.

The practical solution for this would be for your Mastodon account to follow both your Pixelfed account and your WordPress blog.

The "one login for everything" approach would require total centralisation of the whole #Fediverse. Not only would separate projects have to be merged into one gigantic, omnipotent monster of a project, but the concept of separate distributed instances would have to disappear, too. One central all-knowing login for everything would require one central database for everything.

And whoever owns this database would have full control over the entire Fediverse.

Netzgemeinde/Hubzilla

@jupiter_rowland I'm not saying one login, but for the apps to at least be conscious that duplicate profiles on other services exist would be nice.

Like can you imagine a celebrity being here and having like seven accounts across each different service and a fan not knowing which one to actually follow because they all have the same username and profile picture? Sounds like a disaster to me.

@Coo-Ops That'd require all instances of all projects to be aware of all user accounts/channels on all instances of all projects and stay up-to-date in real time. This could only be established in two ways.

Either there would have to be one central server which all instances of all projects communicate with, where they can look up user identities. It's a very bad idea already to make any one Fediverse project, e.g. Mastodon, depend on central infrastructure. It'd be even worse if the whole Fediverse with dozens upon dozens of independent projects and tens of thousands of independent instances depended on central infrastructure and essentially ceased to work properly without it.

Or all instances of all projects would have to communicate with each other directly. In order to be able to do that, they would have to know all other instances, regardless of project. All of them. No exception.

So let's suppose I return to self-hosting my own Hubzilla hub like I've done in the past. I set up a virtual machine. I install a LAMP stack. I install Hubzilla on it. I configure it. I start the Web server up for the first time. And my Hubzilla hub would have to know all instances of all Fediverse projects out there immediately. Yes, including the brand-spanking-new MissKey instance someone just spun up for the first time in Nagoya 30 seconds earlier. And that new MissKey instance would have to know my own new Hubzilla hub as soon as I start it up.

For one, this is another thing that's technologically impossible unless each Fediverse project comes with a full list of all instances right away upon install. A list that's provided separately but still pulled in automatically during installation. A list that would have to be automatically updated by each instance of each project every few seconds in order to really always cover the entire Fediverse. With tens of thousands of instances pulling this list in every few seconds, the list would require its own data centre in order not to be DDoS'd to kingdom come.

By the way, even that wouldn't make sure that all Fediverse instances know all other Fediverse instances. Some instances would never have this list because their admins don't update them anymore, mostly small private instances. There are even active instances of entire projects that are dead, that aren't maintained anymore. There's at least one operational Osada instance, there are at least two operational Zap instances, and both projects had their end-of-life on New Year's Eve 2022. They might make it onto the list, but they won't have the list implemented themselves.

Oh, and you can't do that through the apps as in what's installed on people's mobile phones either. This would require every installation of every mobile app on every smartphone and every tablet to know all instances of all projects in the Fediverse, regardless of whether they can practically be used with these projects or not (good luck using Mobilizon through Mona). Instances pushing their data to mobile apps would be even worse: Each instance of each project would have to know every installation of every mobile app on every mobile device out there. Right away after starting up for the first time. Like, I spin up my brand-new Hubzilla hub, and it knows right away what you've got on your phone so that it can advertise its presence and all channels on it to all the apps on your phone. And to millions of other phones out there.

See, I'm a tech guy myself. But my view of the Fediverse is not that of a bunch of iPhone apps with some murky magic happening in the background. I used to self-host Friendica and Hubzilla on a Linux machine which I've built from parts myself; most of the time, they actually ran on Debian virtual machines on a Manjaro host system. I started using Friendica early on when it was still named Friendika, and that was 2011. And I access all Fediverse projects I use through Web browsers on Linux desktop computers and laptops. So I guess I know the technological background pretty well.

@jupiter_rowland you're putting a lot of effort into a comment I just dropped in passing. But here goes:

I know all my accounts and can link to each of them and arrest cryptographically that they're all the same. All an app would need to do is realise that my 2-3 Coo-Ops accounts are all the same and display them as if they were one.

@Coo-Ops Okay, question number one: What are you referring to as an app?

Mastodon, as in the Web server application which infosec.exchange is running on a headless Linux server? Likewise, the Pixelfed Web server application and the ActivityPub plug-in for Wordpress?

Or the end-user mobile apps which you're using to access them?

If it's the latter, what you need would be a hypothetical mobile app that supports all Fediverse projects all the same with all their features and unite the timelines/streams of multiple accounts on different projects into one.

Now, the first requirement would be tough. Just for your use-case, the app would have to support all features of Mastodon and all features of Pixelfed. For WordPress, reading comments and replying to them would be sufficient. I'm not talking about writing and publishing blog posts, although supporting Plume and WriteFreely would cover this.

But there are even more Fediverse projects which this app would have to support. I've already mentioned Plume and WriteFreely which would require a long-form blog post editor with Markdown highlighting (and/or real-time rendering) support.

In order to really cover everything of everything, the app would also have to support every last one of Hubzilla's features. And Hubzilla is a feature monster whose power can ever-so-barely be harnessed through its own Web interface.

Let me scratch the surface a bit: The long-form blog post editor would be needed again, not for regular posts, but for articles, and then it'd have to support Hubzilla's expanded implementation of BBcode. A fully featured frontend for Hubzilla's wiki engine with support for expanded BBcode, Markdown and the necessary wiki bits would be necessary, as well as an online file space manager with special support for images, a calendar editor for Hubzilla's two separate calendar engines, one of which uses CalDAV and could theoretically tie into your phone's calendar (you'll also need the calendar frontend for Friendica, (streams) and Mobilizon), an editor for Hubzilla's CardDAV-based address book which could theoretically tie into that on your phone, a website editor that supports Markdown, HTML and expanded BBcode, frontends for Hubzilla apps such as Superblock and so forth.

All this would have to be crammed into one and the same mobile app. All this and more from other projects. Aside from supporting all Fediverse projects, the app would require a lot of extra functionality for account/channel management, for which timelines/streams to merge with which (power users with multiple identities may still want to have multiple separate timelines/streams, also to keep them somewhat uncluttered) and so forth. And the app would still have be fairly easy to use.

However, if what you refer to as an "app" is the server-side application running on the Debian-powered rack irons in the data centres and the Raspberry Pis that run personal instances at home, I'd really like to know how all of them are supposed to know about all others of them, which users are on which instances.

mastodon/mastodon

Your self-hosted, globally interconnected microblogging community - mastodon/mastodon

GitHub

@jupiter_rowland With all due respect, I appreciate the effort you're putting into replying to me but you're missing the root cause and to be honest, I'm just complaining a bit and not necessarily looking for a solution right this instant.

My issue is simply put - if celebrity singer-songwriter Saylor Twift were to have a profile on a blog/text/toot/long form/video/picture social network on the diverse... that amounts to having at least five separate accounts right? As a fan, I would expect to just press "follow" once and be able to see all their content. To my knowledge, this can't be done.

@Coo-Ops Well, the Fediverse isn't one coherent thing. It's tens of thousands of Twitters and hundreds of Facebooks and dozens of YouTubes and so forth, all independent from another, only connected in a common language they all speak.

The only way to have absolutely everything under one login is to join an instance of a project that offers absolutely everything under one login, all at once. The only project that can at least come close to that is Hubzilla. But something as complex as Hubzilla can't offer you the same experience as one separate Twitter clone, one separate Instagram clone, one separate blog, one separate YouTube clone etc., even though it offers you just about the same features. And I'm not talking about the clunky UI yet.

Klaus Baldermann 📜Jun 13, 2023

@jupiter_rowland wouldn't Oauth (https://oauth.net/) and/or Openid Connect (https://openid.net/connect/) be an option? Instead of (or in addition to) "Login with google/Facebook/github/Reddit" there could be "Login with your Fediverse account", similiar to the "Login with Wordpress" that WP OAuth Server (https://wordpress.org/plugins/miniorange-oauth-20-server/) provides.

OAuth Community Site