Doc Edward Morbius ❌You can also find me at:
https://dredmorbius.reddit.com
https://ello.co/dredmorbius
https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dredmorbius
https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193
And I'll periodically be updating this particular thread (linked from my profile bio) with ... extended stuff.
My general posting / content philosophy. Not all applies here, but the gist does:
https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/wiki/lair_rules
https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/wiki/lair_rules
For my own editing use & access:
https://mastodon.cloud/web/statuses/34102
https://mastodon.cloud/web/statuses/34102
My general guidance is that content should show respect. For readers, for people, for ideas, for truth.
Mostly for truth.
I'm a huge fan of this One Amazing Trick to Revolutionise Social Networks: Block Fuckwits.
https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/drLZV8sm7Tq
And yes, sometimes I'm the fuckwit. Mastodon's Mute and Block features are useful, make use of them. I will, and have.
I'm also aware that individual actions aren't sufficient in all instances. But they're a start.
My interests: #BigProblems
#progress #models #institutions #technology #limits #values
That unpacks to ... a lot, discussed on the #dredddit https://dredmorbius.reddit.com -- see the Wiki there for more.
I'm not sure if I'm solving these, understanding them, or merely bearing witness.
I've experimented with "index" and "wiki" posts at Ello. Respectively:
https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/dlz9c2z6x-tvkd7rxtxwpw
https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/vbmqbwmjovwz-pwjg6isna
You might find some nuggets buried in there. Or turds.
PSA: Mastodon / GNU Social allows animated avatars.
I mute gratuitous animated elements.
But I'm not telling you what to do.
Have a fabulous diurnal cycle.
Updating the animated avatars situation: animations are now disabled by default.
Frankie Saxx@dredmorbius @gargron nice! I don't mind most of them, but some are annoying. :)
@frankiesaxx @Gargron Yes. I've now got the challenge of finding and unmuting the profiles which had been employing them. Which, absent a list of muted profiles is ... difficult.
Q: So, who's Edward Morbius?
A: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HHXfMjp2zqI
A: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HHXfMjp2zqI
Angostura@dredmorbius one of my favourite films. Love the effects even now, and the sound design is spectacular
Mastodon User Guide: https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/blob/master/docs/Using-Mastodon/User-guide.md
@nolan has compiled a brief introductory guide: https://github.com/nolanlawson/resources-for-mastodon-newbies#readme
Q: Why are all these bots following me?
A: Mastodon and GNU Social are /federated/ network with many individual servers. Only toots from profiles followed by someone on a given server propogate. "Follow Bots" ensure that more content is spread over more of the network. This may or may not be a good thing. And other bots may have other ideas. I'm not settled on the question myself.
A con argument: https://mastodon.social/users/pan/updates/1697694
Q: Can I block all robots easily?
A: If they're well-behaved, add #nobot to your profile bio. See: https://mastodon.social/media/cjbb9KGh16WFRvuAyis
gled => Moved@dredmorbius and any bot that does not behave should be reported to your instance admin and to me so we can warn the offender and ban if needed !
Another discussion on the downside(s) of follow-bots, by @lambadalambda
"...Without [bots], the federated timeline is ... an expression of the interests of the node's users...."
For more on bots, followbots, and #nobot:
https://mastodon.social/users/Rushyo/updates/1780954
From @Rushyo
Q: What's this "Federation thing?"
A: A bunch of communities, on different servers, sharing /some/ but not necessarily /all/ of their traffic. Or, in some cases, none. It depends.
The User Guide has a good section:
https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/blob/master/docs/Using-Mastodon/User-guide.md#decentralization-and-federation
Q: It sounds as if that's complicated. Do you have a picture you can share?
A: @vhf made one: https://techn.ical.ist/users/vhf/updates/102
It misses a few edge cases, but mostly, that's how the spice flows. Er, toots.
Q: What about descriptions of associated networks, Stats / Nodes / Instances / Hubs, etc?
A:
* diaspora, friendica & hubzilla: https://the-federation.info/
* gnusocial & postactiv: http://www.fediverse.org/
* mastodon: https://instances.mastodon.xyz/
Fediverse visualization: https://kumu.io/wakest/fediverse
Mitchell@dredmorbius @ymivlr don't forget fediwiki.info ! I put a bunch of cool info about how GNUSocial works, with API documentation, etc. as well as a How-to-setup-mastodon-in-docker tutorial!
@dredmorbius @ymivlr hhehehe awesome! :D
YmivlrNoted.
Thank you for putting that together.
Thank you for putting that together.
Mitchell@ymivlr Not a problem!
Dan York@dredmorbius @vhf Interesting. I did not understand that if someone is not followed by *anyone* on an instance, then *none* of their tweets appear in the federated timeline. So the "federated timeline" is only those users who have some connection to your instance. This means that the larger instances (ex. mastodon.social, mastodon.cloud) will have a bigger and richer federated timeline by virtue of having more people who will follow others on other instances.
@danyork @vhf Keep in mind that bigger need not equal richer. If you're on a smaller Instance with a discerning population, you may find it's selecting out the good stuff, and kicking off the bad.
That's where the follow-bot concept strikes me as potentially badly misguided. It directly disrupts the selection and filtering behaviour of organic following.
It's not clear to me that it's possible to readily distinguish bot from non-bot traffic.
Aswath Rao@danyork @dredmorbius @vhf This is an important restriction that allows for "Live and let live" aspect of federation. Total "open" federation will be polluting; strict "following" federation will restrict organic growth. This is a happy medium while maintaining a happy medium. I think we shouldn't focus on "larger" instances; instead instances that have a well defined "tribal" attribute.
@vhf @dredmorbius @danyork Each instance is neither an island nor a bar; but a moat which opens for a friend of a friend
@Aswath @dredmorbius @vhf Good point about finding a happy medium. My point was really that the "experience" of "federated Mastodon" will vary based on the size of your instance. On a large instance, the "federated timeline" might have many entries and give you a view of a "firehose". On a very small instance, it may seem like few people are in the federated timeline. It might make people there wonder what all the buzz is about.
@@danyork @dredmorbius @vhf This is a very good point: and would seem an issue to find ways to remedy...ideally the federated timeline should be as close to showing the entire network as possible, no?
@tchambers @dredmorbius @vhf As@[email protected] has pointed out, a fully-federated timeline would be overwhelming and would "pollute" instances focused on building smaller communities. The Mastodon implementation is an interesting balance. Effectively you have everyone who is a "friend of a friend". So it is more than just local, but not *everyone*.
@danyork @dredmorbius @vhf Hmmmm. Agree that this is by design, and can see how it functions in this space. But it does seem of value for people to be able to view a Federation-wide view of things too SOMEHOW. In essence when they wish to, to be able to view what is "trending" across the entire network, or to do searches across the entire network of posts and people as FB and Twitter allow.
@tchambers @danyork @vhf My read is that "trending across the network" has a /different meaning/ within Mastodon / GNU Social / oStatus. The inter-node filtration is part of the trending signal. The structure is far more neural in the sense that a node may choose to amplify /or suppress/ a signal. Both those functions are critical in forming meaning.
The more I think of this, the less I like the followbots.
@tchambers @dredmorbius @vhf That was my initial thought... that there ought to be some way to "see it all" or to "search it all". But that could rapidly become a firehose... and to manage that you really need an algorithm. And right now Mastodon is keeping the chronological feed as Twitter used to do, before it became too big and we needed the algorithm to help. I think there is value in smaller communities.
Lee 🚀@dredmorbius @vhf Awesome info. Helps me understand things a bit more.
Colin the Mathmo@dredmorbius I know this too is quite old (by some standards) but it gives a security warning first, and then a 404.
Do you have a more recent diagram?
CC: @vhf
@ColinTheMathmo @vhf Sorry, no.
Looks like Internet Archive does NOT have a copy :-(
@ColinTheMathmo @vhf Might have been. I really don't recall.
Q: Does Federation -- different sites and even networks interconnecting -- mean that there might be the same username in different places?
A: Yes. It's a lot like email in that regard. "rosa.martinez" might exist on, say, Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo, but be three separate people. Or two the same and one different. You've got to check.
Arin Basu :white_check_mark:@dredmorbius And that should be OK, it's just the way it works in real life. Same name, different persona, different context. What makes me like Mastodon even more is this anonymity; allows for freedom of expression.
@arinbasu Understood. My documentation here is about what it /is/, not whether it is /ok/.
Helping people understand the system behaviour, such that they're not surprised by it.
hanung665 :flag_id:@dredmorbius At the future, how can we know if, let say, [email protected], is the official account of Ducati representative rather that the fake one, let say, [email protected]?
@hanung665 You'd have to get out-of-band verification, or a specific denial.
There was a profile claiming to be a co-founder of Mastodon yesterday. It looked and smelled funny, I did some investigation. Eventually Gargron made a statement that there was no such thing.
The account's toots started disappearing, and someone claimed that it had been stolen from him (or copied, not sure which).
It becomes a test of truth -- consistency and correspondence are strong tip-offs.
See: Epistemology.
@hanung665 Wikipedia's Criteria of Truth page lists various tests, some better than others.
"[T[here seem to be only three functional, effective tests of truth[:] correspondence, coherence and pragmatic."
"Pragmatic" is "is the knowledge useful in application?"
"Correspondence" is "does the knowledge correspond with that it describes?"
"Coherence" is "are all pertinent facts arranged in a consistent and cohesive fashion as an integrated whole?"
@hanung665 There's also the consistency tests: do the claims not contradict one another, and relate in a logical fashion. You might consider this a /rational/ test of truth. It's useful, but incomplete. Often it's all we have to go on, though, and it can be leveraged in useful ways.
Q: Is there a realtime-updating network overview with zoomable historical data?
A: Yes: https://mnm.eliotberriot.com/
Screenshot showing 2 days of data as of 12 April, 2017. https://mastodon.cloud/media/RCObGXKeNw8xCXy-47s
Q: How private is Mastodon / GNU Social?
A: Not very. Use email, XMPP, or other secure, encrypted protocols if you need privacy.
[moved/Inactive] NasquerAbben@dredmorbius is there any philosophical reason why mastodon isn't on an encrypted protocol, or is it happenstance?
Also, as far as I can tell, everything on Mastodon is public anyway (e.g. no DM feature)
@abbenm There is the option in Mastodon to post Unlisted, Private, or Direct, as well as Global, which you'll find under the :earth_americas: icon in the Toot editor.
These limit the /distribution scope/ of messages, but /do not/ encrypt messages. Instance admins, Follow Bots, and others may be able to see those messages.
I'd have to read spec for the comms link encryption itself.
@dredmorbius awesome, thanks for the tip. glad to know there are DMs. If you don't mind my wasting more of your time, how is it that follow bots "and others" would be able to see non-public messages?
@abbenm Admins can see all traffic, so there's that.
I need to re-scan the docs, but your "Private" posts go to your followers only. Note that your followers select you, /you do not select your followers/. Though you can /block/ selected followers. So ... if you've got a ton of followers, "Private" really isn't particularly useful.
Some of the GNU Social admins strongly recommend small, 40-50ish, instances, so that everyone knows everyone, or at least largely so.
Sebastian@dredmorbius email is not a good example for a secure, encrypted protocol ;)