Dan BlickensderferWelcome to @clintlalonde
Clint Lalonde (he/him)@Dan_Blick thanks. Feels very Tweetdeck-ish right now. You know anyone who is running their own instance of this?
@clintlalonde I'm working to get one setup this week. I've also been experimenting with talking to mastodon.social programmatically.
@Dan_Blick I think I might have a Christmas vacation project to get one up and running myself. It would be good to see how the networking of instances works. That is where the value is imo.
Scott Leslie@clintlalonde if you want to try, the recipe for deplying via docker is straightforward cf https://github.com/Gargron/mastodon
Robin DeRosa@Dan_Blick @clintlalonde So if you make an "instance" it still somehow talks to the larger platform? I am trying so hard to wrap my small bookish brain around this.
@actualham @Dan_Blick Exactly. Esentially, you could host your own instance of Mastodon (like you have your own website) and it would connect to other instances of Mastodon. potential best of both worlds - you get to own your own data AND get the network effects of distributed network. That's the theory anyway.
@clintlalonde @Dan_Blick Still trying to understand what that looks like, how it works. It's that whole federated idea? Love it in theory, and so curious to watch what that ends up looking like.
@actualham @Dan_Blick I am not clear on how it would look either. I think a few technical people will need to get s few instances talking to each other to show/see what that means irl.
@actualham @Dan_Blick how is privacy handled? how do people connect with others on a different instance (likely some sort of naming convention like an email address)
@actualham so I can't find a lot of other instances yet, but a few are listed https://github.com/Gargron/mastodon/wiki/List-of-Mastodon-instances To understand federation, go to one of them, find a user you want to follow, then come back here and use the search feature to see if you can find and add them
@actualham though it looks like those others are either closed or offline. so that might not work. Anyways, that's the idea - you can have a single account on a server with its own policies, but follow others on other servers. i.e. campuses or other larger aggregates could run these, deals with scale issue as well as not needing one policy fits all
@sleslie Wow-- thanks for that great explanation!
@actualham you're welcome. In a way I'm regretting having told people about it before getting another instance going. And also picking the right time is tricky regarding network effects and incumbency. This wouldn't be my first failed twitter revolt :-)
@sleslie @actualham by the way, I've been working since before the holiday to get an instance going; waiting on Jim/Reclaim to see if it can be done there. The decentralized aspect of multiple instances is appealing.
@sleslie I only have one failed FB revolt so far. I still get spammed from Ello daily, and I let that spam act as a reminder of...er...something...
@actualham yeah, all @cogdog has to. do is say "jaiku" to bring my rebellious tendencies to heel. This at least has got a few more people trying. That time it was just @dnorman and me having one short, lonely conversation. Guess we'll see.
Natalie Lafferty@clintlalonde @actualham @Dan_Blick Thinking about that too and wondering if we could try this out to support online discussion between learners. Are you going to give this a go? Or do we know yet if anyone has given it a try?
@nlafferty @actualham @Dan_Blick Looks like there are a few instances up and running. https://github.com/Gargron/mastodon/wiki/List-of-Mastodon-instances
@nlafferty @actualham @Dan_Blick My hope is that I can carve out some time to get a test instance up and running before end of the year. By then, there will hopefully be a few people in this community u and running & we can test out the federation model.
@clintlalonde @actualham @nlafferty Yes! This is my plan also (and to spend some time getting Mastodon.py working --programatically crosspost to twitter, etc) https://github.com/halcy/Mastodon.py
Daniel Lynds@Dan_Blick @clintlalonde @actualham @nlafferty can you keep me in the loop on this Mr. B? I am looking at getting a test group up on my college's site. Was also entertaining a DoOO instance.
Maybe we could do a Google Hangout once you've ironed out some wrinkles on your instance? - That is not a euphemism btw :)
@daniellynds @Dan_Blick @clintlalonde @actualham I'm hoping we can do the same once we get our test server set up. Would be good to compare notes and keep in touch. I'm copying in my colleague @Emmadw as I think she was also looking at installing on her own server.
Econproph@daniellynds @Dan_Blick @clintlalonde @actualham @nlafferty I would be interested in lurking in such a hangout discussion.
Kate
Scott Robison@daniellynds @actualham @Dan_Blick @nlafferty @clintlalonde I'm interested as well! Hopefully I won't still be driving across the continent.
Tanya **moved**@clintlalonde @actualham @Dan_Blick @dnorman
I'm conflicted on this one...The idea of having your own instance fits in with the idea of student-centered learning data I've been thinking about.
But I increasingly worry about losing the idea of communal areas. To me, "mine that I choose to share" is different than "ours."
@Tdorey @clintlalonde @actualham @Dan_Blick @dnorman I worry too that things divide quickly between those who can host and those who can't. Or is the vision that everyone has a Server of One's Own? (@econproph) is this what we need? (Why?)
To me this looks more and more like the housing market, with a divide between owners and renters. So then who feels at home? Who is more vulnerable?
Adam Croom@katebowles @Tdorey @dnorman @econproph @actualham @Dan_Blick @clintlalonde I'm concerned about the general feasibility of this model. Do we know anybody in ed that is self hosting?
@acroom you mean this app specifically? Not that I know of. But for others, there are groups that are trying to advocate that higher ed should have a bigger role in supporting these types of applications and tools https://edtech.bccampus.ca/bc-open-educational-technology-collaborative/ @Tdorey @dnorman @katebowles @econproph @actualham @Dan_Blick
@katebowles @Tdorey @actualham @Dan_Blick @dnorman @econproph This is where IT needs to step up and play a bigger role with educational technology. Move beyond being procurers of systems & enabling. It used to be a role for higher ed to be the hosting service for...well, for the internet. It is a role that higher ed IT has, for the most part, capitulated to others.
This this this 1000 times this -- @clintlalonde: "IT needs to step up and play a bigger role with educational technology...beyond being procurers of systems & enabling...higher ed once acted as host of the Internet...It is a role that higher ed IT has, for the most part, capitulated to others."
@clintlalonde I feel like institutions that have been able to pull off a #DoOO implementation *get* this idea. Would be very interesting to study those cases when compared with Higher Ed IT biznessasusal. The era you (we) are wistfully referring to includes "Tilde Spaces" I think, too. HE IT in the service of connection rather than (solely) administrative management.
@Dan_Blick @clintlalonde @Tdorey @dnorman @katebowles @actualham Yes, I think a Server-Domain oOO is the eventual goal, but networks, sharing, & exchange of messages is where we're struggling.
The challenges are partly tech and largely institutional structures (who owns & controls - could be individs) and biz model (costs & funding).
The challenges are partly tech and largely institutional structures (who owns & controls - could be individs) and biz model (costs & funding).
@Tdorey @dnorman @katebowles @actualham @Dan_Blick @clintlalonde I have been working on the institutional/biz model issues & trying to learn from my DoOO work here at the school. Questions like how to enable individs to do it in ed w/o the institution backing first. We have to get beyond the techie pioneer 1% that we represent.
I hope to have an announcement/blog posts re: an approach after the new year.
I hope to have an announcement/blog posts re: an approach after the new year.
Very cool; excited to see what you announce/make. Your invids v institutionalize reminds me of @holden's great post(s) about (paraphrasing) individs making things and institutions making things that *last*
@econproph @Tdorey @dnorman @katebowles @actualham @clintlalonde
Patlockley@clintlalonde @Tdorey @dnorman @katebowles @econproph @actualham @Dan_Blick i don't think it is IT, i think that is timescales
Fredrik Graver 🎥🥌@clintlalonde @katebowles @Tdorey @actualham @Dan_Blick @dnorman @econproph I can't express how much I agree with this! A year ago, our IT dept. even shut down our hosted Wordpress blogs. Now they want us all over on Sharepoint.
Jason Green@clintlalonde @katebowles @Tdorey @actualham @Dan_Blick @dnorman @econproph Playing Devil's Advocate as an IT employee, why is Sharepoint not OK for this?
@jasongreen @Tdorey @dnorman @katebowles @actualham @Dan_Blick @clintlalonde Spkg fr my school's experience: 1) learning curve too steep for avg user. If you need to train on it, something's not right. I get folks using WP 2-3 pgs of 3 step directions. 2)it's too configured to be locked down UN-sharing by default (might only be our implementation) 3) in the whole Office365 mix, I can't figure out which app for what. 4) seems more oriented to be firewalled intranet solution
@actualham @Dan_Blick @clintlalonde Robin, an "instance" could talk to larger network or another platform IF a messaging protocol & API (program interface) is built into the "instance" Since Mastodon is all about messaging (in the IP technical sense), then most likely yes. Perhaps it would help to think of email srvrs. Each srvr is an instance, yet they talk to each other. Your srver sends your email to my srvr where I retrieve it.
Alan Levine@econproph @actualham @Dan_Blick @clintlalonde I think a trap is thinking an instance is separate, it's always part of the public.
@actualham @clintlalonde Yes, that's exactly right (where the "larger platform" is the federated "plumbing" that lets each instance (users) talk to each other). And there are private instances too.