A community to talk about the Fediverse and all it's related services using ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, KBin, etc).
If you wanted to get help with moderating your own community then head over to !moderators@lemmy.world!
Rules
- Posts must be on topic.
- Be respectful of others.
- Cite the sources used for graphs and other statistics.
- Follow the general Lemmy.world rules.
Learn more at these websites: Join The Fediverse Wiki, Fediverse.info, Wikipedia Page, The Federation Info (Stats), FediDB (Stats), Sub Rehab (Reddit Migration), Search Lemmy
Moderators
FOSSDLE PieFed
I'm way too federated for this.
Great, you can host your own instance!
Is running a pds really equivalent to running your own instance? As I understand it, 2 friends running their own pds cannot federate without the centralized relay which still can't be self hosted.
You're right, while there are advantages to hosting a pds, it doesn't seem you can run a fully fledged instance at this time
Thanks for clarifying
Bluesky has no documentation for running a relay (indexing node). It doesn't seem like they intend to have any documentation on it any time soon. But it is possible to set one up yourself. I don't know anyone that has done so.
And you'd still have federation issues, so doesn't solve OP's problem.
But control of the protocol - the definition and development - is still controlled by the for-profit company, right? It hasn't been handed over to a nonprofit governance committee, has it?
Federation or not, if Bluesky dominates the protocol, they can decide to stop federating and essentially kill the independent servers. Much like what Signal did. Sure, you can run your own Signal server, but without access to the dominant player's market, and using a protocol that's controlled monopolistically, it's practically useless to do so - which is why almost nobody does it anymore.
Wait what? Are we talking about the chat app?
Indeed
You can't run your own server. Never have been able to...
You can create your own federated chat app or whatever that uses the Signal protocol? You can also fork the Signal chat application? But all Signal messages run through Signal servers.
Good. Competition is good. If they suceed or fail just means we learn and build a better product.
yeah, competition is basically they key to the society
(if by better you mean more profitable)
if a product sucks, it won’t be profitable
What about reality has suggested that to you?
The fact you think the product sucks does not mean it’s not good for many other people.
For example, I have Framework Laptop and I really think surface laptops suck due to how unrepairable they are. However, that does not mean that everyone cares about their repairbility…
Techcrunch has basically been an ad network for companies who want to promote themselves. Other open source projects probably don't have a budget to pay for an a̶r̶t̶i̶c̶l̶e̶ ad spot.
So which tech adjacent publishing you recommend?
Independent or otherwise.
i personally like Ars Technica quite a bit.
https://www.theregister.com/
Even if it doesnt have much impact on activitypub-fedi, I think this is good news for the fediverse in general. X is loosing more and more relevancy and microblogging is more and more happening on federating services.
I'm having trouble figuring out how bluesky is part of the fediverse at all.
From my understanding it doesn't federate with anything.
It's like saying a hamburger is really just a cheeseburger......you just need to add cheese.
In theory, bluesky can federate with other apps but it is currently the only one using their protocol, bluesky servers can federate with each other and when a new project using atprotocol appears it will probably be able to federate with that
You can see other instances at work in the app already. There is an @ symbol that says where the message comes from, and those differ from each other already.
Can you link to one of these other instances?
I think you can link bluesky to your personal domain. I'm not sure how it works.
There is only one bluesky it's literally centralized
https://github.com/bluesky-social/pds
Any example of federated instance where registrations are open?
It has an adapter that integrated with the current protocol.
Oh great. That bridge even federates with the bitcoin bros' network (nostr)
Which one is that. I guess I've been left out of the loop.
Maybe they mean Nostr? If so, describing it as "the bitcoin bros' network" is a bit misleading, since the "crypto" portion of Nostr is short for "cryptography", not "cryptocurrency".
I really like the Nostr protocol, though. It's too bad the network is so inundated by cryptocurrency topics.
It's simple, it has a nice extension process (standing on the shoulders of giants), and it's super easy and lightweight to self-host. It reminds me a lot of the early days of http, when it was more common (as a developer) to telnet to port 80 and just type in a couple of lines of header and get a response.
Sadly, Nostr's association with cryptocurrency, and the fact that 90% of the traffic on it is cryptocurrency created posts, has been a severe handicap.
Mastodon.social just went over the 2 million user mark. The switch to fediverse and fediverse adjacent is going pretty quick.
I've been on Mastodon for over a year and the content simply isn't there. Several of the people that I follow on Twitter have tried moving or duplicating to Mastodon. They've had a fraction of the visibility and engagement from commenters that they would get on Twitter. Invariably after a few months they have essentially given up on it as a primary medium. For me the discoverability is essentially non-existent, which I don't think is helped by the idea of it being based around instance-local communities, which have no meaning when you're looking at something like Twitter.
mastodon had their chance during the first exodus but they refused to listen to what twitter users wanted and shot down things like lists, quote tweets, and privacy controls.
mastodon is very gatekeeper-y
And they sold out the people, who tried to help by posting, to Meta.
That's not at all the problem here, no
My experience has been better. User engagement is much higher per follower and the discussions don’t devolve. They’re much more useful and/or interesting. KPIs don’t measure everything.
Many people are most interested in profit as their only KPI and mastodon puts up a lot of hurdles for those people.
It's not the best platform for the profit driven, and I much prefer it that way.
This exactly. I was saying that as a user, not a creator. I make money away from social media so I don’t care to bring that to my personal space.
Maybe they should stop caring about visibility and engagement and concentrate on participating in, building and y'know *enjoying* a community?
That can be difficult if your livelihood depends on it. Artists for example.
You can not have one without the other. Influencers look for audiences. If the community has no influencer, it means that the audience is irrelevant or inexistent.
I preferred the Internet that isn't driven by non-genuine posts by profit driven influencers. I am glad that those people don't like mastodon so they don't ruin another platform.
You are missing the point. The point is that there is nothing to ruin here.
The Fediverse is by and large composed of antsy, narcissistic tweenagers who never created anything and use this space as some form of support network. They think that just because they are outcasts they are part of some counterculture movement (like the punks or the OG hackers from the early internet), but they miss the very important part that these movements need to *create* something meaningful.
All they can do is ridicule (parts of) the status quo and resort to shoot down anything and anyone who is willing to take any risks to effect any type of change. And for all the talk about diversity and inclusivity, one can read *any* news headline or article here and know exactly what is going to be the reaction from the people
The only way to break away from this unbearably boring monoculture is by bringing more people. We need to get of our comfort zones, dealing with differences and learning that (some) conflict *is* important. The alternative is stagnation, and culture-wise stagnation is the same as death.
I genuinely don't care about influencers. Like, at all.
It's okay, they don't care about you either...
Guess it's not for you then. I'm having a blast. A lot of my friends are now in it and the last year or so have been great.
And more and more people seem to be moving.
„The content“ is there. Its just the addiction inducing, never ending dopamine that doesnt flow as freely which is great.
If you follow the topics that are most prevalent on the fedi (eg freedom, activism, technology, diversity) you will not run out unless you scroll for many hours a day, which is suggests you find yourself a hobby.
Also, the self fulfilling prophecy of „the fediverse is too small, I go to big platform“ will keep the fediverse small.
Be the change you want to see.
I feel this and some of the other comments in this thread are missing the point. It's not about me and my followers. It's about the news sources and topics that I search for or follow. They simply haven't moved to Mastodon and where notable individuals that I follow have tried, it simply hasn't worked out due to lack of interest. I'm not interested in the fediverse as a topic in itself, I'm interested in the topics and events I want to follow. Something happens and I can find and read and watch clips about it on Twitter. Not so Mastodon.
Bluesky is probably going to capture more of that than Mastodon. But threads is similarly struggling to develop it as well and they have very low barrier for new signups for anyone with a Facebook or Instagram account.
You are missing the point.
If lucifer was the only one having ice cream and you wanted ice cream, you would have to either go to lucifer or make your own (or ask someone to do it for you).
This is what the fediverse is about. Regaining control of our media. Your point that it is in any way too lacking to join or invest time into is self defeating as you and many others are needed to get it to that point.
So I‘m saying either accept that your work is needed to get any non billionaire owned/non corporate platform to work or stop pretending you care about your data.
You're both right.
If there aren't people building this alternative, in their free time, for free, then it won't exist. Fair enough. Much credit to them.
But it looks like @SquiffSquiff@lemmy.world is just an ordinary user with a busy life who wants to consume content in a way that better respects their privacy and autonomy. That is also a fair demand. Not everyone needs to be a producer.
Boring, boring, boring, boring. This is all "meta-converaation", like this exact thread.
Where are the musicians, the woodworkers, the DIYers, the athletes, the architects, the photographers, the wannabe chefs, the contrarian educators who do not toe the line of Academia?
!newcommunities@lemmy.world for other communities suggestions
Come on, you know that I'm talking about the *people*...
Totally agree. But i don't know if there is any hope, so many fedi people seem to not want any normies (people not working with computers i guess) entering.
Maybe, just maybe, if your followers aren't willing to give up something vile because it's giving them a dopamine hit, they're not adding as much value to your life as you think.
There is absolutely nothing "vile" about quote tweets. When used properly, it is used to enrich a discussion. It's not just because some idiot minority abuses a feature that it should be removed entirely. If well meaning people look at two different systems, and one of them is arbitrarily gutted of useful functionality, guess which one they will choose?
Sure, at the surface level of tweeting back and forth, there is nothing vile. But the very act of using the platform funds an agent of chaos that is doing very real harm, and to ignore that because it is inconvenient is at the most charitable interpretation a selfish and callous act. There are other means of discourse, and those with input that is valuable will follow you.
I am saying "quote tweets" as a reference to the functionality, not the usage of Twitter itself.
Mastodon refuses to implement the functionality, but it is supported on others: Soapbox, Akkoma...
Jack Dorsey left the board, so I'm ok with that. Good for them!
How much is Jack involved? He was the reason Twitter went to shit to begin with.
swapping jack dorsey for mike masnick is a mega mega w for bluesky
Was, he's gone balls deep on nostr now.
Oh no, now nostr is ruined
The CEO comes from the world of crypto and it is a for profit company
i dont like bluesky bcs its missing alot of features compared to mastodon and twitter also when you host bluesky the server you hosted you cant view bsky.social so thats why i use mastodon alongside
What features are missing compared to Mastodon?
in bluesky (also being implemented) there is no post pinning,no post editing, No account privating and thats what i remember
If I have mastodon, how and when can I follow Blue sky users? I read something about an adapter server or something, but I don't know what that means in a practical sense.
There is Bridgy Fed, which bridges accounts over to the other side if they follow the respective Bridgy Fed account on their platform. This is opt-ín though, so you can't just follow anyone, they need to have followed @ap.brid.gy on Bluesky. To have your interactions bridged you need to follow @bsky.brid.gy@bsky.brid.gy.
If the account you want to follow is not bridged and you are okay with just reading their posts, you can also use a service like RSS Parrot as every Bluesky account also serves as an RSS feed.
Just an FYI for the RSS thing: if a Bluesky account is set to be viewable to logged-in users only, its RSS feed will not work. It only works if the profile is viewable publicly without logging in.
Blue sky leads to the same trap Twitter was. A place that will be purchased by some asshole that shits on everyone for money.
You'll be shocked to know that bluesky is open source then and PDS is well on its way to allowing you to host your own instance.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/22/24080334/bluesky-self-hosting-servers-data-federated
What is the status now?
It doesn't say there's any limit on their github
I'm shocked to learn that Reddit is opensource back then.
Anything that you're not willing and able to keep financially sustained yet rely upon will likely be used against you by someone with more resources. This is why groups like Fosstodon, Beehaw, and Fedihosting Foundation stand out in these spaces. They are both transparent and financially sustainable. But most of that sustainability relies on unpaid volunteer labor.
Is there an easy to understand explanation to the differences of the AT Protocol and ActivityPub?
iirc, atprotocol was made to bring some features of mainstream social media to the fediverse that activitypub maintainer have said they won't be adding. They explain other reasons in their faq
Many of the functions provided by a Mastodon service is split into separate services in the AT Protocol. This means there are instances that just handle an end users data, instances that just handle indexing and streaming out the amalgamated end user data being streamed to the "relay", there are instances that are just filtering the stream from the indexing relay. so basically the various backend parts are modular with the AT Protocol rather than monolithic as is assumed by the ActivityPub protocol where separation is assumed to be only between the frontend and backend of the service.
It would be interesting to know more about the additional users. The banning of Shitter in Brazil is very much tied to internal politics and AFAIK it might be the Brazilian equivalent to MAGA that is currently mass-migrating to Bluesky.
If so, this might be a bad thing for them, as they probably don't want to get perceived as the Brazilian truth.social.
actually, the opposite. The MAGA types are doing whatever they can to continue sucking on Elon's balls. It's journos and normies who are moving to Bluesky.
I would assume that since this whole thing is more or less a result of left-ish policy, and the opponent in the scenario is the far-right platform formerly known as Twitter, lead by the aspiring far-right icon Musk, the right-wingers would more likely opt to complain, cry several rivers and eventually turn to alternatives catered specifically for them (not even sure which ones are still alive after former tweetyplace took the crown) instead.
Haven’t done a vibe check on bluesky, but I assume it almost has to be more tolerant and potentially more progressive-ish than the old nazibirdhouse. If you lean towards the far right, why choose that, if alternatives exist?
Bluesky is explicitly promoting their system as "choose your own censorship" kind of deal, which in the way it is framed could look very attractive to right-wingers looking for an alternative platform. While this is technically also true for the Fediverse, it isn't promoted as such, and rather has a reputation for the opposite, as most fedi server admins are center-left leaning.
Bluesky might be also more left-leaning right now as obviously there is little reason for right-wingers elsewhere to switch away from Shitter to another (mostly) centralised platform, but given the overall low user numbers this could switch very quickly.
I guess we will have to see how this develops over time and get some answers from Brazilians that have a deeper understanding of the current social dynamics there.
Due to the language divide it might end up as two distinct social spheres, like Fedi's Japanese bubble, but that's a best case scenario for Bluesky I guess.
That's why I don't use it. I am not ok with bigots sharing my network. This is true whether I can see them or not. If they're welcome, then I won't be there.
Let me know when I can disconnect from spaces that host bigots rather than just hiding them
This reads like satire. These are *people* you're talking about, probably your fellow citizens. Their wrong opinions are not going to pollute you from the other side of a wall. Seeing (apparently sincere) takes like this really makes me worried about the future of democracy.
Let me clarify so I understand your position
1) I said why I don't use Bluesky. I didn't say it shouldn't exist, or that other people shouldn't use it. I didn't pass judgement on people who do use it, or suggest that their having a different opinion on how to deal with bigotry is an issue. I simply said why I don't use it
2) You then insisted that *I* am the problem with democracy, despite *you* being the person insisting that everyone has to do things your preferred way?
Do I understand your position correctly?
Even though I still don't understand those platforms, I had a look at the site. It seems like 80+ percent of the content is from Brazil or at least in Portugese.
If you enable and check nsfw content it is also 80+ percent dicks and furry content. One of the dick posts was a self declared "15y" which I promptly reported (a day later the posts & profile seem to be gone, presumably banned, which is good). You can mute hash tags of your choice, but then 90+ percent of the feed will be muted posts or those that did not get caught because they did not use hash tags. Muted users still show up in those feeds too, you have to properly block them to hide them but that is also incredibly tedious when it is basically all that there is.
A lot of posts also seem to just be weird spam, using the same odd list of hash tags that I can't make sense of (but maybe that's just weird local online trends there). I tried looking for various topics but could only find fringe posts & accounts, worse than even here. But that again might just come down to the fact that the majority of users seem to be from Brazil, so the English content is simply lacking on all fronts. You can specify languages in your profile, but I did not notice to what purpose when it still shows you all the non English stuff.
Aside from all that I once again couldn't figure out what to do, just like on Twitter back then or on Mastodon. I suppose those platforms and their hype will remain a mystery to me. But I can't help but wonder how people from Twitter who think about switching will react to this experience though...
Brazilian MAGA = Most Bolsonaro supporters. Of course, there are some decent people who aren't 100% fanatic, but most of them would be the equivalent to those hat-wearers.
Sorry if this sounds like a conspiracy theory, but how do we know that BlueSky isn't padding their stats with internal bots? I could see this being a viable strategy to attract users and overcome the social network bootstrapping problem.
They could be, but 2M new Brazilian users after Twitter’s block there actually seems quite low and definitely credible.
People will never learn, will they? You give them AP and they go for the Jack Dorsey clone. Amazing
Anti Commercial-AI license
Jack Dorsey is not involved in Bluesky anymore.
It's a for profit company founded by jack dorsey and currently led by a cryptocurrency fanatic
I really really don't like the app
I'm not on Bluesky, what downsides are you seeing in their app?
It's ugly