fediverse_report

joined 1 year ago
 

This weeks' news:

  • More updates by Ghost on their work on implementing #ActivityPub
  • Statistics shared by Mastodon show the power of an open API, and the incredible diverse ecosystem that it enables
  • NLnet supports fediverse event planning software Gancio with a new grant
 

This week's news:

  • Scraper drama as AI-powered network Maven works on implementing #ActivityPub
  • Ghost will use fediverse server framework Fedify for their ActivityPub implementation
  • @Castopod releases version 2.0 with plugins
  • an on-device 'For You' algorithmic feed for Lemmy with 3rd party client Quiblr
  • Lemmy releases local-only communities
 

I take a deep dive into crypto-based social network Farcaster, aka Torment-Nexus-on-the-blockchain.

I think that crypto/web3 is mostly really dumb and bad, but I also do think that what happens on other decentralised social networks is relevant to understand the fediverse. The different protocols influence each other and I dont think they should be understood in isolation. That is why I wanted to have a better understanding of what Farcaster is, and why a16z wanted to spend so much money on it.

 

An overview of all the news that happened in the ATmosphere last month.

[–] fediverse_report@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Oh thats an interesting question! I'm assuming you are talking about the UX/UI of instance selection?

And thats not something I have written about (neither does another article pop into my mind either sadly), but interesting idea for an article for sure to write about

[–] fediverse_report@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 months ago

Heya! Good answers earlier by you!

Yeah I think I'll have to get into that, but I'm starting to run into the limit of not being a programmer myself, and information is pretty scarce on ATproto. The article differs from their own federation architecture description from earlier in the year, simply because its outdated and noone has formally written down the new info, so that was a bit of a struggle haha https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/5-5-2023-federation-architecture

At any rate, the PDS's are amenable for sure. Robin Berjon is the furthest along with thinking here, with his AP over AT piece: https://berjon.com/ap-at/ Responses I've seen havent suggested its technically impossible, but probably difficult for reasons that I tuned out of reading because I didnt understand :D

Beyond that, people keep talking about the lexicon and how that at is core is also versatile; similar to how fedi has Mastodon's type=Note that everyone uses, even though you can create any 'type' you want. I'm pretty sure that nobody has done that yet tho.

[–] fediverse_report@lemmy.ml 8 points 5 months ago (5 children)

I actually set out to answer this question in a blog post, but it turns out that the answer is quite complicated, so I have to write an entire series about it. First part I published this week, which explains all the different components that make up the Bluesky network:

https://fediversereport.com/how-bluesky-works-the-network-components/

I don't think that they'll run into the exact same problems that AP-fedi has, as the design decisions are often made specifically to avoid some of these. However, their design decisions create new sets of problems for the network, which I'll get into later

[–] fediverse_report@lemmy.ml 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

they're working on a new project that will supersede audon, apparently https://firefish.social/notes/9j5dw744p5qnqwxp

[–] fediverse_report@lemmy.ml 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Strongly agreed.

Some other loose thoughts related to this:

  • a very similar phenomenon is visible in Bluesky, but in that case it skews heavily towards older millenials who are trying to recreate a culture that used to exist on Twitter, and is now dead. Bluesky is fundamentally even more backward looking than AP-fedi, as ATProto really cannot do much else than microblogging
  • its been striking for me for a while that the fediverse developer community isnt able to become an actual community, and instead has been trying to reinvent community initiatives outside of fedi for a while, and they all bleed out. Think there are lots of reasons for that, but if the people building a social network cannot manage to use their own tools to use that social network to become a social community, than that usually does not bode well
  • there is a very loosely defined 'community' of people who are interested in talking about fedi on a meta (not Meta) level. youve been involved, so you know most of the names. Again, its striking to me that this group (me included) hasnt really transformed into an actual community, and instead its fleeting ephemeral posts on a feed that only some of the regulars see and comment on.
[–] fediverse_report@lemmy.ml 9 points 10 months ago

check out https://fediview.com/, it sorts your personal mastodon home timeline via an algorithm that you can pick.

[–] fediverse_report@lemmy.ml 4 points 11 months ago

yeah its great to have more managed hosting options. The UX is also really well done, which is great and something I dont see to often in these places. Need to get some time next few days to start up a new lemmy project with this

[–] fediverse_report@lemmy.ml 6 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I'm very curious as to what people's view on etiquette is regarding submitting your own content. I write a weekly newsletter about the fediverse which is pretty relevant to this community for example. But I'm also quite aware of reddiquette thats pretty hesitant on submitting your own stuff, as it can get spammy really fast. Would love to hear.

[–] fediverse_report@lemmy.ml 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

https://kbin.social/m/kbinMeta/t/173366/lemmy-ml-is-no-longer-shadowbanning-kbin#comments

seems like a side effect of lemmy devs being overloaded with info and messages getting on a long backlog

[–] fediverse_report@lemmy.ml 4 points 11 months ago (3 children)

haha well think it mostly worked :D

and thanks for the shoutout! I do need to update my bio and get proper accounts. For now just testing out the water a little bit, havent really fully decided on which server I want to pick. reason Im replying with 2 accounts is that federation between kbin.social and lemmy.ml specifically is still broken, couldnt even see your reply. Not sure how to approach that yet

[–] fediverse_report@lemmy.ml 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I think theres quite a few reasons to be hopeful. Also why I personally am not very interested in comparisons to XMPP and EEE. To me, that refers to a different time on the internet, where corporations where way more interested in fighting an opensource threat. But times have changed, and for Big Tech, it seems to me they are way more worried about regulations than about opensource competitors.

Not to say that this automatically means that the fediverse will be a success, not at all, this shit is hard. But to properly judge what challenges await the fediverse, I think its more fruitful to look at what Big Tech is concerned by, and what governments are thinking about. And I see very little talk about EEE from those actors. Instead, its mainly focused on regulations, privacy, and sovereign power.

[–] fediverse_report@lemmy.ml 30 points 11 months ago (8 children)

ha yeah I remember that, that was fun.

To riff on this a little bit further: its also visible in how little attention in the gazillion conversations about Threads is paid to the fact that the entirety of the EU cannot even access it yet due to the new DMA and DSA.

Or one of the articles I wrote that got relatively low traction, that was specificially about how all of the Nordic countries got an official recommendation to use ActivityPub for their governmental communications. I dont mind that some articles get less traction than others, but it does stand out when you consider how impactful such things are for the long term structure of the fediverse. Lots of EU governments are now talking about needing sovereign public digital spaces, and are actively looking how ActivityPub can help with that. And that matters way more than whatever Elons latest shenanigans are.

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