(streams)

@Szescstopni

What is too long/too short?

There can't be any fixed definition for that. Not here in the Fediverse.

The "Over 200 characters is too long" rule does not work in and can't be applied to the Fediverse. No, sorry, it can't. I've explained it in my (very early WIP) wiki about image descriptions and alt-text in the Fediverse: How are alt-text and image descriptions in the Fediverse different from other places? (tl;dr: On the Web, over 200 characters in alt-text are evil, but you've got captions, and you've got ample of other possibilities to describe an image than the alt-text. On Mastodon, you've only got the alt-text for image descriptions, and people cheer for 1,000-character alt-texts.)

Depending on a) the kind of image you post, b) the obscurity of its contents, c) your audience (including whoever might stumble upon your image post; if you post in public, that's basically the whole Fediverse and everyone with Web access), d) their knowledge about what your image shows and e) their to-be-expected curiosity about what your image shows, you may have to describe your image in way more than 200 characters.

This was the last time I've posted an image here on Hubzilla. It's a rendering from within a super-obscure 3-D virtual world. Next to nobody has ever seen it, but due to this being a 3-D virtual world (= proof that "the Metaverse is surprisingly not dead"), curiosity may be high. And my impression of especially Mastodon is that people prefer being given any and all information they may need right away to having to ask. Like, ask what something specific looks like.

And so the image description in the alt-text is a bit over 1,400 characters long. And it's still very lacking. It doesn't even mention certain elements in the image. And it doesn't transcribe even only one bit of text. It's actually an extremely shortened version of the long image description in the post text itself. Over 60,000 characters of visual description and necessary explanations and text transcripts. That's over 10,000 words. That's probably over three hours of a screen reader rambling. That's two full days of me examining the place up-close, looking up additional information and writing the description. But I deemed it necessary.

If it was an absolute requirement for me to a) cut the alt-text down to a maximum of 200 characters and b) cut the long description altogether, lots and lots and lots of information would be lost, including all text transcripts.

I must learn more about the rules of the capitalization police.

If you use a hashtag like #⁠superbowl, how is NVDA or any other screen reader software supposed to know whether that means "Super Bowl" or "superb owl"?

Thus, any new word in a multiple-word hashtag must be capitalised so that screen readers know that this is where a new word starts.

There are two ways of doing this.

One is camel case. Camel case is the lazy variant: The first word is not capitalised, all other words are. #⁠oneTwoThree

The other one is Pascal case, named after the programming language Pascal. Pascal case is the prettier variant: All words are capitalised. #⁠OneTwoThree

Oops, I shouldn't have posted those images in replies as public. Anyway, 833 out of 836 images with alttext ain't so bad.

Replying to a public post with a DM isn't supported everywhere in the Fediverse anyway. This only works on purist microblogging server applications on which a thread is just a bunch of posts tied together with mentions.

It does not, however, work on more elaborate Fediverse server applications like Hubzilla (where I'm commenting from right now), (streams) and Forte. On these, a thread is an enclosed object with exactly one post, the start post, and otherwise comments. They have a highly complex permissions system in which all permissions in a conversation are defined by the post. If the post is public, all comments are public, full stop. So if you had replied to this otherwise 100% public, 100% Mastodon thread with a DM, then Hubzilla would have monkey-wrenched your DM into a public comment with a red padlock symbol for a permission conflict.

CC: @Stefan Bohacek

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #CamelCase #PascalCase #Permissions

@Julian Fietkau Maybe it'd make sense to get the devs aboard, @Mario Vavti and @Harald Eilertsen for Hubzilla and @Mike Macgirvin ?️ for (streams) and Forte. And I think there's a new place being worked on where Fediverse devs can meet in the Fediverse itself, but I don't have any more details right now.

I can see four things becoming tricky when it comes to comment control. One is if it isn't enough to add support for another implementation, and if either side actually had to change the way it handles permission in a way that isn't backwards-compatible.

The second one is that Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte don't simply allow or forbid comments, but they can allow only certain actors to comment, and be it all contacts of a channel. I don't know if GTS has that feature, or if it can support it.

The third one is that (streams) and Forte can limit the time in which a post can be commented. Channels can be configured so that comments are only allowed for a certain timespan, and individual posts can be configured so that they can only be commented on until a certain point in the future.

Now, the thing is that, much unlike all the many microblogging applications, the permissions in a conversation are always the same on (streams) and Forte (and also on Hubzilla). All comments, regardless of whether they come from (streams) or Mastodon or Lemmy or wherever, always have the same permissions as the post. Replying to a public conversation with a DM is not supported, for example; the DM will be regarded as a public comment.

This also means that you're only allowed to reply to a comment in a thread if you're also allowed to comment on the post itself. But if you're allowed to comment on the post, you're also allowed to reply to any comment in the conversation, full stop.

Speaking in "non-nomadic, no-enclosed-conversations ActivityPub" terms, this means that at a certain point after a post was sent, the owner of the post will have to automatically send a new version of both the post and all comments on the post, with comment permission revoked, around to all participants in the conversation as well as to everywhere that e.g. some Mastodon user has boosted one of the comments.

Either that, or a comment control FEP will have to include temporary comment permissions, and Mastodon and everything else will have to support them. I'm pretty sure that Mastodon users would love this feature, and they'd applaud Eugen Rochko for "inventing" it and "introducing it to the Fediverse". But (streams) and Forte certainly won't remove this feature just because the FEP don't support it.

As for how Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte handle this right now, AFAIK, they only advertise their comment permissions amongst each other. This means that if permission to comment is not granted, the comment button is removed from the UI. Not even greyed out, actually removed.

Towards the wider Fediverse, they act differently: They're fully aware that they can't keep a Mastodon account from commenting. Instead, they reject a comment that isn't allowed. And rejecting works differently on these three than on Mastodon: Rejected content is not first let into the inbox, then filtered and then deleted. It isn't let into the inbox in the first place. And if an activity has only got one possible recipient on a server, and that recipient doesn't allow that activity, the whole server rejects it.

The reason why this works for comment control is because conversations themselves work differently on these three (and Friendica) than on Mastodon: On Mastodon, replies go to a) whoever is mentioned and b) whoever follows the replier. On Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte, comments always go straight to the conversation starter, even if they're comments on a comment on a comment on a comment, and from there to all participants in the thread. Of course, Mastodon users won't notice new comments until they're mentioned in the metadata.

Now, if the conversation starter rejects a comment that has actually been sent, the comment is not added to the conversation. This means two things: One, on the conversation starter's own stream, the comment does not appear as part of the conversation. Two, the comment is not forwarded to the other participants in the thread either.

From a Mastodon POV, this means that you may be able to see the branch of the conversation in which you've participated with your rejected comment in it on your own server. But if you go check the whole thread at its source, you will not see your rejected comment in the conversation.

A side-effect of this is that it isn't possible to reply to rejected comments either. Let's suppose you see some toot in your timeline. It's a comment on some (streams) post. What the commenter is blissfully unaware of: They aren't permitted to comment on this post. (streams) has rejected the comment. But you are amongst the lucky few who are permitted to comment.

Still, you can't reply to that one comment.

If a comment is rejected, then all replies to this comment are rejected, too, regardless of permissions. That's because they cannot be attached to the conversation because their own parent is missing. From your Mastodon POV, you will be able to reply. But your reply will never become part of the conversation.

This would all be a whole lot better if the entire Fediverse supported a) enclosed threaded conversations (as opposed to Twitter-like posts-and-more-posts piecemeal) and b) permissions, including comment control all the way to temporary comment permission.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #GoToSocial #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Permission #Permissions #ReplyControl

@Julian Fietkau I'm surprised to read that (streams) allegedly has FEP-e232 implemented. As I happen to have two (streams) channels myself, and as (streams) allows me to have a look at the whole source code of any activity (whereas Hubzilla only shows me that of the content), I've checked a fairly recent post of mine that includes a link. And while it does define the hashtags just like Mastodon and Hubzilla, it does not define links in a way that conforms to FEP-e232. Either that, or (streams)' implementation of FEP-e232 is newer than the software was when I sent that post.



Next, I wanted to see if (streams) had its way of quote-posting changed in the last seven years or so of development and forking. I expected it to quote-post like Hubzilla, namely by turning a BBcode short code into a dumb copy of the original upon sending, but I wanted to see proof. As (streams) is a fork of a fork of three forks of a fork (of a fork) of Hubzilla that's still maintained by Hubzilla's own creator, I would have been surprised if he had changed the way (streams) quote-posts at some point on the way.

So I quote-posted my own post on (streams) just to see what happens. And (streams) acted exactly like Hubzilla and not at all like described in FEP-044f on the surface. It still inserts a dumb copy.

Good thing I have access to the full source code of any message on (streams). So here's what happened, namely what I expected to happen: (streams) quote-posts like Hubzilla.

First of all, when I clicked the "Share" button, this short code was inserted into the post editor:

[share⁠=1198713][/share]

The number, by the way, is the running number of the message to quote-post on the server.

Upon sending the post, (streams) automatically "expanded" the short code into the dumb copy I had expected.

[⁠share author='Jupiter+Rowland' profile='https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/channel/jupiter_rowland' portable_id='_moYLN61-o3FbP3jyThygMDf-bjF2cApXgkrwlAE77iKy19xM1_6F06V4b71eTkqqNaTUjGiN0lfw2dyn5nXRw' avatar='https://streams.elsmussols.net/xp/6b50efa4bb804860f6128bba791b74fab4a0a5e09dbcbee8d8ca77cee00f0330-6' link='https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/item/0a1cdda5-eb1c-4a33-9574-ddd896977b4f' auth='true' posted='2025-09-21 19:42:56' message_id='https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/item/0a1cdda5-eb1c-4a33-9574-ddd896977b4f'] ...(the source code of the original message goes here)... [/share]

Both Hubzilla and (streams) render this the same way, namely with a header line above the copy that includes the profile picture of the original author, the name of the original author with a Zot/Nomad-type link to their channel/account and a Zot/Nomad-type link to the original of the post ("Zot/Nomad-type" means that [zrl][/zrl] is used rather than [url][/url] which means that the ID of an observer on Hubzilla/(streams)/Forte is attached to the link for OpenWebAuth identity recognition purposes.)

At the same time, curiously, (streams) includes the line "rel": "https://misskey-hub.net/ns#_misskey_quote" and a line that starts with "name": "RE: and continues with the URL of the original message into the code for the link to the original message. The latter is identical to what Misskey and all Forkeys have in quote-posting notes in plain sight, only that (streams) only reveals it in the source code rather than in the content as well.

So this part of FEP-044f is implemented, albeit concealed from most people and only happening in the code.



Now, looking at the quote policy part, that looks like it could be possible to add to the Fediverse's permission champions Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte. After all, they already have comment controls with no FEP backing it (and if GoToSocial's quote policy can be made into an FEP, maybe so can (streams)' and Forte's comment controls so that they actually do blank out reply buttons on the farther ends of the Fediverse if the software on the farther ends implement support for that FEP).

This could be done at three levels again. I'll illustrate this with (streams) and Forte because they're quite a bit less complex than older Hubzilla.

At channel level, quote-posting (and maybe quoting as well) could be set as usually, namely to semi-public (= everyone in the Fediverse = no quote policy), restricted (= only your contacts) and only yourself. (Seriously, you don't want random passersby with no accounts to quote-post you. Even though you can allow them to comment on your posts if you dare.)

"Only yourself" could be overridden at contact level by permitting certain contacts to quote-post (and maybe quote) your messages. This is actually standard behaviour on (streams) and Forte.

And then there is the per-post level which would be similar to (streams)' and Forte's comment controls. These allow you to limit who may comment on a post to only your contacts and those who have already participated in the same conversation, and they allow you to turn off comments altogether.

Quote authorisation would not be much different in handling from manually moderating comments from those who technically aren't permitted to comment (only that spammers don't quote-post, at least not yet, and they probably never will because that simply makes no sense). So that'd be nothing really new.

Of course, this would have some limitations which come from how Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte work and from their conversation architecture.

The first limitation is that you could only give certain contacts permission to quote-post your posts if you didn't give it to the whole Fediverse. Channel-wide permissions are always inherited by contact-specific permissions, and this cannot be overridden. So you couldn't generally allow everyone to quote-post your posts except for one certain contact of yours.

The second limitation is that you can only control the permissions of contacts, but not of non-contacts. So you can't disallow some stranger whom you aren't connected to to quote-post your posts while everyone else is allowed.

Then again, FEP-044f doesn't make either of these two possible either. It can only define who is permitted to quote-post a post, not who isn't.

The third limitation is that, on Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte, comments always have the same permissions as the post that they belong to because comments always have the same owner as the post that they belong to. Basically, if FEP-044f was to be defined for each comment individually, it would have a chance of clashing with conversation containers as per FEP-171b.

Here on Hubzilla, as well as from (streams)' point of view, everyone's comments in this thread are owned by me because I've started the thread. And the permissions on all these comments are defined by my post. I've seen my share of permission clashes whenever someone on Mastodon replied to a public post or a public comment with a DM, and Hubzilla overrode this by forcing the permissions of the post on that reply.

In practice, this means that the quote policies of all comments would be the same as that of the post. At least that's how Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte would understand them because the concept of comments having different permissions than the post is alien to them. So if you say that I'm not permitted to quote-post your comment, but I say that anyone can quote-post my post, Hubzilla and (streams) override the quote policy that you've given your comment on Mastodon with the quote policy that I've given my post on Hubzilla, and I can quote-post you.

So the actually difficult part would be to implement an exception in how Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte handle comment permissions for quote policies and make them individual for each comment rather than making comments inherit them from the post.

Well, and lastly, if you permitted all your contacts to quote-post a post of yours, and you had a few more contacts, the "canQuote" section would end up monstrous. (A bit less so if you could cherry-pick those who are allowed to quote-post you on a per-post base, just like you can cherry-pick those who are allowed to see the post in the first place.) Also, I'm wondering just how well policies as per FEP-044f (and their implementations in various server applications) will work with DIDs as per FEP-ef61 which (streams) and Forte use, and I guess, so does Mitra now.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Misskey #Forkey #Forkeys #GoToSocial #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Mitra #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #Permission #Permissions #FEP_044f #FEP_171b #FEP_e232 #FEP_ef61

@Matthias @C.Suthorn :prn: Ich habe es oben geschrieben: So ein System ist fediverseweit gar nicht möglich. Es ist technisch nicht realisierbar.

Was Mastodon da gebaut hat, funktioniert nur innerhalb von Mastodon. Ich habe es ja oben erklärt:

• Auch wenn du einen Post als nicht quote-post-bar einstellst, können Pleroma, Misskey, Friendica & Co. den trotzdem ungehindert quote-posten.
• Gleichzeitig kann niemand auf Mastodon irgendwas auf Pleroma, Misskey, Friendica & Co. quote-posten, obwohl es jeder darf.

Das liegt daran, daß Mastodon mal wieder mit voller Absicht das Rad neu erfunden hat.

Sie hätten die Art des Quote-Postens übernehmen können, die Misskey schon lange hat und die auch Threads verwendet. Sie hätten die Art des Quote-Postens übernehmen können, die Friendica seit über 15 Jahren erfolgreich einsetzt. Nein, statt dessen hat Mastodon eine eigene, proprietäre Technik entwickelt und sich mit vollem Vorsatz zum Rest des Fediverse noch inkompatibler gemacht.

Aber noch einmal: Mike Macgirvin sagt, es ist technisch nicht möglich, Quote-Posts von öffentlichen Posts zu verhindern. Und noch einmal: Der Mann muß es wissen.

Mike entwickelt schon seit fast einem halben Jahrhundert Software. Er ist Profi. Er war mal bezahlter Profi. Mike hat Friendica rausgehauen, da ging Eugen Rochko noch zur Schule.

Mike hat mehr Fediverse-Serveranwendungen entwickelt als jeder andere da draußen. Jede einzelne davon ist von den Features her leistungsfähiger als alles andere, was es im Fediverse gibt. Mike hat im Alleingang sogar mehr Fediverse-Protokolle entwickelt als jeder andere da draußen. Mike hat nomadische Identität im Alleingang erfunden, und sie funktioniert seit 2012.

Und Mike hat in puncto Sicherheit und Berechtigungssteuerung weit mehr gemacht als jeder andere Fediverse-Entwickler. Das, was er entwickelt hat, ist in seiner Funktionalität auch nicht eingeschränkt auf die eigene Software, sondern er hat sich immer auch Gedanken darüber gemacht, wie es außerhalb funktioniert, während für Eugen Rochko alles außerhalb von Mastodon Feindesland ist, das ignoriert wird und totgeschwiegen gehört.

Ganz ehrlich: Was vor allem Hubzilla und (streams) und Forte können in puncto Berechtigungssteuerung, das ist für die meisten Mastodon-Nutzer vollkommen unvorstellbar. Es gibt Berechtigungseinstellungen auf bis zu drei Ebenen (ganzer Kanal, einzelne Kontakte, pro Post/Thread) für fast alles bis hin zu Features, die Mastodon gar nicht hat.

Nur für Quote-Posts gibt's keine. Weil das fediverseweit nicht möglich ist.

Wenn es öffentlich ist und jeder es sehen kann, dann kann es auch jeder quote-posten. Das geht schlicht und ergreifend nicht zu verhindern. Nicht mal innerhalb von Hubzilla und (streams) und Forte. Außerhalb schon mal erst recht nicht.

Innerhalb von Mastodon geht's nur aus zwei Gründen. Zum einen, weil Mastodon den ganzen Rest des Fediverse bestenfalls komplett ignoriert. Zum anderen, weil Mastodon-Nutzer zwingend für jeden Pups auf GUI-Knöpfchen angewiesen sind. Sie sind es nicht gewohnt, irgendwas in ihren Tröts per Hand zu formatieren, weil sie noch nie irgendwas haben formatieren können. Und weil gefühlt beinahe jeder nur ein Smartphone und eine dedizierte Mastodon-App verwendet und kein Copy-Paste kennt, ist das Quote-Post-GUI-Knöpfchen das einzige, was sie haben, abgesehen von Screenshots.

Aber schon Mastodons Methode funktioniert, wie ich oben schon schrieb, nicht über Mastodon hinaus. Und da kann Mastodon lange drauf warten, daß der Rest des Fediverse seine eigene jahrelang etablierte Technologie wegschmeißt und auf Mastodons proprietäre Technologie umschwenkt.

Auf Misskey, den Forkeys und allen anderen, die auf dieselbe Art quote-posten, ist Quote-Posten überhaupt nicht verhinderbar. Das liegt daran, daß Quote-Posts pupeinfach als Link auf den Originalbeitrag ausgeführt sind mit "RE:" davor. RE: https://domain.tld/Adresse_des_Originalbeitrags Zack, hast du einen Quote-Post. Und mal ehrlich, für sowas braucht man kein GUI-Knöpfchen, wenn man tippen und URLs copy-pasten kann.

Auch auf Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams) und Forte, die ganz anders quote-posten, ist Quote-Posten öffentlicher Beiträge nicht verhinderbar. Da nutzen die Leute keine Apps auf Smartphones. Nein, die meisten sitzen am Desktop-PC oder Laptop mit Hardwaretastatur und nutzen einen Standardbrowser statt einer dedizierten App. Copy-Paste ist für sie kein Problem und schon gar kein Fremdwort. Außerdem sind vor allem die alten Hasen es höchstwahrscheinlich meistens gewohnt, Markup-Code für Formatierungen per Hand einzutippen, statt sich auf die GUI-Knöpfchen zu verlassen, die auch nur BBcode-Stückchen in den Editor reinpflanzen.

Mike Macgirvin sagt: Es gibt genau eine Art und Weise, wirksam fediverseweit zu verhindern, daß du gequote-postet wirst. Und das ist, nicht öffentlich zu posten.

Für jemanden für ihn ist es aber auch einfach, das zu sagen. Gerade auf Hubzilla, (streams) und Forte gibt es etliche Abstufungen zwischen öffentlich und DM. Auf Hubzilla kann ich einen Post

• in alle Öffentlichkeit
• nur an mich selbst
• an eine bestimmte Privacy Group (quasi wie eine Liste auf Mastodon, aber sehr viel mächtiger)
• an diejenigen, denen ich ein Profil zugewiesen habe, das nicht das Standardprofil meines Kanals ist (Mastodon hat dagegen nur ein Profil pro Konto)
• an ein bestimmtes Forum/eine bestimmte Gruppe
• eine beliebige individuelle Auswahl aus einzelnen Kontakten, Foren/Gruppen, Privacy Groups und Profilzugewiesenen

versenden.

Und der Witz ist: Das steuert nicht nur, an wen der Post geht. Das steuert auch, wer den Post (und sämtliche Kommentare zum Post) sehen darf. Wenn der Post nicht an dich geht, wirst du ihn nie zu Gesicht bekommen. Nein, auch nicht per Boost. Das ist nämlich bei nichtöffentlichen Posts explizit verboten, und das dafür nötige Bedienelement ist schlicht und ergreifend nicht da.

Es wird noch besser: Das funktioniert sogar bis nach Mastodon. Denn wenn es nicht öffentlich ist, dann stellt es sich Mastodon gegenüber als DM dar.

Ich setze noch einen drauf: Im krassen Gegensatz zum restlichen Fediverse posten Hubzilla, (streams) und Forte mit Standardeinstellungen nicht öffentlich. Alle drei haben standardmäßig schon eine Privacy Group/Zugriffsliste namens "Freunde", in der alle neuen Kontakte landen. Und alle drei posten standardmäßig nur zu dieser Privacy Group/Zugriffsliste namens "Freunde". Aus Mastodon-Sicht verschicken alle drei standardmäßig immer nur DMs. Wenn du öffentlich posten willst, ist das Extraaufwand.

So gehen Sicherheit und Privatsphäre. Und nicht mit proprietärem, zu nichts anderem kompatiblem Hokuspokus für Doofe wie auf Mastodon.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #LangerPost #CWLangerPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Pleroma #Misskey #Forkey #Forkeys #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteTröt #QuoteTröts #Drüko #Drükos #Druko #Drukos #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotePostDebatte #QuoteTrötDebatte #Sicherheit #Berechtigung #Berechtigungen

@Rob Ricci I guess if a Fediverse actor uses ActivityPub, regardless of whether or not it's that actor's base protocol, that actor should count.

Still, there are various issues and open questions as @Feral Thoughts has already pointed out.

Of course, one question is, where does the Fediverse end? Especially if the definition of Fediverse is "Mastodon and whatever connects to it"?

Hubzilla is not based on ActivityPub. Its creator (who now maintains (streams) and Forte) says it's based on Nomad whereas its maintainers insist that Hubzilla's base protocol is still named Zot. Anyway, it does support ActivityPub. However, like almost all non-nomadic protocols and connectors, ActivityPub support is an add-on that's optional and off by default on new channels. At hub level, ActivityPub is still optional, but on by default when you set up a new hub.

This can mean three things:

• Either Hubzilla is not part of the Fediverse because its base protocol is not ActivityPub. Even if it does (optionally) speak ActivityPub.
• Or Hubzilla is part of the Fediverse because it does support ActivityPub.
• Or Hubzilla is not part of the Fediverse because ActivityPub is not activated by default.
• Or Hubzilla is not part of the Fediverse because ActivityPub is not part of the core.
• Or only those hubs that have ActivityPub on are part of the Fediverse. However, I guess almost all hubs have ActivityPub on, except maybe for a few private, single-user hubs.
• Or Hubzilla is really sitting on the edge, and only those channels that have ActivityPub on are part of the Fediverse. I could literally join and leave the Fediverse by activating or deactivating one add-on.

But if Hubzilla is not part of the Fediverse, am I even allowed to communicate with you all?

(streams) is a bit different. It's based on Nomad and not on ActivityPub. But ActivityPub is part of the core and no longer an add-on, and it's on by default both at server level and at channel level. ActivityPub can still be deactivated both at channel level and at server level.

Forte is identical to (streams), except that it's based on ActivityPub, support for Nomad has been removed, it has a name, it has a brand, it's a project, it's MIT-licensed, and it has nodeinfo (which is intentionally absent from (streams)).

But these two have another "nefarious" feature plus one more that has yet to be rolled out to the release branch, both of which may put them on the edge of the Fediverse.

One, at server level, is the "Uafilter" which is short for "User Agent Filter". It can filter out entire Fediverse server applications by user agent. Its main purpose is to keep Threads out without having to enter new URLs or IP addresses into a filter all the time. However, it's not only capable of locking out the entirety of Mastodon in one fell swoop with no collateral damage, but that's also explicitly a secondary purpose.

The other one, also at server level and currently only available in dev, is "FedUp" which is short for "Federate Upstream". When activated, it only allows federation with servers that provide managed threaded conversations. In other words, it locks out all microblogging servers.

If the Fediverse is defined as "Mastodon and whatever connects to it", these two are features that'd lock at least certain (streams) and Forte servers out of the Fediverse because they are disconnected from all of Mastodon in one way or another.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #ActivityPub #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte

@Jasper Bienvenido Okay, jetzt gibt's erstmal Druckbetankung.

Neben mir ist der Oberguru wahrscheinlich @Der Pepe (Hubzilla) ⁂, der auch @Pepes Hubzilla-Sprechstunde betreibt. Sein Hub Whoville ist gut, aber man kommt nur auf Anfrage rein, weil er mit Spam zu kämpfen hat.

Ich bin mit noch ein paar mehr Hubzilla-Leuten verbunden, die dürften das hier in Bälde zu sehen bekommen (sofern nicht ausgerechnet jetzt die Netzgemeinde wieder ihre fünf Minuten hat).

Hauptsächlicher Anlaufpunkt für Hubzilla-Support ist das englischsprachige @Hubzilla Support Forum.

Am Mittwoch, dem 17. September, ab 19.30 Uhr veranstaltet @Doris :fediverse: (Mastodon) a.k.a. @Doris (Hubzilla) auf BigBlueButton den ersten Hubzilla-Workshop. Da ist jeder eingeladen.

Doris schrieb den folgenden Beitrag Tue, 02 Sep 2025 10:28:04 +0200

Hubzilla-Workshop

 Hubzilla-Workshop

Beginnt: Mittwoch, 17. September 2025, 19:30
Endet: Mittwoch, 17. September 2025, 21:00
Der erste Hubzilla-Workshop!
Mit Aufzeichnung für alle, die Hubzilla kennenlernen, souveräner nutzen und bisher unbekannte Funktionen entdecken möchten.

Moderiert von @Doris , @Der Pepe (Hubzilla) ⁂ , @𝓒𝓱𝓻𝓲𝓼  und @Jupiter Rowland  .

Egal ob Einsteiger, Fortgeschrittene oder Entwickler – gemeinsam möchten wir dazu beitragen, dass Hubzilla bekannter wird, leichter anzuwenden ist und noch mehr Freude bei der Nutzung bringt.
Ort: Online: https://dus.webinar-welt.de/rooms/fr2-u7m-gnf-h24/join



Auch wenn das jetzt der Hubzilla-Community vielleicht nicht schmecken wird: Falls dir Hubzilla doch einen Tick zu heftiger ist, gibt's vom Erfinder von Hubzilla auch eine Nummer kleiner und zugänglicher: (streams) (wird inoffiziell tatsächlich in Klammern geschrieben und hat offiziell eigentlich überhaupt keinen Namen). Hier habe ich mal ein paar Tabellen zusammengestellt, die Mastodon, Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams) und Forte, das jüngste Familienmitglied, vergleichen.

Aber Vorsicht: Beide sind funktional, aber auch kulturell weit davon entfernt, Mastodon mit mehr Zeichen zu sein.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #LangerPost #CWLangerPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #QuotePost #QuoteTweet #QuoteToot #QuoteTröt #QuoteBoost #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams)

@Ben Pate

What if moving a server looked like this:

1. sign up for new account
2. authenticate old account (OAuth, whatever)
3. click "migrate"
4. click "yes really"
5. celebrate

If this were possible, then a whole lot of people could become "server admins" without being IT nerds.

Reality on Hubzilla for longer than Mastodon, as well as on (streams) and Forte:

1. Register a new account.
2. Optionally: Wait for it to be manually activated by the admin.
3. Be asked to create a channel (= the actual identity with posts and contacts and files and stuff; your account is not your identity).
4. Choose the option to move an existing channel.
5. Enter the URL of the existing channel.
6. Enter the password of the account on which the existing channel is located.
7. Confirm
8. A clone of the channel is created on the new server.
9. The data of the existing channel is mirrored to the clone.
10. The clone is promoted to main instance of the channel; the already existing instance of the channel is demoted to clone.
11. The ID of your channel is changed accordingly.
12. All nomadic contacts (= on Hubzilla, (streams) or Forte) are automatically changed to the new ID.
13. (streams) and Forte only: All non-nomadic contacts receive a new connection request.
14. The former-main-instance-and-now-clone is deleted because you chose to move rather than clone.
15. If there are no other channels on the account on the old server, the whole account is deleted because accounts cannot exist with no channels on them.

The only two differences between cloning and moving are that cloning leaves your main instance intact instead of deleting it, and it leaves it as your main instance by default rather than making the new clone your main instance.

It works for Discord, why not the Fediverse?

It's a common misconception, probably even by FLOSS devs, that "server" on Discord that a handful of clicks on the Web interface inserts a new 19" rack iron into a rack inside some data centre with a LAMP stack and an installation of the Discord server backend on it and makes you the tech admin. Or something like that.

This is far from the truth. Discord has integrated the word "server" into its newspeak. On Discord, "server" means "chat room". A chat room on the same centralised, corporate-owned, commercially-operated server farm as all the other "servers".

At the same time, Generation Z and newer think that this is what "server" always means because they've never come into contact with TeamSpeak and never experienced LAN parties.

Administrating a Fediverse server, on the other hand, does equal administrating a LAMP stack on the command line, full stop.

I sincerely hope that the day won't come when someone does with e.g. Mastodon what the Outworldz DreamGrid did with OpenSimulator: turn a full server stack into an "easy-peasy", fully-preconfigured, Windows-only point-and-click application that anyone can install on their Windows machines with absolutely zero prior knowledge about servers or networks, that even automatically connects to a dynamic DNS service that was created specifically for this application so you don't even need to know anything about domains, and that can only be handled through the built-in Windows GUI. (Mind you, there are people who are actually asking for exactly this, only not for Windows, but for their iPhones. Food for thought.)

CC: @silverpill  @Contraquestão

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #MovingInstances #NomadicIdentity #Discord #OpenSim #OpenSimulator #DreamGrid