Adding a Hubzilla channel to Fediverse.info fails, at least for me

Sun, 02 Oct 2022 13:17:15 +0200

adminsforum@hubzilla.org

Jupiter Rowland schrieb den folgenden Beitrag Sun, 02 Oct 2022 13:17:04 +0200

Adding a Hubzilla channel to Fediverse.info fails, at least for me

@!Hubzilla Support Forum Has anyone ever managed to add their Hubzilla channel to Fediverse.info which AFAIK is developed by the @pixelfed team? I've tried and failed.

Steps to reproduce:

Make sure you've got ActivityPub on.
Navigate to the directory.
Scroll down to How it works.
Add #fedi22 to the hashtags in your Hubzilla profile as required for the submission process.
Add some more hashtags in order for you to be found.
Click the submit link.
Enter your account address on the submission form.
Click Proceed.

Expected behaviour:
Fediverse.info processes your submission and confirms that.

Actual behaviour:
A red banner saying Server Error pops up on the submission form.

show all 7 comments

Sun, 02 Oct 2022 15:41:47 +0200

Out of curiosity I made an attempt and I have the same error message as you.

Mon, 03 Oct 2022 00:52:07 +0200

Doesn't work. I've tried a couple of obvious things like using Mastodon syntax for the tags instead of being ActivityPub/ActivityStreams spec compliant, but that didn't change the results. Webfinger doesn't seem to work at all.

I suggested a while back that this service should just probably use Mastodon's directory discovery flag like everybody else instead of inventing another one that is tied to a specific year and filling peoples' hashtags with vendor crap and got "that's a great idea"; but it hasn't happened.

Since it doesn't appear to be open source and there's nowhere we can examine the code or report issues, I don't know what to tell you. Perhaps ping the developer at @dansup.

Sun, 30 Oct 2022 11:40:34 +0100

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

Okay, out of curiosity, I've tried it again.

You have to submit the URL of your channel, i.e. https://<Hub_URL>/channel/<Channel_Name>. Nothing else is accepted. If you do so, you get a different reply, namely that you have to enter the hashtag #fedi22 to your profile. Even if you have done that already.

The #FediverseInfo website says, quote, "Add #fedi22 to your bio, it doesn't matter where." This probably means, "It doesn't matter where on Mastodon," because Fediverse.info seems to be unaware of the gajillion profile fields which Hubzilla offers. Sadly, this seems to include the one entry on Hubzilla that is specifically for hashtags.

My understanding is that Fediverse.info can now access Hubzilla channels, but it doesn't know where to look for hashtags because it doesn't know where Hubzilla users (should) put them.

So maybe someone from those of you who know the inner workings of Hubzilla better than me can tell @dansup / @dansup where to look for hashtags on Hubzilla.

For that matter, you may also mention Friendica, Osada, Zap, Misty and all other similar platforms, all of which have a similar or identical dedicated hashtag field, so that this process won't have to be repeated over and over again with each one of these platforms.

Also, in order to facilitate entering Hubzilla channels to Fediverse.info, other address formats, especially https://<Hub_URL>/profile/<Channel_Name>, <Channel_Name>@<Hub_URL> and Mastodon-style @<Channel_Name>@<Hub_URL>, should be accepted, too. None of these work currently which adds to the difficulty of adding Hubzilla channels to Fediverse.info.

Sun, 30 Oct 2022 16:57:53 +0100

Mario Vavti

mario@hub.somaton.com

The #fedi22 hashtag is hilarious. The discoverable field should be used instead :thinking:

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 06:12:52 +0100

For hashtags, use the 'keywords' field of your profile - but don't add the hashtag character. Just 'fedi22'. You can have multiple words here separated by spaces. These show up as hashtags in the ActivityPub record.

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 06:28:48 +0100

But I tried that as well and it says it wants it in the bio. So for hubzilla my best guess is to add fedi22 as a keyword as above and also add "#fedi22" to the 'about' section of your profile since we keep tags separate from the bio. If that doesn't work you might have to wrap the one in your bio in a bbcode url so it looks the same as a hashtag in your posts. If that doesn't work I give up.

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 18:36:17 +0100

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

I've experimented some more.

I've put fedi22 under Keywords and #fedi22 under Short Description (Pdesc). Fediverse.info said it couldn't find #fedi22.

I've put fedi22 under Keywords and #fedi22 under About. Fediverse.info said it couldn't find #fedi22.

Possibility #1: Fediverse.info can't look past Pubcrawl into Hubzilla's inner workings.

Possibility #2: Fediverse.info has a fixed list of fields to search for the #fedi22 tag. This list contains all text fields provided by #Mastodon, but not a single text field provided by #Hubzilla or at least none where that tag would make sense. It certainly is not designed to look for a field named Keywords, much less accept keywords that aren't spelled out as hashtags with a leading #.