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We’ve designed a protocol that has three big things we think are missing from the Mastodon ecosystem: account portability, global discoverability, [and] composable, customizable curation and moderation. We don’t see ourselves as being in competition <br />with Mastodon — we welcome approaches to decentralize social platforms and are simply taking a different, opinionated approach. Our focus right now is on building out our approach and proving it works at scale.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 07:45:05 +0200

atomicpoet@mastodon.social

Jay Graber, CEO of Bluesky, believes that Bluesky can do three things better than Mastodon:

1. Account portability
2. Global discovery
3. Curation / moderation

Having used both services, I don’t believe Bluesky has proven that its approach is superior—yet.

Because it only has one node right now, that limits its proof of scale.

https://www.theverge.com/23686778/bluesky-ceo-jay-graber-interview-decentralized-social-media-twitter-mastodon

@fediversenews

show all 47 comments

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 07:47:00 +0200

Kristian

z428@loma.ml

@Chris Trottier It would be great though to see the #fediverse improve in (1) and (2). There's quite some room for improvement here...
@Fediverse News

Fediverse

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 07:51:01 +0200

Chris Trottier

atomicpoet@mastodon.social

@z428 @fediversenews Agreed. I would like to see improvements in those areas.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 07:53:45 +0200

Mike Fraser :Jets:

mike@thecanadian.social

@atomicpoet @fediversenews I'm not sure how they'll beat moderation, whe I can choose between 22,000 moderation styles.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 07:54:23 +0200

Chris Trottier

atomicpoet@mastodon.social

@mike Jay believes that the answer is algorithms.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 07:56:06 +0200 zuletzt bearbeitet: Tue, 18 Apr 2023 07:56:41 +0200

Konstantin :bheartrainbow:

konstantin@m.iamkonstantin.eu

@atomicpoet @fediversenews I’m honestly perplexed why Bluesky is even remotely interesting at the moment. It doesn’t offer any transformative improvement and… it’s a closed software. So whatever coolness it may offer down the road, it will manifest in the form of a walled garden (even one that “federates”). In other words, a social network built to be antisocial.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 07:58:52 +0200

Mike Fraser :Jets:

mike@thecanadian.social

@atomicpoet It might be. But you know my thoughts on that. The fediverse is open source, open API, therefore anything, including algorithmic curation, can be done in the client.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 07:59:53 +0200

Chris Trottier

atomicpoet@mastodon.social

@konstantin @fediversenews Actually, AT protocol is open source:

https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto-ecosystem

From my perspective, though, I feel that they’re way behind in development, and they’re facing lots of skepticism from developers—for good reason.

On the other hand, there’s lots of people who believe Bluesky is “easier”—but part of that is because it’s only operating on one node.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 08:06:00 +0200

Fred Brooker

fredbrooker@witter.cz

@atomicpoet @fediversenews

the main goal for them is to make money somehow

I am done with that ?

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 08:06:39 +0200

Archnemysis

Archnemysis@mastodon.social

@atomicpoet @konstantin @fediversenews doesn’t one node mean they haven’t brought either 1 or 2 yet? If there is nowhere else to take your account to, then you certainly don’t have portability. Although I guess if you are a universe of one you can claim to have global discovery.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 08:08:17 +0200

Chris Trottier

atomicpoet@mastodon.social

@Archnemysis @konstantin @fediversenews ?

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 08:26:31 +0200

Konstantin :bheartrainbow:

konstantin@m.iamkonstantin.eu

@atomicpoet yeah it’s technically open source, but can one just clone and run a blue sky server? Bluesky is effectively a “reference implementation” of AT and that isn’t open. It’s hard to trust an effort like this when the only reason we know about it is because of Dorsey’s fame and previous social venture.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 08:29:06 +0200

Z O R A N G R B I C

zorangrbic@mastodon.art

@fredbrooker @atomicpoet @fediversenews Exactly this.

Account portability? Seeing is believing. Moderation "better"? Never, if money and engagement drives the decisions. Same thing with curation. It's just Twitter but decentralized.

For the time being? B O R I N G.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 08:31:55 +0200

Iαη

ianp5a@mastodon.cloud

@atomicpoet @fediversenews
What looked interesting is "a market place for algorithms." Similar to my suggestion to have "user algorithms" on the fediverse. Where you pick one or more algorithms created by enthusiasts or you yourself, to share.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 08:34:30 +0200 zuletzt bearbeitet: Tue, 18 Apr 2023 13:15:28 +0200

Z O R A N G R B I C

zorangrbic@mastodon.art

@fredbrooker @atomicpoet @fediversenews Exactly this.

Account portability? Seeing is believing. Moderation "better"? Never, if money and engagement are the main drivers. Same thing with curation. This is just Twitter but decentralized.

According to me, Bluesky is trying to cannibalize Mastodon. They want the tech, not the user centric focus of Mastodon.

if it was about the user, they would've forked the dev and created something really original.

Right now: B O R I N G.

(edited errors)

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 08:35:44 +0200

Chris Trottier

atomicpoet@mastodon.social

@konstantin This is a good point. For Bluesky’s decentralization to be real, I should be able to start up my own server and connect. Otherwise, it’s just a gimmick.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 08:46:44 +0200

Fred Brooker

fredbrooker@witter.cz

@zorangrbic @atomicpoet @fediversenews

Discoverability?

I don't want to be discovered by all those crypto scammers, haters and other crazy fucks ?

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 08:47:37 +0200

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Z O R A N G R B I C @Fred Brooker @Chris Trottier

Jay Graber in a nutshell:

We don't compete with Mastodon. We're so awesome that Mastodon isn't even competition.

Besides, #Mastodon with #ActivityPub isn't the benchmark. #Bluesky only believes it is because that's all they seem to know. Let them try to do better than #Zot which has featured account portability on every level they could possibly imagine since 2011.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 08:51:44 +0200

Fred Brooker

fredbrooker@witter.cz

@jupiter_rowland the only true portability means storing your profile on a blockchain or into the IPFS

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 08:54:08 +0200

Fred Brooker

fredbrooker@witter.cz

@jupiter_rowland I can't see a way to truly allow portability of anyone's posts, only a picture, info and a list of friends

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 09:02:24 +0200

Kyoko bunberry

kyoko@misskey.social

@atomicpoet@mastodon.social @fediversenews@venera.social Hey Chris. Where did you get the invite code? I'd like to try Bluesky as well. Thanks!

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 09:27:04 +0200

Chris Trottier

atomicpoet@mastodon.social

@kyoko @fediversenews A friend gave it to me, but I think they might be out of invite codes.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 09:31:29 +0200

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Fred Brooker Not on #Mastodon with #ActivityPub as it is right now.

But the #Zot protocol, created by the #Friendica inventor Mike Macgirvin in 2011, seven years before ActivityPub became a standard, allows for something that's called #NomadicIdentity. In fact, Zot was created specifically for this feature.

Friendica with its #DFRN protocol already allows full account portability between instances on a degree that Mastodon users still think is absolutely impossible, and a Friendica account contains much more data than a Mastodon account.

Nomadic identity goes even further: It lets you have the very same channel on multiple instances at the same time. So you don't move to a new instance, leaving a dead and disconnected account behind. You create a 100% clone of your channel. And that clone will remain a clone, for it's kept in-sync with the original in real-time. And you can have as many clones as possible.

Sounds like utter science-fiction, right? But it's reality.

In 2012, four years before Mastodon, Macgirvin himself forked his own Friendica, ported it to Zot and renamed it Red. It was later renamed #RedMatrix, and when it saw its 1.0 stable release in late 2015, still months before Mastodon, it got its final and current name, #Hubzilla.

If you think it's still born, if you think something like this couldn't possibly have survived: Hubzilla is still around. It is still being developed. Its current version is 8.2 from last month, and 8.3 is being field-tested.

And yes, it still offers nomadic identity while each channel has features which Mastodon users couldn't imagine in their wildest dreams. And all of it is kept in-sync between instances by nomadic identity.

Also: I speak to you from Hubzilla right now. No, I'm not on Mastodon, although this should be clear from how long this post already is. Hubzilla has optional ActivityPub support per channel.

And even Zot itself is advancing. Not long after the launch of Hubzilla, Macgirvin created two forks for the development of Zot/6, #Osada with ActivityPub and #Zap without it. More forks came after Hubzilla had been upgraded to Zot/6 in order to develop Zot/8, #Mistpark2020 and #Roadhouse. All four are EOL now and superseded by #Streams which first saw the light of day last year, and which runs on #Nomad, formerly known as Zot/11, providing better integration of non-nomadic protocols such as ActivityPub.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 09:43:02 +0200

Fred Brooker

fredbrooker@witter.cz

@jupiter_rowland the question is, do we need that really?

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 09:57:02 +0200

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Fred Brooker It's there. It has been in productive use for longer than Mastodon. So why abandon it in favour of more well-known but inferior technology?

Besides, many other Mastodon users who have heard about it say, yes, we need it. Ask people on mastodon.lol.

If witter.cz should disappear for good without a notice, you're fucked. Your account is locked in on that instance. Have fun starting over from scratch.

Even if witter.cz should announce its shutdown, you can only take so much with you as you move to another instance. You lose all your toots, you lose all your uploaded media, you lose all your followers, at least the one-sided followers whom you don't follow back.

I already have a clone of my channel. If hub.netzgemeinde.eu should go under, I can shrug it off and make the clone my new main without losing anything. And I can make more clones.

However, I can't see nomadic identity come to Mastodon anytime soon. ActivityPub won't introduce it because the W3C committee steering its development has disbanded, and nobody is maintaining it anymore. And Mastodon can't easily be ported to Zot or Nomad.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 10:05:20 +0200

SpaceLifeForm

SpaceLifeForm@infosec.exchange

@atomicpoet @fediversenews

It is still in Beta, right?

If so, then most of the users are going to be techies, and so there will be very few bad actors, and therefore very few moderation problems.

I agree with you, it may not scale, and they may not have experienced the problems that lie ahead.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 10:39:38 +0200

Simon Lucy

simon_lucy@mastodon.social

@jupiter_rowland

The sterility of ActivityPub is a problem, though Mastodon's lack of standards support is more limiting, that isn't a criticism because it's a system that does what it set out to do.

I don't know if Zot:Streams is the right kind of individual shared identity but I wish it wasn't called Streams as it's hard to research from the name.

Essentially, applications shouldn't have anything to do with identity other than the user saying I use this, verify me.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 11:00:19 +0200

Mark Prior

markrprior@ohai.social

@kyoko @atomicpoet @fediversenews The message I see is "You don't have any invite codes yet! We'll send you some when you've been on Bluesky for a little longer."
I don't know if that's just their way of rationing them or if it is linked to actual activity.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 11:07:52 +0200

Mark Darbyshire

mark@tech.lgbt

@atomicpoet @fediversenews A shame she didn't respond to "I’m also curious if you ever see interoperability between atproto and ActivityPub happening."

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 11:08:06 +0200

Kyoko bunberry

kyoko@misskey.social

@atomicpoet@mastodon.social @fediversenews@venera.social ? I've been following Bluesky for a while but never get the chance to get into it.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 11:57:31 +0200

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Simon Lucy

I don't know if Zot:Streams is the right kind of individual shared identity but I wish it wasn't called Streams as it's hard to research from the name.

Maybe you've just skipped through my post, but nomadic identity is also available on Hubzilla, and it's Hubzilla where the protocol is still called Zot.

On (streams), the protocol is now called Nomad, but it's compatible with Zot.

Also, (streams) is different from all other Fediverse projects conceptually. From Mastodon to Akkoma to Friendica to Hubzilla, they're all self-contained products with brand names and brand identities and official websites, intended to be installed and run as they are.

(streams) is none of this. (streams) is not self-contained, (streams) is a construction kit.

(streams) doesn't have a brand, doesn't have a brand identity, doesn't even have a brand name which is why it's usually written in brackets. Unlike "Mastodon" or "Hubzilla", "Streams" is not a brand name; it's just a necessity because this thing needed something to call it by. And (streams) instances hardly ever identify as such to other instances or Fediverse statistics bots.

(streams) doesn't have an official website because it is not a coherent product. (streams) is a code repository. No, it doesn't HAVE a code repository for as long as it lacks an official website. It IS a code repository. Fully intentional. And it will never have an official website that pretends it was a branded product.

The idea behind (streams) is not to install the code as-is on a Web server and run it as though it were a coherent, self-contained Fediverse platform like Mastodon or Hubzilla.

The idea behind it is to clone the code, modify it to your heart's content, as long as you stay within the maze of free licenses, create something of your own from it, slap YOUR brand on it in the place where (streams) doesn't have one, and then run your own private instance or offer your (streams) derivative as a branded, self-contained product with its own code repository and an official website to go with it.

All these were fully deliberate and fully intentional decisions by @mike who created (streams) as well. He didn't want to create something with name and fame.

This is also the reason for the seemingly chaotic mass of co-existing post-Hubzilla, pre-(streams) Zotlabs products until the end of last year: (Revived) Redmatrix, (revived) Osada, Zap, Misty a.k.a. (revived) Mistpark and Roadhouse were the same thing on various stages of stability and technological advancement and with or without ActivityPub. The branding chaos was deliberate, just as deliberate as the successor to all five not having a brand at all.

This is also the main reason why (streams) is absent from all Fediverse listing and stats websites, be it the-federation.info, be it FediDB, be it fediverse.info and so forth. This, too, is fully deliberate.

Also, it wouldn't even be possible to list (streams) stats. Again: (streams) instances don't necessarily identify as (streams) instances, and most actually don't. FediDB & Co. wouldn't recognise a (streams) instance if they found one. This is not a bug. This is intentional.

But to re-iterate this: You can have nomadic identity on Hubzilla which is a self-contained, branded product. You don't need (streams) for that. (streams) has better ActivityPub integration, but Hubzilla can talk ActivityPub just fine as this post of mine proves.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 12:00:40 +0200

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Mark Darbyshire @Chris Trottier I can at least see #Friendica federate with #Bluesky. That is, unless Friendica has given up its old (holds broom) "FEDERATE WITH ALL THE PLATFORMS!" attitude.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 12:22:19 +0200

Simon Lucy

simon_lucy@mastodon.social

@jupiter_rowland @mike I did read it and it ended with a fairly confusing bundle of names seemingly replacing previous names, but not, and ending up with Streams.

Avoiding it being a product doesn't prevent it from being one. That's just life, oAuth isn't a product either, but it is coherent I can't tell if Zot or Zot:streams is or not.

The creators and supporters of it needn't care about that but it doesn't look worth looking into to me.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 12:42:55 +0200

linus

linus@telegrafverket.cc

@atomicpoet protip: if you keep holding the finger down for a second or two after making a highlight in ios, it will straighten the line for you. also works for auto-completing certain shapes, like lines, arrows and circles etc

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 12:53:43 +0200 zuletzt bearbeitet: Tue, 18 Apr 2023 12:54:15 +0200

Simon Lucy

simon_lucy@mastodon.social

@jupiter_rowland @mike

Additionally, as you continue to quote text which can't be expressed as a quote on Mastodon you look as though you are appropriating what other people have said as you're own. That's not your intention but anyone coming across your post out of context is not going to know that.

So, please, either refrain from quoting text or use a non metadata or tagging method, like enclosing it in quotes.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 16:01:32 +0200

Codesmith

codesmith@techhub.social

@jupiter_rowland All without needing a blockchain.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 17:08:57 +0200

Codesmith

codesmith@techhub.social

@ianp5a @atomicpoet @fediversenews I wrote a few days ago about some of my concerns on the "marketplace of algorithms" idea:

https://techhub.social/@codesmith/110209886900011442

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 22:06:56 +0200

Mike Macgirvin

mike@macgirvin.com

Please stop using software that strips my quote tags and presents it to you out of context. HTML is the language of the fediverse.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 22:13:45 +0200

silverpill

silverpill@mitra.social

@jupiter_rowland @fredbrooker ActivityPub is quite flexible, and nomadic identity is possible there as well. Nobody needs a permission from W3C to implement it.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 22:31:12 +0200

Kevin Davidson

MetalSamurai@mas.to

@codesmith @ianp5a @atomicpoet @fediversenews Is any of this true or just pure hype? With only one server then portability is meaningless, “global” discoverability is trivial and there’s no choice of algorithm beyond ticking a box saying you want to see “hate speech”. It’s just nonsense, isn’t it?

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 22:31:15 +0200

Kevin Davidson

MetalSamurai@mas.to

@codesmith @ianp5a @atomicpoet @fediversenews Will users be able to plug their own algorithm into BlueSky’s server somehow? Or is this a future possibility when some unknown third party takes the open source AT protocol and builds their own alternate server? And, frankly, who’s going to bother doing that?

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 22:33:48 +0200

Iαη

ianp5a@mastodon.cloud

@MetalSamurai @codesmith @atomicpoet @fediversenews I'm guessing you buy them from vendors in the store. With Bluesky taking a healthy cut.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 22:34:23 +0200

Simon Lucy

simon_lucy@mastodon.social

@mike @jupiter_rowland

I as a user have fuckall to do with whether tags are stripped or not. Let me count the ways allowing random HTML from a different source can be a bad idea.

But as a user if I was contributing to a different context, a different audience and I knew any tags that I used would be stripped and that the attribution of a quote would be lost I'd make damn sure that I wrapped it in actual quotes.

Speaking as the person that was quoted.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 22:58:09 +0200

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Simon Lucy So you say you demand that all users of #Pleroma, #Akkoma, #MissKey, #CalcKey, #FoundKey, #GoToSocial, #Friendica, #Hubzilla, the remaining #Zap instances, #Streams etc. quit using anything in their posts that #Mastodon can't handle in order not to disturb the Mastodonians with quotes that don't look right?

You demand that just about everyone quit using proper quotes because Mastodon can't show them?
Bold type because Mastodon can't show it?
Italics because Mastodon can't show it?
Pictures embedded within a post rather than below it because Mastodon can't embed pictures?
More than four pictures in one post because Mastodon can't handle more than four file attachments?
In fact, more than one picture because Mastodon always reverses their order?
While we're at it, sensitive pictures in CW'd posts because Mastodon puts them outside the CW?

It's sad to see that the users of the rest of the Fediverse, including projects that have been around for longer than Mastodon, are being forced to abandon half the features of these projects due to Mastodon's unique lack of said features.

I'm waiting for the first Mastodon user to demand everyone outside Mastodon quit writing posts longer than 500 characters because it's too much to read in one go.

I mean, I could just as well ask the millions of Mastodon users to stop adding pictures to their posts altogether because they end up on top of posts rather than at the bottom over here.

Oh, and I don't manipulate quotes. Not even by adding quotation marks.

Last but not least: It isn't HTML. It's Rich Text.

@mike Well said.

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 23:05:42 +0200

Mike Macgirvin

mike@macgirvin.com

@Jupiter Rowland The streams code provides a fully functional fediverse server. Full stop. It is not a "construction kit".

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 23:12:24 +0200

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@mike That's true, and I guess most (streams) instances are vanilla.

What I meant was what the original Readme said, namely the main intention behind (streams) is for people to take the code and craft their own Fediverse projects out of it rather than to run it vanilla. That's what I meant when I said "construction kit".

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 23:52:21 +0200

Simon Lucy

simon_lucy@mastodon.social

@jupiter_rowland @mike

Demand?
You don't think that it's necessary to indicate that you're quoting? To the person you're quoting? And you think Rich Text is a suitable format? The two of you can't even agree on what format it is.

If you hate Mastodon so much why do you engage in threads that begin on it and then fall into these simplistic style issues.

I'm neither defending or attacking Mastodon, I don't care. I'm just the user.

Wed, 19 Apr 2023 00:08:13 +0200

Simon Lucy

simon_lucy@mastodon.social

@jupiter_rowland @mike

If you remember I said please on both occasions. That isn't a demand.

It's of no particular interest to me, as a user, what software that I don't use does. Proper quotes are quotation marks, anything else is a stylistic choice. Bold, italic or the lack of them doesn't change the meaning, not showing the quotation purposefully is stealing.

Even if that isn't your intent. So, as I said, you have the choice not to quote.