@KellamБур This may come as a surprise, but: Nomadic identity is not an abstract concept or a science-fiction idea for the Fediverse.

It is reality. It exists. Right now. In stable, daily-driver software that's federated with Mastodon. And it has been for over a decade.

I'm literally replying to you here from a nomadic channel that simultaneously exists on two servers.

Nomadic identity was invented by @Mike Macgirvin (formerly American software developer of about half a century who has been living in rural Australia for decades now) in 2011 and first implemented in 2012. Almost four years before Mastodon was first launched.

In 2010, he had invented the Facebook alternative Friendica, originally named Mistpark and based on his own DFRN protocol.

Over the months, he witnessed lots of privately operated public Friendica nodes shut down with or without an announcement and the users on these nodes lose everything. He added the possibility to export and import Friendica accounts. But that would only help if a permanent shutdown was announced. It did not protect you against shutdowns out of the blue.

There was only one solution to this problem. And that was for someone's identity to not be bound to one server, but to exist on multiple servers simultaneously. The whole thing with everything that's attached to it. Name, settings, connections, posts, files in the file storage etc. etc., everything.

So in 2011, Mike designed a whole new protocol named Zot around this brand-new idea of what he called "nomadic identity" back then already.

In 2012, Mike forked Friendica into something called Red, later the Red Matrix, and rebuilt the whole thing from the ground up against Zot. Red was the first nomadic social networking software in the world, almost four years before Mastodon.

In 2015, ten months before Mastodon was first released, the Red Matrix became Hubzilla, the Fediverse's ultimate Swiss army knife.

I am on Hubzilla myself. This channel of mine is constantly being mirrored between its main instance on https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu and its clone on https://hub.hubzilla.de. Anything that happens on the main instance is backed up on the clone. I can also log into the clone and use that, and whatever happens there is backed up on the main instance.

https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu could go down, temporarily, permanently, doesn't matter; I still have my channel, namely the clone. And I can declare the clone my new main instance.

Well, Mike didn't stop at Hubzilla and its original version of the Zot protocol. He wanted to refine it and advance it, but in ways that wouldn't be possible on daily-driver software.

Zot went through several upgrades: Zot6 in 2018 (backported to Hubzilla in 2020, along with OpenWebAuth magic single sign-on). Zot8 in 2020. Zot11 in 2021 which had become incompatible with Zot6 and therefore was renamed to Nomad. Today's Nomad would be Zot12.

Also, in order to advance and test Zot, Mike created a whole bunch of forks and forks of forks. Osada and Zap for Zot6 in 2018, followed by another short-lived Osada in 2019. A third Osada, Mistpark 2020 (a.k.a. Misty) and Redmatrix 2020 in 2020 for Zot8. Roadhouse for Zot11 Nomad in 2021. All Osadas, Zap, Misty, Redmatrix 2020 and Roadhouse were discontinued on New Year's Eve of 2022.

The most recent software based on Nomad is from October, 2021. It can be found in the streams repository. It is officially and intentionally nameless and brandless, it has next to nodeinfo code that could submit statistics, and it is intentionally released into the public domain. The community named it (streams) after the code repository.

I also have two (streams) channels, one of which is cloned so far.

The newest thing, and that's what the Friendica and Hubzilla veteran @Tim Schlotfeldt ?️‍? referred to, is nomadic identity using nothing but ActivityPub, no longer relying on a special protocol.

This was not Mike Macgirvin's idea. This came from @silverpill, the creator and developer of the microblogging server application Mitra. He wanted to make Mitra nomadic, make it resilient against server shutdown. But he didn't want to port it to Nomad. He wanted to achieve it with nothing but ActivityPub.

So he hit up Mike. The two came to the conclusion: This is actually possible. And they began to work on it. Amongst the results were several FEPs coined by silverpill.

This time, Mike did not create another fork to develop nomadic identity via ActivityPub. He did it all on the nomadic branch of the streams repository while silverpill did his part on a special development branch of Mitra.

In mid-2024, after enough sparring between (streams) instances, between Mitra instances and between (streams) and Mitra, Mike was confident enough that his implementation of support of nomadic identity via ActivityPub was stable enough. He merged the nomadic branch into the dev branch which ended up being merged into the stable release branch in summer.

Now, at this point, (streams) didn't use ActivityPub for nomadic identity. It still used the Nomad protocol for everything first and foremost, including cloning. But it understood nomadic identity via ActivityPub as implemented on experimental Mitra.

However, while it worked under lab conditions, it blew up under real-life conditions. At this point, (streams) had to handle so many different identities that it confused them, and it couldn't federate with anything yet.

In mid-August, while trying to fix the problem, Mike eventually forked the streams repository into Forte. It got a name again, it got a brand identity again, it got its nodeinfo back, it was put under the MIT license again.

But most importantly: Any and all support for Nomad was ripped out, also to get rid of a whole number of IDs, namely those for Nomad-actually-Zot12 and for Hubzilla's Nomad-actually-Zot6. Forte only uses ActivityPub for everything. And so, Forte also had to fully rely on ActivityPub for nomadic identity, cloning and syncing.

For almost seven months, Forte was considered experimental and unstable. For most of the time, the only existing servers were Mike's.

But on March 12th, 2025, Mike Macgirvin released Forte 25.3.12, the first official stable release of Forte. This is what Tim wrote about. Because this actually made it into Fediverse-wide news.

Not because it's nomadic. Nomadic identity has been daily-driven for over a decade now.

But because it uses ActivityPub for nomadic identity. Which means that you can theoretically make any kinds of Fediverse software nomadic now, all without porting it to the Nomad protocol first.

For the future, Mike and silverpill envision a Fediverse in which one can clone between different server applications. A Fediverse in which one can have one and the same identity cloned across multiple servers of Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, Mitra, Forte, Mobilizon, Lemmy, BookWyrm etc., all with the same name, all with the same content and settings (as far as the software allows; you will certainly not be able to clone your PeerTube videos to Mastodon and Lemmy).

Even if you don't intend to clone, it will make moving instances and even moving from one software to another dramatically easier.

If you're concerned about your privacy, let me tell you this:

Hubzilla's privacy, security and permissions system is unparalleled in the Fediverse. Except for that on (streams) and Forte which is another notch better.

I can define who can see my profile (my default, public profile on Hubzilla where each channel can have multiple profiles).
I can define who can see my stream and my posts when looking at my channel.
I can define who can see my connections (Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte don't distinguish between follower and followed; they aren't Twitter clones).
I can define who can look into my file space (individual permission settings per folder and per file notwithstanding).
I can define who can see my webpages on Hubzilla (if I have any).
I can define who can see my wikis on Hubzilla (no shit, I've got wikis on my Hubzilla channel).

On Hubzilla, I can define individually for any of these whether it's

• everyone on the Internet
• everyone with a recognisable Fediverse account
• everyone on Hubzilla (maybe also on (streams); anyone using ActivityPub is definitely excluded here)
• everyone on the same server as myself (AFAIK, only main instances of channels count here, clones don't)
• unapproved (= followers) as well as approved (= mutual) connections
• confirmed connections
• those of my confirmed connections whom I explicitly grant that permission by contact role
• only myself

There's a whole bunch more permissions than these. And they all have seven or eight permission levels (depending on whether the general non-Fediverse public can be given permission).

On (streams) and Forte, I can define whether things are allowed for

• everyone on the Internet (where applicable)
• everyone with a recognisable Fediverse account
• all my approved connections
• only me myself plus those whom I explicitly grant that permission in the connection settings

Yes, connection settings. Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte give you various ways of configuring individual connections, much unlike Mastodon. This includes what any individual connection is allowed to do.

Hubzilla uses so-called "contact roles" for that, presets with a whopping 17 permissions to grant or deny for any one individual connection. That is, what the channel generally allows, a contact role can't forbid.

(streams) and Forte still have 15 permissions per contact, but they lack some features which Hubzilla has permissions for. These permissions can be set individually for each connection, or you can define permission roles that cover all 15 permissions to make things easier.

Okay, how about posting in public vs in private? And when I say "private", I mean "private". It's "private messages" on Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte, not "direct messages".

Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte let you post

• in public
• only to yourself
• only to your connections ((streams) and Forte only; Hubzilla requires a privacy group with all your connections in it for this)
• to all members of one specific privacy group (Hubzilla)/access list ((streams), Forte); that's like being able to only post to those on one specific list on Mastodon
• to everyone to whom one specific non-default profile is assigned (Hubzilla only)
• to a specific group/forum (I'll get back to that later)
• to a custom one-by-one selection of connections of yours

Now, let's assume I have a privacy group with Alice, Bob and Carol in it. I send a new post to only this privacy group. This means:

• Only Alice, Bob and Carol can see the post and the conversation.
• Alice can reply to me, Bob and Carol.
• Bob can reply to me, Alice and Carol.
• Carol can reply to me, Alice and Bob.
• Nobody else can see the post. Not even by searching for it. Not by hashtag either. Not at all.
• Nobody else can see any of the comments.
• Nobody else can comment.

If one of them was on Mastodon, they'd see my post as a DM, by the way, and they could only reply to me. But that's Mastodon's limitation because it understands neither threaded conversations nor permissions.

Or how about reply control? This is something that many Mastodon users have been craving for quite a while now. Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte have them. Right now. And they work. They have since 2012.

Hubzilla optionally lets me disallow comments on either of my posts. Users on Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte won't even be able to comment; they won't have the UI elements to do so. Everyone else is able to comment locally. But that comment will never end up on my channel. It will never officially be added to the conversation. And at least users on Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte will never fetch that comment from my channel as part of the conversation, i.e. never at all.

(streams) and Forte can go even further with all available options. They can disallow comments like Hubzilla. But in addition, they can allow only the members of one particular access list to comment, regardless of who can see the post/the conversation. On top of that, comments can be closed at a pre-defined point in the future. And then you even have a channel-wide setting for how long people can comment on your posts.

Oh, and there's even a setting for who is generally permitted to comment on your posts. And you can additionally allow specific connections of yours to comment on your posts.

Lastly, I've already mentioned groups/forums. Like, you know, Web forums or Facebook groups or subreddits or whatever. Like Guppe Groups on a mountain of coke and with moderation and permission control and optionally private.

Hubzilla has them, and it has inherited them from Friendica. (streams) has them. Forte has them. They're basically channels like social networking channels, but with some extra features. This includes that everything that's send to a group/forum as what amounts to a PM is automatically forwarded to all other members.

On Hubzilla, a forum can be gradually made private by denying permission to see certain elements to everyone but its own members (= connections): the profile, the members, what's going on in it. Depending on what you want or do not want people to see.

On (streams) and Forte, you have four types of forums:

• public, and members can upload images and other files to the forum channel
• public, but members cannot upload images and other files to the forum channel
• like above, but additionally, posts and comments from new members must be manually approved by the admin(s) until their connections are configured to make them full members
• private, non-members can't see the profile, non-members can't see the connections, non-members can't see what's going on in it, but members can upload images and other files to the forum channel

In addition, on all three, a group/forum channel can choose to hide itself from directories. This is always an extra option that's independent from public/private.

What we have here is the most secure and most private Fediverse software of all.

And, once again, at its core, this is technology from 2012. It pre-dates Mastodon by almost four years.

Finally, if you want to know how Hubzilla and (streams) compare to Mastodon: I have made a number of tables that compare Mastodon, Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams).

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Mitra #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #ActivityPub #Zot #Zot6 #Zot8 #Nomad #NomadicIdentity #Security #FediverseSecurity #Privacy #FediversePrivacy #Permissions

@Hiker @[Friedi Rūpintojė♡] @Christiane Brauch :calckey: @crossgolf_rebel - kostenlose Kwalitätsposts Und vor allem dann auch noch diese "Weisheit" mit Zähnen und Klauen zu verteidigen.

Die allermeisten Nutzer im Fediverse kennen in der Praxis nur Mastodon. Sie kennen das ganze Fediverse nur aus Mastodon-Sicht und durch die Mastodon-Brille. Für sie sind Sachen völlig normal und legitim wie,

• "Mastodon" zu sagen, wenn man das ganze Netzwerk meint
• "Fediverse" zu sagen, wenn man nur die Serveranwendung Mastodon bzw. deren Instanzen meint
• Leuten außerhalb des Fediverse nur von Mastodon zu erzählen und entweder das Fediverse zu verschweigen oder direktweg wortwörtlich zu behaupten, das Fediverse bestünde nur aus Mastodon
• zusätzliche Onlinedienste nur und ausschließlich auf Mastodon auszulegen und zum gesamten restlichen Fediverse inkompatibel zu machen, dann aber womöglich trotzdem "Fediverse" oder "Fedi" in den Namen einzubauen
• zusätzliche Onlinedienste zwar generell fürs ganze Fediverse oder große Teile davon brauchbar zu machen, aber nur "Mastodon" oder "Masto" in den Namen einzubauen
• zusätzliche Onlinedienste fürs Fediverse von vornherein nur für Mastodon zu bauen, auch wenn sie allen nutzen könnten
• Mastodon als alleinigen Goldstandard im Fediverse und Maßstab für alle anderen Fediverse-Serveranwendungen darzustellen
• sogar Unterschiede, die andere Fediverse-Serveranwendungen zu Mastodon haben, als Bugs oder Designfehler zu erachten, die abgestellt gehören (außer die jeweilige Serveranwendung hat in der Verwendung null Überschneidung mit Mastodon, und dann sehen sie sie als Zusatz an, der nachträglich an Mastodon drangeklebt wurde, z. B. PeerTube, Pixelfed, Funkwhale, Castopod)

Was dagegen im Fediverse aus ihrer Sicht absolut nicht okay ist und bekämpft gehört:

• darauf hinzuweisen, daß das Fediverse mehr ist als nur Mastodon
• darauf hinzuweisen, daß man selbst nicht auf Mastodon ist
• gegenüber Mastodon-Nutzern Fediverse-Serveranwendungen auch nur zu erwähnen, die nicht als Erweiterung zu Mastodon angesehen werden (siehe oben)
• auf Leute zu antworten, die einen nicht erwähnt haben und denen man auch nicht folgt
• mehr als vier Hashtags, egal, wie man die rechtfertigt
• Textformatierung in irgendeiner Form, weil Textformatierung in Mikroblogging nichts zu suchen hat und Mastodon-Nutzer selbst ihre Tröts nicht formatieren können
• nicht an jeden Post oder Kommentar genau die CWs dranzubauen, die irgendein individueller Mastodon-Nutzer braucht
• das CW-Feld (auch) für etwas anderes als CWs zu nutzen, weil Mastodon das CW-Feld ja erfunden hat, und zwar als solches
• mehr als 500 Zeichen in einem Post
• überhaupt irgendwelche Features zu nutzen, die Mastodon nicht hat (oder von denen sie nicht wissen, daß Mastodon sie auch hat), deren Nutzung Mastodon-Nutzer aber mitbekommen
• generell irgendwas zu machen, was in der Mitte 2022 neu definierten Mastodon-Kultur so nicht vorkommt und so nicht vorgesehen ist

Wer im Fediverse nicht auf Mastodon ist, wird nicht unerheblich diskriminiert. Derweil behaupten sehr viele auf Mastodon, daß niemand im Fediverse dafür diskriminiert ist, welche Serveranwendung man nutzt, und zwar, während sie selbst weiterhin unbewußt oder gar absichtlich Nicht-Mastodon-Nutzer weiter diskriminieren.

Das kommt übrigens tatsächlich daher, daß diese Leute selbst am Anfang "wußten", daß das Fediverse nur Mastodon ist. Folglich haben sie sich an ein in sich geschlossenes reines Mastodon-Netzwerk gewöhnt und monate- oder gar jahrelang gefühlt in einem in sich geschlossenen reinen Mastodon-Netzwerk gelebt. Und das war schön.

Dann aber haben sie auf die harte Tour erfahren, daß das Fediverse eben nicht nur Mastodon ist. Im allgemeinen sind sie irgendwann auf einen Post oder Kommentar gestoßen, der sich auf verstörende Art und Weise von dem unterschied, was sie von Mastodon gewohnt waren. Der hatte mehrere tausend Zeichen. Oder Fett- oder Kursivschrift, und es war keine Unicode-Trickserei. Oder die Erwähnungen sahen "irgendwie komisch" aus, also verstörend komisch.

Wie auch immer: Dieser Post oder dieser Kommentar war so dermaßen kein Mastodon-Tröt, daß sie vor Schreck Ziegelsteine gekackt haben. Sie waren so gestört und verstört, daß sie das auf gar keinen Fall tolerieren konnten und nie angefangen haben, es zu tolerieren. Sie wollen, daß das Fediverse wieder nur Mastodon ist. Was es übrigens nie war. Oder zumindest, daß sich alles andere komplett an Mastodon anpaßt und wie Mastodon wird (oder wahlweise gefediblockt wird) und sich das ganze Fediverse zumindest wie nur Mastodon anfühlt.

Und dann heißt es, daß "Haltet einfach eure Schnauzen und macht alles ganz genau so, als wärt ihr selbst auf Mastodon" nicht diskriminierend sei. Als Mastodon-Nutzer darf man sowas äußern und muß es sogar.

Als Nicht-Mastodon-Nutzer läuft man im Fediverse dagegen, sobald Leute auf Mastodon von einem etwas mitbekommen, auf Eierschalen oder gar durch ein Minenfeld, weil es dann doch wieder irgendwelche ungeschriebenen mastodonzentrischen Regeln gibt, die auf Mastodon "jeder" kennt und beherzigt, von denen aber außerhalb von Mastodon nie jemand gehört hat.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #LangerPost #CWLangerPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #NichtNurMastodon #MastodonKultur #MastodonZentrizität #MastodonNormativität

@David Mitchell :CApride:

Mostly, just imagine you’re telling your friend over the phone about image you’re looking at and what they would need to know.

Let's just say I'm a bit critical about that because, in my opinion, it doesn't work in the Fediverse.

Jupiter Rowland schrieb den folgenden Beitrag Fri, 04 Oct 2024 23:30:02 +0200

You can't describe images in Fediverse posts like over the phone

Allegedly, a "good" advice for image descriptions is always to describe images like you'd describe them to someone on a landline phone.

Sorry, but that's non-sense. At least for anything that goes significantly beyond a real-life cat photo.

If you describe an image through a phone, you describe it to one person. Usually a person whom you know, so you've at least got a rough idea on what they need described. Even more importantly, you can ask that person what they want to know about the image if you don't know. And you get a reply.

If you describe an image for a public Fediverse post, you describe it to millions of Fediverse users and billions of Web users. You can't know what they all want, nor can you generalise what they all want. And you can't even ask one of them what they need described before or while describing, much less all of them. In fact, you can't ask at all. And yet, you have to cater to everyone's needs the same and throw no-one under a bus.

If I see a realistic chance that someone might be interested in some detail in one of my images, I will describe it. It won't be in the shorter description in the alt-text; instead, it will be in the long description which I've always put directly into the post so far, but whose placement I'm currently reconsidering. If something is unfamiliar enough to enough people that it requires an explanation, I will explain it in the long description.

Right now, only meme posts are an exception. They don't need as much of a visual description as long as I stick to the template, and a poll has revealed that people do prefer externally linked third-party explanations over my own ones blowing the character count of the post out of proportion. This is the one time that I can safely assume that I actually know what most people want.

@accessibility group @a11y group

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #Inclusion #A11y #Accessibility

CC: @Monstreline @Claire (sometimes Carla) @qurly(not curly)joe

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #QuotePost #QuoteTweet #QuoteToot #QuoteBoost

@Mitex Leo Short answer: no.

To my best knowledge, Hubzilla cannot import anything from Mastodon. No posts, no followed, especially no followers.

(streams) can import CSV-formatted follow lists; I don't know if Mastodon can export them, or if Mastodon has its own proprietary follow list format. But (streams) cannot make your followers on Mastodon your followers on (streams) because it cannot make people follow you. Also, (streams) cannot import posts from Mastodon.

Mass-importing 5,000+ connections from Mastodon to Hubzilla or (streams) would be a stupid idea anyway. You'd have to go through all of them and configure them. Yes, whereas Mastodon only has "I follow you" and "I don't follow you", Hubzilla and (streams) have extensive configuration options for connection. And you will need them.

You'd have to edit 5,000+ connections, one by one, and

• assign them the appropriate contact role (Hubzilla)/permission role ((streams)) so that they have the right permissions (on Hubzilla and (streams), everything is permissions, and permissions are everything)
• add them to one or multiple privacy groups (Hubzilla)/access lists ((streams)) (think Mastodon lists, but on lots of coke and 'roids; optional on Hubzilla, but highly recommended)
• maybe also adjust the (optional) affinity (Hubzilla)/friend zoom ((streams)) slider
• maybe even add lines to the (optional, but recommended) per-contact filter lists (you'll need to do this on Hubzilla to keep contacts from spamming you with boosts)

Neither Hubzilla nor (streams) is something that you can join and use away on 100% bone-stock default settings just like that.

And truth be told: If you give 5,000+ Fediverse actors full permissions to send you all their stuff, your unread activities counter (this exists, yes) will be up to "99+" every few minutes. I myself don't even have 100 active connections that are allowed to send me anything. On some of them, I filter boosts out. And yet, I get well over 100 unread activities per day that I have to catch up with.

In fact, Hubzilla and (streams) will suck even more content onto your stream than Mastodon. That's because they support threaded conversations. They don't show you single posts. They show you whole threads, including comments by people whom you don't follow and who didn't mention you.

I don't know if you follow Eugen Rochko. But if you do, imagine he posts something. 200 people reply. On Mastodon, you get Rochko's post. On Hubzilla and (streams), you get Rochko's post and 200 replies flooding onto your stream by and by.

Seriously, if you really want to move to Hubzilla (or (streams)), start over from scratch. And go slowly instead of following shit-tons of people right off the bat to have your stream abuzz like on Twitter or Facebook.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Mastodon #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams)

@vhs Karlsruhe Die Hashtags müssen sein. Zum Teil sind sie zum Filtern bzw. zum automatischen Generieren leserseitiger CWs, was auf Mastodon seit Oktober 2022 und hier auf Hubzilla (offizielle Website) seit 2012 möglich ist.

• #Long
  #LongPost: für diejenigen Mastodon-Nutzer, die sich an Posts mit über 500 Zeichen stören. Wenn sie dieses Hashtag filtern, sehen sie meine überlangen Posts und Kommentare (über 500 Zeichen) nicht mehr.
• #CWLong
  #CWLongPost: dasselbe, aber von vornherein als Content Warning ersichtlich gemacht. Entspricht: "CW: long post (almost 4,000 characters)".
• #LangerPost: wie #LongPost, aber für deutsche Nutzer, die des Englischen nicht möglich sind, damit sie verstehen, was die Hashtags sollen.
• #CWLangerPost: wie #CWLongPost, aber für deutsche Nutzer, die des Englischen nicht möglich sind, damit sie verstehen, was die Hashtags sollen. Gleichbedeutend mit "CW: langer Post (fast 4.000 Zeichen)".
• #FediMeta
  #FediverseMeta: für Leute, die sich daran stören, wenn jemand über das Fediverse postet. Wenn sie eines oder beide dieser Hashtags filtern, sehen sie meine Fediverse-Posts und -Kommentare nicht mehr.
• #CWFediMeta
  #CWFediverseMeta: dasselbe, aber von vornherein als Content Warning ersichtlich gemacht. Entspricht: "CW: Fediverse meta".

Die volle Content Warning im Mastodon-Stil für diesen Kommentar würde lauten: "CW: langer Post (fast 4.000 Zeichen), Fediverse-Meta, Fediverse-über-Mastodon-hinaus-Meta".

Ich würde so eine Content Warning auch über diesen Kommentar setzen. Das ist hier aber technisch nicht möglich.

Zum einen: Das CW-Feld ist nicht für Mastodon ganz neu erfunden worden. Statt dessen hat Mastodon 2017 das Zusammenfassungsfeld, das StatusNet schon 2008 eingeführt hat, als CW-Feld zweckentfremdet. Denn für maximal 500 Zeichen braucht man keine Zusammenfassungen.

Hier auf Hubzilla ist es aber immer noch ein Zusammenfassungsfeld. Hubzilla ist 2012 entstanden, und zwar als Fork von Friendica von 2010 von Friendicas eigenem Erfinder. Auch auf Friendica ist es ein Zusammenfassungsfeld. Das war alles noch lange vor Mastodon.

Warum Hubzilla sich Mastodon nicht angepaßt und das Zusammenfassungsfeld in ein CW-Feld umgewandelt hat? Erstens, weil Hubzilla nicht jeden Mist von Mastodon mitmacht.

Zweitens, weil Hubzilla kein Zeichenlimit hat. Oder wenn doch, dürfte es in den Millionen liegen. Da ergibt ein Zusammenfassungsfeld Sinn.

Drittens, weil Inhaltswarnungen auf Hubzilla vollautomatisch leserseitig für jeden Leser individuell generiert werden. Jeder Hubzilla-Veteran wird dir Stein und Bein schwören, daß das tausendmal besser ist als Mastodons posterseitige CWs, die jedem gleichermaßen aufgezwungen werden.

So, und warum kann ich hier keine Mastodon-CW einsetzen?

Hier kommt der nächste große Unterschied zwischen Mastodon und Hubzilla: Im Gegensatz zu Mastodon hat Hubzilla in sich geschlossene Konversationen. Genau wie ein Blog, genau wie Facebook, genau wie Tumblr usw. Noch einmal: Hubzilla ist ein Fork von Friendica, das 2010 als Facebook-Alternative an den Start ging, die auch als Blogging-Engine taugen sollte.

Aus Hubzilla-Sicht hat ein Thread genau einen Post, den Startpost. Antworten sind hier auf Hubzilla keine Posts. Es sind Kommentare. Wie Facebook-Kommentare. Wie Blog-Kommentare.

Mastodon hat auch eine Eingabemaske für alles. Hubzilla hat eine für Posts und Privatnachrichten. Und eine separate für Kommentare für jeden separaten Thread. Und die Eingabemasken für Kommentare sind speziell auf das ausgelegt, was Kommentare brauchen. Genau wie auf Facebook. Genau wie auf Blogs.

Und welchen Sinn würde ein Zusammenfassungsfeld für Kommentare ergeben? Wo gibt es das? Hat Facebook das? Welches Blog hat das?

Und genau deshalb gibt's das auch auf Hubzilla nicht.

Last but not least: Wenn es anders ist als Mastodon, ist es weder kaputt noch falsch. Mastodon ist nicht der Standard, an den sich alles zu halten hat.

#Fediverse #Mastodon #Hubzilla

@Alison Wilder Because if you want full-blown user rights and all the same features as a local user on all over 30,000 Fediverse instances, you need a local user account on each one of them.

This means two things:

• If you come over to the Fediverse for the first time, and you register your first account on Mastodon, you automatically also register an account on 30,000+ more instances.
• If you decide to host your own instance of whatever, and you spin it up for the first time, your instance immediately creates tens of millions of user accounts. One for everyone who has ever joined the Fediverse. Because anyone may decide to come over to your instance and use it, just like so.

For one, this is utter overkill.

Besides, this is technologically impossible. This would require all Fediverse instances to know all other Fediverse instances. With no exceptions. Like, if I start up my own (streams) instance for the first time, and half a second later, someone on the other side of the globe starts up a Gancio instance, they would immediately have to know each other. And all the other instances in the Fediverse.

And, of course, it would require a newly-launched instance to know all Fediverse users. Again, with no exception.

How and from which source are they supposed to know?

That said, there is a single sign-on system for the Fediverse. It's called OpenWebAuth. It was created by @Mike Macgirvin (creator of Friendica and all its descendants) in the late 2010s already for now-defunct Zap, a fork (of a fork?) of Hubzilla which, in turn, is a fork of the currently hyped Facebook alternative Friendica. It was backported to Hubzilla in 2020. Everything that came after Zap, including the still existing streams repository, got it, too.

However, first of all, OpenWebAuth is only fully implemented on Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte. Plus, it has client-side support on Friendica. This means that Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte recognise logins on all four, but Friendica doesn't recognise logins from anywhere.

As for Mastodon, OpenWebAuth implementation was actually developed to the point of an official merge request in Mastodon's GitHub repository. As far as I know, it was rejected. Mastodon won't implement OpenWebAuth, full stop.

Besides, it doesn't give you all the same power as a local user. You can't log into Friendica, go to a Hubzilla hub and create a wiki or a webpage or a CalDAV calendar, just like so.

OpenWebAuth is only for guest permissions. Because on Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte, permissions are everything.

For example, let's assume you have an account and a channel on (streams). Let's also assume that your (streams) channel and this Hubzilla channel of mine here are connected. Furthermore, let's assume that I've decided to only allow my own full connections to see my profile.

If you're logged out, and you go to my profile page, you see nothing.

But then you log in. And you come back to my profile page (provided your browser is configured so that the Hubzilla hub that I call home is allowed to create cookies). My home hub recognises your login on (streams). It identifies you as you, as one of my contacts. Thus, it identifies you as someone who is permitted to see my profile.

And all of a sudden, you see my profile.

That, for example, is what OpenWebAuth is for.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Friendica #Hubzilla #Zap #Streams #(streams) #Forte #SingleSignOn #OpenWebAuth