If you want to receive these updates during the week directly into your fediverse feed, you can follow me at @LaurensHof. The WordPress blog has been connected to the fediverse for a while now, but I'm starting to make more active use of it.
All of these shorter articles will also be boosted from this account to make things even easier, so they'll just show up in your microblogging client of choice.
Do you need help with using Mastodon and the Fediverse? Especially if you're a beginner or unsure about techy things?
You can ask by messaging me or replying to this thread, and I'll try to help or find someone else who can help. Don't worry if a question seems silly or basic!
You can also look things up on the guide at https://fedi.tips, which has an "essentials" section at the top and a complete list of answered questions below that.
I'm thinking I might stop using the term #fediverse#fedi or #activitypub when I want to talk about this community of federated social media services.
It's confusing and to be honest sounds way too much like a corporate brand trying to sell something.
I'm thinking I might start using something like "open internet" in general and "open social media" in particular to make the point that fedi isn't some specific thing; it's the default social media for the open internet.
I admit that it might be a bit of a "lies to children" (Pratchett et al), but it might be the first steps to carefully lead people away and towards a place where that brighter and wider future is visible.
I am using another term #Peopleverse, but not with intent for that to be a real name. More a vision for an online landscape that seamlessly aligns with our offline world and is in support of our daily lives.
Since video hosting requires so many more resources than image hosting, I have these questions about #PeerTube :
What are the hosting costs of PeerTube instances?
How do these instances deal with financing themselves?
As I understand it, if a Fediverse user views content from a different instance, then this content will be downloaded to their own instance. Is this understanding correct?
If so, is this also true for PeerTube videos - which means that, say, a Mastodon user following a PeerTube account will cause a lot of additional load (and thus hosting costs) for their home instance?
I haven't followed the #TheBadSpace discussion in all details... but isn't the whole point of the #Fediverse that people can curate their own experiences rather than having their own timeline be determined by corporate algorithms?
And obviously, different users with different backgrounds have different perspectives and needs. Obviously, #BIPOC people - who represent a much smaller percentage of users of Mastodon than it is the case with, say, Twitter - have different perspective on what they need for curating block lists.
Thus, I think the concept behind TheBadSpace is sound. And if it doesn't work out in practice, then I hope that other BIPOC Mastodon users come up with their own systems.
But "one size fits all" lists for defederation are not and will never be sufficient. We desperately need different perspectives if we are to grow, and hopefully supplant corporate social media.
And supplanting corporate social media should be the goal, since they are all riling people up against each other for the sake of "engagement". We are already seeing where this leads.
I just noticed I missed this pretty massive tidbit of information from @joinpeertube regarding the roadmap for #PeerTube
"…Official PeerTube mobile application (end of 2024)"
:amaze:
This has been a long-requested development from the PeerTube community, and something I hear from our #tilvids community all the time. What an exciting development from an amazing organization! 🙌
Do I know anyone here who is willing to share their experience deploying an institutional Mastodon server? A contact of mine is looking for someone to discuss the experience as he works on getting a government agency to deploy their own instance. Boosts appreciated #fediverse#mastodon
I'm curious… what's the definition of "active users" versus "total users" regarding #Fediverse instances? How are those calculated?
The Pixelfed instance I'm on reports well over 100k users, but only 5.4k active users. I don't see how there are that many inactive users. What's up? 🤔
The other (not this one) Mastodon instance I'm on has more active users but far fewer total.
The alpha version of @gotosocial now has support for allowlists.
Allowlists automatically prevent federation with all other servers, except those that the admin has added to their allowlist. (Traditional blocklists work the other way round, allowing all federation unless a server is blocked.)
Allowlists bring more safety but also reduce reach, and that's why it's up to each admin to decide whether to use them.
p.s. For non-techy people wondering what GoToSocial is, it's another kind of Fediverse server.
It's compatible with Mastodon, so GoToSocial and Mastodon users can follow each other, but GoToSocial is made by totally different developers and uses totally different software.
The emphasis on GoToSocial is being "lightweight", so servers use fewer resources. They're also trying to emphasise user safety,
GoToSocial is still in development, but should be going to beta testing next year. 🤞
Our CEO, @mike just launched a new podcast series titled "Dot Social" to explore the evolution of the internet and how new open standards, like #ActivityPub, can forever change the web and the world of social media.
