Wow #Fediverse, thanks for the help! I am genuinely surprised at how close the results were. It looks like the recommendation is to try out the #Threadiverse (#Kbin and / or #Lemmy) first - but only by 1.8% over #Peertube! Y'all must know that I've been getting frustrated with #Reddit lately. I also appreciate the recommendations for other things to explore.
Now the question is Kbin or Lemmy? Or both? (any thoughts?)
@seanbala The #kbin dev has finally returned and started updating again, so I'd give that one a shot. It combines micro-blogging with link aggregation. Best of both worlds!
I've been thinking a bit about this post regarding #Mastodon's responsibility to be compatible with the #threadiverse (#ActivityPub thread aggregators like #Lemmy & #Kbin). Right now, a thread from Lemmy or Kbin usually federates to Mastodon with truncated text and a link to the actual thread. However, many want Mastodon to be more compatible with threads so that the people over on Mastodon interact with the threadiverse more.
I was initially in agreement as a Kbin user. But having given it some thought, I think this is an unwise approach that'll only serve to overcomplicate platforms on the #fediverse. Yes, people on Mastodon should promote other parts of the fediverse (and vice versa), but complete interoperability shouldn't be expected of every platform.
As much as many would like it, you can't have long-form video from PeerTube, images from Pixelfed, threads from Kbin, blogs from Writefreely, etc. all neatly fit in a microblog feed. These are different formats made for different platforms, and the people making them are expecting them to be interacted with in completely different ways. When someone makes a thread in a Lemmy community, they're probably expecting that the people who are going to see and interact with the thread are people that want to see threads and are thus on a Lemmy instance (or another thread aggregator). If someone from Mastodon were to interact with it as if it were a microblog post, there'd be a big mismatch. People interact with microblogs differently than they do with threads — that's why they're separate to begin with. You don't see everyone on Twitter also wanting to use to Reddit because people who want microblogs don't necessarily want Reddit-style threads, and vice versa.
The other option, then, is to separate these different formats into different feeds or otherwise make them clearly distinct from one another. Kbin does this by separating threads and microblog posts into two tabs. While you can view both in the "All Content" tab if you'd like, they're styled differently enough that it's very clear when you're looking at a thread and when you're looking at a microblog post. This distinction lets users treat threads like threads and microblog posts like microblog posts, which is really helpful since the two formats serve different purposes and have different audiences. This option — clear distinction — is a great way to solve the conundrum I've been talking about… if your platform is meant for viewing all these different kinds of content to begin with.
And that's what it really comes down to imo. Mastodon is a platform for microblogging. Most people go to Mastodon because they want a Twitter alternative, not a Twitter alternative that's also an Instagram alternative and a Reddit alternative and a YouTube alternative. Even if you put these different content types in separate tabs, it would inevitably make things seem more confusing and thus raise the barrier of entry. Add a Videos tab to Mastodon to view stuff on PeerTube, and people are inevitably going to go, "Wait, what's this? Is this like YouTube? I thought this was just a Twitter alternative! This all seems too complicated," even if you tell them to ignore it.
It's probably best to leave Mastodon as it is: a microblogging platform that has some limited federation with other formats. The way Kbin threads currently display on Mastodon is fine. In fact, when I post a Kbin thread, I'm expecting it to be viewed via a thread aggregator. If people on Mastodon were part of the target audience, I would've made a microblog post.
Now, if you want to make something that lets you view everything on the fediverse via different tabs, feel free. As aforementioned, Kbin supports both threads and microblogs, though it comes with some challenges (e.g., trying to fit magazine-less microblog posts into Kbin's magazine system). However, this doesn't mean every platform on the fediverse needs to seamlessly incorporate everything else. I'd love people on Mastodon to promote and even try out Lemmy & Kbin more, but that doesn't mean Mastodon needs to also become a thread aggregator.
Mastodon has the responsibility to promote diversity in the Fediverse
I love the Threadiverse. Compared to the microblogging Fediverse’s sea of random thoughts, Lemmy and kbin are so much easier to navigate with the options to sort posts by subscribed, from local instances or everything federated. You can also sort by individual community, and then there are the countless ways to order the posts and comments (which are stored neatly under the main post, by the way). That people can more easily find the right discussions and see where they can contribute also means that the discussions tend to be more focused and productive than elsewhere. Decentralisation also makes a lot of sense, since it is built around different communities. All that’s needed is users.
Things were going quite well for a while when Reddit killed third-party apps, prompting many to leave and find the Threadiverse. However, it is quite difficult to entertain a crowd that has grown accustomed to a constant bombardment of dopamine-inducing or interesting content by tens of millions of users, if you only have a couple hundred thousand people. This is causing some to leave, which of course increases this effect. The active users have more than halved since July, according to FediDB. The mood is also becoming more tense. Maybe the lack of engagement drives some to cause it through hostility, I’m not quite sure. Either way, the Threadiverse becoming a less enjoyable place to be, which is quite sad considering how promising it is.
But what is really frustrating is that we could easily have that userbase. The entire Fediverse has over ten million users, and many Mastodonians clearly want to engage in group-based discussion, looking at Guppe groups. The focused discussions should also be quite attractive. Technically we are federated, so why do Mastodonians interact so little with the Threadiverse? The main reason is that Mastodon simply doesn’t federate post content. I really can’t see why the platform that federates entire Wordpress blogs refuses to federate thread content just because it has a title, and instead just replaces the body with a link to the post. Very unhelpful.
The same goes with PeerTube. There are plenty of videos on there that I am quite sure a lot of Mastodonians would appreciate, yet both views and likes there stay consistently in the tens. Yes, Mastodon’s web interface has a local video player, but in most clients it is the same link shenanigans, may may partly explain the small amount of engagement. This is also quite sad, because Google’s YouTube is one of the worst social network monopolies out there, if not the worst.
And I know some might say that Mastodon is a microblogging platform and that it makes sense only to have microblogging content, but the problem is that Mastodon is the dominant platform on the Fediverse, its users making up close to 80% of all Fedizens. It has gone so far that several Friendica and Hubzilla users have been complaining about complaints from Mastodonians that their posts do not live up to Mastodon customs, and of course, that people frequently use “Mastodon” to refer to the entire Fediverse. This, of course, goes entirely against the idea of the Fediverse, that many diverse platforms live in harmony with and awareness of each other.
The very least that Mastodon could do is to support the content of other platforms. Then I’d wish that they’d improve discoverability, by for instance adding a videos tab in the explore section, improving federation of favourites since it is the dominant sorting mechanism on many other platforms, and making a clear distinction between people (@person) and groups (!group), but I know that that is quite much to ask.
P.S. @feditips , @FediFollows , I know that you are reluctant to promote Lemmy and its communities because of the ideology of its founders, but the fact is firstly that it’s open source and there aren't any individual people who control the entire project, and that the software itself is very apolitical. In fact, most Lemmy users both oppose and are on instances that have rules against such beliefs, so I highly encourage you to at least help raise awareness on the communities. Then, of course, there’s kbin, which isn’t associated with any extremism at all. As a bonus, it has much better integration with the microblogging Fediverse, but it is a lot smaller and younger, and still very much under development.
Anyways, that was a ramble. Thanks for hearing me out.
Mastodon has the responsibility to promote diversity in the Fediverse
I love the Threadiverse. Compared to the microblogging Fediverse’s sea of random thoughts, Lemmy and kbin are so much easier to navigate with the options to sort posts by subscribed, from local instances or everything federated. You can also sort by individual community, and then there are the countless ways to order the posts and comments (which are stored neatly under the main post, by the way). That people can more easily find the right discussions and see where they can contribute also means that the discussions tend to be more focused and productive than elsewhere. Decentralisation also makes a lot of sense, since it is built around different communities. All that’s needed is users.
Things were going quite well for a while when Reddit killed third-party apps, prompting many to leave and find the Threadiverse. However, it is quite difficult to entertain a crowd that has grown accustomed to a constant bombardment of dopamine-inducing or interesting content by tens of millions of users, if you only have a couple hundred thousand people. This is causing some to leave, which of course increases this effect. The active users have more than halved since July, according to FediDB. The mood is also becoming more tense. Maybe the lack of engagement drives some to cause it through hostility, I’m not quite sure. Either way, the Threadiverse becoming a less enjoyable place to be, which is quite sad considering how promising it is.
But what is really frustrating is that we could easily have that userbase. The entire Fediverse has over ten million users, and many Mastodonians clearly want to engage in group-based discussion, looking at Guppe groups. The focused discussions should also be quite attractive. Technically we are federated, so why do Mastodonians interact so little with the Threadiverse? The main reason is that Mastodon simply doesn’t federate post content. I really can’t see why the platform that federates entire Wordpress blogs refuses to federate thread content just because it has a title, and instead just replaces the body with a link to the post. Very unhelpful.
The same goes with PeerTube. There are plenty of videos on there that I am quite sure a lot of Mastodonians would appreciate, yet both views and likes there stay consistently in the tens. Yes, Mastodon’s web interface has a local video player, but in most clients it is the same link shenanigans, may may partly explain the small amount of engagement. This is also quite sad, because Google’s YouTube is one of the worst social network monopolies out there, if not the worst.
And I know some might say that Mastodon is a microblogging platform and that it makes sense only to have microblogging content, but the problem is that Mastodon is the dominant platform on the Fediverse, its users making up close to 80% of all Fedizens. It has gone so far that several Friendica and Hubzilla users have been complaining about complaints from Mastodonians that their posts do not live up to Mastodon customs, and of course, that people frequently use “Mastodon” to refer to the entire Fediverse. This, of course, goes entirely against the idea of the Fediverse, that many diverse platforms live in harmony with and awareness of each other.
The very least that Mastodon could do is to support the content of other platforms. Then I’d wish that they’d improve discoverability, by for instance adding a videos tab in the explore section, improving federation of favourites since it is the dominant sorting mechanism on many other platforms, and making a clear distinction between people (@person) and groups (!group), but I know that that is quite much to ask.
P.S. @feditips , @FediFollows , I know that you are reluctant to promote Lemmy and its communities because of the ideology of its founders, but the fact is firstly that it’s open source and there aren't any individual people who control the entire project, and that the software itself is very apolitical. In fact, most Lemmy users both oppose and are on instances that have rules against such beliefs, so I highly encourage you to at least help raise awareness on the communities. Then, of course, there’s kbin, which isn’t associated with any extremism at all. As a bonus, it has much better integration with the microblogging Fediverse, but it is a lot smaller and younger, and still very much under development.
Anyways, that was a ramble. Thanks for hearing me out.
Another update to my #kbin userstyle idkbin (now at 1.2.6.1)! The "new comment" marker recently added by Ernest is now stylized by idkbin (mainly to work with rounded edges), and a bug with borders has been fixed. #kbinmeta#kbinstyles
@ernest
Is there currently a way to see threads boosted by followed users as a #kbin user? If not, is that something you're planning to add eventually?
Made a small update to my userstyle idkbin following the recent #kbin update. Colors the user follow & block buttons + some other fixes. #kbinmeta#kbinstyles#kbinMeta
When I first joined Kbin I posted threads due to being a reddit refugee but have started posting microblogs as time went on. I have also noticed some magazines have more threads while others have more microblog posts. For example kbinmeta has more threads while the most active magazine I moderate has mostly microblogs.
Yeah, #search#functionality and #syntax on #kbin has room to grow, I completely agree. While I've tried getting familiar with it in the past, I am by no means an authority on the subject. In fact, this back-and-forth was already helpful for teaching me a bit more. If you feel strongly about this, I might suggest bringing it up here, so that Ernest can look into it when he has time. However, if you'd rather not, then I may find some time to try putting something together later.
Hey, #Fediverse experts. Is there is simple way to Boost a Kbin/Lemmy post I like onto my #Mastodon?
I know I can look up the #KBin / #Lemmy poster on my Mastodon instance and boost from their timeline.
But, that's a bit difficult, I have to translate the KBin/Lemmy user URL into a remote Mastodon user URL, and then I have to manually match up the KBin post URL with the contents of a toot in the timeline.
What's the status of federation between Lemmy/KBin and Misskey/Sharkey/Firefish/Iceshrimp? I just tried loading several Lemmy and Kbin posts in Sharkey and it doesn't work. I remember having the same issue with Firefish, and I vaguely recall hearing awhile back it was something related to authorized fetch. Have their been any recent developments on that front? #FediQuestions#FediverseQuestions#Threadiverse#Lemmy#KBin#Misskey#Sharkey#Firefish#Iceshrimp
My #kbin account seems broken? :\ For the last month+ I can't get any thread I create to show up in its magazine, even when the magazine is a local one. Comments are fine, microblog posts are fine, threads show up in my profile but never the magazine.
Admittedly I don't try very often, but that makes it all the more disheartening when I feel like "yay, I finally have something worth sharing" and, well, no apparently I don't.
I've been struggling with #kbin/#mastodon#federation for awhile now, it's been disheartening. I've been trying to be more active about following various users and domains in hopes that more content will #federate to the #magazines I moderate. However, it hasn't really proven to be helpful. In some cases, I can't even find particular instances that users post from via kbin. I can find the instance by going to the page itself, but I suppose it may just take more time than I thought? In some cases, trying to follow a user takes me to an error page, and repeated attempts prove unsuccessful. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but it's rather confusing when I can see posts from a given instance, yet can't search for the instance itself to federate more content. I've tried asking about it, and no one seems to know or be able to help. Searching the fediverse for information is also difficult due to the noise I have to sift through.
With that said, I know there's other stuff to consider: Ernest is planning a big update for kbin, some instances have restricted federation with kbin due to moderation not properly federating to other communities, and kbin being a younger platform than #lemmy/mastodon. I'll try to be patient, there's just some features that I really hope mature soon as there are features I'd like to use, but can't yet. Also, before this gets misconstrued again like it has in the past, I am still enjoying my time on kbin and support Ernest's efforts in regard to this platform. I wouldn't still be posting here if I weren't enjoying my time here.
I've submitted the second to last #kbin#API PR for review! This PR adds thread and thread comment retrieval, creation, deletion, editing, voting, reporting, and moderation functionality to the API! The last PR will be very similar to this one, except for microblogs!
Didn't you have the API 'complete' like 2 months ago?
Yes, but it did not have any tests written to verify that it worked. These PRs have been resolving that issue so that there can be at least some guarantees that the API works when it gets onto kbin.social and others
(Also, please remember to buy @ernest a coffee if you are able, he's been burning the candle at both ends to support kbin.social and deal with personal business)
What are your thoughts on Microblogs vs threads? (kbin.social)
When I first joined Kbin I posted threads due to being a reddit refugee but have started posting microblogs as time went on. I have also noticed some magazines have more threads while others have more microblog posts. For example kbinmeta has more threads while the most active magazine I moderate has mostly microblogs.
So, what's the status on the update? (edit: ernest responded) (kbin.social)
I don't want to hurry anyone, just asking what's up, if there's been any trouble or anything....
Just Curious: How long does it take for a kbin post to reach mastodon? (kbin.social)
Or a thread to lemmy. Basically, how long does "federation" take?...