Just passing through.
I meant that this “critical analysis” didn’t seem to offer any substantial critiques of ActivityPub or its use, but merely a bunch of critiques of this petition itself on points that seem not extremely relevant.
It might be interesting for people who are invested in this specific debate, but I outside of that context it doesn’t seem to have all that much to add to anything.
Not saying the petition is unsubstantial, I just struggled to find any substance to this critique of it.
I started reading, and it seems to criticize some Polish proposal, rather than anything substantial?
Like, paraphrasing, “the proposal says it worked well in context A, but that doesn’t mean it’ll work well in context B”. I mean, sure, whatever. But not very juicy.
Maybe there’s good points in there, but if they had valid criticism they should have spilled the beans right away. If not I’ll keep thinking ensuring digital sovreignity and embracing open web standards are good things.
I find microblogging is a really hard format to work with. Being short is super important - the default for Mastodon is 500 characters, on Bluesky it’s 300. On Twitter it might be even less, who cares.
So you need to try to get your message across super efficiently. Even if you can write longer in mbin, people might not have the attention span to read long texts. So watch the character counter.
Some other things:
On Mastodon there are two ways of getting attention to your post. The first is by getting followers; the second is by getting boosts. Until you have your own following, the best you can hope for is that people reading your post thinks it’s worth promoting and then boost it. Hashtags can also be moderately effective - it’s certainly good for discovering content - but you’re probably not going to reach very far by shooting things into the void with an hashtag attached if you have no followers.
What helps is to interact with other users. Follow them, boost interesting content you see from them, favourite/upvote their content as a “compliments to the chef”, and leave a comment when you have anything to say. Doing this, they might follow you back, which will dramatically increase your reach on the fediverse.
There are two general ways of using hashtags. First, you can add it to some word in your post that nicely summarizes what you’re talking about. This is not too distracting, and common practice in most parts of the #fediverse. We don’t expect it in forum-style content of course, so for some users it’ll look a bit out of place.
The second way of doing it is by listing hashtags at the bottom of your post. Mastodon has a way of hiding these a little, so that they don’t get in the way.
As for which hashtags to use, you can of course get creative. But some hashtags are more common than others. When drafting in Mastodon the interface tells you how many people visible from your instance are using the hashtag, which is useful. We sadly lack that on Mbin. In general, maybe include some general and some more specific ones, but don’t over-do it.
Mentions play a very specific role in the Fediverse. Inherently they’re of course simple enough - @user@example.com - but they play a fundamental role in how different Mastodon instances are stitched together.
Of course, they can be used to notify someone - if I tag you (@unknown1234_5@kbin.earth), you’ll probably be notified that I did so. But more importantly, it serves the same purpose as an address on an envelope. If you respond to someone on a different instance without @ing them, your post might never reach them, as your post wasn’t told it needed to travel to their instance. This is a bit weird and not very intuitive, but that’s the reason why Mastodon users always tag each other like crazy in the comments.
@s are also useful to point people towards a specific account, or to include someone in a conversation that might not have been aware of it.
Not sure if that’s helpful, but at least it’s something!
A couple of fun things as a bonus:
Huh. Seems pretty expansive - @dansup@mastodon.social, any comment?
Get them on Signal, I’d say. :)
She’s not interested in using any social media at all, she just wants a place to toot about her publications because it’s part of the job. So some Mastodon instance specific to her field is pretty much as good as it gets for her usecase. As an academic the domain-specific Mastodon instances are pretty great.
I like Mbin a lot though! :)
As an academic, there are several users on Bluesky I would like to follow. Sadly very few are bridged for now. Hopefully all Bluesky accounts will be open for bridging at some point.
Another advantage is that thanks to Bridgy I can convince my partner to join Mastodon instead of Bluesky to promote her work, as the reach is the same on either platform.
Of all the nerdy things I’m excited about, the prospekt of making bug reports to FOSS git projects through my Mbin or Mastodon accounts is certainly on the list. I have so many accounts I made just for a single bug report. This will be great if/when it takes off.
Social media needs testing like any other software. If you join Loops now, you’re basically a beta tester.
Testing social media without users makes little sense.
There’s also an argument to be made that when it is finally released properly, it’s good to have some content there already.
I am a little concerned about the future of Loops and Pixelfed though. Developing things can be fun, maintaining them is a different story.
Looking forward to the F-droid release - it’s a bit ironic that that’s the only platform where it is currently not available, considering how it seems to be the reasonable place to get the app.
I don’t judge them too hard. Much like Twitter users I think they are blndly using a product that has gotten gradually worse. Much like Twitter users I think they need to realise at some point. But I understand that it’s difficult, and much like Twitter’s social graph, Apple’s network of services keep people captive.
And yes, there are huge problems in the Android camp as well. I sympathize with users who think all alternatives are bad, but I think we need to realize some are worse than others.
Also worth noting I don’t think anyone should buy a new phone over this. Whoever has an iPhone should keep using it until they can’t. But if they care, they should get something else after.
I think using Apple products involves paying money to a company who actively hurts you and limits your rights. That you cannot install software developed by an orbganization that accepts donations is pretty insane.
I’m not much of an absolutist. One can only do so much. But Apple is putting unreasonable constraints on consumers, and it should not be tolerated.
You can still install things on your Windows PC. Apple’s control over their ecosystem is to a degree where you have no meaningful ownership over your hardware any more.
I think people don’t need to be hypocritical, it’s enough to be ignorant. But if you care enough not to be ignorant and you still tolerate it, you might have a problem walking the walk rather than just talking the talk.
a small « support us » donation link in our website footer or even on one of the allowed platforms triggered a « nope » from Apple.
Christ. Caring about your rights and using Apple products is not compatible.
Thanks - it’s interesting to hear what brings people to different platforms.
It sounds like there’s a lot of potential in Hubzilla for front-end developers seeking to make it a friendlier experience - from what everyone here is saying the back-end seems pretty solid.
I interpreted TheLugal as considering the old Facebook vibes as a bad thing - but each to their own!
As you’re using Friendica - Is the old school Facebook aesthetic part of what makes Friendica appeal to you? Did you move there directly from Facebook back in the day?
And if you have been around for a while, what has the recent growth of ActivityPub felt like from your corner of the Internet?
Friendica has been around since 2010 - it is very cool to me that the content we post here might reach users of a platform that was created almost a decade before ActivityPub was specified.
Yeah, it’s the same in mbin. It’s pretty common for spam bots here to create their own magazines to post in, for some reason. It’s a bit weird, because generally nobody will see their posts at all. I guess it might have to do with SEO?
Anyway, I try to weed them out by sorting by new and local now and then, but other than that they’re hard to spot. Reports are much appreciated.
Likewise the heroic nerds of the Threadiverse coined the term months before Threads was even announced, and they would be hard pressed to give it up to some scumbag billionaire.
It’s an epic culture war being fought between two largerly agreeing parties.
Out of curiosity, what made you change your mind and give it a chance? Any breaking point on Reddit’s side, or just boredom or a sense of adventure?
In regular migration studies there’s always talk of puah and pull factores; reasons for wanting to leave where you are, and reasons for wanting to go to the destination. While I personally like it here, I guess we are currently depending more on push factors than pull factors to attract people from Reddit.
Also I guess it makes sense that they’ve been too busy with everything else to have a timely release of a perfectly crafted annual report.
It would be nice to have a report earlier because I’m interested, but in terms of transparency needs this is fine.
If a team of three full time employeesand a limited budget had plenty of time to write up reports, that would maybe be a bit of a red flag as well.