- Nov 2024
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support.signal.org support.signal.org
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Signal allows you to set usernames. They are unique but temporary (and you can have only 1 at a time). User names can be used to connect to you without sharing your phone number. Set an optional username in Settings Profile. They have two numbers at the end (you can set them).
User names can be shared in three ways: - tell someone (and then change it so they cannot communicate it further) - share a QR code - share a unique URL (which does not contain your username in clear text)
Signal can't 'easily' see which phone number has which username. But given a username it can find the associated phonenumber. 'easily' means it can be done though, and thus both ways.
An old username will become available to others after a week, meaning imo they should not contain any identifiable or associative information.
Found this through someone suggesting that sharing your Signal username through Mastodon would allow private msgs. Yes, but the world will know your username, so you're open to all people who might think it fun to msg you.
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- Sep 2024
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techpolicy.press techpolicy.press
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each of these instances will need to comply with a set of minimumobligations for intermediary and hosting services, including having a single point of contact and legal representative, providing clear terms and conditions, publishing bi-annual transparency reports, having a notice and action mechanism and, communicating information about removals or restrictions to both notice and content providers
Revisiting this after 2yrs, now as board member of mastodon.nl, need to read relevant DSA sections again, and think about if/how this applies. The list here as such is almost completely covered by default, except for the reports, which will come as we're heading towards ANBI status anyway.
-[ ] lees DSA met mastodon.nl bril tav kleine platforms #activityclub #30mins
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- Jul 2024
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fossacademic.tech fossacademic.tech
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https://web.archive.org/web/20240725080148/https://fossacademic.tech/2024/02/11/Move-Slowy-Preview.html [[Move Slowly and Build Bridges by Robert Gehl]] is a forthcoming book on 'Mastodon, the Fediverse, and the Struggle for Ethical Social Media'. This post gives summaries per chapter of the draft. Ch1 focuses on Xodus after Musk only. Odd, there are many examples where costs of leaving socmed platforms played a role, which may well be more informative than just n=1. Ch 2 on AP as protocol Ch 3 CoC as a social layer on networked tech (no regard here it seems for the fact that human networks exist outside of tech and span multiple tech platforms simultaneously, and themselves have social norms that guid behaviour regardless whether codified in CoC or expressed in federation choices) Ch 4 on blocking and defederation as a needed safety tool. Socially I think the default might need to be the other way around, federating is the choice, defed the default, as it is how we do it socially irl. We are not unwelcoming to newcomers in a group but we are wary. Ch 5. Who pays for the fediverse infra. Short answer is we all do/many of us do. I pay my own instance, and also contribute hours to the governance of the largest Dutch instance. Good point about people forgetting there are other bizz models for digital media than what centralised adtech kraken do. Ch 6. on eco impact of socmed, and need of awareness what running this stuff costs ecologically. Seems to then pivot to how degrowth and solarpunk people using fediverse tech to interact, which is not the same thing. (It says mitigate, but compared to what, X? ) Ch 7. Threads , or the corp reaction to a growing fediverse. Conclusion, this is where the ethics will be discussed finally.
Forthcoming w Oxford Univ Press. Not sure this is for me, reads like a snapshot with a limited time window in which it might be informative. Perhaps of interest for [[Stichting ActivityClub Bestuur Hoofdnote]].
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www.digitaleoverheid.nl www.digitaleoverheid.nl
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Verbeterpunten zijn onder andere het beperkte bereik van de doelgroep
This reads like classic 'it's not the same as X'. And an overestimation of actual human accounts on X in the Netherlands. Although yes, Dutch accounts on Mastodon aren't many, they are easily found, and interaction is up.
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Dutch public sector has experimented with Mastodon for a year now. Pilot will run until December 2024. Started with 20 entities, now 40 active accounts. Plus is the easy recognition as authentic source (it runs on social.overheid.nl). They will open up to all levels of civil service in 2025. Good development.
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- Jun 2024
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blog.khinsen.net blog.khinsen.net
- Apr 2024
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blog.joinmastodon.org blog.joinmastodon.org
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How does 'we've lost tax-exempt status in Germany' logically lead to 'let's incorporate in the US'? What makes paying tax bad? What about the tax exempt non-profit status in one of the other EU countries (Easy to form, I chair one and am on the board of two others e.g.)? What are the consequences of starting a US entity, how does it affect Mastodon falling within the scope of the Patriot act, what about how every data transaction to a US based entitiy is currently now legally covered in the EU? Which assets fall under the new entity?
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snarfed.org snarfed.org
- Feb 2024
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www.macstories.net www.macstories.net
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according to Kuang, there is no limit to the number of threaded posts you can create at once.
We'll see about that lol.
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- Jan 2024
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streetpass.social streetpass.social
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https://streetpass.social/
StreetPass, a browser extension that leverages rel="me" for compiling a list of potential mastodon accounts to follow as you visit websites.
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trunks.social trunks.social
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https://trunks.social/login
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- Dec 2023
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www.bentasker.co.uk www.bentasker.co.uk
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mastodoncontentmover.github.io mastodoncontentmover.github.io
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mastodon.social mastodon.social
- Nov 2023
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social.coop social.coop
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externalize
And we embark on this voyage in the gravy boat...
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- Oct 2023
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bryanalexander.org bryanalexander.org
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Some numbers on the silos. Any EU/US exodus unnoticable in the bigger scheme of things. Commented on creating vs recreating networks for interaction
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- Sep 2023
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openbiblio.social openbiblio.social
- Aug 2023
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erinkissane.com erinkissane.com
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Constantly being told I was somewhat dim because I didn’t understand how to do things or what the unwritten rules were.
This, I particularly hate and hope desperately I did not contribute to.
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social.bbc social.bbc
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- Jul 2023
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acecomments.mu.nu acecomments.mu.nu
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As Threads "soars", Bluesky and Mastodon are adopting algorithmic feeds. (Tech Crunch) You will eat the bugs. You will live in the pod. You will read what we tell you. You will own nothing and we don't much care if you are happy.
Applying the WEF meme about pods and bugs to Threads inspiring Bluesky and one Mastodon app to push algorithmic feeds.
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blog.joinmastodon.org blog.joinmastodon.org
- Jun 2023
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www.wikidata.org www.wikidata.org
- May 2023
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share-on-mastodon.social share-on-mastodon.social
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https://share-on-mastodon.social/
A really neat customizable "Share on Mastodon" button for your pages or posts.
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urbanists.social urbanists.social
- Apr 2023
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atproto.com atproto.com
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they require the original server to provide a redirect and cannot migrate the user's previous data.
This is... an extremely strange conclusion to come to regarding Social Web account migration, to say the least.
Taking Mastodon as the handy example...
The only reason to use the (extremely competent, bizarrely fast) process of redirection is that one... would like to have the "required" redirect on the original server. If a user intends to move to a different Mastodon instance and does not want to leave a redirect, that step is just... removed from the process.
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tantek.com tantek.com
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andy-bell.co.uk andy-bell.co.uk
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I think I’m not alone that Mastodon is giving me the ick<br /> by Andy Bell
Read at Fri 4/7/2023 8:36 AM
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communitywiki.org communitywiki.org
- Mar 2023
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wp-community-on-mastodon.wptoots.social wp-community-on-mastodon.wptoots.social
- Feb 2023
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bird.makeup bird.makeup
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- Jan 2023
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bilge.world bilge.world
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I noticed fairly quickly that the iOS app was a re-branded release of what used to be Mast. My first instinct upon this discovery was to DM Mast's original developer, Shihab Meboob, on Twitter, but frankly, I've already bothered him enough there over the years, so it's understandable that I didn't hear back. When I downloaded the desktop app I found on Roma's web page and noticed its similarity to Whalebird, I decided to use the site's contact form to inquire about what exactly was going on as gingerly as I could. Happily, I received a reply just *minutes- later from Leo Radvinsky, head of Leo.com, “a Florida-based boutique venture capital fund that invests in technology companies:” Hi David, In both cases we funded the original developers of both Mast and Whalebird to create a branded whitelabel app specially made for Pleroma. The idea was to make Roma a cross platform brand/app. It didn't really work out so now we're working on a new app from scratch called Fedi for iOS and Android and releasing that as open source. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fediverse.app&hl=en*US&gl=US https://apps.apple.com/in/app/fedi-for-pleroma-and-mastodon/id1478806281 I think Roma has been removed from the app stores as it's no longer supported. Let me know if you have any other questions
...coming back to this, now. ...
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blog.joinmastodon.org blog.joinmastodon.org
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The code above is somewhat simplified and missing some checks that I would advise implementing in a serious production application. For example:The request contains a Date header. Compare it with current date and time within a reasonable time window to prevent replay attacks.It is advisable that requests with payloads in the body also send a Digest header, and that header be signed along in the signature. If it’s present, it should be checked as another special case within the comparison string: Instead of taking the digest value from the received header, recompute it from the received body.While this proves the request comes from an actor, what if the payload contains an attribution to someone else? In reality you’d want to check that both are the same, otherwise one actor could forge messages from other people.
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We need to read the Signature header, split it into its parts (keyId, headers and signature), fetch the public key linked from keyId, create a comparison string from the plaintext headers we got in the same order as was given in the signature header, and then verify that string using the public key and the original signature.
```ruby require 'json' require 'http'
post '/inbox' do signature_header = request.headers['Signature'].split(',').map do |pair| pair.split('=').map do |value| value.gsub(/\A"/, '').gsub(/"\z/, '') # "foo" -> foo end end.to_h
key_id = signature_header['keyId'] headers = signature_header['headers'] signature = Base64.decode64(signature_header['signature'])
actor = JSON.parse(HTTP.get(key_id).to_s) key = OpenSSL::PKey::RSA.new(actor['publicKey']['publicKeyPem'])
comparison_string = headers.split(' ').map do |signed_header_name| if signed_header_name == '(request-target)' '(request-target): post /inbox' else "#{signed_header_name}: #{request.headers[signed_header_name.capitalize]}" end end
if key.verify(OpenSSL::Digest::SHA256.new, signature, comparison_string) request.body.rewind INBOX << request.body.read [200, 'OK'] else [401, 'Request signature could not be verified'] end end ```
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docs.joinmastodon.org docs.joinmastodon.orgSecurity1
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whalebird.social whalebird.social
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https://whalebird.social/en/desktop/contents
Whalebird is a Mastodon, Pleroma, and Misskey client for desktop application
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joinmastodon.org joinmastodon.orgMastodon1
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Because I'm always forgetting them, and they're annoying to look up, my user ID's for:
- mastodon.social: 17545
- hcommons.social: 109429840453119702
Also the permalink URL formats for reposts/links https://instance.org/@screenname/postID#reposted-by-userID
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bavatuesdays.com bavatuesdays.com
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paulstamatiou.com paulstamatiou.comMastodon1
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mastodon.art mastodon.art
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https://mastodon.art/@fediblock
I boost everything from the #fediblock hashtag that isn't noise, reruns, or user-level. Do your own homework beyond that.
<small><cite class='h-cite via'>ᔥ <span class='p-author h-card'>@welshpixie@mastodon.art</span> in "If you're an instance admin/mod struggling to keep up with the fediblock tag, @fediblock is a 'curated' version that filters through the trolling/misuse of the tag and repeat entries, and only boosts the actual proper fediblock content. :)" - Mastodon.ART (<time class='dt-published'>01/05/2023 11:17:52</time>)</cite></small>
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counter.social counter.social
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https://counter.social/index.html
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500ish.com 500ish.com
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Mastodon Brought a Protocol to a Product Fight
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andysylvester.com andysylvester.com
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toots with replies (https://zirk.us/@bsigmon/with_replies.rss)
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docs.google.com docs.google.com
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Lists of Fediverse projects, details, follow lists, etc.
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sampsyo.github.io sampsyo.github.io
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https://sampsyo.github.io/emfed/
A JavaScript project for embedding Mastodon feeds into webpages.
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- Dec 2022
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followgraph.vercel.app followgraph.vercel.app
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https://followgraph.vercel.app/
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benlog.com benlog.com
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we need to consider how the architecture might make the UX suck.
Architecture can make UX suck.
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my strong sense is that we’re currently papering over major UX problems that are linked to core architectural properties.
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arstechnica.com arstechnica.com
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Tom MacWright, a software developer in Brooklyn, has firsthand experience with the pitfalls of ActivityPub. As an experiment, he tried to turn his photo blog into an actor that could be followed by users via their Mastodon accounts. It worked in the end—and you can search for @photos@macwright.com from your Mastodon instance to follow his photography—but it wasn't easy.
Example of how ActivityPub standards don't work in practice, in part because Mastodon is an 800 pound gorilla which actively flauts or adds their own "standards".
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gitlab.com gitlab.com
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https://gitlab.com/soapbox-pub/soapbox
Soapbox, a front end product running Mastodon.
Found via this user's instance: https://social.arinbasu.online/notice/AR6oc4sUUpwBPfApHs
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docs.joinmastodon.org docs.joinmastodon.org
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macwright.com macwright.com
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docs.joinmastodon.org docs.joinmastodon.org
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h3poteto.github.io h3poteto.github.io
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bavatuesdays.com bavatuesdays.com
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docs.joinmastodon.org docs.joinmastodon.org
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themarkup.org themarkup.org
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fedifollow.glitch.me fedifollow.glitch.me
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For following my WordPress website from the Fediverse: https://fedifollow.glitch.me/follow?account=%40chrisaldrich%40boffosocko.com
<small><cite class='h-cite via'>ᔥ <span class='p-author h-card'>codefoodpixelsLuke Bonaccorsi</span> in Luke Bonaccorsi: "Because sharing follow links i…" - Indieweb.Social (<time class='dt-published'>12/22/2022 11:41:16</time>)</cite></small>
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help.micro.blog help.micro.blog
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https://help.micro.blog/t/whats-the-difference-between-micro-blog-and-mastodon/1395/2
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www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/17/how-to-join-mastodon/
Mastodon makes the front section of the Washington Post!? Twitter is in trouble...
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connect.oeglobal.org connect.oeglobal.org
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FOSSDLE Commons (new OER Foundation project) https://social.fossdle.org/ 4 OERu https://mastodon.oeru.org/ 6 Open EdTech https://openedtech.social/ 8 Fossodon (open source) https://fosstodon.org/ 1 Wikis World (wiki enthusiasts) https://wikis.world 1
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infosec.exchange infosec.exchange
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https://infosec.exchange/@atax1a/109400028861061670
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jasontucker.blog jasontucker.blog
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https://jasontucker.blog/14183/mastodon-indieweb-and-the-fediverse
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www.justingarrison.com www.justingarrison.com
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www.movetodon.org www.movetodon.org
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What a lovely looking UI.
The data returned will also give one a strong idea of how many of their acquaintances have made the jump as well as how active they may be, particularly for those who moved weeks ago and are still active within the last couple of days. For me the numbers are reasonably large. 860 of 4942 have accounts presently and in scrolling through it appears that 80% or so have been active within a day or so regardless of account age.
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techpolicy.press techpolicy.press
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Although there is no server governance census, in my own research I found very few examples of more participatory approaches to server governance (social.coop keeps a list of collectively owned instances)
Tarkowski has only seen a few more participatory server governance set-ups, most are 'benevolent dictator' style. Same. I have seen several growing instances that have changed from 'dictator' to a group of moderators making the decisions. You could democratise those roles by having users propose / vote on moderators. It's what we do offline in communal structures.
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Mastodon is a sustainable, healthy network that reached – before the migration begun – an equilibrium of around 5 million overall, with half a million active users. So why does it need to grow further? Because millions more people need access to healthy, just, sustainable, user-friendly communication tools. Hans Gerwitz described it as seeing the network’s growth as “souls saved,” instead of “eyeballs captured.”
An eye-opening metric. 'souls saved' vs eyeballs. As in, the number of people with access to a community values reinforcing platform. Vgl [[EU Digital Rights and Principles]] and [[Digital Services Act 20210319103722]] more geared to things that aren't specifically aimed at the culture of interaction, but at things that can be regulated (in the hope that it will impact culture of interaction).
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elk.zone elk.zone
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https://elk.zone/
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snarfed.org snarfed.org
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social.yesterweb.org social.yesterweb.org
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https://social.yesterweb.org/explore
A mastodon instance for the OG web and design folkx.
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discourse.joinmastodon.org discourse.joinmastodon.org
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Forks that do have a custom limit usually expose it as the max_toot_chars field in /api/v1/instance
https://discourse.joinmastodon.org/t/get-character-limit-from-instance/3643/2
Appending
/api/v1/instanceto a Mastodon instance will return a lot of interesting data about it and how it's set up.
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hcommons.social hcommons.social
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For those of you wondering if hcommons on mastodon has taken measures to ward against the sort of meltdown the server had a few weeks ago, there's a update from one of the admins: https://hcommons.social/@kfitz/1094609
https://hcommons.social/@amisamileanded/109466986626984098
Apparently sometime within it's first month of existence hcommons.social had a server meltdown of some sort. The admins addressed and hardened their set up.
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blog.netnerds.net blog.netnerds.net
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blog.jonudell.net blog.jonudell.net
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certain classes of Mastodon page have corresponding RSS feeds, and wondered if the tag pages are members of one such class. Sure enough they are, and https://mastodon.social/tags/introduction.rss is a thing.
Mastodon has RSS feeds available for tags!
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blog.maartenballiauw.be blog.maartenballiauw.be
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https://blog.maartenballiauw.be/post/2022/11/05/mastodon-own-donain-without-hosting-server.html
Basic instructions for using your own website to point to your Mastodon account (on another server).
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https://thenewstack.io/devs-are-excited-by-activitypub-open-protocol-for-mastodon/
Good general overview of ActivityPub and Mastodon.
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www.manton.org www.manton.org
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Describes how to move from a Mastodon account to micro.blog. also provides details about "move" activity in ActivityPub.
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https://www.manton.org/2022/12/02/moving-from-mastodon.html
Details for moving from one instance to another.
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meso.tzyl.nl meso.tzyl.nl
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fasiha.github.io fasiha.github.ioYoyogi1
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https://fasiha.github.io/yoyogi/
Yoyogi is an alternate Mastodon reading interface that shows messages by author / thread and not as the traditional timeline.
Similar to Pinafore
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kinlane.com kinlane.com
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I have 17K followers
People talk about their huge follower counts on Twitter, but seem to discount the number of bots, inactive accounts, and other cruft that make up that number.
Most people moving to Mastodon are reporting much more honest, human, and warm engagement on the platform over their experiences on Twitter.
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dolphin.town dolphin.town🐬 Town1
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https://dolphin.town/about/more
A social media service for dolphins where you can only send messages with the letter "e".
compare with https://oulipo.social/about which elides the letter e
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scripting.com scripting.com
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Last night I posted a message to both Mastodon and Twitter saying how great M's support for RSS is. Apparently a lot of people on Masto didn't know about it and the response has been resounding. And the numbers are very lopsided. The piece has been "boosted" (the Masto equiv of RT) 1.1K times, yet I only have 3.7K followers there. Meanwhile on Twitter, where I have 69K followers, it has been RTd just 17 times. My feeling was previously that Mastodon was more alive, it's good to have a number to put behind that.
http://scripting.com/2022/12/03.html#a152558
Anecdotal evidence for the slow death of Twitter and higher engagement on Mastodon.
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mastodonpy.readthedocs.io mastodonpy.readthedocs.io
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tldr.nettime.org tldr.nettime.org
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tldr.nettime is an instance for artists, researchers, and activists interested in exploring the intersections of technology, culture, and politics. It has grown out of nettime-l, one of the longest-running mailing lists on the net — in particular, on the 'cultural politics of the internet'.
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escapingtech.com escapingtech.com
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Most Mastodon servers run on donations, which creates a very different dynamic. It is very easy for a toxic platform to generate revenue through ad impressions, but most people are not willing to pay hard-earned money to get yelled at by extremists all day. This is why Twitter’s subscription model will never work. With Mastodon, people find a community they enjoy, and thus are happy to donate to maintain. Which add a new dynamic. Since Mastodon is basically a network of communities, it is expected that moderators are responsible for their own community, lowering the burden for everyone. Let’s say you run a Mastodon instance and a user of another instance has become problematic towards your users. You report them to their instance’s moderators, but the moderators decline to act. What can you do? Well a lot, actually.
Accountability economy
Assuming instance owners want their instance to thrive, they are accountable to the users—who are also donating funds to run the server. Mastodon also provides easy ways to block users or instances, and if bad actors start populating an instance, the instance gets a bad name and is de-federated by others. Users on the de-federated instance now have the option to stick around or go to another instance so they are reachable again.
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https://www.downes.ca/post/74564
Stephen Downes is doing a great job of regular recaps on the shifts in Twitter/Mastodon/Fediverse lately. I either read or saw all these in the last couple of days myself.
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researchbuzz.me researchbuzz.me
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shkspr.mobi shkspr.mobi
- Nov 2022
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g13g.blog g13g.blog
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https://g13g.blog/2021/03/16/get-your-blog-posts-on-mastodon/
I should write some documentation up for this.
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andy-bell.co.uk andy-bell.co.uk
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https://github.com/mwt/apfollow/
Code and buttons for creating ActivityPub Follow me interface
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odd.blog odd.blog
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Matthew Thomas has created a remote follow tool called apfollow, with source available. This creates a page where you can follow a Mastodon account by entering your own details in a box and it redirects you to your home server to do the follow. Here’s a link to follow my Mastodon.ie account.
This looks cool.
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docs.google.com docs.google.com
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A list of congress members on Mastodon.
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Literature, philosophy, film, music, culture, politics, history, architecture: join the circus of the arts and humanities! For readers, writers, academics or anyone wanting to follow the conversation.
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hcommons.social hcommons.social
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hcommons.social is a microblogging network supporting scholars and practitioners across the humanities and around the world.
https://hcommons.social/about
The humanities commons has their own mastodon instance now!
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ooh.directory ooh.directory
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https://ooh.directory/blog/2022/first-two-days/
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dougbelshaw.com dougbelshaw.com
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techpolicy.press techpolicy.press
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So the first thing that I want to make clear is that Mastodon has a history of being inhospitable to marginalized users. This history is born out, as I’ve learned, through the marginalization and eventual shuttering of instances of color, of instances that were dedicated to hosting and supporting sex workers, of harassment of disabled users and so on. So Mastodon– while its federated model was premised on, well, the activity protocol, if I understand the history correctly– it was built in some ways to produce affordances that would avoid the kinds of harassment on Twitter. Things like quote tweet pile ons, things like other kinds of usage of the quote tweet or the comment or the reply feature to do violence. What that hasn’t done is prevented the violence.
Interesting point, as a lot of Mastodon's design decisions are focused on reducing risk of violence. This is an argument that it does not work.
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adactio.com adactio.com
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fasiha.github.io fasiha.github.ioYoyogi1
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Yoyogi
Yoyogi is a tool that taps into your mastodon account (in your browser, locally) and shows messages by author / thread not as timeline. If you'd sort that like Fraidycat that would be a pretty interesting interface.
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themarkup.org themarkup.org
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Davidson: I think the interface on Mastodon makes me behave differently. If I have a funny joke or a really powerful statement and I want lots of people to hear it, then Twitter’s way better for that right now. However, if something really provokes a big conversation, it’s actually fairly challenging to keep up with the conversation on Twitter. I find that when something gets hundreds of thousands of replies, it’s functionally impossible to even read all of them, let alone respond to all of them. My Twitter personality, like a lot of people’s, is more shouting. Whereas on Mastodon, it’s actually much harder to go viral. There’s no algorithm promoting tweets. It’s just the people you follow. This is the order in which they come. It’s not really set up for that kind of, “Oh my god, everybody’s talking about this one post.” It is set up to foster conversation. I have something like 150,000 followers on Twitter, and I have something like 2,500 on Mastodon, but I have way more substantive conversations on Mastodon even though it’s a smaller audience. I think there’s both design choices that lead to this and also just the vibe of the place where even pointed disagreements are somehow more thoughtful and more respectful on Mastodon.
Twitter for Shouting; Mastodon for Conversation
Many, many followers on Twitter makes it hard for conversations to happen, as does the algorithm-driven promotion. Fewer followers and anti-viral UX makes for more conversations even if the reach isn't as far.
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observablehq.com observablehq.com
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fediverse.space fediverse.space
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https://fediverse.space/
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thomasmdickinson.github.io thomasmdickinson.github.io
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https://thomasmdickinson.github.io/lab-soc-about/
<small><cite class='h-cite via'>ᔥ <span class='p-author h-card'>Keeper of the Labyrinth </span> in Keeper of the Labyrinth: "#Mastodon #Hometown #Admin I love documentation…" - Labyrinth.Social (<time class='dt-published'>11/19/2022 01:31:45</time>)</cite></small>
In putting it together, I looked at a lot of other instances to see what kind of docs and policies they had, so now I want to pay it forward and put it out there for others to use as a basis.
If you run a small instance or are thinking of doing so, feel free to repurpose what I've put together!
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david.shanske.com david.shanske.com
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ar.al ar.al
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https://g13g.blog/2022/11/09/how-to-verify-your-wordpress-site-on-mastodon/
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the-federation.info the-federation.info
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An aggregation site with data about the broader Fediverse and projects within it.
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simonwillison.net simonwillison.net
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Mastodon is just blogs and Google Reader, skinned to look like Twitter.
And this, in part, is just what makes social readers so valuable: a tight(er) integration of a reading and conversational interface.
https://simonwillison.net/2022/Nov/8/mastodon-is-just-blogs/
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Mastodon is just blogs
"Mastodon is just blogs and Google Reader, skinned to look like Twitter." That is pretty accurate, microblogging and following does what feedreading does too. In this case commenting is put at the exact same level as the orginal blogpost, akin to how I can reply to posts with a post of my own (like old trackbacks, now webmention)
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techpolicy.press techpolicy.press
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The last thing Europe wants is its regulation that restricts future innovation, raising barriers to entry for new businesses and users alike.
Which is why DSA and DMA target larger entities beyond that start-up scale.
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There is no central authority or control that one could point to and hold responsible for content moderation practices; instead, moderation happens in an organic bottom-up manner
This is I think an incorrect way of picturing it. Moderation isn't bottom-up, that again implies seeing the fediverse as a whole. Moderation is taking place in each 'shop' in a 'city center', every 'shop' has its own house rules. And that is the only level of granularity that counts, the system as a whole isn't a system entity. Like road systems, e-mail, postal systems, internet infra etc. aren't either.
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Since moderation in major social media platforms is conducted by a central authority, the DSA can effectively hold a single entity accountable through obligations. This becomes more complex in decentralized networks, where content moderation is predominantly community-driven.
Does it become more complex in federation? Don't think so as it also means that the reach and impact of each of those small instances is by def limited. Most of the fediverse will never see most of the fediverse. Thus it likely flies under any ceiling that incurs new responsibilities.
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what will it mean if an instance ends up generating above EUR 10 million in annual turnover or hires more than 50 staff members? Under the DSA, if these thresholds are met the administrators of that instance would need to proceed to the implementation of additional requirements, including a complaint handling system, cooperation with trusted flaggers and out-of-court dispute bodies, enhanced transparency reporting and the adoption of child protection measures, as well as the banning of dark patterns. Failure to comply with these obligations may result in fines or the geo-blocking of the instance across the EU market.
50ppl and >10M turnover for a single instance (mastodon.social runs on 50k in donations or so)? Don't see that happening, and if, how likely is it that will be in the European market? Where would such turnover come from anyways, it isn't adverts so could only be member fees as donations don't count? Currently it's hosters that make money, for keeping the infra humming.
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Today– given the non-profit model and limited, volunteer administration of most existing instances– all Mastodon servers would seem to be exempt from obligations for large online platforms
Almost by definition federated instances don't qualify as large platform.
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However, based on the categorizations of the DSA, it is most probable that each instance could be seen as an independent ‘online platform’ on which a user hosts and publishes content that can reach a potentially unlimited number of users. Thus, each of these instances will need to comply with a set of minimum obligations for intermediary and hosting services, including having a single point of contact and legal representative, providing clear terms and conditions, publishing bi-annual transparency reports, having a notice and action mechanism and, communicating information about removals or restrictions to both notice and content providers.
Mastodon instances, other than personal or closed ones, would fall within the DSA. Each instance is its own platform though. Because of that I don't think this holds up very well, are closed Discord servers platforms under the DSA too then? Most of these instances are small, many don't encourage new users (meaning the potential reach is very limited). For largers ones like mastodon.nl this probably does apply.
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ashfurrow.com ashfurrow.com
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This made me realize how little joy I’ve been getting from being an admin. How I’ve come to resent the work I have volunteered to do.
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As Beschizza said …“I wanted something where people could publish their thoughts without any false game of social manipulation, one-upmanship, and favor-trading.”It was, as I called it, “antiviral design”.
Definition of "antiviral design"
Later, Thompson says: "[Mastodon] was engineered specifically to create _friction — _to slow things down a bit. This is a big part of why it behaves so differently from mainstream social networks."
The intentional design decisions on Mastodon slow user activity.
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www.wired.com www.wired.com
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There is no consensus, there is no single idea of what to moderate and what not to moderate. Some people are going to have different expectations of what they want to see or how strict they want to be about who talks to whom. The Fediverse provides different places where you can go and experience social media the way that you want to experience it. You can have a super safe space with very strict moderation; nobody has required you to compromise on anything whatsoever.
I think this is the basis why I like the idea of decentralization. There is no single source of truth. You have your own values and morals. And have different expectations. You can choose your own adventure on your own terms. It is up to the admin, the community and in the end yourself how you want to deal with different opinions.
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hcommons.org hcommons.org
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The majority of scholarship on platform governance focuses on for-profit, corporate social media with highly centralized network structures. Instead, we show how non-centralized platform governance functions in the Mastodon social network. Through an analysis of survey data, Github and Discourse developer discussions, Mastodon Codes of Conduct, and participant observations, we argue Mastodon’s platform governance is an exemplar of the covenant, a key concept from federalist political theory. We contrast Mastodon’s covenantal federalism platform governance with the contractual form used by corporate social media. We also use covenantal federalist theory to explain how Mastodon’s users, administrators, and developers justify revoking or denying membership in the federation. In doing so, this study sheds new light on the innovations in platform governance that go beyond the corporate/alt-right platform dichotomy.
Promises to be interesting wrt governance structures in moderation/adminning.
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fediverse.observer fediverse.observer
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https://fediverse.observer/
Suggested Fediverse servers close to you.
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pkm.social pkm.social
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https://pkm.social/about
Run by Nicole van der Hoeven
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masto.host masto.host
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https://zettelkasten.social/about
Someone has registered the domain and it is hosted by masto.host, but not yet active as of 2022-11-13
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blog.archive.org blog.archive.org
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www.jwz.org www.jwz.org
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But Mastodon instances aren't even competing on that! They seem to all be running the same version of the same software, so aside from some banner images and icons, they are all exactly the same user interface. This is great if you are in the "Federated Feed Reader" camp, less so for the "we are all unique flowers" camp.
This reads like being confused about what instances are. You don't need to pick one even, can participate fine without an instance. If you do choose to be part of a group instance there are indeed things to consider, wrt orientation, group traits, culture. Which are as varied as we all are. It's not about the tool or competing on css and interface, it's choosing fav watering hole to chat. Where others can wander in but also get bounced. And you can frequent multiple watering holes depending on your whim (you may not want to talk work stuff with colleagues on the sports field where your kid is playing Saturday morning). Why are these odd comparisons made within the singular viewpoint of Mastodon as tool. All comparisons must be made against human social interaction in general. Twitter is the odd one out there: everyone shouting their loudest, all in the exact same place, where all can bud into any conversation without the conversers perspective playing a role. Doug Belshaw describes this dynamic much better: https://dougbelshaw.com/blog/2022/11/12/on-the-importance-of-fediverse-server-rules/
It's not just 'everything open to all' or 'walled garden' it's not indiividual or the global population. It's all about the intermediate layers, where the fluidity of humans choosing their groups and places of interaction. That is where the complexity lives, and thus the value. Tech sin't neutral in it, and shouldn't be, as it's a human tool, humans who are part of that complexity. Vgl Technoloog podcast where they were as confused about the role and purpose of instances.
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It's gonna go great!
It will be as messay as, the internet itself, as the web itself. Which works. The abberation imo is centralised website silos on top of a fully federated internet and web. At least AP embraces the underlying srtucture of the internet, and the underlying structure of human networks. Federation brings the human and tech networks to a closer resemblance, which brings more digital affordances, esp social ones we have offline already.
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Taking something like Mastodon, whose core concept is federation, and then not federating, or limiting federation, is kind of like buying an iPhone and not putting a SIM card in it. Like, yeah, there are use cases where that will work I guess, but if that's what you need there are simpler and more economical ways to get that.
This is nonsense hyperbole. Noone in the world uses their iphone with sim in the expectation of phoning every other phone user in the world. The only expectation is that you can phone the people you want to phone in a given situation. I have a blocklist on my phone as well. I cotrrol who can call me when and where as well. Limiting federation is what everyone does in their offline life every single second, and when deciding on every single human interaction.
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I know a lot of people who want the Federated Feed Reader version. These are the people who were kinda-ok with Twitter but would prefer it to not be dismantled by a billionaire crybaby, and also fewer nazis if at all possible. The people I know who want the Private Walled Garden version are already using Discord for that. ("Discord: non-federated IRC with emoji-first design.")
An example of dilemma-phrasing. The world isn't dilemma's it's always multilemma. It's not either living room or public square with the entire globe, there are many spaces in between. I'm mostly feed-reader camp in this author's dilemma, but also definitely want to limit both what I encounter and where things can spread. Just not in an absolute or absolute control sense.
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tantek.com tantek.com
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www.vice.com www.vice.com
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the platform’s reliability is entirely dependent on which one you sign up for.
It's been fine for years! I understand the intention behind informing readers of what the onboarding experience is like at this very moment, but if you're going to be part of this absurdly latent, dense wave of folks suddenly giving Mastodon a try, I think it's important you be very explicit about your lack of experience before the most intense influx of users in the history of the Fediverse.
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Joining Mastodon is undoubtably more complicated than starting a Twitter account.
Are you sure about this argument, Janus? Are you sure you comprehensively tried all methods of onboarding?
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Mastodon is extremely messy compared to its shiny, centralized predecessors.
What in the God's name of the fuck are you talking about??
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a.gup.pe a.gup.pe
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How does Guppe work? Guppe groups look like regular users you can interact with using your existing account on any ActivityPub service, but they automatically share anything you send them with all of their followers. Follow a group on @a.gup.pe to join that groupMention a group on @a.gup.pe to share a post with everyone in the groupNew groups are created on demand, just search for or mention @YourGroupNameHere@a.gup.pe and it will show upVisit a @a.gup.pe group profile to see the group history
a.gup.pe is a group mechanism on Mastodon. Works like my email set-up: using an address makes it exist. This means groups are open to all I suppose, so personal curation (blocking, muting accounts) is needed. Like following # in that sense, but then with active distribution, as the group account serves as a repeater. Interesting addition.
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tech.oeru.org tech.oeru.org
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Dave Lane at OERu where they have been running an instance for a few years at https://mastodon.oeru.org/ – he has some Docker stuff written - he is super generous / helpful
<small><cite class='h-cite via'>ᔥ <span class='p-author h-card'>cogdog</span> in How About A Fediverse Space? - Feature Requests - Reclaim Hosting Community Forums (<time class='dt-published'>11/11/2022 11:32:46</time>)</cite></small>
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masto.ai masto.ai
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User with significant presentations, advises & links on health and ait-quality.
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Mastodon hashtag for covid-airborn stuff
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www.hughrundle.net www.hughrundle.net
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It is the very tools and settings that provide so much more agency to users that pundits claim make Mastodon "too complicated".
Indeed.
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The people re-publishing my Mastodon posts on Twitter didn't think to ask whether I was ok with them doing that. The librarians wondering loudly about how this "new" social media environment could be systematically archived didn't ask anyone whether they want their fediverse posts to be captured and stored by government institutions.
This I think is an unfounded expectation.
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I finally realised on Monday that the word I was looking for was "traumatic". In October I would have interacted regularly with perhaps a dozen people a week on Mastodon, across about 4 or 5 different servers. Suddenly having hundreds of people asking (or not) to join those conversations without having acclimatised themselves to the social norms felt like a violation, an assault. I know I'm not the only one who felt like this.
Recognisable. Author was accustomed to quiet conversation and suddenly many others joined those conversations without lurking for a while. To me it felt like many T-migrants brought with them the passive aggressive tone, the streetwise attitude of don't f with me, that kept the trolls and baiting away over there. Classically what one does when joining a new conversation, in a bar, online or wherever, is you lurk to observe the setting and context of the conversation, then signal you want to join by injecting an insignificant contribution (to de-lurk) and when acknowledged you join more fully. That is not what has been happening. Various T-migrants came with the expectation it seems that they had replicated their existing conversations into a new room. Where those in the room already were the new participants, and therefore the ones delurking. The T-migrants weren't budding in, they were continuing their conversation, in their mind, imo. This creates clashes between perspectives on weaker and stronger ties. Vgl [[Lurking Definition 20040204063311]] and [[Lurking Weak Strong Ties 20040204063311]]
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For those of us who have been using Mastodon for a while (I started my own Mastodon server 4 years ago), this week has been overwhelming
author has been running his own instance for as long as I have. Not sure if it's a community server or a personal one. Assuming community one.
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fedified.com fedified.com
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meh... This looks dreadful...
Why not just use the built in rel-me verification available in Twitter directly with respect to individual websites?
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bavatuesdays.com bavatuesdays.com
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docs.google.com docs.google.com
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EduTooters, er, Educators, on Mastodon
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docs.google.com docs.google.com
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docs.google.com docs.google.com
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docs.google.com docs.google.com
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mastodon.help mastodon.help
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https://mastodon.help/
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instances.social instances.social
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https://instances.social/
A tool for helping people choose an instance.
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Well... I can't seem to get this webpage to render with the Hypothes.is sidebar alongside, so I'm going to have a go at just including entirety of the content in markdown format, annotated and presented in this same note.
Eugen Rochko Time Interview
["Thousands Have Joined Mastodon Since Twitter Changed Hands. Its Founder Has a Vision for Democratizing Social Media."]
Mastodon, a decentralized microblogging site named after an extinct type of mammoth, {I'm sorry... what??? You didn't even fucking ask, did you?} recorded 120,000 new users in the four days following billionaire Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, its German-born founder Eugen Rochko tells TIME. Many of them were Twitter users seeking a new place to call their online home.
Those users, whether they knew it or not, were following in the footsteps of Rochko, 29, who began coding Mastodon in 2016 after becoming disillusioned with Twitter. “I was thinking that being able to express myself online to my friends through short messages was very important to me, important also to the world, and that maybe it should not be in the hands of a single corporation,” Rochko says. “It was generally related to a feeling of distrust of the top down control that Twitter exercised.”
Mastodon, which proudly proclaims it is [“not for sale”] and has around [4.5 million] user accounts, is pretty similar to Twitter, once users get past the complicated sign-up process. The main difference is that it’s not one cohesive platform, but actually a collection of different, independently-run and self-funded servers. Users on different servers can still communicate with each other, but anybody can set up their own server, and set their own rules for discussion. Mastodon is a crowdfunded nonprofit, which funds the full-time work of Rochko—its sole employee—and several popular servers.
The platform doesn’t have the power to force server owners to do anything—even comply with basic content moderation standards. That sounds like a recipe for an online haven for far-right trolls. But in practice, many of Mastodon’s servers have stricter rules than Twitter, Rochko says. When hate-speech servers do appear, other servers can band together to block them, essentially ostracizing them from the majority of the platform. “I guess you could call it the democratic process,” Rochko says.
The recent influx from Twitter, Rochko says, has been a vindication. “It is a very positive thing to find that your work is finally being appreciated and respected and more widely known,” he says. “I have been working very, very hard to push the idea that there is a better way to do social media than what the commercial companies like Twitter and Facebook allow.”
TIME spoke with Rochko on Oct. 31.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
What do you think of what Elon Musk is doing at Twitter?
I don’t know. The man is not entirely comprehensible. I don’t agree with a lot of his behaviors and his decision-making. I think that buying Twitter was an impulse decision that he soon regretted. And that he basically got himself into a situation that kind of forced him to commit to the deal. And now he’s in it, and he has to deal with the fallout.
I specifically disagree with his stance on free speech, because I think that it depends on your interpretation of what free speech means. If you allow the most intolerant voices to be as loud as they want to, you’re going to shut down voices of different opinions as well. So allowing free speech by just allowing all speech is not actually leading to free speech, it just leads to a cesspit of hate.
I think that is a very uniquely American idea of creating this marketplace of ideas where you can say anything you want completely without limits. It is very foreign to the German mindset where we, in our Constitution, our number one priority is maintaining human dignity. And so, hate speech is not part of the German concept of free speech, for example. So I think that when Elon Musk says that everything’s gonna be allowed, or whatever, I generally disagree with that.
How do you ensure on Mastodon, given that it’s decentralized and you don’t have the power to ban users, that the space is welcoming and safe?
Well, this is the kind of strange dichotomy of how it’s turned out. On the one hand, the technology itself is what allows basically anyone to host their own independent social media server, and to basically be able to do anything they want with it. There is no way for Mastodon, the company, or anyone really—except the normal law enforcement procedures—to really go after anyone specifically running a Mastodon server. The way that you would shut down a normal web site is how you would shut down a Mastodon server, there’s no difference there. So on that end, it kind of turns out to be the ultimate free speech platform. But obviously that’s basically just a side effect of creating a tool that can be used by anyone. It’s kind of like cars. Cars are used by everyone, even bad people, even for bad purposes, there’s nothing you can do about it, because the tool is out there. However, I think that the differentiating factor to something like Twitter or Facebook, is that on Mastodon, when you host your own server, you can also decide what rules you want to enforce on that server, which allows communities to create safer spaces than they could otherwise have on these large platforms that are interested in serving as many people as possible, perhaps driving engagement up on purpose to increase time people spend on the web.
You can have communities that have much stricter rules than Twitter has. And in practice, a lot of them are [stricter]. And this is part of where, again, the technology intersects with guidance or leadership from Mastodon the company. I think that, through the way that we communicate publicly, we have avoided attracting a crowd of the kind of people who you would find on Parler or Gab, or whatever other internet hate forums. Instead we’ve attracted the kind of people who would moderate against hate speech when running their own servers. Additionally, we also act as a guide for anyone who wants to join. Because on our website, and our apps, we provide a default list of curated servers that people can make accounts on. And through that, we make sure that we curate the list in such a way that any server that wants to be promoted by us has to agree to a certain basic set of rules, one of which is that no hate speech is allowed, no sexism, no racism, no homophobia, or transphobia. And through that, we ensure that the association between Mastodon, the brand, and the experience that people want is that of a much safer space than something like Twitter.
But what happens if you hateful people do set up a server?
Well, obviously, they don’t get promoted on our “Join Mastodon” website or in our app. So whatever they do, they do on their own and completely separately, and the other administrators that run their own Mastodon servers, when they find out that there’s a new hate speech server, they may decide that they don’t want to receive any messages from the server and block it on their end. Through, I guess you could call it the democratic process, the hateful server can get ostracized or can get split off into basically, a little echo chamber, which is, I guess, no better or worse than them being in some other echo chamber. ::The internet is full of spam::. It’s full of abuse, of course. Mastodon provides the facilities necessary to deal with unwanted content, both on the user end and on the operator end.What made you want to go into building a service like this back in 2016?
I remember that I was just not very happy with Twitter, and I was worried where it was going to go from there. Something very questionable was in its future. That got me thinking that, you know, being able to express myself online to my friends through short messages was actually very important to me, important also to the world, and that maybe it should not be in the hands of a single corporation that can just do whatever it wants with it. I started working on my own thing. I called it Mastodon because I’m not good at naming things. I just chose whatever came to my mind at the time.(fn) There was obviously no ambition of going big with it at the time.
It must feel pretty special to see something that you made grow from nothing to where it is now.
Indeed, it is. It is a very positive thing to find that your work is finally being appreciated and respected and more widely known. I’ve been fighting for this for a long time, I started working on Mastodon in 2016, back then I had no ambitions of it going far at all. It was very much a hobbyist project at the start, then when I launched publicly it seemed to strike a chord with at least the tech community and that’s when I got the original Patreon supporters that allowed me to take on this job full time. And from then on I have been working very, very hard to make this platform as accessible and as easy to use for everyone as possible. And to push the idea forward, that there is a better way to do social media than what the commercial companies like Twitter and Facebook allow.
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github.com github.com
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buzzmachine.com buzzmachine.com
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pruvisto.org pruvisto.org
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https://pruvisto.org/debirdify/
Tool for moving some of your Twitter data over to Mastodon or other parts of the Fediverse.
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fedidb.org fedidb.org
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bridge.birb.space bridge.birb.space
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https://bridge.birb.space/
This instance is a Twitter to ActivityPub bridge.
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fedifinder.glitch.me fedifinder.glitch.me
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Extract the fediverse handles of your Twitter followings or list members and import them on Mastodon to follow them all at once.
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twitodon.com twitodon.com
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pinafore.social pinafore.social
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https://pinafore.social/
Pinafore is a web client for Mastodon, designed for speed and simplicity.
<small><cite class='h-cite via'>ᔥ <span class='p-author h-card'>Jessica Smith</span> in Small Web - Jayeless.net (<time class='dt-published'>07/03/2021 23:34:42</time>)</cite></small>
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theconversation.com theconversation.com
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joinfediverse.wiki joinfediverse.wiki
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https://joinfediverse.wiki/How_to_host_your_own_Fediverse_instance%3F
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github.com github.com
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Language/location related Mastodon Instances:
- https://ailbhean.co-shaoghal.net/
- This server is aimed at Gaelic speakers. Tha am frithealaiche seo ann do luchd na Gàidhlig.
- https://mastodon.scot
- A community primarily intended for (but not limited to) people in Scotland or who identify as Scottish.
- https://mastodon.ie/
- Irish Mastodon
- https://toot.wales
- Twt is the free and open community for Wales and the Welsh, at home and abroad.
- https://ailbhean.co-shaoghal.net/
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Directory of Mastodon and related servers that operate primarily in or are targeted to a locality or region
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mastodon.cloud mastodon.cloud
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federated mastodon is neat. that “ericajoy”can exist on any server is going to be a problem, especially around impersonation. a third party “verification” player will be necessary if mastodon gains broad traction.
Poster implies that a benefit of globally centralised structures like Twitter, FB and LinkedIn is verification. I think impersonation is rife there, and will be less on Mastodon. Apart from basic measures (rel-me verification against your website, use your own domain for an instance), there are similar to T/FB/LinkedIn ways to verify someone outside the platform itself, where people check it's you through a channel they already know it's you. Above all the potential benefit of impersonation does not exist on M: no immediate global audience, no amplification of messages through self-feeding loops of engagement. Your reach is limited to your own follow(er)s mostly, and they won't fall for an impersonation, as you're already there among them. The power assymmetry inherent in T/FB's algo's doesn't exist on M. So impersonating would cost the impersonator way more, and become unsustainable to them.
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- Oct 2022
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Some 18,000 people signed up for Mastodon accounts between October 20 and 27, says Eugen Rochko, the platform’s CEO. As of October 28, it had 381,113 active users. Mastodon’s Twitter handle is also being used a lot across Twitter by people announcing new Mastodon accounts, Rochko says.
SO... y'all tech media folks finally willing and able to acknowledge Mastodon's existence now?
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www.kevinmarks.com www.kevinmarks.com
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It may be that the more concrete boundaries that having multiple instances provide can dampen down the cascades caused by the small world network effect. It is an interesting model to coexist between the silos with global scope and the personal domains beloved by the indieweb. In indieweb we have been saying ‘build things that you want for yourself’, but building things that you want for your friends or organisation is a useful step between generations.
I'd say not just interesting, but also crucial. Where T and FB operate at generic level (despite FB pages as subgroups), the statistical, and IndieWeb on the personal (my site, my self-built tool), M works at group level or just above (bigger instances). That middle ground between singular and the statistical is where complexity resides and where it needs to be addressed and embraced. The network metaphor favors that intermediate level.
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ashfurrow.com ashfurrow.com
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https://ashfurrow.com/blog/mastodon-technology-shutdown/
Mastodon.technology is shutting down by 2022-12-01 due to personal and admin tax related reasons. Sounds like it's being done in an ethical and reasonably kind way.
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- Jul 2022
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bilge.world bilge.world
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StarPterano I very vaguely remember happening upon StarPterano in my very first moments on Mastodon, so finding it still published on the App Store – buried as it was – brought me a particular sort of joy. If I’m not mistaken, it holds a special personal accolade as the only iOS app which has caused me to involuntarily shriek. This might sound like an insult, but it is actually the peak of my praise. I believe my knowledge of iOS development safely allows me to suppose that StarPterano was built with complete disregard for any established UI element libraries. That is, the familiar toggles and buttons developers rely on to standardize the iOS experience were cast aside entirely in favor of handbuilt, translucent buttons of a sort of neon quality which call menus and text entry fields no less alien to the platform. The most astonishing bit, though, is that it works. On my 12 Pro Max, it’s exceptionally smooth, in fact. I would imagine those real iOS developers among you should find StarPterano’s GitHub Repository particularly interesting, considering. In the interest of preservation, I have forked it as well, and fully intend to dive in to its code, one of these days. The audio player embedded above cites a three-second .mp3 file in the repository which perhaps once accounted for the “Sounds” toggle still found in the Settings menu of StarPterano’s current build. I couldn’t get the app to reproduce it, which is actually what set me on the hunt that led to the repo.
I shall always love you, StarPterano. NEVER DIE.
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- May 2022
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thenewstack.io thenewstack.io
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One of its main features is “local only posting,” which gives users the option of not federating their posts.
One of the main features of Darius Kazemi's Hometown, a fork of Mastodon from 2019, is that it allows "local only posting". This gives the users an option to post their content only with a small, limited group of people instead of spreading it widely outside of their social group. In addition to helping to tummel a smaller conversation this also prevents those who are more likely to suffer from context collapse of the groups social norms from engaging and potentially souring the conversation.
This feature could also be well leveraged for small private classroom conversations between teachers and students without leaking their personal/private data or conversations that ought to be small as they learn.
Could also be fun to limit the level of federation to the level of an academic department, academic discipline, or even a university. How might one define a group or groups of publics within Mastodon so that one could choose a level at which to share their content?
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xabid.com xabid.com
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https://xabid.com/how-to-connect-wordpress-to-fediverse/
Nothing new for me, and potentially missing some parts.
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community.reclaimhosting.com community.reclaimhosting.com
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https://community.reclaimhosting.com/t/mastodon-on-reclaim-cloud/3225
For those interested in doing it for edtech/classroom settings, it might be worth looking at the Hometown fork of Mastodon: https://github.com/hometown-fork/hometown/wiki/Local-only-posting
The link is to a special feature that most Mastodon instances don't have: local only posting which would allow students a level of privacy and separation from the rest of the federated timeline if they choose.
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