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Please consider contributing to her tip jar if you can, especially for this last bit of advocacy work. Find her contribution options on her profile.
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Mainstream adoption of ActivityPub vs. DIY indie hacking
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He says to @deadsuperhero@social.wedistribute.org and @evan@cosocial.ca re: SXSW
#FediverseHouse this feels like an irrelevant echo chamber, I really miss the grassroots #DIY that built this space in the first place. This #maistreaming is too much noise vs signal... currently the grassroots #DIY space is a hollow shell
(two posts combined)
That immediately got me on edge as someone new to ActivityPub in 2024. Does this mean I'm "mainstream", and somehow "bad"?
Mainstream adoption is good and a step in the right direction. I personally think ActivityPub isn't ready for general mainstream consumption, but we as a group are rapidly closing the gap and I'd much rather continue building momentum instead of waiting for the opportune moment.
Here's the hot take that I was going to originally write, but thought came off as too combative:
It sounds like you feel like ActivityPub development only counts when you're toiling away in obscurity.
As someone who's hacking away on a platform that hasn't been "mainstream" for over a decade (forum/BBS software), I bristle at the notion that what I do doesn't count as grassroots or DIY. You don't have to be the perpetual underdog to do good in the world.
I might be wrong, but it sounds like Hamish feels like big players are coming in and taking the ball away... that big players' clout and presence takes away from the attention that smaller DIY projects receive.
Maybe... but if the fediverse is 100x larger with a big player, and they take 99% of the eyeballs, have they really taken anything away from you?
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It's early-stage and the ORCID following function is not publicly available yet. We're seeking community feedback on functionality and safety aspects. Read more at https://encyclia.pub or follow @encyclia for news!
User X writes a post containing the term, say, #Namibia. The post receives no reply, no boost, no like.
Later, someone searches for #Namibia on mastodon.social. The search results will NOT include user X’s post containing the term #Namibia.
(continues)
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In this context, remember many instances do not add relays because the additional posts pulled in through the relay increase the storage and processing costs.
(continues)
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👋 Hey, I've been here on the Fedi for the last 7 years.
Founding member of @weareopencoop working at the intersection of #learning, #technology & #community.
Was PM of #MoodleNet, a decentralised digital commons built on #ActivityPub from 2018-2020 which has morphed into @bonfire, a federated app toolkit.
Wrote doctoral thesis on #digitalliteracies. Was on Mozilla's #OpenBadges team & led #WebLiteracy work.
Pursuing MSc in #SystemsThinking
I like 🏔️🥃⚽
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Here goes useful info for those interested in following, or applying for this initiative. The public call involves hiring two professionals, for web communication and web technology. Candidates have until Feb 10 to apply.
Our goal is to provide #museums and other #memoryinstitutions with an open tool that facilitates the exploration of decentralized social networks — #TheFediverse.
The platform’s proactive approach to content verification and user education has set new standards for maintaining the integrity of information shared on federated networks. Their collaborative efforts with community moderators have been instrumental in promoting accurate and reliable discourse.
2/6
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NodeBB v4.0.0 — Federate good times, come on!
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After nearly a full year in development, NodeBB v4.0.0 has landed, bringing federation between NodeBB instances (and a connection to the wider fediverse of social media) to forum software.
Fediverse! Here's a TechCrunch primer about it, but at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. All you need to know is that NodeBB plugs in to a wider social network so that you don't have to cultivate an audience, they're already there.
It was back in mid-2023 when I had the initial idea of interconnecting NodeBB forums. Back then, I had far smaller ambitions... I wanted a singular NodeBB to be able to communicate with other forums running NodeBB. To do that, we'd need to build out a centralized service to act as a bridge between instances, and corresponding slim clients on individual installs to consume the relayed data. At the time, concept like decentralization were not even part of my thought process.
It was during this period when I was doing my research that I stumbled on Mastodon, and later, ActivityPub, the protocol that powers it all. Since then, it's been one wild ride getting NodeBB to speak the same language.
Soon after dipping my toes into all that Mastodon had to offer, I discovered the NLNet Foundation, and their corresponding fund — NGI Zero Core. With the promise of funding, NodeBB could fully commit to implementing the protocol in short order, instead of piece by piece over time. We sent in an application and were delighted to be approved for the August 2023 call.
Their funding was instrumental in providing the financial stability to experiment with ActivityPub and to participate in developer circles, such as the SWICG, FediForum, and much more.
The fund continues to operate, perhaps you could benefit, or donate to the cause. It has certainly made a difference to NodeBB.
NodeBB v4 comes shipped with the capability to interact with other NodeBB forums and any other ActivityPub-speaking software, right out of the box. We opted to make this a core feature instead of a plugin, since there were many changes made to core to support even the concept of accepting content from outside itself.
To that end, any users upgrading from v3.x will automatically have federation disabled, in order to reduce surprise. Any new forums will federate automatically.
You can turn federation on and off (and adjust some other fun toggles) directly from ACP > Settings > Federation (ActivityPub).
Even after turning federation on, how you use it shapes how well connected you will be. There is no centralized authority artificially boosting your content, so the name of the game is establishing two-way follow relationships to other sites.
We're not alone in this journey to interoperate with other decentralized services. We're not even the only forum software to attempt to do so.
I specifically highlight these two because they both started in the early 2010s, same as NodeBB. It's always been a bit of an informal competition between us, and we always checked in on what the others were doing (growth-wise, pricing-wise, etc.) Truth be told, I don't think the ghost team ever really noticed NodeBB, but I digress...
The funny thing about ActivityPub is that at the end of the day, the overarching goal of seamless communication breaks down any barriers between competing organizations.
NodeBB and Discourse have been vying for the exact same market share (forums, community-building, self-started or enterprise) for over 10 years, and it was only after ActivityPub came around that the dev teams even started talking to one another.
Funny how that works.
Our documentation portal has been updated with the latest information about the ActivityPub functionality in v4.
If you have any questions about how it works or how to configure some aspect of it, please don't hesitate to reach out in the corresponding v4 support thread.
If you run NodeBB, the quickest way to see this in action is to upgrade to v4, and then paste this post's URL into your search bar. It should show up automatically, and you should be able to read and reply to it, directly from your own forum. Neat!
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#ActivityPub is the accepted global Web standard for open social networking. It is published by the World Wide Web Consortium, the non-profit body that oversees Web standards.
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Read more about it in this blogpost.
https://about.flipboard.com/fediverse/erin-kissane-and-darius-kazemi/
Listen to the conversation on https://flipboard.video/c/dot_social/videos or wherever you get your podcasts.
#DotSocial#Podcast#Fediverse#Flipboard#OpenSocialWeb#SocialMedia#Tech#SocialWeb#Governance#Federation#Bluesky#ActivityPub#ATProtocol#SocialNetworks
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