HN user
This is what doesn't get discussed enough around htmx, in my opinion. So much of the difficult steps are left for the templating system, and template systems aren't great in general. You need to track a lot of identifiers for htmx to work properly, and your template and view logic needs to make that make sense. For the templating systems I've seen, that's not so simple to do.
I like a lot of things about Elixir but I struggled with what felt like clumsy IDE capabilities. Stuff like 'go to definition' that I use all the time in other languages didn't work right. Lack of strong types makes autocomplete problematic. I've started to mess around with Gleam hoping that it spans this gap because I want to like this ecosystem.
Has this changed recently? When I was on Twitter a few years ago I often missed posts from my friends because the algorithm didn't show them to me. Same when I posted, often my friends didn't see it.
So tired of this take. There are so many frontends, besides just the built-in interfaces for Mastodon, Misskey, Pleroma there's also web-based frontends like Elk and Enafore, and tons of different native apps on mobile.
It's fairly easy, it could be better but it's like three steps. Switching away from any other social media in comparison is monumental.
I don't really think until today I had anyone say to me, "Look, don't worry too much about which server you choose to start out with -- just pick one, because it's super-easy to switch later if you want to try a different one."
I think that's fair, the resources around joining don't make this particularly clear. Part of the problem is that 'Mastodon' as an organization is not very invested in making this widely known, they would rather people stick with the easy choice because they run mastodon.social. For people who are already on the network it's pretty well understood.
It is listed on this page, at the very bottom (facepalm) - https://joinmastodon.org/servers
This is a better resource if you want more information on it - https://fedi.tips/transferring-your-mastodon-account-to-anot...
I do think there's a paradox of choice issue going on and I can understand why that makes it more intimidating to try it out. One thing that I wish was more widely known is that you can just create an account on multiple servers. If you're not sure you'll like the vibe of a server, create an account and try it, you can either migrate that account or delete it if you decide that server isn't for you. I hope this perspective might make people feel more curiosity and less decision paralysis, it's not a problem to have alt accounts.
I'm having trouble following, because the biggest instance would be the 'One Obvious Choice', but that choice seems lame to you? What could federated services do that would make the obvious choice not feel lame?
The decision isn't really that massive, a lot of users have alt accounts on different servers and it's not that difficult to migrate between them.
Partially true, but vanilla Mastodon does hardcode it at 500. Some forks make it configurable (I believe glitch-soc does), and some admins have edited the hardcoded value manually.
Bluesky has a 300 character limit, Mastodon has 500, non-Mastodon ActivityPub servers have a configurable limit. Mastodon can render markdown, has subject lines which are commonly used as content warning tags, can translate posts. It supports custom emoji and non-Mastodon ActivityPub servers support custom emoji reactions. Bluesky has more discovery features like community-curated lists and algorithmic suggestions of who to follow.
I think fediverse offers a decent compromise here which is that people can self-host an instance for other people to use. Some of the longest running instances have a few hundred users or maybe a thousand. So if one in 300 people is interested in self-hosting then they can support the other people who either don't have the skills or don't have the interest. It's not perfect but it's working pretty well for those servers.
This point is confusing to me because there are so many clients available. Not only in different projects (Misskey/Firefish/Sharkey, Akkoma/Pleroma, glitch-soc), but also from the various compatible clients in the web and mobile (Elk, Semaphore/Enafore/Pinafore, Ice Cubes, Fedilab). Many instances also tweak their frontend to make UX adjustments, which is a lot more difficult in closed source projects.
We can tell an argument is rational when it upholds existing power structures and diminishes people who are already marginalized. They're probably just complaining because being marginalized upsets their emotions.
Sabine seems to believe any intellectual darkweb-esque argument she hears as long as it makes her feel heterodox. Her coverage of autism, transgender issues and capitalism were embarrassing.
This is well-established in peer reviewed research, it's not just something I read.
I had always heard that part of the problem with tobacco smoke is that it's radioactive. Whereas marijuana smoke isn't. So it's still smoke but not nearly as carcinogenic?
That doesn't match the way people use the term though. Pleroma and Akkoma implement the Mastodon API but wouldn't be called Mastodon instances since they aren't running Mastodon.
I'm not buying it.
- Allows hate speech to hide in plain sight.
- Allows plausible deniability that you aren't the nazi bar.
- May allow moderation labeling to be used as a form of harassment, by intentionally using labels inaccurately.
- Does not actually absolve you of the write-side responsibility to filter illegal content.
So far that's been the case, but the spectacular failure of Twitter as a centralized service has definitely taught some people a lesson. It remains to be seen if wariness of centralization will be a major factor for people in the future.
I'm no expert, but piecing together what I've read, content moderation will not really be a thing. Instead there will be content labeling services which can be provided by third parties. You would subscribe to a labeling feed then use those labels to filter content you didn't want to be visible.
Calckey is working on account migration and backup that does transfer posts to the new server.
I like some concepts from HTMX but I don't understand how it tracks the relationship between these addresses and the identifiers in the markup. It seems to be just that the identifier strings match - the markup identifies the targets/swaps and it just refers to itself.
When I compare this to Phoenix LiveView I much prefer LiveView, because it both provides the markup templating engine and tracks the meaning of the relationship, with server-side tokens and methods.
That's fair, I've heard complaints that mastodon's moderation tools also leave something to be desired but it might still be the best. I haven't been an admin so I can't comment firsthand.
Where is the canonical location to access an email, or read an XMPP message? It's not just that it 'might show up' in my timeline, seeing it on my home server is where I want it to be - that's where I can take actions on it like replying, starring, or boosting. The post belongs in my client because that representation is the one that's relevant to me. I agree that the mastodon software could do better to optimize for public anonymous read, but it's not the most important functionality for the server to do.
Most people don't even have a fediverse account ffs.
This is why you won't see a Bluesky post linked on HN, no one can open it. Imagine if you could sign up on your choice of thousands of servers and get the same access to the content rather than a central site, that's fediverse, it's not that complex.
This works from a Calckey instance, just confirmed. https://calckey.social/notes/9ebxxsy83i
ugh I wish I had tried to generate these through a non-mastodon instance, could have saved a lot of confusion. It works fine through Calckey:
My read is it's mostly social, there's a lot of people accustomed to Mastodon and not much interest in exploring other options. There are implementations in Elixir (Pleroma, Akkoma) and work being done in Rust (Calckey, currently node but moving towards a Rust implementation). Mastodon dev team are not particularly open to criticism so my general sense is that admins should choose another project.
The fediverse has a problem with discovery, I agree on that piece. Coming from outside the network and trying to access a particular post or user profile is not smooth, mostly because it takes you to the wrong server (I don't use chaos.social, links to there are useless to me).
I've explained in other comments how a URL scheme would help with this.
There are many non-technical users on fediverse and it's working just fine for them, I see their posts all the time saying that they're having a good time despite your scare quotes. The problem in this case is HN users who aren't on the network anywhere, and there's not much I can do about that. I think if you were on it and had a home server this would not be that confusing, you'd just search for the post. Ideally you could skip the search step as well which is why I keep coming back to a URL scheme solution.
I produced those links by finding the post on each server so I was also surprised that they redirect when accessed directly. I mean it showed me the post without being logged in, and then I copied what was in the URL bar. Given how much browsing is available without being logged in I agree this should be fine if it loaded normally.
Try making a link to your email address without knowing which email provider your audience is using and you'll understand the utility.
I understand. In my view it will be important to have a fediverse URL protocol so that these links are not aimed at the original domain, and instead open at your home server, or in a mobile app connected to the home server.