@Jorge Candeias Bad idea. (Hubzilla user here.)

Hashtags are not only for discoverability (and critically so on Mastodon). They're also the preferred way of triggering the automatic generation of individual reader-side content warnings.

Content warnings that are automatically generated for each user individually based on keyword lists have a long tradition in the Fediverse. Friendica has had them long before Mastodon even existed, much less before Mastodon hijacked the summary field for content warnings. Hubzilla has had them since its own inception which was before Mastodon, too. (streams) has them, Forte has them.

On all four, automated reader-side content warnings are an integral part of their culture. And users of all four (those who are not recent Mastodon converts at least, i.e. those who entered the Fediverse by joining Friendica in the early 2010s) insist in automated reader-side content warnings being vastly better than Mastodon's poster-side content warnings that are forced upon everyone all the same.

Oh, and by the way, Mastodon has this feature, too. It has only introduced it in October, 2022, and since the re-definition of Mastodon's culture in mid-2022 pre-dates it, it is not part of Mastodon's culture. But Mastodon has this feature.

However, in order for these content warnings to be generated, there needs to be a trigger. The safest way is by hashtags: If you post content that not everyone may want to see, add corresponding hashtags, enough to cover as many people as possible. If you don't want to see certain content right away, add the corresponding hashtags as keywords to NSFW (Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams), Forte) or a CW-generating filter (Mastodon).

In fact, hashtags can also be used to completely filter out content that you don't want to see at all. And they can be used to trigger such filters. This should work everywhere in the Fediverse.

I myself post stuff that some people don't want to see all the time. Hence, I need a whole lot of hashtags.

Let me explain the "hashtag wall" at the bottom of this comment to you.

• #Long, #LongPost
  This comment is over 500 characters long. Many Mastodon users don't want to see any content that exceeds 500 characters. They can filter either or both of these hashtags and at least get rid of my content with over 500 characters.
  Why two hashtags? Because I can't know beforehand which one of them people will filter. And because I can't know beforehand which of one of them people will search for or follow.
• #CWLong, #CWLongPost
  The same as above, but making clear that it's supposed to stand in for a content warning ("CW: long (over 8,300 characters)"). Also, filtering these instead of the above has less of a chance of false positives than the above.
  Why two hashtags? Because I can't know beforehand which one of them people will filter. And because I can't know beforehand which of one of them people will search for or follow.
• #FediMeta, #FediverseMeta
  This comment contains Fediverse meta content. Some people don't want to read anything about the Fediverse, not even as by-catch or boosted to them by someone whom they follow or even only on their federated timeline. They can filter either or both of these.
  Why two hashtags? Because I can't know beforehand which one of them people will filter. And because I can't know beforehand which of one of them people will search for or follow.
• #CWFediMeta, #CWFediverseMeta
  The same as above, but making clear that it's supposed to stand in for a content warning ("CW: Fediverse meta" or, in this case, "CW: Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta").
  Why two hashtags? Because I can't know beforehand which one of them people will filter. And because I can't know beforehand which of one of them people will search for or follow.
• #Fediverse
  This comment is about the Fediverse. If you don't like it, you can filter it out. Otherwise, click it or tap it to find more content on the topic. Also, the hashtag helps people looking for content about the Fediverse find my comment.
• #Mastodon
  This comment touches Mastodon as a topic. If you don't like it, you can filter it out. Otherwise, click it or tap it to find more content on the topic. Also, the hashtag helps people looking for content about Mastodon find my comment.
• #Friendica
  This comment touches Friendica as a topic. If you don't like it, you can filter it out. Otherwise, click it or tap it to find more content on the topic, especially if you don't know what the hell Friendica is, but you're curious. Also, the hashtag helps people looking for content about Friendica find my comment.
• #Hubzilla
  This comment touches Hubzilla as a topic. If you don't like it, you can filter it out. Otherwise, click it or tap it to find more content on the topic, especially if you don't know what the hell Hubzilla is, but you're curious. Also, the hashtag helps people looking for content about Hubzilla find my comment.
• #Streams, #(streams)
  This comment touches (streams) as a topic. If you don't like it, you can filter it out. Otherwise, click it or tap it to find more content on the topic, especially if you don't know what the hell the streams repository is, but you're curious. Also, the hashtag helps people looking for content about (streams) find my comment.
  Why two hashtags if they're the same on Mastodon? Because they are not the same on Friendica, Hubzilla (again, that's where I am), (streams) itself and Forte. If I have to choose between catering to the technologies and cultures of Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte and catering to Mastodon's, I will always choose the former.
• #Forte
  This comment touches Forte as a topic. If you don't like it, you can filter it out. Otherwise, click it or tap it to find more content on the topic, especially if you don't know what the hell Forte is, but you're curious. Also, the hashtag helps people looking for content about Forte find my comment.
• #MastodonCulture
  This comment touches Mastodon culture as a topic. If you don't like it, you can filter it out. Otherwise, click it or tap it to find more content on the topic, including critical views upon how Mastodon users try to force Mastodon's 2022 culture upon the users of Fediverse server applications that are very different from Mastodon, and that have had their own culture for much longer. Also, the hashtag helps people looking for content about Mastodon culture find my comment.
• #Hashtag, #Hashtags
  This comment touches hashtags as a topic. If you don't like it, you can filter it out. Otherwise, click it or tap it to find more content on the topic. Also, the hashtag helps people looking for content about hashtags and their implications find my comment.
  Why two hashtags? Because I can't know beforehand which one of them people will filter. And because I can't know beforehand which of one of them people will search for or follow.
• #HashtagMeta
  This comment contains hashtag meta content. Some people don't want to read anything about it, not even as by-catch or boosted to them by someone whom they follow or even only on their federated timeline. They can filter either it.
• #CWHashtagMeta
  The same as above, but making clear that it's supposed to stand in for a content warning ("CW: hashtag meta").

By the way: Hashtags for triggering filters are even more important on Hubzilla in comments when Mastodon users may see them. That's because Hubzilla cannot add Mastodon-style content warnings to comments (= everything that replies to something else; here on Hubzilla, it's very different from a post that isn't a reply). What's a content warning on Mastodon is still (and justifiedly so) a summary on Hubzilla. But from a traditional blogging point of view (Hubzilla can very much be used for full-fledged long-form blogging with all bells and whistles), a summary for a comment doesn't make sense. Thus, the comment editors have no summary field on Hubzilla. Thus, I can't add Mastodon-style CWs to comments here on Hubzilla.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #MastodonCulture #Hashtag #Hashtags #HashtagMeta #CWHashtagMeta

@Michael Quote-Posts.

Drükos bzw. Drukos.

Auf Friendica, Hubzilla & Co. das Teilen von Posts, das seit 2010 im Grunde die Standardmethode ist und die meiste Zeit die einzige verfügbare Methode war, um Posts an andere Leute weiterzuleiten.

Die Twitter-nach-Mastodon-Konvertiten, die aber den überwiegenden Teil der Fediverse-Nutzer ausmachen, kennen das als Quote-Tweets, aber auch nur als Methode, um Farbige, Schwule usw. auf Twitter zu drangsalieren. Das ist der einzige Verwendungszweck, den sie dafür kennen. Einen anderen können sie sich auch gar nicht vorstellen. Das kommt in der Twitter-Kultur so nicht vor.

Die 60% sind eben die Twitter-nach-Mastodon-Konvertiten. Und von diesen 60% "wissen" mindestens 59, daß es im Fediverse keine Quote-Posts gibt. Und mindestens 35, daß das Fediverse nur Mastodon ist.

Jetzt hat Mastodon die Einführung von Quote-Posts angekündigt. Die 60% flippen jetzt natürlich ihren Shit, vor allem die Angehörigen von Minderheiten, die auf Twitter mit Quote-Tweets drangsaliert werden.

Aaaaaber: Mastodon hat auch angekündigt, daß es einen Opt-Out- oder Opt-In-Schalter für Mastodon-Profile geben wird. Damit sollen Mastodon-Nutzer kontrollieren können, ob andere Mastodon-Nutzer ihre Tröts quote-posten können oder nicht.

Wie gut kennst du Hubzilla? Stell dir eine Berechtigungseinstellung "Darf meine Beiträge wiederholen und teilen" vor. Nur daß Mastodon kein Berechtigungssystem hat.

Und nur daß das ein Eigengezücht von Mastodon sein wird, das keinerlei Grundlage in ActivityPub hat, geschweige denn in irgendwas, was schon irgendwo implementiert ist.

Heißt mit anderen Worten: Pleroma und seine Forks, Misskey und seine Forks, Friendica und seine Forks usw. usf., die werden weiterhin allesamt Tröts von jedem Mastodon-Nutzer widerstandslost quote-posten können, egal, ob sie das qua Mastodon-Kontoeinstellungen dürfen oder nicht. Weil sie gar nicht wissen können, ob sie das dürfen oder nicht.

Auf Mastodon glaubt aber beinahe ausnahmslos jeder, dieser Opt-In oder Opt-Out ist absolut wasserdicht. Es glaubt ja auch beinahe ausnahmslos jeder, daß Mastodon die erste und dann einzige Fediverse-Software sein wird mit Quote-Posts.

Wir haben im Grunde geschätzt folgende Aufteilung:

• 35%, die das Fediverse für nur Mastodon halten.
• 15%, die schon mal von Misskey und/oder Friendica gehört haben, sich aber nicht vorstellen können, daß die mit Mastodon verbunden sind, weil das doch ganz was anderes ist.
• 9%, die wissen, daß Misskey, Friendica & Co. mit Mastodon verbunden sind, die aber nicht wissen, daß Misskey, Friendica & Co. Mastodon-Tröts quote-posten können.
• 1%, die wissen, daß andere Fediverse-Serveranwendungen Mastodon-Tröts quote-posten können. Entweder, weil sie Leuten wie @crossgolf_rebel - kostenlose Kwalitätsposts, @Der Pepe (Hubzilla) ⁂ ⚝ und mir aufmerksam zugehört haben, oder weil sie selbst mal was anderes als Mastodon ausprobiert haben, und zwar etwas intensiver, oder weil sie noch etwas anderes als Mastodon nebenher nutzen.
• 40%, die primär etwas anderes als Mastodon nutzen und wissen, daß Quote-Posts im Fediverse eben nicht böswillig genutzt werden. Schon gar nicht ausschließlich. Und die auch ganz genau wissen, daß so ein Opt-Out oder Opt-In auf Mastodon sie nicht daran hindern können wird, Mastodon-Tröts zu quote-posten.

So, dann kommst du und teilst einfach mal einen interessanten Post von Mastodon. Was du nicht weißt: Der Nutzer, der das gepostet hat, hat in seinem Mastodon-Konto eingestellt, nicht gequote-postet werden zu dürfen. Kannst du nicht wissen. Kann auch Friendica nicht wissen. Aber trotzdem quote-postest du den.

Da kannst du mir glauben, der wird aber mal so richtig hart austicken. Der wird ja gar nicht wissen, daß du auf Friendica bist. Woher auch? Mastodon zeigt das nicht an. Und auf Mastodon geht auch keine Sau auf die lokalen Profile von Leuten und guckt, wo die sind. Keine Sau.

Zwei Dinge seien noch erwähnt. Zum einen: Wenn Friendica-, Hubzilla-, (streams)- oder Forte-Nutzer Mastodon-Tröts quote-posten, werden die Tröter darüber benachrichtigt. Zum anderen, noch einmal: Auf Mastodon gelten Quote-Posts immer als Akt der Aggression. Immer.

Der wird also glauben, daß du entweder auf einer gehackten Mastodon-Instanz bist oder auf irgendwas anderem, was explizit und mit Vorsatz so ausgelegt wurde, daß es den Mastodon-Quote-Post-Opt-In/Opt-Out umgeht.

Und dann wird das Geschrei losgehen. Bestenfalls wird gefordert, einen der beiden Friendica-Hauptentwickler (also dich) zu fediblocken, also daß du auf allen Fediverse-Instanzen (zumindest denen, die mitmachen), dauerhaft vom Admin gesperrt wird.

Schlimmstenfalls wird das gefordert für den ganzen Friendica-Node, auf dem du drauf bist, also inklusive allen anderen Nutzern. Warum? Weil Pirati.ca böse ist. Weil Pirati.ca Mastodon-Tröts quote-posten kann, auch wenn das gar nicht erlaubt ist.

Unvorstellbar? Unrealistisch?

Dann möchte ich noch einmal daran erinnern, daß @Jakbous Schürz dereinst von einer Mastodon-Nutzerin geblockt wurde, weil die glaubte, daß er ein böser Black-Hat-Hacker ist und Friendica ein böses Black-Hat-Hackertool, mit dem er sich illegalerweise und mit boshafter Intention ins Mastodon-Fediverse reingehackt hat, das von Gargron so entwickelt worden ist, daß nur Mastodon-Server sich miteinander verbinden können.

Frag ihn. Ist in echt so passiert. Also gibt's solche Leute auch in echt.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #LangerPost #CWLangerPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #NichtNurMastodon #Pleroma #Misskey #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteTröt #QuoteTröts #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #QuotePostDebatte #QuoteTrötDebatte

@KellamБур This may come as a surprise, but: Nomadic identity is not an abstract concept or a science-fiction idea for the Fediverse.

It is reality. It exists. Right now. In stable, daily-driver software that's federated with Mastodon. And it has been for over a decade.

I'm literally replying to you here from a nomadic channel that simultaneously exists on two servers.

Nomadic identity was invented by @Mike Macgirvin (formerly American software developer of about half a century who has been living in rural Australia for decades now) in 2011 and first implemented in 2012. Almost four years before Mastodon was first launched.

In 2010, he had invented the Facebook alternative Friendica, originally named Mistpark and based on his own DFRN protocol.

Over the months, he witnessed lots of privately operated public Friendica nodes shut down with or without an announcement and the users on these nodes lose everything. He added the possibility to export and import Friendica accounts. But that would only help if a permanent shutdown was announced. It did not protect you against shutdowns out of the blue.

There was only one solution to this problem. And that was for someone's identity to not be bound to one server, but to exist on multiple servers simultaneously. The whole thing with everything that's attached to it. Name, settings, connections, posts, files in the file storage etc. etc., everything.

So in 2011, Mike designed a whole new protocol named Zot around this brand-new idea of what he called "nomadic identity" back then already.

In 2012, Mike forked Friendica into something called Red, later the Red Matrix, and rebuilt the whole thing from the ground up against Zot. Red was the first nomadic social networking software in the world, almost four years before Mastodon.

In 2015, ten months before Mastodon was first released, the Red Matrix became Hubzilla, the Fediverse's ultimate Swiss army knife.

I am on Hubzilla myself. This channel of mine is constantly being mirrored between its main instance on https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu and its clone on https://hub.hubzilla.de. Anything that happens on the main instance is backed up on the clone. I can also log into the clone and use that, and whatever happens there is backed up on the main instance.

https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu could go down, temporarily, permanently, doesn't matter; I still have my channel, namely the clone. And I can declare the clone my new main instance.

Well, Mike didn't stop at Hubzilla and its original version of the Zot protocol. He wanted to refine it and advance it, but in ways that wouldn't be possible on daily-driver software.

Zot went through several upgrades: Zot6 in 2018 (backported to Hubzilla in 2020, along with OpenWebAuth magic single sign-on). Zot8 in 2020. Zot11 in 2021 which had become incompatible with Zot6 and therefore was renamed to Nomad. Today's Nomad would be Zot12.

Also, in order to advance and test Zot, Mike created a whole bunch of forks and forks of forks. Osada and Zap for Zot6 in 2018, followed by another short-lived Osada in 2019. A third Osada, Mistpark 2020 (a.k.a. Misty) and Redmatrix 2020 in 2020 for Zot8. Roadhouse for Zot11 Nomad in 2021. All Osadas, Zap, Misty, Redmatrix 2020 and Roadhouse were discontinued on New Year's Eve of 2022.

The most recent software based on Nomad is from October, 2021. It can be found in the streams repository. It is officially and intentionally nameless and brandless, it has next to nodeinfo code that could submit statistics, and it is intentionally released into the public domain. The community named it (streams) after the code repository.

I also have two (streams) channels, one of which is cloned so far.

The newest thing, and that's what the Friendica and Hubzilla veteran @Tim Schlotfeldt ?️‍? referred to, is nomadic identity using nothing but ActivityPub, no longer relying on a special protocol.

This was not Mike Macgirvin's idea. This came from @silverpill, the creator and developer of the microblogging server application Mitra. He wanted to make Mitra nomadic, make it resilient against server shutdown. But he didn't want to port it to Nomad. He wanted to achieve it with nothing but ActivityPub.

So he hit up Mike. The two came to the conclusion: This is actually possible. And they began to work on it. Amongst the results were several FEPs coined by silverpill.

This time, Mike did not create another fork to develop nomadic identity via ActivityPub. He did it all on the nomadic branch of the streams repository while silverpill did his part on a special development branch of Mitra.

In mid-2024, after enough sparring between (streams) instances, between Mitra instances and between (streams) and Mitra, Mike was confident enough that his implementation of support of nomadic identity via ActivityPub was stable enough. He merged the nomadic branch into the dev branch which ended up being merged into the stable release branch in summer.

Now, at this point, (streams) didn't use ActivityPub for nomadic identity. It still used the Nomad protocol for everything first and foremost, including cloning. But it understood nomadic identity via ActivityPub as implemented on experimental Mitra.

However, while it worked under lab conditions, it blew up under real-life conditions. At this point, (streams) had to handle so many different identities that it confused them, and it couldn't federate with anything yet.

In mid-August, while trying to fix the problem, Mike eventually forked the streams repository into Forte. It got a name again, it got a brand identity again, it got its nodeinfo back, it was put under the MIT license again.

But most importantly: Any and all support for Nomad was ripped out, also to get rid of a whole number of IDs, namely those for Nomad-actually-Zot12 and for Hubzilla's Nomad-actually-Zot6. Forte only uses ActivityPub for everything. And so, Forte also had to fully rely on ActivityPub for nomadic identity, cloning and syncing.

For almost seven months, Forte was considered experimental and unstable. For most of the time, the only existing servers were Mike's.

But on March 12th, 2025, Mike Macgirvin released Forte 25.3.12, the first official stable release of Forte. This is what Tim wrote about. Because this actually made it into Fediverse-wide news.

Not because it's nomadic. Nomadic identity has been daily-driven for over a decade now.

But because it uses ActivityPub for nomadic identity. Which means that you can theoretically make any kinds of Fediverse software nomadic now, all without porting it to the Nomad protocol first.

For the future, Mike and silverpill envision a Fediverse in which one can clone between different server applications. A Fediverse in which one can have one and the same identity cloned across multiple servers of Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, Mitra, Forte, Mobilizon, Lemmy, BookWyrm etc., all with the same name, all with the same content and settings (as far as the software allows; you will certainly not be able to clone your PeerTube videos to Mastodon and Lemmy).

Even if you don't intend to clone, it will make moving instances and even moving from one software to another dramatically easier.

If you're concerned about your privacy, let me tell you this:

Hubzilla's privacy, security and permissions system is unparalleled in the Fediverse. Except for that on (streams) and Forte which is another notch better.

I can define who can see my profile (my default, public profile on Hubzilla where each channel can have multiple profiles).
I can define who can see my stream and my posts when looking at my channel.
I can define who can see my connections (Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte don't distinguish between follower and followed; they aren't Twitter clones).
I can define who can look into my file space (individual permission settings per folder and per file notwithstanding).
I can define who can see my webpages on Hubzilla (if I have any).
I can define who can see my wikis on Hubzilla (no shit, I've got wikis on my Hubzilla channel).

On Hubzilla, I can define individually for any of these whether it's

• everyone on the Internet
• everyone with a recognisable Fediverse account
• everyone on Hubzilla (maybe also on (streams); anyone using ActivityPub is definitely excluded here)
• everyone on the same server as myself (AFAIK, only main instances of channels count here, clones don't)
• unapproved (= followers) as well as approved (= mutual) connections
• confirmed connections
• those of my confirmed connections whom I explicitly grant that permission by contact role
• only myself

There's a whole bunch more permissions than these. And they all have seven or eight permission levels (depending on whether the general non-Fediverse public can be given permission).

On (streams) and Forte, I can define whether things are allowed for

• everyone on the Internet (where applicable)
• everyone with a recognisable Fediverse account
• all my approved connections
• only me myself plus those whom I explicitly grant that permission in the connection settings

Yes, connection settings. Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte give you various ways of configuring individual connections, much unlike Mastodon. This includes what any individual connection is allowed to do.

Hubzilla uses so-called "contact roles" for that, presets with a whopping 17 permissions to grant or deny for any one individual connection. That is, what the channel generally allows, a contact role can't forbid.

(streams) and Forte still have 15 permissions per contact, but they lack some features which Hubzilla has permissions for. These permissions can be set individually for each connection, or you can define permission roles that cover all 15 permissions to make things easier.

Okay, how about posting in public vs in private? And when I say "private", I mean "private". It's "private messages" on Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte, not "direct messages".

Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte let you post

• in public
• only to yourself
• only to your connections ((streams) and Forte only; Hubzilla requires a privacy group with all your connections in it for this)
• to all members of one specific privacy group (Hubzilla)/access list ((streams), Forte); that's like being able to only post to those on one specific list on Mastodon
• to everyone to whom one specific non-default profile is assigned (Hubzilla only)
• to a specific group/forum (I'll get back to that later)
• to a custom one-by-one selection of connections of yours

Now, let's assume I have a privacy group with Alice, Bob and Carol in it. I send a new post to only this privacy group. This means:

• Only Alice, Bob and Carol can see the post and the conversation.
• Alice can reply to me, Bob and Carol.
• Bob can reply to me, Alice and Carol.
• Carol can reply to me, Alice and Bob.
• Nobody else can see the post. Not even by searching for it. Not by hashtag either. Not at all.
• Nobody else can see any of the comments.
• Nobody else can comment.

If one of them was on Mastodon, they'd see my post as a DM, by the way, and they could only reply to me. But that's Mastodon's limitation because it understands neither threaded conversations nor permissions.

Or how about reply control? This is something that many Mastodon users have been craving for quite a while now. Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte have them. Right now. And they work. They have since 2012.

Hubzilla optionally lets me disallow comments on either of my posts. Users on Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte won't even be able to comment; they won't have the UI elements to do so. Everyone else is able to comment locally. But that comment will never end up on my channel. It will never officially be added to the conversation. And at least users on Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte will never fetch that comment from my channel as part of the conversation, i.e. never at all.

(streams) and Forte can go even further with all available options. They can disallow comments like Hubzilla. But in addition, they can allow only the members of one particular access list to comment, regardless of who can see the post/the conversation. On top of that, comments can be closed at a pre-defined point in the future. And then you even have a channel-wide setting for how long people can comment on your posts.

Oh, and there's even a setting for who is generally permitted to comment on your posts. And you can additionally allow specific connections of yours to comment on your posts.

Lastly, I've already mentioned groups/forums. Like, you know, Web forums or Facebook groups or subreddits or whatever. Like Guppe Groups on a mountain of coke and with moderation and permission control and optionally private.

Hubzilla has them, and it has inherited them from Friendica. (streams) has them. Forte has them. They're basically channels like social networking channels, but with some extra features. This includes that everything that's send to a group/forum as what amounts to a PM is automatically forwarded to all other members.

On Hubzilla, a forum can be gradually made private by denying permission to see certain elements to everyone but its own members (= connections): the profile, the members, what's going on in it. Depending on what you want or do not want people to see.

On (streams) and Forte, you have four types of forums:

• public, and members can upload images and other files to the forum channel
• public, but members cannot upload images and other files to the forum channel
• like above, but additionally, posts and comments from new members must be manually approved by the admin(s) until their connections are configured to make them full members
• private, non-members can't see the profile, non-members can't see the connections, non-members can't see what's going on in it, but members can upload images and other files to the forum channel

In addition, on all three, a group/forum channel can choose to hide itself from directories. This is always an extra option that's independent from public/private.

What we have here is the most secure and most private Fediverse software of all.

And, once again, at its core, this is technology from 2012. It pre-dates Mastodon by almost four years.

Finally, if you want to know how Hubzilla and (streams) compare to Mastodon: I have made a number of tables that compare Mastodon, Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams).

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Mitra #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #ActivityPub #Zot #Zot6 #Zot8 #Nomad #NomadicIdentity #Security #FediverseSecurity #Privacy #FediversePrivacy #Permissions

@Peter Vágner @Dieguito How conversations work is not unified all across the Fediverse. Even how connections work is not unified.

Mastodon has taken over the follower/followed principle from Twitter which is always illustrated with arrows with one point. A following B is illustrated with an arrow from A to B. A being followed by B is illustrated with an arrow from B to A. A and B following each other mutually is illustrated with one arrow from A to B and one arrow from B to A.

It appears to me that Friendica has adopted this to become more compatible with Mastodon. But its several descendants, created by Friendica's own creator, starting with Hubzilla, haven't.

Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte still have the bidirectional "connection" or "contact" as the default. It's illustrated with one arrow, but with one point on each end.

Also, all three understand a threaded conversation as an enclosed contruct entirely owned by the conversation starter. Everyone on these three who has the start post on their stream always actually has the whole thread on their stream.

In fact, all three have Conversation Containers implemented. This feature was originally created in the streams repository in 2022. Forte has had it from the get-go as it started out as a fork of (streams). It was eventually turned into FEP-171b and backported to Hubzilla last year.

All three make sure that everyone who has a post on their stream also always has all comments on that post, at least those that are made after they have received the post.

This works on two basic principles:

• All comments go directly to the original poster because the original poster owns the thread.
• Those who have the post automatically receive all comments from the original poster.

In a pure Hubzilla/(streams)/Forte system, your above example would look like this:

• User 1 and User 2 are connected.
• User 1 and User 3 are connected. (This doesn't even matter.)
• User 2 and User 3 are connected.
• User 2 and User 4 are connected.

Much simpler than explaining everything with "following" and "being followed", isn't it?

Now, the conversation works like this.

• User 2 sends a public post, thus creating a Conversation Container of which they are the owner.
  User 1, User 3 and User 4 receive the post.
• User 3 comments on User 2's post.
  The comment goes from User 3 to User 2, who is the owner of the conversation, and it is automatically forwarded to User 1 and User 4 who already have User 2's post on their streams.
• User 4 comments on User 3's comment.
  The comment goes from User 4 past User 3 straight to User 2, who is the owner of the conversation, and it is automatically forwarded to User 1 and User 3 who already have User 2's post on their streams.

The only mentioning that occurs here, if any, is User 4 mentioning User 3. This is not necessary for User 4's post to reach anyone. This is only necessary to make sure on Hubzilla (which doesn't have a tree view) that User 4 is replying to User 3's comment and not to User 2's post.

On Mastodon, for comparison, everything depends on who follows whom, who mentions whom and whose instance knows whose instance.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Conversations #FEP_171b #ConversationContainers

@Alison Wilder Because if you want full-blown user rights and all the same features as a local user on all over 30,000 Fediverse instances, you need a local user account on each one of them.

This means two things:

• If you come over to the Fediverse for the first time, and you register your first account on Mastodon, you automatically also register an account on 30,000+ more instances.
• If you decide to host your own instance of whatever, and you spin it up for the first time, your instance immediately creates tens of millions of user accounts. One for everyone who has ever joined the Fediverse. Because anyone may decide to come over to your instance and use it, just like so.

For one, this is utter overkill.

Besides, this is technologically impossible. This would require all Fediverse instances to know all other Fediverse instances. With no exceptions. Like, if I start up my own (streams) instance for the first time, and half a second later, someone on the other side of the globe starts up a Gancio instance, they would immediately have to know each other. And all the other instances in the Fediverse.

And, of course, it would require a newly-launched instance to know all Fediverse users. Again, with no exception.

How and from which source are they supposed to know?

That said, there is a single sign-on system for the Fediverse. It's called OpenWebAuth. It was created by @Mike Macgirvin (creator of Friendica and all its descendants) in the late 2010s already for now-defunct Zap, a fork (of a fork?) of Hubzilla which, in turn, is a fork of the currently hyped Facebook alternative Friendica. It was backported to Hubzilla in 2020. Everything that came after Zap, including the still existing streams repository, got it, too.

However, first of all, OpenWebAuth is only fully implemented on Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte. Plus, it has client-side support on Friendica. This means that Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte recognise logins on all four, but Friendica doesn't recognise logins from anywhere.

As for Mastodon, OpenWebAuth implementation was actually developed to the point of an official merge request in Mastodon's GitHub repository. As far as I know, it was rejected. Mastodon won't implement OpenWebAuth, full stop.

Besides, it doesn't give you all the same power as a local user. You can't log into Friendica, go to a Hubzilla hub and create a wiki or a webpage or a CalDAV calendar, just like so.

OpenWebAuth is only for guest permissions. Because on Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte, permissions are everything.

For example, let's assume you have an account and a channel on (streams). Let's also assume that your (streams) channel and this Hubzilla channel of mine here are connected. Furthermore, let's assume that I've decided to only allow my own full connections to see my profile.

If you're logged out, and you go to my profile page, you see nothing.

But then you log in. And you come back to my profile page (provided your browser is configured so that the Hubzilla hub that I call home is allowed to create cookies). My home hub recognises your login on (streams). It identifies you as you, as one of my contacts. Thus, it identifies you as someone who is permitted to see my profile.

And all of a sudden, you see my profile.

That, for example, is what OpenWebAuth is for.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Friendica #Hubzilla #Zap #Streams #(streams) #Forte #SingleSignOn #OpenWebAuth

@prex Sit down, get a snack and a drink, for this will be long.

I wish someone made the federated G+

"The federated G+" was literally made before Google+ itself.

diaspora*

Have you ever heard of diaspora*?

If not, let me take you back to 2010. Back then, it first came out that Facebook was spying on its users and selling their private data. In spring, four students asked for $12,000 of crowdfunding for an ambitious project: a free, open-source, non-commercial, non-corporate, decentralised alternative to Facebook named diaspora*.

The word spread like wild fire. Tech media jumped upon it. Non-tech mass media jumped upon it. These four guys were about to develop a Facebook killer! Of the requested $12,000, they got over $200,000.

They started working in May, 2010. In October, they presented a first very early alpha version of diaspora* that could only run on Macs as servers. It would take the likely suicide of the project founder, the replacement of the whole development team and several years to even release a first beta. To this day, diaspora* did not have a 1.0 stable release.

In general, diaspora* did not become the huge, super-popular Facebook killer. It always remained obscure.

Google+

Then came Google. They saw that people wanted to move away from Facebook, but they thought they had nowhere to go. And Google wanted to exploit the self-same source of income as Facebook. So they launched Google+.

Google+ was a blatant, full-on, all-out rip-off of diaspora*. The circles that almost everyone "knows" were invented by Google? diaspora*'s aspects, stolen by Google. Google's entire new corporate UI design with the black navigation bar at the top? diaspora*'s design.

Like, cirlces? So ahead of its times!

Again: diaspora* had Google+'s circles before Google+ had circles. diaspora* has aspects, and Google stole them and named them circles.

Google got away with it easily. Nobody knew diaspora*. Nobody knew what diaspora* looks like. And diaspora* itself had other things to take care of than a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit against a power-mongering Silicon Valley teracorporation or even a C&D against Google.

The slow death of diaspora*

But seriously, diaspora* isn't worth looking at nowadays. It may have released a 0.9 beta last year, skipping 0.8 altogether. But it's withering away.

Shortly before New Year's Eve 2024, three major diaspora* pods shut down. According to one statistics website, diaspora* lost more than half its user accounts within three days. For April 1st, 2025, the shutdown of diasp.org, one of the biggest and most important pods, has been announced. JoinDiaspora, the old lighthouse pod, has been gone for quite a while now.

But diaspora*'s issues lie not only in its slow development, but also in its design decisions. It's beautiful, but it's minimalist to the point of being lack-lustre. Also, diaspora* does not support ActivityPub and never will. It only supports its own protocol. The developers have explicitly decided against supporting ActivityPub because Fediverse projects don't "implement ActivityPub", they "implement Mastodon". This, however, also means that diaspora* cannot connect to most of the Fediverse by far.

Friendica

But: There's even better than diaspora* and Google+ that's free, open-source, decentralised and federated. And it was there before Google+. I'm not kidding.

Remember, it took four students, $200,000 of crowd-funding and five months (May to October, 2010) to create a first, very unfinished preview of diaspora*.

But the same year, it took one developer and protocol designer with some three decades of experience (@Mike Macgirvin ), zero crowd-funding and only four months (March to July, 2010) to create a first, very fleshed-out and useable release of something initially called Mistpark.

At this point, when the four diaspora* creators were still tinkering, Mistpark was already more powerful than both diaspora* and Mastodon are today. It already had everything a social network needs. It had diaspora*'s aspects before diaspora* had aspects and long before Google+ had circles; only it called them lists. And Mistpark's lists were diaspora*'s aspects and Google+'s circles on coke.

Since early 2012, Mistpark has been known as Friendica (official website). Since mid-January, 2025, it is the primary go-to alternative to Facebook in the Fediverse. And it has continuously been fully federated with Mastodon for as long as Mastodon has been around. Since January, 2016. Again, I'm not kidding.

Friendica's descendants

But Mike didn't stop there. He went on and improved the same concept further and further by forking his own creations and advancing them technologically.

In 2011, he invented the concept of nomadic identity (something that Bluesky claims to have invented much later, but has yet to prove to be functional) to make identites more resilient against server shutdown, and he created another all-new communication protocol named Zot (today known as Nomad) for that purpose.

In 2012, he handed Friendica over to the community and forked it into something called Red, later the Red Matrix. It was the first not only decentralised, but nomadic social server application in the world. In 2015, it was redesigned, vastly expanded in features and renamed Hubzilla (official website).

To this day, Hubzilla is the one most powerful and feature-rich Fediverse server application. It is not a vague concept or in early development; instead, it has been a rock-solid multi-purpose daily driver for longer than Mastodon has been around.

Another one of its key features is what's the second-most advanced and fine-grained permissions system in the Fediverse, something that Mastodon doesn't have at all. Its privacy groups are diaspora*'s aspects or Google+'s circles on coke and 'roids because you can do things with them that are impossible even on Friendica, much less diaspora* or Google+, not to mention what Mastodon calls lists. They aren't called privacy groups for nothing.

In 2018, Mike handed the development of Hubzilla over to the community to concentrate on the further advancement of Zot. This led to:

• Osada (2018, discontinued in 2019)
• Zap (2018, discontinued in 2022)
• another Osada (2019, discontinued later in 2019)
• yet another Osada (2020, discontinued in 2022)
• Redmatrix 2020 (2020, discontinued in 2022)
• Mistpark 2020 a.k.a. Misty (2020, discontinued in 2022)
• Roadhouse (2021, discontinued in 2022)
• (streams) (code repository, 2021)
• Forte (code repository, 2024)

Except for the first Osada, all of them were or still are nomadic. Except for Zap until some point in 2019, all of them supported or still support ActivityPub. And they all had or still have an advanced permissions system which, at least on (streams) and Forte, even slightly surpasses Hubzilla's. Their access lists are at least on par with Hubzilla's privacy groups.

Finally

If you're looking for a decentralised Google+ drop-in replacement, that'd be diaspora*. But diaspora* is dying, and it will never federate with Mastodon.

If you're also interested in something that's even better than Google+, check Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams).

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Google+ #GooglePlus #diaspora* #Mistpark #Friendika #Friendica #RedMatrix #Hubzilla #Osada #Zap #Mistpark2020 #Misty #Redmatrix2020 #Roadhouse #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Lists #Aspects #Circles #PrivacyGroups #AccessLists