Is it OK to write code that does new things on the Fediverse?
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Yes, I have seen strong negative reactions to new software, and old software, and anything that doesn't look like Mastodon, and anything that does look like Mastodon. We are an opinionated bunch.
But I think your question has an unfortunate implication. If you had asked, "Do you like people to write code that does new things on the Fediverse?", it would be clearly a matter of personal preference.
"Is it OK to write code" implies that somebody could be, or should be, in a position to decide which new things are OK and which new things are not OK. It doesn't matter whether that "somebody" is a central authority or a larger group of people. That decision should always be left to individual users and instance admins, who can block or defederate as they see fit.
@billstatler I agree with you 1000%.
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@gabboman so, maybe the person making a social web crawler is just as well-intentioned as the person making the no-mention private messages?
@gabboman Hey, while I have your ear: Does wafrn support RFC 9421, HTTP Message Signatures? That's the standard version of the signature format we use. Do you accept it for GET and POST requests? Do you send it for GET and POST requests? Do you have an issue for tracking RFC 9421 support? I'm trying to put together a matrix at https://swicg.github.io/activitypub-http-signature/RFC9421
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@Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸 The issue at hand is that especially Mastodon users tend to welcome new developments. Unless, of course, these developments make their beloved Mastodon feel less like the Mastodon they got to know and love. This includes old developments that predate Mastodon, but that they've only just noticed.
Like, having spent three and a half years in a Mastodon-only bubble and then receiving the first comment from Hubzilla.
Consider this:
@Bill StatlerYes, I have seen strong negative reactions to new software, and old software, and anything that doesn't look like Mastodon, and anything that does look like Mastodon. We are an opinionated bunch.
Bill is on (streams), one of the most innovative Fediverse server applications, developed by the creator of Friendica and Hubzilla.
Friendica and its descendants are very much not like Mastodon. They've got their own cultures which, again, are very much not like the culture that Mastodon has been cultivating since 2022, that Mastodon's users consider the "Fediverse culture", and that many Mastodon users try hard to force upon the whole Fediverse.
Our kind have seen hostility of the likes that Mastodon users could hardly believe.
(streams) is the only Fediverse server application that comes with one channel-level and three server-level features that can be used as countermeasures against the entirety of Mastodon with different levels of collateral damage. This has to say a lot.
Bill runs the biggest discussion group on (streams). It used to have ActivityPub deactivated for the specific purpose of keeping overzealous Mastodon fanatics out. The only reason why ActivityPub is on now is for Forte users to be able to use the group, too.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Mastodon #Streams #(streams) #MastodonCulture #MastodonCentricity #MastodonNormativity -
@gabboman the wafrn dev (streams) has been mentioning people invisibly since its inception in October, 2022, AFAIK.
It comes from a culture where everyone in a conversation receives all comments in the conversation without mentions. Where mentions only serve to visibly signalise whom you're replying to. Where more than one mention are considered clutter.
But it was born into a culture where only those receive replies who are visibly mentioned. Where the concept of receiving anything without being visibly mentioned or following the author is completely alien to the point of being entirely unimaginable.
That is, maybe one of (streams)' various predecessors (there have been seven different repositories between Hubzilla and the streams repository) has actually introduced this at some point between 2018 and 2022.
Of course, Mastodon users freak the hell out whenever something happens that isn't supposed to happen on Mastodon. This already starts with "toots" with over 500 characters.
Guess why (streams) has three built-in ways of blocking the entirety of Mastodon in self-defence, two exclusive to the admin, one also available to users. Even though all except one admin-level counter-measure cause considerable collateral damage.
CC: @Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #Mastodon #Streams #(streams) #MastodonCulture #MastodonCentricity #MastodonNormativity -
@Mark Andrew 🇨🇭 I guess that, more often than not, the only new developments that are widely welcome are those that happen on Mastodon, that still don't make Mastodon feel different, and that don't introduce features to Mastodon that are (considered) bad on 𝕏.
This alone is the reason why many Mastodon admins hold on to older Mastodon versions for their dear lives: They want to boycott new Mastodon features which they don't like, but they don't have what it takes to soft-fork or even only hard-fork Mastodon and remove the new features.
Now, when it comes to developments in the Fediverse outside of Mastodon, they tend to be even more nerve-grating for Mastodon users because they often aren't in line with Mastodon and its culture at all. That is, many Mastodon users don't even notice that these features exist unless these features directly hit their timeline. But once they do, they're considered bad new developments even though they've actually been around for much longer than Mastodon itself.
For example, quote-posts and full-text search. Mastodon users tend to be staunchly against both because they're used to harass and dogpile minorities on 𝕏. If at all, they're only okay with these if they come with an opt-in, and/or if server admins can turn them off entirely.
If only they knew that Friendica has had both since May, 2010, five years and eight months longer than Mastodon has even existed. That Friendica has been search-indexing and able to quote-post any public Mastodon toot since Mastodon's very launch. I guess they'd demand the immediate destruction of Friendica or at least its complete and permanent defederation.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #QuotePostDebate #QuoteTootDebate #FullTextSearch #Mastodon #Friendica -
the fediverse? everything I have encountered has been some version of it.
@HubertManne @Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
Friendica: AGPLv3, but was under the MIT license until 2011.
Hubzilla: MIT license.
(streams): Public domain. Intentionally. I'm not kidding here.
Forte: MIT license.
Third-party add-ons may have their own licenses.
#FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #MITLicense #PublicDomain -
@gumnos so, here's a question: don't we have to make some mistakes to learn how to do things better?
Also, if someone making some software you don't use can ruin your experience, isn't your account or your server misconfigured?
yeah, there will be experimentation, boundaries pushed, and norms violated.
But the fediverse defaults to open…anybody can read my feed (or at least the default-non-private feed), silently make a copy, and avail an index of it regardless of my server settings. Definitely against current fedi norms.
And it wouldn't take too much imagination to come up with a distributed (making it hard to block by server) reply-bot to grief targets based on topic. And unless you configure your server to reject all replies from folks you don't follow (is that even possible? engagement with strangers is pretty core to the fedi experience), you don't have much recourse.
So my answer to your "Is it OK to write code that does new things" has a 1 Corinthians 10:23 vibe, "All things are permissible, but not all things are beneficial"
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@evan it is ok but if I find the new thing gimmick and that I don't like it I say it
@hiphopheaven fine.
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Is it OK to write code that does new things on the Fediverse?
@evan Only if John Mastodon says yes.
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@rey Why do you think that?
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You can read about me here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Prodromou
Feel free to ask me any questions you have about my work on the Fediverse.
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Is it OK to write code that does new things on the Fediverse?
Thanks all. I see a lot of developers getting brigaded for launching new tools on the Fediverse. At best, they're insulted and their motives are questioned. At worst, they're brigaded on GitHub, the Fediverse, or in real life.
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Thanks all. I see a lot of developers getting brigaded for launching new tools on the Fediverse. At best, they're insulted and their motives are questioned. At worst, they're brigaded on GitHub, the Fediverse, or in real life.
Many of the replies mentioned "scrapers" as a category of software that's not acceptable. I think this is misguided.
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Many of the replies mentioned "scrapers" as a category of software that's not acceptable. I think this is misguided.
First, ActivityPub has a Web API that is used by federated servers to find out about people, the content they make, and what they've done. That's built in. It's on purpose. You have a lot of control of what is shared in this API. If you are concerned about what you share, you should check your software's privacy settings. There are a lot of knobs and levers.
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First, ActivityPub has a Web API that is used by federated servers to find out about people, the content they make, and what they've done. That's built in. It's on purpose. You have a lot of control of what is shared in this API. If you are concerned about what you share, you should check your software's privacy settings. There are a lot of knobs and levers.
I don't even think "scraper" is a reasonable name for this kind of software. We usually use that for screen-scraping software, which takes HTML output and grabs the structured data out of it.
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I don't even think "scraper" is a reasonable name for this kind of software. We usually use that for screen-scraping software, which takes HTML output and grabs the structured data out of it.
Second, a lot of the things we use on the Fediverse depend on reading that API data. Like user search, content search, hashtag feeds, relays, backfilling conversations, and aggregate data.
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Second, a lot of the things we use on the Fediverse depend on reading that API data. Like user search, content search, hashtag feeds, relays, backfilling conversations, and aggregate data.
Anyway, even for software that doesn't crawl the API, I think we need to give people the benefit of the doubt. People spend a lot of time and effort making that software -- usually open source, usually for free.
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Anyway, even for software that doesn't crawl the API, I think we need to give people the benefit of the doubt. People spend a lot of time and effort making that software -- usually open source, usually for free.
ActivityPub is made for a lot of different use cases. I really like when people explore use cases we haven't tried yet.
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First, ActivityPub has a Web API that is used by federated servers to find out about people, the content they make, and what they've done. That's built in. It's on purpose. You have a lot of control of what is shared in this API. If you are concerned about what you share, you should check your software's privacy settings. There are a lot of knobs and levers.
@evan
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ActivityPub is made for a lot of different use cases. I really like when people explore use cases we haven't tried yet.
Anyway, my answer is yes. It's OK for people to make code that does new things on the Fediverse.
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