The #HolosSocial relay is now stable enough to be tagged and published in production.

If you're interested, there is an interactive installation script and full documentation to do all the steps yourself with Docker on the #Codeberg project.

Running a relay is not like running an instance. They provide infrastructure. People with custom domains and Cloud for their media don't depend on a relay to keep their account. That's the whole purpose of this project, owning an #ActivityPub identity.

Maybe Snac server instead ??

#snac2
#ActivityPub

#Lazyweb When I want to spin up my own #Fediverse instance that supports #Markdown when composing a post and that can handle my significant amount of followers with a seamless migration from my current #Mastodon instance, which #ActivityPub Implementation would you use? Ideally it should be a simple rootless container setup that JustWorks™ with podman. Perfection would be a single, self-contained container without the need to spin up several ones for databases or other stuff.

In the #Fediverse, most software is built around a specific platform model. One for microblogging, one for video, one for photos... and new ones will keep coming.
With #Holos, your phone runs your own #ActivityPub server. You control your data and can use your own domain as your identity.
Built on the protocol, not a platform model, Holos is not limited to a single use case. One account that adapts to your needs.
That's where we're heading, and we hope for your support.

#HolosSocial

If I'm following a person, their post will show up for sure, but sometimes not the post it's replying to. In this case I can still follow a link back to the original instance. (Which is a way of "getting around" in and of itself.)

I think part of this might be because snac is conservative in terms of caching, whereas Mastodon is apparently very aggressive about it. So while snac is very lightweight (which is its main point) on Mastodon it would feel less insular. Hashtags on a semi-large Mastodon instance can be used to see a lot of posts from people you don't follow, but on this snac instance it's almost pointless to filter by hashtag.
Conversely, I have no idea who might be able to see this post here, just because they follow the Fediverse hashtag or so...?

I assume one way to get more input might be to follow more people. But then the feed would be way too busy. So perhaps an alternative would be to create a separate account on the same instance that follows a ton of people, which would cause the snac server to retrieve their posts (or know about the server?), and then I guess that should improve things somewhat even on this account, making hashtags more usable and seeing more replies or reply parent-posts.

As I said, I'd love if anyone with more knowledge about the Fediverse or Activity Pub etc. could enlighten me a bit.

#fedi #snac #activitypub #mastodon

@alineblankertz @malteengeler

Regarding the why: When coding Mastodon, Eugen used those parts of the #ActivityPub and #ActivityStreams standards he found useful. For functionality that was not (yet) covered by those standards, he came up with his own solutions and made them part of the Mastodon API which can be considered a quasi-standard now.

When Mastodon was a one person shop, this was a pragmatic way to make progress fast. Standardization bodies are famous for moving slowly, and maybe Eugen was also put off by some of the more eccentric personalities in the ActivityPub community. Now that Mastodon (the organisation) has grown, they should assume a more active role in standards bodies. Perhaps they have – I have not followed these processes closely in recent years.

At any rate, I think it is fair to say that the Mastodon makers and the Fediverse standards community have had a difficult relationship. This is my impression from visiting FediCamp and FediDay events (where Mastodon makers were absent), and some reading in the ActivityPub community forum, e.g.:
https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/mastodon-monoculture-problem/3189/11
https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/discussion-mastodon-and-the-fediverse/1967

FediStation is Live. Your WordPress blog just got a direct line to the Fediverse. Share to #Mastodon, #Bluesky, #Flipboard, #Threads and #Lemmy One click, it's Free, it's Yours. 👉https://fediboard.com #WordPress #Fediverse #OpenWeb #ActivityPub #FediStation #FediBoard

How does Write Freely compare to Mastodon? Do you get any sort of user interaction? As a series of interconnected platforms, is it growing?

#askfedi #fediverse #writefreely #mastodon #activitypub

Following threads will be available in #HolosSocial 1.10.0. You can subscribe to a thread and get notified when new replies arrive, even from accounts you do not follow. It works with standard #ActivityPub activities by sending a Follow targeting a post, with a polling fallback for servers that do not support it yet.

How it works: https://tom79.dev/posts/follow-a-note/

RE: https://toot.fedilab.app/@apps/115572783993063223

This post is about 7 months old, and #HolosSocial went far beyond it since. It now has #E2EE DMs with the Signal protocol, and real identity portability. You can use a custom domain so your identity rests on your own name and keys, and keep your media on your own cloud. Leaving a relay is no longer a migration, you just point your domain elsewhere and keep going. This remains optional, you have time to discover the app and enable things later that will give you full independence on #ActivityPub.

0. The first line of moderation should not be the instance admin. Each user account should be able to moderate mentions of their ID, or replies to their comments.

1. The top poster of a comment thread should be able to moderate all reply comments under that thread.

2. Instance admins should only delete posts that are clearly designed to offend, hurt, or viciously attack, bully, harass, gaslight, annoy etc. but should never delete a post simply on ideological grounds or heated but honest disagreement or debate. Telling the difference is very simple in almost all cases: tone and mindless repetition being the biggest giveaways of the respondent's intent. If it becomes an unwanted or unproductive argument the top poster should be able to quash replies.

3. Users should be able to click a button to block and entire thread regardless of who posts to it.

These things are not a major problem for me since I'm on a simple instance and I can add users to my personal blacklist via CLI. It would be nice to see this kind of stuff as standard, basic button functions in activitypub and fediverse since not everyone wants to run an instance and use CLI scripts to moderate.

#mastodon #fediverse #moderation #postDeletion #activitypub #social

#Mastodon #UX #GUI #Productivity #Interfaces

Is there facility to run the phone app via TOR network, to hide user IP from the relay?

#Holos #Tor #Fediverse #Privacy #Anonymity #ActivityPub

Quoted posts are now shown.

Added metadata to remote users in the people page (contributed by dandelions).

Fixed memory leak (contributed by dandelions).

Fixed user matching (contributed by rakoo).

Rendering visibility conditionally, with lesser reach if needed (contributed by byte).

Added a button next to a follow notification to follow back.

Fixed typo in man page (contributed by spky).

Updated Czech and German translations (contributed by pmjv and zen).

https://comam.es/what-is-snac

If you find #snac useful, please consider buying grunfink a coffee or contributing via LiberaPay.

#snacAnnounces #FrugalFediverse

Why on earth was the #ActivityPub protocol even let out the door without a well-specified and mandatory graceful, non-destructive key rotation scheme?

Yes I know the privacy issues. Those are not valid reasons to not have such a mechanism; it's a valid reason to not enable or use one.

What we're stuck with now is a ton of instances with absurdly long, legacy-algorithm keys (RSA-4096) with no way to replace them with shorter/better keys without effectively losing everything ever posted on the instance.

The protocol is only 7 years old! EC crypto was well-established at the time, and should have been the default.

And what happens once everyone has to replace the keys, because RSA is broken by quantum computers (I know, probably 100 years to go)? The #Fediverse will be a wasteland, with no instances trusting anything from any other instance, so all #Federation breaks down.

Sorry if I got some details wrong about what the protocol says. If I get flamed to death for being wrong, then I'll consider that a Good Thing(TM). I've been trying to find a way to rotate/replace keys for a while and all my searching turns up is either 1) confirmation that most people don't know or care about cryptography, or 2) https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/key-rotation-notification/562 - which really isn't helpful.

If it is possible to gracefully rotate the key(s) of an instance/user, there really has to exist some documentation that explains clearly how to implement this in a server and how to exercise it as a server operator.

#Cryptography #Rant #Mastodon