Mastodon launches a new project that will "[explore] decentralized search and discovery for the Fediverse".
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
Yes, I should also say that I'd rather see the money for this go towards improving safety on Mastodon servers, but I don't really have any insights into the team's finances, so can't criticize too much.
Also worth mentioning that quote boosts, which have also recently received funding, will include work on privacy and safety features around them, possibly extending to other areas of the online experience.
Renaud Chaput (@[email protected])
Nobody seems to have noticed it but the Mastodon project have been granted funding by @[email protected] in the Entrust fund. This is amazing, but the best part is that this funding is targeted at implementing… Quote Posts 🎉 This effort started several months ago and we already did some preliminary work, but this will be a big feature for our next 4.4 version. This funding will cover the ActivityPub work, as well as backend, web frontend and official mobile app implementation.
Oisaur (oisaur.com)
Can't wait for more updates around this!
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Bishop Whitewindreplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@stefan There was a number I posted on here once that I needed again. I had forgotten it, but also had it saved a few other places.
There was no way to find it here so I had to look through every text message I ever sent during the time instead -
Stefan Bohacekreplied to Bishop Whitewind last edited by
@B_Whitewind Yeah, until I enabled ElasticSearch on my server recently, I had to rely on Google to find posts I've seen that I have not necessarily interacted with.
So having a reliable search is definitely very useful.
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Jupiter Rowlandreplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by@Stefan Bohacek
Also worth mentioning that quote boosts, which have also recently received funding, will include work on privacy and safety features around them, possibly extending to other areas of the online experience.
These "privacy and safety features" are non-sense.
They're proprietary, they're non-standard, they're Mastodon-specific. And they are expected to work only by respecting a proprietary, non-standard, Mastodon-specific quote-post permission flag which probably won't even be documented anywhere except Mastodon's server code.
The opt-out feature will only work within a 100% Mastodon bubble and even that only if no non-Mastodon user finds content from within this bubble by searching mastodon.social for hashtags.
Mastodon is selling its whole quote-post feature as a total revolution, as the very introduction of quote-posts to the Fediverse. And it will work. I've once run a poll on whether the Fediverse has quote-posts. 71% of all voters thought the Fediverse does not have quote-posts right now. And that was in my bubble which, in comparison to Mastodon in general, is fairly Fediverse-savvy and full of non-Mastodon users.
But as a matter of fact, the Fediverse does have quote-posts right now! Almost everything that can do microblogging in a way has quote-posts.
Pleroma has quote-posts.
Akkoma has quote-posts.
Misskey has quote-posts.
Firefish has quote-posts.
Iceshrimp has quote-posts.
Iceshrimp.NET has quote-posts.
Sharkey has quote-posts.
Catodon has quote-posts.
Friendica has quote-posts.
Hubzilla has quote-posts.
(streams) has quote-posts.
And so forth.
They haven't introduced quote-posts to spite Mastodon. Some of them have had quote-posts since before Mastodon even existed. Friendica, for example, was created with quote-posts available, and that was five and a half years before Mastodon was created. For as long as Mastodon has existed, Friendica could quote-post Mastodon toots. And so could Hubzilla, created ten months before Mastodon.
In fact, all of the above can quote-post any Mastodon toot right now, with no problems, with zero resistance.
Guess what'll change when Mastodon introduces quote-posts plus the opt-in switch.
Well, Mastodon will be able to quote-post. Mastodon might be able to display quote-posts from outside properly, but probably not because it's ignoring that the rest of the Fediverse can quote-post.
But the rest of the Fediverse will still be able to quote-post just about all Mastodon toots. With no problems. With zero resistance. Even with the opt-in switched to off.
Because that switch is proprietary, non-standard and Mastodon-specific. Because only Mastodon even supports it.
This switch will cause many many more Mastodon users to learn the hard way that the Fediverse is more than Mastodon. Namely by encountering a post or comment from something that does not behave like Mastodon. And many many more Mastodon users will shit bricks in sheer terror upon this revelation.
If Mastodon really wanted this switch to be 100% waterproof, it would have to implement the feature request in its entirety. That includes defederation from all Fediverse instances that don't respect the opt-in switch.
Mind you, the defederation clause and the entire feature request came from someone in the firm belief that the Fediverse is Mastodon, only Mastodon and nothing but Mastodon. Just like about every other Mastodon user out there. So it was only targetted at rogue Mastodon instances with hacked source code.
In reality, however, it would require entire non-Mastodon Fediverse projects to be Fediblocked because they can quote-post without respecting Mastodon's quote-post opt-in switch.
All instances of Pleroma, of Akkoma, of Misskey, of Firefish, of Iceshrimp including Iceshrimp.NET, of Sharkey, of Catodon, of Friendica, of Hubzilla, of (streams) and so forth would have to be Fediblocked because they can quote-post without respecting Mastodon's quote-post opt-in switch. Every last one of them.
Mastodon's quote-post feature will either cause a rift through the Fediverse if this rule is put into action or even more people to shit bricks in terror and escape to Bluesky if it isn't.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Fedisplaining #CWFedisplaining #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #QuotePostDebate #QuoteTootDebate #Pleroma #Akkoma #Misskey #Forkey #Forkeys #Firefish #Iceshrimp #Iceshrimp.NET #Sharkey #Catodon #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse #FediblockMeta -
Stefan Bohacekreplied to Jupiter Rowland last edited by
@jupiter_rowland Well from my understanding, the reason for the delay, other than the initial resistance to quote posts, is that the Mastodon team has been working on standardizing the feature. I will admit that I don't know all the technical details here, but I don't think all these platforms follow the same spec? At least I vaguely recall that Misskey does this a bit differently.
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@jupiter_rowland And I know for a fact that at least in some cases, quote posts are really just regular links to posts styled to look like quotes, so they don't really have all the expected functionality (at least in some apps, not sure about specific platforms).
Either way, I hear you on your concerns, I just choose to stay hopeful that the Mastodon team will work to get this right.
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@stefan How can I make relay.fedi.buzz into a "provider"?
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@astro Ah, I haven't read the spec yet, I'd suggest to follow up in the official announcement thread. Sorry I can't be of more help!
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@stefan That could have been a quote toot - do you have a link for us?
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@astro Yes, it's in the post you responded to: https://mastodon.social/@MastodonEngineering/113125057908864709
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@stefan
there's no spec on fediscovery.org -
@astro Right. Like I said, best to follow up with any questions in the announcement thread. I'm not really involved with Mastodon or this project myself.