@ IFTAS @ Connected Places I don't think it's that easy to develop an external moderation tool that

• ties into Mastodon and the way Mastodon works
• ties into Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte and their highly advanced permissions systems (everything on these three is permission-driven) and self-moderation capabilities all the same, also seeing as such a tool must be capable of moderating groups/forums

I mean, you could try. But be warned: These three work much, much more differently from Mastodon and the rest of the Fediverse than their presence in the Fediverse may indicate. You'll have to work both with permissions (use the permissions system to achieve what you need to achieve) and past permissions (if you bluntly try to latch your tool onto these three from outside, chances are that their permissions systems won't even let you in).

You'll have to deal with enclosed conversations as per FEP-171b "Conversation Containers" in which the start post always forces its permissions on all comments and replies. You'll have to deal with nomadic identity, with channels simultaneously residing on multiple independent servers. On (streams) and Forte, you'll also have to deal with DIDs according to FEP-ef61 "Portable Objects".

On Hubzilla and (streams), you'll have to deal with servers that don't even use ActivityPub as their base protocol and with both servers and channels that have ActivityPub turned off entirely. And on Hubzilla, you'll have to deal with connections that use wholly different protocols yet again, e.g. diaspora* (remember the $200,000 crowdfunding run back in 2010?).

Also, you'll have to deal with three Fediverse server applications that do not have the Mastodon client API implemented, with feature sets that are completely incompatible with the Mastodon client API and with developers who staunchly refuse to implement it because they basically despise Mastodon with a hot, flaming passion.

And no, making server apps that are nothing like Mastodon at all become more like Mastodon, just so that they can be moderated with a tool that's made for Mastodon, is not a solution because it simply won't happen.

# Long # LongPost # CWLong # CWLongPost # FediMeta # FediverseMeta # CWFediMeta # CWFediverseMeta # Hubzilla # Streams # (streams) # Forte

@der.hans @ Robert Reich is nothing but a fully automated, unsupervised Twitter bot. Robert Reich set up his Mastodon account during the big Mastodon hype of November, 2022, because Mastodon seemed to be the place to be. He only joined to a) keep his Twitter followers who have moved to Mastodon and b) get even more followers.

He has not logged into Mastodon ever since. He will never see your comments.

# FediMeta # FediverseMeta # CWFediMeta # CWFediverseMeta # Mastodon # Bot

@deutrino

Forte

Advantages:

• written in PHP, runs on a LAMP stack
• uses much fewer system resources than Mastodon while being magnitudes more powerful
• comes with a git-based update script
• result of over 15 years of development (traces back to Friendica from 2010)
• developed by a retired professional developer with almost half a century of experience who has made more Fediverse server apps than anyone else and even more decentralised protocols than anyone else
• does not cache everyone's images and media
• Facebook-like; not a microblogging system
• highly configurable Web UI
• your login/account is not your identity; you can have as many fully independent channels/identities (each corresponding to one full-blown Mastodon account) on the same login/account and switch between them without logging out
• nomadic identity; if you run another server (or you find a public server, and Forte doesn't have any), you can clone your channel between multiple servers and make it resilient against server outage
• over 24 million characters
• full set of text formatting, using BBcode, Markdown and HTML
• supports both titles and summaries (Mastodon understands summaries as CWs)
• embed as many images as you want within the post (as in text, image, more text, another image, even more text etc., like a blog post)
• can double as a long-form blog
• can optionally send multiple-paragraph posts as Article-type objects
• the most advanced permissions system in the whole Fediverse
• full support for threaded conversations; see entire conversations by default instead of single-message piecemeal like on Mastodon; supports FEP-171b Conversation Containers
• supports groups; built-in group functionality including moderated groups and private groups as well as hiding groups (and other channels) from directories
• has at least one support group on (streams)
• built-in cloud file storage which is also used for embedded images; ties into the permissions system; WebDAV connectivity
• built-in federating event calendar
• built-in headless CalDAV calendar server
• built-in headless CardDAV addressbook server
• highly modular, comes with lots of add-ons called "apps"

Disadvantages:

• steep learning curve, especially if all you're used to are Twitter and Mastodon (this looks, feels and handles absolutely nothing like Mastodon, so you'll have to relearn everything from the ground up and learn tons of stuff on top)
• does not cosy up to Mastodon at all, makes few to no concessions for more compatibility with Mastodon
• will need configuration before you can really get started
• doesn't post in public by default; configuration needed if you want to always post in public
• poor documentation
• doesn't work with any phone app out there; progressive Web app with the Web interface is the best you can do on a phone

Advantage or disadvantage, decide for yourself:

• implements ActivityPub by the book (whereas other Fediverse server applications "implement Mastodon" rather than implementing ActivityPub)

(streams)

How it compares to Forte:

• direct precursor of Forte which is forked from it
• from the same developer
• officially and intentionally nameless and brandless ("streams" is the name of the code repository)
• has at least two public, open-registration servers, but they're hard to find
• uses the same support group
• based on its own protocol, Nomad, which has even better support for nomadic identity; ActivityPub is optional and on by default on new channels
• cannot clone from or to Forte

Hubzilla

How it compares to (streams):

• older than Mastodon (forked from a Friendica fork in 2011, development started in 2012, became Hubzilla in 2015, still 10 months before Mastodon)
• created by the same developer, now maintained by two other devs
• server lists readily available on FediDB and Fediverse Observer (in case you want to try it first or clone to a public server)
• even steeper learning curve
• ActivityPub is off by default for new channels, must be activated in order for Hubzilla to federate with most of the rest of the Fediverse
• can optionally federate with diaspora* as well
• can subscribe to RSS and Atom feeds
• requires another bit more of configuration before you can get started
• way better documentation written by a user
• one public and multiple private profiles per channel, can be assigned to certain contacts
• over 16.7 million characters
• text formatting only with BBcode
• cannot send Article-type objects, always sends Note-type objects
• the second-most advanced permissions system in the Fediverse (a bit more complicated and less adapted to today's Fediverse; also, not quite as detailed reply control)
• even more configurable UI
• CalDAV calendar can use the event calender UI
• optional non-federating long-form articles
• optional non-federating wikis (as in multiple wikis per channel with multiple pages per wiki)
• optional non-federating "planning cards"
• optional non-federating webpages

Here you can find lists with detailed comparisons between Mastodon, Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte.

# Long # LongPost # CWLong # CWLongPost # FediMeta # FediverseMeta # CWFediMeta # CWFediverseMeta # Hubzilla # Streams # (streams) # Forte

@ Tokyo Outsider (337ppm) ...which, in turn, came to exist due to @silverpill's plan to implement nomadic identity à la Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte on something that a) only supports ActivityPub, b) is non-nomadic and c) ties the identity to the login.

I've got my doubts that whoever started the FEP draft, like the vast majority of Mastodon users, has ever really heard of silverpill, Mitra, Mike Macgirvin, Hubzilla, (streams), Forte and/or nomadic identity. Nobody in the thread mentions either of these even only once.

Besides, even Mitra still has a long way to go until it's really as fully nomadic as Mike's creations, also because silverpill most likely doesn't want to implement anything that isn't covered by a FEP. And I can't see Mastodon itself ever going nomadic, seeing as the devs have already silently rejected client-side OpenWebAuth support.

# Long # LongPost # CWLong # CWLongPost # FediMeta # FediverseMeta # CWFediMeta # CWFediverseMeta # Mitra # Hubzilla # Streams # (streams) # Forte # NomadicIdentity

@Tim Chambers @ Seth of the Fediverse @ Johannes Ernst @ @reiver ⊼ (Charles) :batman: @ Andy Piper I hope this won't end up in a culture clash due to how big Misskey and other Forkeys are in East Asia (CherryPick almost only exists in Japan and South Korea) while Westerners tend to talk about the Fediverse and Mastodon as if they're one and the same.

Language has a chance of being an obstacle, too. If you want to get e.g. Japanese Forkey devs on board as well, chances are they don't speak English.

# Long # LongPost # CWLong # CWLongPost # FediMeta # FediverseMeta # CWFediMeta # CWFediverseMeta # Fediverse # Mastodon # Misskey # Forkey # Forkeys # CherryPick

@ Helge

Good news! guide now talks about followers only posts. If you are in the set of "Some applications create replies to followers-only posts addressed to the replier's followers collection", please fix it.

This. In fact, Fediverse server software that behaves correctly has been around since long before Mastodon was made.

In fact, replies should never go to whoever is replied to unless it's the conversation starter. Replies should always go to the conversation starter and from there to all participants in the conversation, and they should do so without having to visually mention all participants. Also, conversations should be shown as a whole by default always and everywhere and not as single-message piecemeal with no context.

And in an ideal Fediverse, this should go hand in hand with only the members of the followers collection of the top-level post author being permitted to see a) the top-level post, b) any comments on the top-level post and c) any replies to comments in the first place. This would make sure that nobody who isn't intended as part of the audience will ever be able to see this content, also by making it technically impossible to repost/boost/repeat/share/otherwise forward anything in the conversation. But hardly anything in the Fediverse has the all-encompassing permissions system that's required to achieve this.

# Long # LongPost # CWLong # CWLongPost # FediMeta # FediverseMeta # CWFediMeta # CWFediverseMeta # Fediverse # AP-Next # Conversations # Permissions # FollowersOnly

If you are a user of mastodon.social or mastodon.online, or are just generally interested in terms and conditions, please take a look at the newly-redrafted proposed terms for those two instances, and give your feedback via the channels in this GitHub issue:

https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/discussions/36368

Supportive, or constructively critical, both are welcome!

Notes:

* These are draft terms specific to those two instances, although they might form the basis of a template or two in future. Perhaps.

* They are *not* terms which apply to the whole fediverse, or all Mastodon instances etc.

#Mastodon #FediMeta #LawFedi

If you are a user of mastodon.social or mastodon.online, or are just generally interested in terms and conditions, please take a look at the newly-redrafted proposed terms for those two instances, and give your feedback via the channels in this GitHub issue:

https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/discussions/36368

Supportive, or constructively critical, both are welcome!

Notes:

* These are draft terms specific to those two instances, although they might form the basis of a template or two in future. Perhaps.

* They are *not* terms which apply to the whole fediverse, or all Mastodon instances etc.

#Mastodon #FediMeta #LawFedi

#FediTips #FediMeta @moderation is it possible to recover an old notification from a potentially deleted / blocked account? Some stochastic terrorist sent me a threatening message in regard to "gangstalking" that I'd like to retain for analysis but I made the mistake of swiping away my Android notification drawer so now it's gone 🤦‍♀️

The assertion was that "it's real" and that "people on reddit.com/x (IIRC) are talking about me.

RE https://kolektiva.social/@pospi/115247259782862935
CC @jwcph @pluralistic

@ Julian Fietkau I'm surprised to read that (streams) allegedly has FEP-e232 implemented. As I happen to have two (streams) channels myself, and as (streams) allows me to have a look at the whole source code of any activity (whereas Hubzilla only shows me that of the content), I've checked a fairly recent post of mine that includes a link. And while it does define the hashtags just like Mastodon and Hubzilla, it does not define links in a way that conforms to FEP-e232. Either that, or (streams)' implementation of FEP-e232 is newer than the software was when I sent that post.

---

Next, I wanted to see if (streams) had its way of quote-posting changed in the last seven years or so of development and forking. I expected it to quote-post like Hubzilla, namely by turning a BBcode short code into a dumb copy of the original upon sending, but I wanted to see proof. As (streams) is a fork of a fork of three forks of a fork (of a fork) of Hubzilla that's still maintained by Hubzilla's own creator, I would have been surprised if he had changed the way (streams) quote-posts at some point on the way.

So I quote-posted my own post on (streams) just to see what happens. And (streams) acted exactly like Hubzilla and not at all like described in FEP-044f on the surface. It still inserts a dumb copy.

Good thing I have access to the full source code of any message on (streams). So here's what happened, namely what I expected to happen: (streams) quote-posts like Hubzilla.

First of all, when I clicked the "Share" button, this short code was inserted into the post editor:

[share⁠=1198713][/share]

The number, by the way, is the running number of the message to quote-post on the server.

Upon sending the post, (streams) automatically "expanded" the short code into the dumb copy I had expected.

[⁠share author='Jupiter+Rowland' profile='https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/channel/jupiter_rowland' portable_id='_moYLN61-o3FbP3jyThygMDf-bjF2cApXgkrwlAE77iKy19xM1_6F06V4b71eTkqqNaTUjGiN0lfw2dyn5nXRw' avatar='https://streams.elsmussols.net/xp/6b50efa4bb804860f6128bba791b74fab4a0a5e09dbcbee8d8ca77cee00f0330-6' link='https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/item/0a1cdda5-eb1c-4a33-9574-ddd896977b4f' auth='true' posted='2025-09-21 19:42:56' message_id='https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/item/0a1cdda5-eb1c-4a33-9574-ddd896977b4f'] ...(the source code of the original message goes here)... [/share]

Both Hubzilla and (streams) render this the same way, namely with a header line above the copy that includes the profile picture of the original author, the name of the original author with a Zot/Nomad-type link to their channel/account and a Zot/Nomad-type link to the original of the post ("Zot/Nomad-type" means that [zrl][/zrl] is used rather than [url][/url] which means that the ID of an observer on Hubzilla/(streams)/Forte is attached to the link for OpenWebAuth identity recognition purposes.)

At the same time, curiously, (streams) includes the line "rel": "https://misskey-hub.net/ns#_misskey_quote" and a line that starts with "name": "RE: and continues with the URL of the original message into the code for the link to the original message. The latter is identical to what Misskey and all Forkeys have in quote-posting notes in plain sight, only that (streams) only reveals it in the source code rather than in the content as well.

So this part of FEP-044f is implemented, albeit concealed from most people and only happening in the code.

---

Now, looking at the quote policy part, that looks like it could be possible to add to the Fediverse's permission champions Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte. After all, they already have comment controls with no FEP backing it (and if GoToSocial's quote policy can be made into an FEP, maybe so can (streams)' and Forte's comment controls so that they actually do blank out reply buttons on the farther ends of the Fediverse if the software on the farther ends implement support for that FEP).

This could be done at three levels again. I'll illustrate this with (streams) and Forte because they're quite a bit less complex than older Hubzilla.

At channel level, quote-posting (and maybe quoting as well) could be set as usually, namely to semi-public (= everyone in the Fediverse = no quote policy), restricted (= only your contacts) and only yourself. (Seriously, you don't want random passersby with no accounts to quote-post you. Even though you can allow them to comment on your posts if you dare.)

"Only yourself" could be overridden at contact level by permitting certain contacts to quote-post (and maybe quote) your messages. This is actually standard behaviour on (streams) and Forte.

And then there is the per-post level which would be similar to (streams)' and Forte's comment controls. These allow you to limit who may comment on a post to only your contacts and those who have already participated in the same conversation, and they allow you to turn off comments altogether.

Quote authorisation would not be much different in handling from manually moderating comments from those who technically aren't permitted to comment (only that spammers don't quote-post, at least not yet, and they probably never will because that simply makes no sense). So that'd be nothing really new.

Of course, this would have some limitations which come from how Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte work and from their conversation architecture.

The first limitation is that you could only give certain contacts permission to quote-post your posts if you didn't give it to the whole Fediverse. Channel-wide permissions are always inherited by contact-specific permissions, and this cannot be overridden. So you couldn't generally allow everyone to quote-post your posts except for one certain contact of yours.

The second limitation is that you can only control the permissions of contacts, but not of non-contacts. So you can't disallow some stranger whom you aren't connected to to quote-post your posts while everyone else is allowed.

Then again, FEP-044f doesn't make either of these two possible either. It can only define who is permitted to quote-post a post, not who isn't.

The third limitation is that, on Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte, comments always have the same permissions as the post that they belong to because comments always have the same owner as the post that they belong to. Basically, if FEP-044f was to be defined for each comment individually, it would have a chance of clashing with conversation containers as per FEP-171b.

Here on Hubzilla, as well as from (streams)' point of view, everyone's comments in this thread are owned by me because I've started the thread. And the permissions on all these comments are defined by my post. I've seen my share of permission clashes whenever someone on Mastodon replied to a public post or a public comment with a DM, and Hubzilla overrode this by forcing the permissions of the post on that reply.

In practice, this means that the quote policies of all comments would be the same as that of the post. At least that's how Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte would understand them because the concept of comments having different permissions than the post is alien to them. So if you say that I'm not permitted to quote-post your comment, but I say that anyone can quote-post my post, Hubzilla and (streams) override the quote policy that you've given your comment on Mastodon with the quote policy that I've given my post on Hubzilla, and I can quote-post you.

So the actually difficult part would be to implement an exception in how Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte handle comment permissions for quote policies and make them individual for each comment rather than making comments inherit them from the post.

Well, and lastly, if you permitted all your contacts to quote-post a post of yours, and you had a few more contacts, the "canQuote" section would end up monstrous. (A bit less so if you could cherry-pick those who are allowed to quote-post you on a per-post base, just like you can cherry-pick those who are allowed to see the post in the first place.) Also, I'm wondering just how well policies as per FEP-044f (and their implementations in various server applications) will work with DIDs as per FEP-ef61 which (streams) and Forte use, and I guess, so does Mitra now.

# Long # LongPost # CWLong # CWLongPost # FediMeta # FediverseMeta # CWFediMeta # CWFediverseMeta # Fediverse # Misskey # Forkey # Forkeys # GoToSocial # Hubzilla # Streams # (streams) # Forte # Mitra # QuotePost # QuotePosts # QuoteTweet # QuoteTweets # QuoteToot # QuoteToots # QuoteBoost # QuoteBoosts # QuotedShares # Permission # Permissions # FEP_044f # FEP_171b # FEP_e232 # FEP_ef61

@Decenta Lyzed @your purple friend AFAIK, Mitra has not rolled out full-blown nomadic identity yet (as in, no, you can't clone your Mitra identity between two Mitra servers). Even the development branch is only in a state in which it understands nomadic identity.

As for what nomadic identity is: https://joinfediverse.wiki/Nomadic.identity

There are three Fediverse server applications where you're guaranteed to have solid, proven-to-work nomadic identity:

• Hubzilla
  Fork of fork of (non-nomadic) Friendica by Friendica's creator
  2012/2015
  https://hubzilla.org
  https://en.wikipedia.org/Hubzilla
  https://joinfediverse.wiki/Hubzilla
  Server lists:
  https://hubzilla.fediverse.observer/list
  https://fedidb.com/software/hubzilla?version=latest®istration=open
  No iOS apps
  No Android apps
  Can be installed as a Progressive Web App
• (streams)
  Fork of fork of three forks of fork (of fork?) of Hubzilla by the same creator
  2021
  Intentionally and officially no name, no brand, hence the parentheses around the unofficial name ("(streams)")
  No official website
  https://codeberg.org/streams/streams
  Open-registration server in North America (USA):
  https://rumbly.net/register
  Open-registration server in Europe (Hungary, German admin, speaks German and English):
  https://nomad.fedi-verse.hu/register
  No iOS apps
  No Android apps
  Can be installed as a Progressive Web App
• Forte
  Fork of (streams) by the same creator
  2024
  No official website
  https://codeberg.org/fortified/forte
  No open-registration servers
  No iOS apps
  No Android apps
  Can be installed as a Progressive Web App

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mitra #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #NomadicIdentity

@Decenta Lyzed I haven't seen Mitra in action yet, so I can't say anything about it.

Hubzilla creator and (streams) and Forte maintainer, that'd be @Mike Macgirvin ?️. By the way, the only one of the three that's actually ActivityPub-based is Forte. It just doesn't have any public, open-sign-up servers right now AFAIK.

Did I show you my Mastodon/Friendica/Hubzilla/(streams)/Forte comparison tables yet? If not, here they are. But lastly, you have to lay your hands on at least one of them to see how the family differs from the microblogging side of the Fediverse.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Mitra #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte