Post by @deadsuperhero@social.wedistribute.org

@deadsuperhero@social.wedistribute.org 3 hr. ago

Kind of a weird #Fediverse question: do any platforms in this space offer an API for user account registration?

One hypothetical idea I’ve been kicking around is the notion of “pre-registration” for the Fediverse. Basically, a person fills out their profile, imports data archives from other networks, and maybe even finds their mutuals somehow. When they’re done, their account gets created on a random vetted instance, data gets backfilled, and follow requests get sent out to the mutual contacts they’ve found.

I think it’s a good idea, and possibly a good showcase for both the #ActivityPub C2S API and possibly LOLA. However, I don’t think any particular platform supports all of the required pieces yet.

3 media files

A mockup of an app, showing my name and face, as well as different social networks to connect to for data import.

Next step in the mockup for a Facebook import, allowing me to pick and choose what data is most important to me.

A final stage mockup showing a recommended server with its name, domain, and rules. Obviously needs a touch up, but the idea is that everything is spelled out to the person about where they're going.

#activitypub #fediverse

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Jeff

@box464@mastodon.social 21 min. ago

@deadsuperhero Mastodon allows this. I think this is what Ivory and Mona use to keep the onboarding process “in app”.

https://docs.joinmastodon.org/methods/accounts/#create

View

accounts API methods - Mastodon documentation

Methods concerning accounts and profiles.

marius

@mariusor@metalhead.club 2 hr. ago

@deadsuperhero nothing even close to being so elaborate, but the way invitations work for one of my services built on top of ActivityPub is to create a "blank" actor, and then when the user accepts the invitation they can update the account with their own details. Could definitely work with some additional plumbing to import stuff on top.

🏳️‍🌈🎃🇧🇷Luana🇧🇷🎃🏳️‍🌈

@luana@wetdry.world 2 hr. ago

@deadsuperhero No idea about the API for account creation, but a tool like that to find people you follow in other platforms sounds useful

Just my two cents about the current wording tho: In the 1st picture a new user might think that the Fediverse depends on having an account in one of those plarforms, it'd be better to make it clear that this is only for your tool and not for the fediverse itself. Additionally, I don't really think that choosing an instance at random is a good idea.

Sean Tilley

@deadsuperhero@social.wedistribute.org 2 hr. ago

@luana Totally good points, it’s an old mockup from when I was first imagining the thing a year or so ago. There’s probably a fair amount I would revise now, just to make the flow easier.

And yeah, “random instance” is maybe not the best, but maybe recommending an instance or alternatively letting a person put in an instance URL might be better?

julian

@julian@activitypub.space 56 min. ago

@deadsuperhero@social.wedistribute.org said:

alternatively letting a person put in an instance URL might be better?

Noooooooo

No worse option for those new to the Fediverse

⁂ ActivityPub.Space

julian

@julian@activitypub.space 56 min. ago

@deadsuperhero@social.wedistribute.org said:

alternatively letting a person put in an instance URL might be better?

Noooooooo

No worse option for those new to the Fediverse

⁂ ActivityPub.Space

/dev/urandom

@rnd@toot.cat 3 hr. ago

@deadsuperhero i like the idea, but the message in the first screenshot implies that having an account on one of these is a requirement of getting one on fedi, rather than just something used as a way to import stuff

Sean Tilley

@deadsuperhero@social.wedistribute.org 2 hr. ago

@rnd Yeah, good point. It’s an old mockup, and I’d probably approach it differently if I redesigned it today. This was more to communicate the idea of importing data from other sources for your Fediverse identity.

In other words, it’s an illustration I needed to make in order to make the ideas in my head feel more concrete.

julian

@julian@activitypub.space 3 hr. ago

@deadsuperhero@social.wedistribute.org hoooo-boy... that's an interesting idea. I love it, could even get funded by NLNet.

I especially like the server recommendation piece... what if it looked at your migrated post content and suggested a server based on your worldview? Ha!

Anyway. NodeBB does, you can create users via our API. Getting content backfilled would be more difficult since that's kind of not the purpose of the API, but not insurmountable.

deutrino

@deutrino@mstdn.io 2 hr. ago

@julian @deadsuperhero I've wanted for like 8 years to build an instance picker which lets people pick by moderation style and lets them browse from the public timeline as well, never managed to do it though. maybe those features could be part of this idea.

Sean Tilley

@deadsuperhero@social.wedistribute.org 2 hr. ago

@julian @general Thanks, that means a lot! It’s something that I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I think joining the network and starting over from scratch in a new space make for a very difficult prospect when it comes to getting people to join.

what if it looked at your migrated post content and suggested a server based on your worldview? Ha!

God… I don’t think that’s a can of worms I hope to ever open. 😓

The main idea involves trying to raise the bar for both data portability and tying together different sets of data to build your own social graph. It’s not something that’s well-supported today, but I think it’s worth making an effort towards.

Facebook has about 20 years of my life on it, and while it’s not all bangers, there’s some very real sentimental value in there: life milestones, occasionally good jokes, insights to how I was thinking and feeling during different phases of my life, art and poetry and philosophy. Being able to easily fish out what I want to move over would be a huge deal.

julian

@julian@activitypub.space 3 hr. ago

@deadsuperhero@social.wedistribute.org to expand a bit on that point, I recall a talk by @pluralistic@mamot.fr about how there's some Canadian bill that essentially made the use of adversarial APIs illegal.

Not sure where we stand today, though.

Sean Tilley

@deadsuperhero@social.wedistribute.org 2 hr. ago

@julian @general @pluralistic Yeah, that’s an interesting point. It kind of becomes a question of “what is adversarial?” Downloading your data archive for your own use seems pretty benign, sending a billion HTTP requests to a server probably isn’t good though.

We could still probably do raw data imports, even though that’s more manual and clunky. I don’t think most big tech companies offer an API for data archive access. Not impossible to parse, though.