Thanks for the boost @1br0wn
eupolicy.social

Am thinking of hosting a Github demo of a bare bones example of code working that does Option A, and at least B as a JavaScript backup as I suggested to combine custom protocol handler/JavaScript fallback work.

Would folks be interested, or interested in helping? cc: @funnymonkey

That’s Tim. Fantastic article! I’ll have more to say after I re-read this a dozen times, but I want to get out early with an answer to #3: remote actions…

This is why I built fep-3b86 “Activity Intents” which lets people take remote actions from their home server with one click and zero fuss. No JS, no funny protocols required.

Could you please weigh in on this?

@tchambers @renchap@dansup @cheeaun @scottjenson @newsmast @andypiper @ricmac @evan @laurenshof @pfefferle @fediversenews @timbray

FYI, just bumped into the ghost follower UX issue on my own trying to follow @arstechnica folks they follow: 6 followers on the profile, none in the actual link yet. "Followers on this profile may be missing."

As non-federated. Looking forward to fixing this.

Great read, thanks for thinking this through and writing it up!

Cheers Tim for a good post again. I see you're getting pushback on the onboarding server idea. I would argue that had we a good account portability model that solved also post history, there would be no need for a centralized onboarding. Don't like your local community or service provider? Migrate somewhere else. Bluesky does have this slightly better thought out, if not yet practically proven.
@tchambers

The UX (and guides) for this whole thing feels like 2010. When most people are used to modern UX.

I think there is a deeper layer of 'identity management' that could address a lot of the issues.

I think I deeply disagree with this on a fundamental level: as I understand it, you think about decentralization as an engineering strong point, but as a product/UX problem. For me, what is important is the polar opposite: decentralization is key on a product level. I don't support the Fedi because I want a world with a single community-run social network. I support the Fedi because I want a world without any single social network with more than a few thousand uses. I don't want a new, better Twitter. I want an internet that's wild and truly decentralized again. You can't wild the internet by asking people to own their homes but then imposing an HOA that defines how those homes should look like. As Gabbo said, that's just the bluesky model. I don't want bluesky. I want weird platforms developed by a Peruvian teenager where you can't upload any picture that is not of a cat and have three dozen users being as first class Fedi citizens as the flagship mastodon instance. Actually, I want no flagship mastodon instance to exist as the flagship anything.

If we want people to change their mindset about what internet should be, we can't mold ourselves to what they already expect internet to be.

my problem with #1 is that it fails to take the power structure of a decentralised system into account. there is no topdown actor who can decide this. Even in a hypothetical scenario where a new platform software comes along, this does not actually solve the problem. You cannot coordinate all platforms and instances to implement this.

/1

You missed the deadliest sin of them all - not enough cute animal pictures!

This is a really really great piece Tim. I hope we can follow some of your suggestions as we continue to develop things under the Newsmast umbrella.

That is the bluesky appview model basically with extra steps
#There-is-so-much-discourse-about-this #I-already-had-my-fights-with-this-and-i-have-decided-to-use-my-energy-in-wafrn-instead

Also: i talk up the idea of #Lemmy and #Mbin and #Piefed and the #Threadiverse in the idea on surfacing content...

Much of that idea was spurred by this from Piefed on it's potential feed format that can pull in multiple other community fediverse acocunts into one feed:

https://join.piefed.social/2025/04/30/how-piefed-federates-feeds-aka-multi-reddits-or-multi-comms/

And would love to hear what @rimu thinks of my riffing on this for discovery fedi wide, and if he had notes.

1. A lot of what you're describing is mastodon behavior, not universal properties of the fediverse.

2. This is more or less the same list of problems that I've been reading about for 3 years now. Listing the problems doesn't solve them. What would really help would be sustained support for one or more fedi backend projects. Research, docs, marketing, triage and prioritization, community management, and eventually design and implementation.

Just a note that the threads problem has been a solved problem for GoToSocial for a while now, too.

And in terms of feeds standards for the web. This article talks up #Surffeeds from @surf but also @newsmast community feeds, and @Flipboard federated magazines.

I could imagine the same might work with Top WordPress or Ghost content publishers as well, but I'm still understanding the mechanisms for discovering surfacing such content from top federated wordpress blogs or sites, and top Ghost authors. cc'ing @johnonolan and @pfefferle

So for the Protocol hander discussion, I was particularly influenced by @timbray in articles such as this one: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2025/04/16/Decentralized-Schemes

Curious both if TIm thinks I took the right lessons from his writing....

And very much interested in @evan and his thoughts on the idea as describe in the post. And @jenniferplusplus

As well as what browser tech folks like @jon and @jensimmons would think of my rendition of the state of play and how to move forward on web protocol handler support.

Still halfway reading, great effort!

And finished the article... A lot to unpack, thanks a lot and sorry for nitpicking!