One way to promote the #Fediverse is by making the different fediverse software support custom profile skins and themes. This can potentially create an ecosystem of skin and theme creators, which in turn will make more people talk about it.
I differentiate between a skin and a theme because:
A “skin” is like changing the CSS of the default layout. Adding an image here and there, new icons, and colours and gradients.
While a “theme” can change the layout itself. The widgets available, or shuffle them around. Possible even a way to add custom ones (careful with this though).
You can add, remove, and move widgets around. Use custom ones easily. Change colours easily. Change the widths, the columns, and so on. That is a “theme”. There were even third-party frontend packages a developer can use so they don't have to worry much about it.
Skinning is the simplest method; and this was what made #Plurk popular when it launched in May 2008 (yes, Plurk is as old as the Fediverse network). There was a Plurk skin ecosystem, which in turn increased the number of people talking about Plurk.
Apply the theming feature from the early CMS brands with Plurk's user-level skinning feature, and we create a playground for the users.
#Misskey and forks already had a good start with their user-level skinning feature (and user-level plugins at that). We just need to see it in the other popular fediverse software.
Make it easier to understand. Write guidelines in layman's terms, not dev terms, and maybe, just maybe, we can spark the interest of new users. Who doesn't want a customisable user profile?
After thinking through some responses to my posts and some thoughts of my own, I have concluded that this study probably has a low content and criteria validity and the study is unintentionally biased. Why theses conclusions I cover that under two overlapping headings:
open questions about the data used
Biases
1 Open Questons
How is untagged data dealt with? This is a significant question, since it affects biases and validity. Many things are untagged on Mastodon type instances. (More on that later) The study mention Mastodon and Misskey. However, a large bulk of Misskey data is not tagged. Tagging is much more common on Mastodon type instances. This means populations that user Misskey will be underrepresented. It also may affect representation of female acculturated individual who studies have been shown to be less aggressive, self promoting, or call attention to themselves.
How are PixelFed and Lenny and other platforms handled? Given that some of my PixelFed posts are boosted my guess is that some PixelFed data is included. Again tagging is less prevalent on PixelFed than on Mastodon based instances. This affects individuals who are visually inclined rather than text inclined. I am not familiar enough with Lenny and its ilk to know how that might affect things.
How are silent posts handled? I don’t have data but one use I make of silent posts is for things I do not want to draw attention to. These often relate to subjects which have drawn critical harassment or negative judgements in the past. This is an experience most marginalized individuals have experienced. Not everyone feels totally safe in the Fedi and may not wish their discussions to reach beyond their circle of trust.
Biases. I have already touched on this. I suspect that non-western, vulnerable and marginalized groups are underrepresented.
First, the sex positive community, a highly marginalized group, is explicitly excluded from the study. NSFW material is not counted. Regardless of one’s opinion of this community and its products, posts, and comments, excluding it skews the data.
None Western users are underrepresented. I have shown how the platforms (Misskey/Pawoo) and habits of Japanese and other Asian groups are underrepresented by the dependance on hastags, attention-seeking behaviors, and Asian dominated platforms. These groups are much less likely to call attention to them self than the self aggrandizing west.
It is likely that female acculturated individual are underrepresented due less attention drawing behavior and language. This has been demonstrated to be the case in many studied elsewhere and I propose it is true here.
While I have no data to back this up, I would theorize the same is happening with POC populations.
Reliance on hashtags certainly biases the study against less technical individuals. While a place like the Fedi draws heavily from a more heavily technical population, there are other users.
Reliance text dominated platforms minimizes the visibility of individual who are graphically oriented, such as the photographic community. At least a portion of this population uses PixelFed. It is unclear the extent PixelFed is included in this study.
I question many of the conclusions in the study. That a small minority of individual contribute and drive discussion on the Fedi is hardly surprising. The break down of interests, however, seems have questionable validity since it excludes non-western, minority and less technically savvy individuals. Incomplete inclusion of all Fedi platforms also reduces the visibility of those who engage in non-text information sharing.
I may be incorrect in my assessment since these questions: hash tag dependance; inclusion or exclusion of none-mastodon instance; and measure to insure inclusion are not clearly stated.
At the very least, I hope that any future study will discuss how they are dealing with these kinds of biases and validity issue.
#Threads user with dotted username (an impossibility in vanilla #Mastodon) spotted in the wild federating with a #Misskey instance (namely, Voskey)! So, does this mean Misskey can handle dotted usernames & thus can further do what #Mastodont?
By the way, that #Threads account belongs to a small Japanese #bakery shop selling #cakes online, in case anyone here wishes to buy from them: @kashi.usuiro@threads.net
(Sadly, it seems you cannot yet directly @ them from #Misskey as the dot immediately breaks the ping for being outside the instance-domain-name part, so I had to fake the ping here by making it a #maskedlink to their URL.)
#Misskey blocks CW'd images if you're logged out now, but if you follow someone from Mastodon (or a misskey instance probably) you can just view it normally.
If you need to share a link, a mastodon link of the misskey link works, funny enough. IDK why they're doing that, stupid. Twitter-esque, even.
It's so crazy to me to think that I was on Xhitter for like 4 years and had a total of about 120 followers, most of which were spammers messaging me about "stream graphics".
I've been on Fedi for less than a year and have 5x that amount of followers and probably only enough spammers to count on one hand. I love this place.
📞 Introducing voice & video call for the Fediverse ✨
Sora is a futuristic Fediverse client for Mastodon, Bluesky, Misskey, Pleroma all in one. Comes with local ML to curate posts and the For You timeline.
In the next update V10, Sora allows you to have a Peer-to-Peer call using Fediverse credentials.
Good addition even if it's on the Threads side ... and I'm curious why many fediverse apps still can't get the correct post and follower count but it works with threads? Is it compatibility between Mastodon, Pixelfed, Misskey apps? @Gargron
Dear @potus, I am excited to see you joining the fediverse, but I question your decision to join Threads.
Please consider committing to #OpenGovernment by creating @potus this will allow you to reach all #Threads users as well as the millions on #Mastodon#Misskey#Friendica#Pixelfed#Lemmy and more with just one account and without favoring a commercial endeavour that still has the power to censor you.
So a problem I'm having on the #Fediverse that doesn't happen with legacy social media is that I have multiple accounts across multiple services that all show up under the same search.
I primarily use this account hosted on my personal server, but I also have accounts on my #PeerTube server for posting videos and accounts on #Mastodon Social and Misskey.io to test the bleeding edge of their software and use features my server can't support.
None of these are alts in the way that I've had Tumblr alts for specific fandoms or X alts to follow particular subjects. They're all me to the extent that using a different display name or handle doesn't make sense.
The problem occurs when people reach out to me on some of these accounts, and I miss it cause I don't regularly receive notifications from them. I can't even receive the right kind of notification from some of these accounts. For example, PeerTube doesn't get private mentions or tags (outside of video comments), and none of these services render reactions from #Misskey correctly.
#Fedi is still new to many people, and there's a learning curve to "these are all different services under one giant network powered by #ActivityPub". It makes sense that users search for my name, click the first matching account with a photo of me, and interact with that account believing I'll 100% see that interaction.
I'm not quite sure what the ideal solution is, if anyone has any #FediTips for dealing with this specific caveat of our interconnected social network.
For now, I've just added 🔕 to all my ActivityPub accounts besides my main, and hopefully that gives people enough pause to notice the account without it.
"Omg... Joe Biden is the 1st President posting in the Fediverse"
No, Joe Biden is using mainstream social media, owned by Meta (Facebook), which most of the Fediverse blocked a while back. If POTUS (President of the United States) wants to join the Fediverse correctly and hold that claim, they need to join a true Fediverse instance such as Misskey, Sharkey, Mastodon, or something else not government a large corporation which avoid paying taxes.
I'm writing you because I came across your blog site and thought you may be able to leverage the Fediverse in conjunction with your WordPress site's publishing horsepower.
As a #FOSS advocate with great enthusiasm for mass #Fediverse adoption, I'd like to suggest a couple of things for you to consider, and the following treatment can also benefit others who also have bridged over to the Fediverse that already have a WordPress installation, or have been looking to deploy one.
First, that you think about establishing a Fediverse account other than that of a stock Mastodon instance. Sure, keep your @Teri_Kanefield@mastodon.social account, just create another account for yourself on a platform that will afford you more options that can facilitate your creative freedom (let's not dissect that word, lolz) to publish posts that are in excess of a paltry 500 characters, along with things like Markup capabilities, Etc. Just a thought. ...
This leads into the next suggestion, ...
Second, why not make that account your existing WordPress blog, where you already have a permanent, branded presence and readership? Let's supercharge your WordPress site by making it a full and complete publishing platform completely integrated with the Fediverse.
There's a couple of methodologies, but generally speaking, once you install the ActivityPub plugin any future blog posts are on the Fediverse as well as any other distribution channels you may already have (say, by virtue of having installed the JetPack Social plugin that propagates into the deprecated silo networks).
One method I can recommend is to follow this basic procedure to popularize your blog posts and gain followers - just like you probably have been with the mastodon.social account you already have:
) If you've already created a new account on a more feature complete platform that's better suited for long form posting, inline images, Etc., like #Friendica, #Socialhome, any #Misskey or #Pleroma family fork platform, #Hubzilla, or #Mitra (They all have excellent Markdown support too); simply follow your #WordPress user account @<username>@terikanefield.com. If not, then simply follow your WordPress Fediverse user account from your existing masto account - which you should do anyway since I gather you have some respectable measure of followers.
2.) Everytime you publish a new news article / blog post on your WordPress site, you'll see it in your stream on your fediverse accounts.
3.) Boost each article from those accounts, your followers will see what you boost in their streams.
4.) encourage them to boost as well and/or comment - you'll see those comments in the reply section of each article on your WordPress site - Awesome!
5.) Now that you have followers of your WordPress user's Fediverse account you should be able to garner more direct interaction on your WordPress site, instead of having to post links to those posts from your mastodon.social account.
) From your @<username>@terikanefield.com account at your WordPress site, you can now directly interact with your followers, even those who post replies/comments to your articles, whether or not they are a follower of yours.
I'm taking the time to write because I see that you have a relatively decent circulation and engagement between readers and your blog articles, and the more people that see you engaging with others in the Fediverse directly from your WordPress site, the more people are encouraged to Join the Fediverse.
I am, as stated in my profile and also leading in to this, a FOSS and Privacy Advocate.
So here's a couple of links, one to the plugin itself - it's easy to install and deploy. Another older one that's still relevant that shows you how to do the install, and I think that's about it. We'll see ;)
HowTo with Video - Really simple, easy install, right from your WordPress admin panel
JetPac Social - I'm definitely not a fan of this kind of engagement (with the privacy mining, deprecated, monolithic silo networks), but you do you - it can afford you with even greater reach through syndication, and if you write about the Fediverse, well, ... So much the better!
You should also consider following the magnanimous @pfefferle - one of the primary authors of the #ActivityPub_Plugin.