I could sing #Sharkey praises for days but the absolutely nicest thing to my 'sweet spot' tuned brain is how quick and responsive it is in daily operation. After the lag of earlier forks I appreciate that so much. 🥰
Long Live the Shork! #IShonkDis :Blobhaj_Ani_Hearts:
There needs to be apps for #iceshrimp, #misskey, #sharkey, #catodon, and any other misskey forks that support reactions and full push notifications on iOS. While the webapp im using on my iceshrimp instance is okay, it cannot be a permanent solution.
Or, it would be great if @IceCubesApp supported push notifications for iceshrimp/misskey forks, but i'm guessing its a server side issue :P
@puniko
I could not login today because the sign in pop up got under Ai's chest.
I reloaded and restarted browser, invalidated cache a lot but it did not help. I deleted the picture in the inspector but it was not just the picture, popup was at the very bottom layer of the interface and did not receive any clicks or keyboard focus.
I ended up deleting all of the front page interface until only login popup remained, and then I could login. #sharkey
@puniko Background is a part of a pop2top layer and it is super strange, yes :akko_think2:
Like, why wouldn't one let background stay on background? #sharkey
Apparently, Tumblr's CEO stepped on his crank and outed himself as a TERF. We does not abide the TERF. No we doesn't.
If you're fleeing #Tumblr and checking out the #fediverse, welcome! I hope you find a home here. You have quite a few options with #Mastodon, #Miskey, #Firefish#Sharkey (I'm posting this from sharkey.world), and the practically thousands of instances within those. Each have their own flavor and features, so don't feel you have to settle on one off the bat. It's not unusual to see new users sign up on one instance, then eventually move to another, then another before they find the community that fits them best.
Looking for something more "bloggy"? Bear Blog and Pika are two services offering simple blogging tools with an emphasis on "small blogging". They are unassociated with the major blogging platforms and offer a fresh alternative to them.
Looks like the spam is fully done now that the person behind it was caught. Though this can happen again very easily in the future. I hope this brings some new updates for softwares like Mastodon/Misskey/Sharkey to deal with spam like that better!
Fyra Labs, the makers of Ultramarine Linux, were the ones who were tracking down who the Fediverse spammers were and making it known so the authorities could deal with them.
EdaAme-X, who is the script kiddie who impersonated someone bragged that he will get protected because of the Juvenile Act.
Well, he got arrested after launching the biggest SPAM attack on the Fediverse. I guess that it didn’t protect him, although he also sent bomb and death threats, which might have been a factor too in his arrest.
All I have to say is good riddance and hopefully he spends time in Juvenile Hall and learn his lesson not to commit cybercrime.
Special shoutout to Fyra Labs, the creators of Ultramarine Linux, who were the ones who tracked down these losers who tried to cause the Fediverse harm with their childish spam attacks.
Once the SPAM attack is fully under control and the curprit is stopped, I think this instance shows what I am concerned about for the last year administering a Mastodon server.
The time to implement anti-SPAM measure was when it first happened last spring in 2023 when the Doge spammers created accounts and mass spammed DMS to everyone. That should be the time to add tools to fight SPAM and implement anti-spam features. However, the Mastodon devs dragged their feet until the problem got worse here.
Misskey has some protections like word filters, banned words, and email domain blocks but it’s still not good enough. Sharkey is slightly better since it has account approvals, which is better, but it's still tedious moderating accounts and cleaning up the SPAM.
Perhaps, Akkoma is the least affected because of the MRF feature, which allows you to create rules to reject certain posts. It’s a good thing that the Sharkey team is potentially coming up with something like this to fight SPAM.
Also, Pixelfed has Anti-SPAM protection that is proven to work.
I think the Mastodon team needs to use this opportunity to learn from the mistakes as script kiddies can easily abuse small instances with open registration without any protections in place to send SPAM. If there are anti-spam filters for newly created accounts as seen with Pixelfed and even Forum software like Xenforo (which can use Akismet/StopForumSpam), it would have mostly stopped spammers easily.
The Fediverse will need to develop an automated spam management system.
In short, an AI
Do you think any mainstream social media platform would stand a chance against A.I.s trying to break into their system with people alone? Because if you do, you are fooling yourself.
I work for Meta and I know our automated system catches 99% of everything, but even with that remaining 1% I am still employed full-time with 8-12 hour work days. Most of what I manage now are reviews and appeals.
Do you know what helped kill forums?
The lack of proper automated spam management. Forum communities made it seem like a daunting task to register and join, making users jump through hoops to prove they were human. All while AIs easily defeated Captcha, Human Q&A, and e-mail verification.
Social media took a different route. They knew to fight AI you needed AI. As a result joining social media was easy and painless for a person.
Today, the Fediverse is facing 1 moron with maybe a few of their friends. -That is all, just 1 jerk and their buddies.
Now, try to imagine the Fediverse becomes more prime time and more noticeable. Let's assume, for a moment, a group like Anonymous, decided to mess with the Fediverse and not just 1 person along with their high school friends.
The Fediverse truly does need to focus on an automated spam management system.
It is not even hackers or script kiddies the Fediverse needs to worry about. It will be corporations and governments that will not like the idea of a social media platform that they, themselves, cannot control or shutdown, and that anyone can host and join.
Those will be the true threats to the Fediverse.
We need to treat this as a wake-up call, and the Fediverse should focus on an automated management system.
Okay, so I'm back on my nonsense comparing my experience on Pixelfed and Instagram again.
Quick background - late last year, around October, I decided I wanted to get more active on my photo heavy social media accounts Instagram and Pixelfed.
This included, effectively, cross-posting the same pictures on both accounts at the same time and with the same level of self-promotion.
The results are...pretty mixed, but interesting. Let's dive in.
First, since the beginning of the year, I am averaging 18.4 likes on my Instagram account per post. On Pixelfed, average of 7.8 likes. Definitely a winner with Instagram.
However, when you do the math - that means only about 4% of my followers on Insta are liking my posts. Based on raw numbers, I'm having a 7% like rate from my followers on Pixelfed. And, I'm seeing it across my friends on other socials as well (Sharkey, Masto, Misskey, etc).
Let's talk comments. I'm getting an average of 1.3 comments per post on Instagram. This includes me responding to comments. On Pixelfed, I'm averaging 0.9 comments per post. This does NOT include my responses to other's comments.
The real result? Basically, the same number for both. So, not much to learn there.
Finding this server using #Sharkey and discovering the migration has repaired all of the issues that forced me to move elsewhere, has really given my mood a lift on a difficult day so far (Work, don't ask).
I have missed Blahaj. I think I'm going to shut the other account and come back here full time. 🥰🤗 Keeping this account open has proven to be another great lesson about the value of patience. 😉
Sharkey / Misskey really need to improve the scroll bar for web browsers. It is the same color as the website, no matter what theme, making it nearly invisible, and they've used some CSS to make it so thin, I think they were trying to hide it altogether.
Ich werde jetzt immer mal wieder die Firefish Instanzen mit aufnehmen, die ein aktuelles Update eingespielt haben.
Bei https://firefish.fediverse.observer/list kann man die übrigens daran erkennen, dass unter Ausführung (Version) 0.0.0.0 angezeigt wird. Scheinbar kann der Observer nicht damit umgehen, dass es zwei Arten von Versionsnummern gibt.
Hello again #Fediverse, I may need your #fedihelp. So, here's a list of the Fediverse software I'm about to make temporary accounts for to test all the features and differences:
So, did I miss anything noteworthy? Does anyone have any tips or recommendations before I choose a server for any one of these? I'll probably be going for the most popular server on each for improved federation and maintenance.
Note: I'm using #Sharkey right now and Misskey forks are already overrepresented, so that's why it's not included.
@ada Ah, I see. I keep hearing that but I might have missed some news (or maybe it's precisely because there hasn't been Firefish news).
There's a little note under the list about why I didn't include #Sharkey. I'm currently using it and I feel like I've explored most of its features here on my primary account, but thanks for the recommendation. I'm really enjoying it so far.
The Fediverse will need to develop an automated spam management system.
In short, an AI
Do you think any mainstream social media platform would stand a chance against A.I.s trying to break into their system with people alone? Because if you do, you are fooling yourself.
I work for Meta and I know our automated system catches 99% of everything, but even with that remaining 1% I am still employed full-time with 8-12 hour work days. Most of what I manage now are reviews and appeals
Today, the Fediverse is facing 1 moron with maybe a few of their friends. -That is all.
Just 1 jerk and their buddies.
Now, trying to imagine the Fediverse becomes more primetime and more noticeable. Let's assume, for a moment, a group like Anonymous, decided to mess with the Fediverse and not just 1 person along with their high school friends.
The Fediverse truly does need to focus on an automated spam management system.