@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

Ciantic

@Ciantic@twit.social

Developer. This is my main account for the time being. I have six profiles now on Mastodon, sigh.

I will remove followers who haven't posted anything.

#Rust, #FSharp, #CSharp, #DotNet, #TypeScript

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

Ciantic, to fediverse
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

I'm dissatisfied with timeline-based clients, like #Mastodon's and #Bluesky's. I hardly ever care to read the timeline here anymore. I see only a glimpse of the feed.

I know mostly what I want to try: Inbox based clients, and some algorithmic views I control. To avoid re-reading the same content.

Bluesky has one interesting client skyline.gay, it has these features:

  • One post from each person you follow
  • Mutuals feed

https://github.com/louislva/skyline

I would build similar to my own client as well.

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@rolle For me, the key is not to see the items I've already read. I find myself getting frustrated if I return to the client and see the same content.

If I could hide from the timeline the items I've already read it would act a lot like an inbox.

It's doable on Mastodon as well, but I don't care too much about Bluesky vs Mastodon thing, other than technical parts. I'd probably make a Bluesky account as well when it opens, even if I wouldn't post there. Just to follow people who went there.

Ciantic, to bluesky
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

Someone has made #Bluesky "community browser", it classifies people on labels and shows them as charts.

Twitter for long sold and gave access to researchers to mine like this. I doubt Fediverse would be happy if everyone were categorized and put on a chart.

This same kind of thinking is driving the algorithms behind Bluesky.

https://bsky.jazco.dev/

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@baldand I have no idea, just discovered it. It also is very opinionated, someone just pulled the categories out of a hat. Probably taking prominent members and classifying their followers. For instance, it puts Jake Tapper on "Trans + Queer shitposters", which is kind of funny.

osc, to fediverse

I won’t lie, I’m not super optimistic about the future of #Mastodon

On top of obvious feature issues (such as the lack of quote posts, even though it’ll be addressed soon), Mastodon has a massive culture issue

Unless your use perfectly fit with how the so-called Fedipolice uses it, you’re taking the risk of receiving massive abuse from said Fedipolice

It’s unwelcoming, and rooted in privilege: "Mastodon isn’t a replacement for #Twitter, except for me"

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@osc I'm pretty sure Mastodon already had it's chance. I've listened to journalists and almost all of them tried Mastodon last year, but found it confusing.

I don't think you get a second chance in social media market. For those people, they associate Mastodon with difficulty.

Now, protocol is quiet different matter, and Bluesky if it had used ActivityPub but with explicit consent for algorithms, it could have implemented everything it wants. Sigh

matt, to random
@matt@isfeeling.social avatar

I think it’s very funny that everyone who posts a link to their Bluesky account just gives people this…

No deep links into the app…no redirect to the web app…just a sign up page, even for people already signed up. This is the quality Bluesky experience people are talking about, right? 😉

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@gavinanderegg @matt They rushed it out of the door, pfraze, the developer behind the protocol:

> "Everything has moved enormously faster than we expected it to. We have around 65k users on the beta server right now. We thought that this would be a quiet, stealthy beta for us while we finished the technology and the client. We've instead gotten a ton of attention, and while that's wonderful it means that we're getting kind of bowled over."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35881905

rabble, to random
@rabble@mastodon.social avatar

I talked to David King (https://primal.net/dk) about Nostr vs Bluesky today. He made a video and put it online. Folks might find it interesting. I mention the fediverse some but it wasn’t the focus of the discussion.

https://youtu.be/iIwBDvkkEnQ

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@rabble When things start to settle, I hope you get to @TWiT again sometime and explain to us all this mess.

People who came from Twitter don't care too deeply about decentralization. The elite Bluesky has invited cares about moderation, and that is the main goal they need to solve to keep them.

Ciantic, to internet
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

If this is true that #Bluesky is "pull-based", then it's a lot like #RSS, but with a complicated storage format.

It will also explain the need for highly inefficient BGS architecture. That's what basically all big podcast players do: They read all RSS files and build a server-side cache, then serve the clients.

Some small podcast and RSS readers do access the source directly, and I suspect if Bluesky spreads we will see clients accessing PDSs directly.

https://urbanists.social/@sam/110339902538138997

atomicpoet, to fediversenews

A great blog post by @gavinanderegg regarding ActivityPub vs AT protocol.

I echo his concerns.

What I care about isn’t so much where the Fediverse is now but what it will be in the future.

And I do consider Bluesky as potentially part of the Fediverse even if it’s disconnected from it right now.

https://anderegg.ca/2023/05/09/bluesky-frustrations

@fediversenews

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@atomicpoet @gavinanderegg @fediversenews I wish @mozilla takes part in Bluesky network, given that they are one of the well known non-profits.

Even if Bluesky is "Public benefit" and "Employee owned", it's not proven entity, and they need to prove themselves first by federating etc.

If I have understood correctly PDSs are easy to self host, but if everyone needs to talk BGS to get any value, we need more competition in BGS space, and that is hard to self-host. We need non-profits to do BGS.

Ciantic, to internet
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

I like this observation from @davew: "But as quiet as Bluesky is, it makes Mastodon look even quieter."

What makes it so odd, is that Bluesky has 50k accounts, but Mastodon has gained more than 50k accounts in past two days.

The reason #Bluesky makes itself look busier is simply algorithms. Should #Mastodon have a checkbox: "I consent to give my content to be searchable for algorithms"?

Would it be better or not? It could connect disparate communities in Mastodon.

http://scripting.com/2023/05/08.html

timbray, to random
@timbray@cosocial.ca avatar

Having poked around at passkeys, I guess I can buy that they’re more good than bad.

Except for: Passkeys need Bluetooth to work, to work. Maybe I’m just weird but my experience is that Bluetooth often just doesn’t work. So… worried.

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@timbray There is also software-only passkeys like:

https://bulwark.id/

Also someone is working on Passkeys for KeepassXC so you could store them locally.

rileytestut, to random
@rileytestut@mastodon.social avatar

It sucks reading all the Mastodon vs Bluesky takes because the whole point of decentralized social media was that it didn’t have to be a zero-sum game. Yes Mastodon is more nerdy and yes Bluesky is more “normal”, but if they all used ActivityPub then everyone could win!

But instead of contributing to the open social web, Bluesky decided to fork the ecosystem with their own proprietary protocol :/ And now we’re headed for the same siloed world as before

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@rileytestut There is a difference with the two:

ActivityPub is built as 1-to-1, i.e. content goes to your followers primarily via follower lists. This is a reason why some are hostile to search here because connections are point-to-piont.

Bluesky's protocol is one-to-many and everything is public. It prioritizes sending content to a big-data-gathering indexer where everything is searchable.

This simple difference makes a huge change in how they can be implemented and scaled.

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@rileytestut I agree that everything Bluesky wants could have been done with little extensions or improvements on ActivityPub: Consent to search, index, sign messages, etc. Even the handle formats could have been redecided because they are not part of ActivityPub.

Currently AP doesn't require you to sign messages (only HTTP header signatures are required). In Bluesky it's a requirement because you have to trust middle servers like BGS to provide the messages on behalf of the original server.

damonoutlaw, to fediverse

I do believe more #mastodon users should use #BlueSky there’s a lot that the team and users in general can learn from those in the #fediverse and clear up misconceptions

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@damonoutlaw @atomicpoet @supernovae @mekkaokereke Bluesky has set itself up for a failure, if people expect its moderation to be highly better than Mastodon or Twitter for that matter.

They've generated such a huge buzz, that I can imagine it ballooning to unmanageable +1 million in short time if they opened the doors fully.

Moderation is still an open problem for fully open platforms, some people want tighter moderation, and some less so. How to accommodate 1 million people?

matthauger, to internet

For over a month, Mastodon held steady at ~1.2M MAUs (after a months-long decline). Now, MAUs are dropping again. The #Bluesky effect?

https://api.joinmastodon.org/statistics

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@matthauger I do predict Bluesky to win over the people I came to follow here, but since it's invite-only I doubt it will yet affect MAU.

There seem to be wild assumptions about what Bluesky can do, however, e.g. regarding moderation.

Example: https://blue.amazingca.dev/?username=malwaretech.com&postid=3jv47rukqe62c Marcus Hutchins points out that #Mastodon is losing because of reply-guys driving out the minorities, but that's equally true in #Bluesky if they let in anybody.

rolle, to fediverse
@rolle@mementomori.social avatar

The only thing we currently don't see on #Mastodon is the media, especially local media. But I kinda don't miss the media being entangled in social media so much. It often doesn't bring any extra value to it now that I think of it.

Seeing the handles like this make me think "oh, they're on Twitter, I wonder what they are doing there" and that's about it. I probably wouldn't follow push-style posts anyway. #SocialMedia #Media

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@rolle @taymaz Mastodon should thrive to be something else. I don't think it's going to happen for Mastodon if Bluesky succeeds, which is fine. I have been tracking where media goes, and US media is very eager to do accounts in Bluesky: NPR, Washington Post, The Nation, Time, The Intercept, The Onion... and the list goes on already in Bluesky. It's wild how well they've gotten the US media landscape, even though the app is basically a single broken textarea with glitches.

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@taymaz @rolle There is some of "Not Invented Here" syndrome, but Bluesky is also a fundamentally different way to build a social media where all content is searchable and indexable. For this reason, Bluesky can do big-data-firehose that everything is public.

With ActivityPub at the protocol level, it assumes the 1-to-1 connections, this creates a cultural clash where some think it's not okay to index content and make it searchable.

paul, to random
@paul@tapbots.social avatar

Bluesky pre-bans Trump!
https://fortune.com/2023/05/05/twitter-competitor-bluesky-says-no-heads-of-state-allowed-yet/

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@paul Maybe they are talking about the beta phase. Anyhow, are you saying that @joebiden is welcome!

tchambers, to internet

Lots of good discussion on #BlueSky and #Fediverse going on. These four questions dominate my thinking:

  1. Can the ATProtocol really scale and federate? This is a very open question.

  2. Can BlueSky's ATProtocol moderation work at scale? Or even NOT at scale? Blurry still.

  3. Can the #Fediverse and #Mastodon improve its UX and UI experiences faster than the these first two things occur?

Lastly:

  1. How quickly do robust Fediverse/ATProtocol bridges emerge?

cc: @activitypubblueskybridge

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@mergesort @tchambers @activitypubblueskybridge I would prefer moderation coalitions, in Mastodon it's a shame you can't benefit from a moderation of a good server if you host your own instance.

To solve this Bluesky & Mastodon could have coalitions of moderators. Any server or individual could join the moderation coalition for a membership fee.

atomicpoet, (edited ) to internet

is finally testing federation with "allow-listed servers".

They're finally taking the step of decentralization.

Many people will naysay this. But it's absolutely better that they move to decentralization than not do it.

https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/5-5-2023-federation-architecture

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@atomicpoet I read the same post

1.) I noticed that they plan to open a federation in the future for "all". Hopefully no allow-listing anymore after that.

2.) You can somehow use server-to-server federation, even if it's not default:

> "BGSs instead of server-to-server isn’t prescriptive. The protocol is actually explicitly designed to work both ways."

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@atomicpoet But it says in last phrase it works both ways, I can imagine a lot of users want to use BGS, but some might want server to server.

rodhilton, to random
@rodhilton@mastodon.social avatar

The constant-threats-to-defederate thing is going to kill this place, seriously.

Defederating an instance is an extreme measure and it should only be taken in extreme circumstances.

Finding out I might stop getting posts from people I explicitly follow because they happen to be on an instance being defederated by mine all because a bunch of admins I don't know got in a spat over a user I don't follow is just about the most annoying value proposition imaginable.

https://federate.social/@mattblaze/110317006852580015

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@eisfunke @rodhilton qoto.org doesn't defederate:

"We do not silence or block other Fediverse instances based on agenda, politics, or opinions held by their staff or users."

"Offending servers will only be silenced, not blocked, blocks will be reserved for technical assaults only such as DDoS attacks"

It's still moderated server and tries to stay in the good graces of most servers (not all because some servers disagree them).

https://qoto.org/about/more

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@rodhilton @eisfunke Yes, it has been defederated by some, but I have checked that not by big instances.

You can't expect all instances to "not defederate", they are made of people, and they don't want to see content from other servers then it's their right.

Defederating is good thing, it defuses tensions, that's what makes this better than Twitter. Groups can block other groups, and then they don't quarrel anymore.

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@ec670 I don't know which post you are replying, but I've talked about Bluesky lately. It seems to be closer to RSS and closer to "town square" because you can fetch anyone's content without server filtering if I've understood their plans correctly.

And yes, having six accounts in Mastodon is painful, that problem is not in Bluesky.

davidbisset, to fediverse
@davidbisset@phpc.social avatar

Hearing more about some of the smerkness on #Mastodon from more tech podcasts.

@viticci summarizes what I’ve seen pretty well.

video/mp4

Ciantic,
@Ciantic@twit.social avatar

@davidbisset @viticci Bluesky, Mastodon... decentralized and federated systems will end up looking like society if they get big enough.

Mastodon has more FOSS crowd, because they got through the initial hurdles more easily.

That's why we need algorithms and stop gaps, like "don't show replies until 10 minutes after posting", shuffle replies, hide some replies from people I don't care...

The more people the platform has, the more noise filters you need.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • JUstTest
  • mdbf
  • ngwrru68w68
  • modclub
  • magazineikmin
  • thenastyranch
  • rosin
  • khanakhh
  • InstantRegret
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • Durango
  • kavyap
  • DreamBathrooms
  • megavids
  • GTA5RPClips
  • ethstaker
  • normalnudes
  • tester
  • osvaldo12
  • everett
  • cubers
  • tacticalgear
  • anitta
  • provamag3
  • Leos
  • cisconetworking
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •