@panos@catodon.social avatar

panos

@panos@catodon.social

They/them. #Catodon co-founder and ux designer/project manager.
Living in Greece. Anticapitalist/anarchist, #vegan for the animals, #polyamorous, #genderfluid.
@ panosd:matrix.org on matrix.

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panos, to fediverse
@panos@catodon.social avatar

So, we have a #fediverse alternative to goodreads with #bookwyrm - what about a #letterboxd alternative? I'd love to be able to keep track of films I watched and read/write reviews here. Anybody working on anything like that?

panos, to random
@panos@catodon.social avatar

Just uploaded 268 Blobcat emojis to catodon.social. I figured that what the place really needed was a few more cats. Much better now.

​:BlobCat_BoopHappy:​

panos, to fediverse
@panos@catodon.social avatar

The #Fediverse should have public chatrooms.

panos, to politics
@panos@catodon.social avatar

The talk about US #politics is very interesting in a sense (or very boring, in others). Capitalism has brainwashed people this much, that even people with good intentions fall for its ideologies and support them. So most posts I see on the subject are about how important it is to go vote for the "democratic" candidate in order to fight "fascism". The democratic candidate who supports a genocide in #Gaza - but apparently people think that defeating #Trump is more important than killing children.

I'm sorry, both sides support fascism. Break out of the brainwashing. I know Trump is much worse in many aspects. But both sides represent billionaires who don't care about your lives. You have no reason to support them. If you want to beat fascism, go find real people and do it together on the street, not through the state's ballot. Organize with your local antifascists and anarchists. Or be a consumer and supporter of billionaires' politics, as they continue destroying our lives and the planet.

panos, to random
@panos@catodon.social avatar

This development makes me very happy. #Iceshrimp is a project that involves many people who were important in #firefish development but were unhappy with how things were handled there, so at some level it feels like righting a wrong and bringing the broader community closer together - even if we've ended up with two projects, both of which I feel that cover different needs though. This is also an answer to everyone who thought that our corner in the fediverse was falling apart. We have a healthy ecosystem, we have ways to communicate and stay on good terms - let's build bridges, not walls! I like the place we are right now. Nature is healing =)

RE: https://catodon.social/notes/9oed3uchq5t76dbu

catodon, to random
@catodon@catodon.social avatar

Important announcement, everyone! 🎉

After giving this a lot of thought and discussing with the wonderful people that build Iceshrimp, will rebase to . We feel that it's the right decision for the road ahead, as Iceshrimp is another fork that focuses in improving performance and they have already done some amazing improvements, like full Mastodon API support. With Firefish's future uncertain, we think it's better to stay closer to an actively maintained project. The two projects will stay distinct, as we have different design goals, but we have a common codebase so we feel this makes sense.

Just to be clear on all fronts and to answer the obvious question in advance, yes, Iceshrimp is also currently doing a full rewrite in C#, which is a few months away, and we haven't decided if we'll adopt this yet - it's a strong possibility, but we're keeping our options open. We're confident they're doing a great job, still, we'll weigh what the best decision for Catodon is on this when it's ready and the time comes.

Just wanted to let you know that this might push Catodon's development back a little, as it's sort of a structural change, but we feel that it's worth it, and that it might be better for the broader community. Catodon development will resume once rebasing to Iceshrimp is finished, and then we'll have better foundations to build this on.

panos,
@panos@catodon.social avatar

@tripop @catodon Iceshrimp isn't lead by the person you're thinking. I was also under the same impression until recently. Iceshrimp's lead dev is @zotan and as far as I can tell she's pretty cool. We're not merging the projects anyway, and I think we've explained "why".

panos, to random
@panos@catodon.social avatar

There's a vision behind #Catodon: To build a software that will be as self-explanatory as it gets, so that you can invite your (irl or from other platforms) friends to your community and they will instantly feel familiar. People tend to not like change; they like sticking with what's familiar. So when they enter a fedi server and they see all the confusing terminology and buttons they don't understand what they do, it's just one more reason for them to give up and go back to facebook or wherever. Not everyone will want to come to your fedi community, but for those who are willing to try something different, let's at least not put unnecessary obstacles in their path. They're attempting to feel at home here - let's make them feel at home.

panos,
@panos@catodon.social avatar

@NumbersCanBeFun Catodon is trying to change UX into something that makes more sense, and also we're gonna change some features, like Channels will be more like federated Forums and Pages more like federated Blog posts - we feel these are features that would be more useful to people than the current set. So we are trying to be bold with some changes in order to achieve those goals, so not everyone that comes from firefish will be happy with all of the changes. We're doing our best to offer a smooth transition, but you just can't please everybody.

However, if you like Firefish's UX but just want to use something that performs better and is actively maintained by a team of very cool people, you can't go wrong with #Iceshrimp, as that's exactly what they do.

So I think that the situation in the #firefish camp is not as tragic as it seems. You basically have two options, depending on which direction you'd prefer the software you use to go. Of course you can also wait and see what happens with firefish, I mean if your server is running smoothly, there's no rush. But tbh I think that trust in firefish has been broken, and that sooner or later most people will jump to another platform.

Oh and of course there is another obvious option which is #sharkey, which is great if you like misskey's current direction. Firefish was a hard fork of misskey, based on v12, sharkey is a soft fork based on the current v13. Personally I'm not very fond of some of the design choices of misskey, or how they seem to add and remove half-baked features, so I prefer where we are with Catodon (same applies to Iceshrimp).

thisismissem, (edited ) to trustandsafety
@thisismissem@hachyderm.io avatar

What should we call a group of fediverse servers working together in moderation & community practices?

I've been using Bloc in quotes, because I'm not sure if that's the right or most correct word for it.

#moderation #fediverse #TrustAndSafety

panos,
@panos@catodon.social avatar

@thisismissem OTOH I think "bloc" would be my fourth pick, mainly because it sounds like "block" and we're already talking about moderation, so it could be confusing.

panos, to random
@panos@catodon.social avatar

The more I learn about #Iceshrimp, the more I like it.

panos, to random
@panos@catodon.social avatar

I'm thinking that maybe it would be better to call Replies "Comments". It kind of feels cozier and less strict to me. Might also help with distinguishing posts and reply posts a little more in the users' heads - it wouldn't be enough on its own, of course, but it could be a step in the right direction. The current timeline behaviour sometimes feels a lot like a big chat, and we could offer a better social media experience by moving to a more post-centric feed.
WDYT? Does this make sense?
#Catodon

panos, to random
@panos@catodon.social avatar

A question for fedi server admins: How long is your server's name (as you've written it in your control panel, I mean)? Is there a reason why someone would want to use a very long server name? Thanks!
#FediAdmin

catodon, to random
@catodon@catodon.social avatar

A handy little new feature in #Catodon, implemented by @linca - thank you!

You know how Mastodon and Misskey show only the number of direct replies under each post? This doesn't provide enough information, as a post might have just one direct reply, but it might be a thread with twenty more comments nested - yet you only see "1" reply.

In Catodon, you still see the number of direct replies in your timeline, but when you click on a post and see the detailed view, next to the number of direct replies you can also see the number of sub-replies under them! So in this case we have 55 direct replies, nesting 118 sub-replies. This way you can easily see how deep the discussion under a post goes at any time, without having to go through every thread! Does this sound useful to you?

panos,
@panos@catodon.social avatar

@bumble This doesn't affect the current common behaviour of pretty much all fedi platforms, where some replies might not be visible from third servers. It works for all posts viewed through Catodon - if the post is in your server then it has info for all replies, if it is on a remote server then it will show the number of replies that have been fetched. @catodon @linca

panos, to random
@panos@catodon.social avatar

On a more personal note, for what Catodon means to me: The anarchist movement in Greece hasn't widely adopted the Fediverse yet. Most of them are at least using Signal, but for social media they still use Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at large. The changes I am pushing in Catodon are also considered in that context: What will make it easier for more people to come to fedi communities, what will make their transition smoother? How can I bring my queer friends and my comrades here? This is, in a way, my letter of love to them.

panos, to random
@panos@catodon.social avatar

If this hadn't just happened to me, I'd say this was set up. Had no idea about that project.

RE: https://catodon.social/notes/9o4ugilsvxg0owm3

panos, to random
@panos@catodon.social avatar

After #Catodon (and the situation with #Firefish) went public, we've certainly had a lot of support and positive feedback. However, there were also people who shared irony and negativity. There were people who seemed happy to see Firefish's state, and who would be happy if Catodon failed. Some didn't like our name. Some found it unacceptable that the name resembles Mastodon, whereas we start as a Misskey fork. It's sort of a tribute, people. We're in a way a Mastodon alternative where you can be a cat. And we'll improve our Mastodon API support so you can use Catodon with Mastodon apps. No need to take things so seriously and with a hostile stance, if what we're doing doesn't click with you that's fine, we never asked you to like us. There are certainly better things to define and present youself than by your dislike towards an open source project. We're not hurting anyone, we're trying to build a free tool that people may find useful. Lose the hate, it's only a burden.

Pandora, to fediverse
@Pandora@eldritch.cafe avatar

Does anyone know if there's a project to implement something similar to #TwitterSpaces but with #ActivityPub involved?

panos,
@panos@catodon.social avatar

@Pandora if it can be done p2p and not through the server it would be ideal. Or it could be done using Jitsi.
That is definitely something we'd be interested in implementing in Catodon, if it can be done in an efficient way, but our priorities are elsewhere at the moment. However, if anyone would be interested in implementing it but isn't interested in maintaining a platform longterm, we could talk.

panos,
@panos@catodon.social avatar

@CupofDalek @Pandora that's... actually our lead dev's @namekuji project! So I guess we need to talk in private about this 😆

ArtBear, to random
@ArtBear@catodon.social avatar

I'm giving Catodon.social a go.
Unfortunately Firefish.social has become so broken it doesn't even respect migration requests (let alone post downloads). So a lot of people will miss seeing my move 🫣. I suppose people will find me again over time, but that's a real shame for a server to get that neglected.
I do also have my @ArtBear account which I won't be migrating (it's just offline for DB maintenance for a few hours, don't freak out anyone).

Why Catodon?
I'm sure other projects are interesting too.
I liked how @panos interacted & was committed to community building on .social. I feel like it's important for any dev team to have in mind Community, not just features, nor just admin, nor just moderation it's all really important but community is the base. I liked how he posted his frustrations with the very large parts of the firefish project that were not a team endeavour that could be picked up & redistributed, but solely resting on only 1 individual. I like the Catodon mission statement about being a team wanting to dev for a lot of servers, and not dev for some mega flagship server (which is a vulnerability of fedi. decentralised & well distributed is good). Also the 1st set of improvement notes were really good at logical cleanup, changes & taking the good parts of stalled firefish forward again, but in a more streamlined direction.

Right away feels like an old friend, I really missed:

markdown!
awesome super customisable UI!
properly rendered links so you don't have to click away!
multi links in a single post!
proper quote posts! (really it's users, not features!)
threading display so you actually know if you're in a thread & where!
floating user info cards with actions like follow (not clicking away to a profile)!
custom emoji reactions! (like 😻 or 🥴not just ⭐!)
custom feeds & also lists, are amazingly flexible, you really need to try them!
widgets!
storage with all media for re-use (with editable !!)!
search your contentsearchbox [search]post controls!
blogs (pages)!
forums (channels)!
8000 word limit (be afraid, be very afraid muhahaha!)
and so much more...

Anyway, here's to a new adventure! ​:catodon:​💜🐻🎉

panos,
@panos@catodon.social avatar

@driusan we are, some of these changes haven't been implemented yet, but they will be soon. @ArtBear @ArtBear

panos,
@panos@catodon.social avatar

@lelehier @driusan @ArtBear @ArtBear It hasn't been an easy decision. However, one of the reasons we rebased to Iceshrimp is to have full mastodon api support, so that people can use mastodon clients. And it's not a good UX if Catodon servers are filled with MFM, but users can't see it through their masto app. Plus Misskey keeps changing things, including MFM - we are consciously a hard fork so that we're not bound by these changes. Also, about Gallery, you can pretty much recreate any gallery posts in Blog posts (pages). We will gradually add other features that will be more useful than that.

panos,
@panos@catodon.social avatar

@mimo @lelehier @driusan @ArtBear @ArtBear misskey flavoured markdown, an enhanced formatting language that lets you make text/icons move etc. It's fun, but not universal in fedi, and we prefer interoperability whenever possible, so we're switching to standard markdown.

panos, to random
@panos@catodon.social avatar

We really appreciate all of the excitement about #Catodon! However, we don't want to raise expectations for miracles in a few weeks. Our first release will be fully functional of course, but it won't be everything we want this to be. So, for people who are waiting for our first release to shape an opinion about the software, I'm afraid it will still be very early in a way. This is a long term project and we want to be careful with the changes we're pushing, so please be patient! We'd also love to implement all of our plans in a matter of days but that's not possible. Honestly, I think we'll need at least a few months and a few releases to show the true colors of Catodon. It is what it is.

twilliability, to RSS
@twilliability@genart.social avatar

Under-the-radar late night launch: RSS Parrot is live! It talks like Mastodon, but it doesn't walk like Mastodon. BUT! It will relay any RSS feed straight into your timeline.

Turn Mastodon into your very own feed reader. Follow anything that has an RSS feed and get a toot about new posts.

How? Mention @birb with the address you want to follow.

More details at https://rss-parrot.net. Boost for visibility :)

#RSS #Atom #FeedReader #Fediverse

panos,
@panos@catodon.social avatar

@twilliability @wernie @birb yes, and we're basically more or less on the same codebase as firefish, so if it works here, it will work on firefish as well. Mentioning our lead dev too @namekuji

panos, to random
@panos@catodon.social avatar

Alright, now that catodon.social is live (welcome new members!), let me explain some of the first changes we've done so far in #Catodon, compared to #Firefish.

We really tried to make the platform easier to understand and less overwhelming for new members. So we changed some icons and also some basic terminology:

  • Antennas are now Custom feeds
  • Channels are now Forums
  • Pages are now Blog posts
  • Boosts are now Reposts
  • Local timeline is called "This server" and Global timeline is called "All servers"

We also tried to cut down on menu items. So Lists and Custom feeds are now only accessible from the timelines, Groups are only accessible through Chat (which is the only feature they are used in anyway), Clips are now called Collections and are placed in a tab under Bookmarks. That's four menu items less, without losing any functionality! But we also removed a fifth item, Gallery, which was very half-baked and rarely used in most Firefish servers. Its functionality can more or less be covered by Blog posts.

There is no "Social" timeline: Instead, we have incorporated Social's functionality in Home. Posts from the local server are now displayed by default in Home, so that new users aren't greeted with an empty timeline. You can change that in Settings, so the Home timeline either works as follows only, or as "Social" in Misskey/Firefish.

There are other changes as well and there are more coming as we're preparing for our first official release, but these are some of the most striking ones you will see!

​:catodon:​

panos,
@panos@catodon.social avatar

@ArtBear The first one is an interesting idea! Not sure about it though, not sure how many people would want to share their follows. After all, they can refer their friends to the regular sign up page, and give them an export of their follows. Adding an extra feed seems a little too complicated. I'll give it some more thought though.

The second one is a good recommendation, but rn there are no plans for such a website. We don't want to focus in advertising Catodon as a "platform" to end users, we consider it more of a software choice for potential community admins, who will advertise their server to whomever they feel more appropriate - and perhaps primarily people who aren't necessarily interested in the fediverse. But we'll see!

panos,
@panos@catodon.social avatar

@ArtBear I hear you. Perhaps a personal invitation that could also work on invite only servers. Like a server can have closed registrations but allow its members to invite others. And perhaps instead of a feed with your follows, you'd instantly follow each other once they sign up, so it would make some sense even on servers with open registrations. Like a "let's be friends on that community" invite link.

However, to be completely honest, and while I do think it's a good idea, we do have a lot of plans that should be prioritized over something like that. So if someone wants to do something like that voluntarily I'm open to working with them on the implementation, but I wouldn't set it as a priority to our devs very soon.

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