Delayed #caturday surprise! Meet Catodon, an upcoming #fediverse platform, based on #firefish - but trying to make things a little simpler and a little more focused on online communities. Catodon.social is not open to registrations just yet, but will be soon enough. Follow this account for more info, when we're ready!
The cat's out of the bag.
(sorry about that - we had to! 😺) #catodon
Hi all, I've been absent last week because I was arrested, beaten and falsely accused by the greek police in Athens this Saturday, during a peaceful demo supporting a resquatted space. I was released on Monday (have a trial on February), I'm getting better now health-wise and I'm ready to get back to work on #Catodon.
Happy holidays, everyone! @namekuji is making some progress on #Catodon and it's shaping up nicely. We have now set up LibreTranslate on catodon.social and we should be a few days away from opening registrations! We'll also make our repo on #codeberg public, although our first stable release won't arrive before mid-January.
I know that people who run #firefish servers are probably somewhat frustrated right now, since the project's last stable release was back in July. I do hope Kainoa gets more active and things start rolling again, however I checked the closest alternatives/firefish forks. Another thing that makes open source software great: you never run out of options!
So, #Iceshrimp still pretty much looks and feels like firefish, but they've added some nice (performance, mostly) improvements and also have better #mastodon api support. They also plan to do a full rewrite, which is quite an ambitious project. It's certainly a project worth watching.
#Sharkey on the other hand started as a firefish fork (from what I understood) but rebased to #Misskey v13 (Firefish had cut ties with upstream misskey on v12) and is building on top of that. This is also a great option if you like Misskey's direction but want improvements like post editing.
And finally with #Catodon, which is in the making and will soon be another option, we're taking a different approach. We'll implement some improvements from Iceshrimp, like the great work they've done on mastodon api support, but in general we won't exactly be taking the "improved misskey" direction. Instead, we'll be using Misskey/Firefish as our starting point, but we also want to simplify some things - as well as build extra functionality on top of the essentials. So some of the less important and useful features will be removed in order to offer a more consistent and user-friendly experience.
More on specific changes we're doing in a few days!
So #Threads is slowly killing off #Twitter, & #TikTok Shop is spamming users to the point they are reopening #Instagram‽ I can not wait to introduce people to #Pixelfed! 🕺🏾
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!
Gibt es bei #Mastodon bzw. im #Fediverse einen Weg, sich über Kommentare zu einem spezifischen Post (oder zu allen Posts eines bestimmten Users) benachrichtigen zu lassen?
Es geht primär darum, dass ich Kommentare zu den förderierten Posts meines #Wordpress-Blogs gerne direkt in meinem Mastoson-Interface mitbekommen würde...
@Weltenkreuzer hast du mal #Firefish oder #Catodon getestet? Die bieten großartige Layout Optionen an, die meiner Meinung nach einem Twitter-Interface recht nahe kommen. Und sie implementieren die Mastodon API, sodass du Mastodon Apps nutzen kannst.
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
Donc… J’ai toujours été transparent sur le projet, donc je dois vous donner à tous une mise à jour, car nous sommes dans une situation un peu difficile. Il y a quelques semaines, nous avons lancé un appel public pour un co-lead dev, mais nous n’avons pas eu beaucoup d’intérêt. Pendant ce temps, notre lead dev s’est empêtré de plus en plus dans d’autres obligations irl et n’a maintenant presque plus de temps, ce qui signifie que le développement de #Catodon s’est pratiquement arrêté à ce stade. Nous avions fait et annoncé beaucoup de plans, mais pour le moment les choses ont été mises en attente jusqu’à ce que nous trouvions quoi faire ensuite. Nous ferons une annonce officielle, je voulais juste donner une nouvelle chance à ce projet - nous cherchons quelqu’un pour travailler ensemble d’égal à égal sur ce projet. Si vous êtes intéressé par la direction d’un projet fedi ambitieux en tant que développeur, envoyez-moi un message, discutons pour voir si cela peut fonctionner.
Je tiens à m’excuser auprès de toutes les personnes qui pourraient être affectées par cette situation. En attendant, le code de Catodon sera maintenu à jour avec Iceshrimp, et catodon.social sera pris en charge et continuera à fonctionner, donc même si vous utilisez une installation de Catodon pré-version, vous êtes en sécurité - c’est essentiellement Iceshrimp avec quelques changements à ce stade. J’essaie de tirer le meilleur parti de cette situation, j’essaie de considérer nos options, et j’espère que nous aurons bientôt de (meilleures) nouvelles.
If Firefish is going to come back, Kainoa won't have a hand in it. They quietly handed over the keys to the repo to a maintainer... who has publicly stated they aren't a programmer and are just looking after commits. Not exactly a signal things are starting back up.
Unless there is an announcement soon about someone taking up development again, I think it's safe to say Firefish is over as a Fedi platform.
Optimism wants to say that someone will, but at this point even if someone does it'll be playing catch-up to the current state of affairs. It isn't possible for someone to come off of the street and say "I'll do it" and go back to the pace that was happening last summer immediately. (But it's not impossible for me to be wrong and six months from now someone does. I'm just not banking on it happening. Even the Firefish name itself might be too damaged in reputation to even take back up.)
#Iceshrimp, #Sharkey, and #Catodon are #Misskey derivatives who are continuing onward with things. All three of them have disassociated with FF completely so it seems Misskey still has a future with non-Japanese users. (Iceshrimp even spent time on a new non triangular logo to further separate from Firefish.) Server admins who wanted to consider a Firefish instance but shied away from the drama last fall may want to follow those projects instead.
If your fedi server is still on Firefish, don't be surprised if an announcement "were taking signups on our new Plombus server, in X months Fleeb will be decommissioned" comes down sometime soon. Internet services without recent updates are asking for trouble from exploits and vulnerabilities. Also, without an active FF developer to fix standing issues (or a skilled DB admin on your instance's behalf to whittle the database and schema to fit the new system as well as possible) a cut-over migration where users don't lift a finger isn't in the cards like the Calckey to Firefish migration last September. It likely will be up to you to decide to either move your account Mastodon style (no post migration, just your follower lists and a link back to the prior server) or to just start fresh.
Sadly it looks like #firefish is going to die a slow unmaintained death now, and I need to pick a successor to run.
#iceshrimp and/or #catodon appear to be the spiritual successors, but I think I'll be waiting to see who publishes and maintains a public Docker image first.
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 I'm on #FireFish currently. What would you say is the biggest contrast between #Catodon and #FireFish, besides the obvious lack of updates and abandonment issues?
Is there a painless way to upgrade #calckey server (13.1.4.1) to something with more perspective (that will not die in the next 6 months)? What do you suggest? #Iceshrimp? #Sharkey? #Catodon?
Just curious, with the recent demise of #Firefish -- are the forks like #Catodon#Iceshrimp etc viable / sustainable alternatives? Do they share a common base, so one could expect updates into the future if they to cease to exist?
I've just discovered that the #Firefish project seems dead. I tried it last summer (built my own server with this #fediverse platform). It had real potential. It seems now that it is replaced by a new project called #Catodon.
man man man ist das Anstrengend mit jemanden aus dem "Mastodon-Netzerk" zu diskutieren, der davon überzeugt ist, das mastodon die besseren Features hat als alle anderen Fediverse Dienste.
Ich frage mich nur, was soll das sein?
Die Software, die die BenutzerInnen am meisten einschränkt, soll also die bessere sein?
[Fédivers] Des news de Catodon (lemmy.blahaj.zone) French
catodon.social/notes/9rl77swzw25jjq7x