Ugh, I really tried to stay out of #fediverse drama but I guess I have to say a few things. Most of you know me as a #firefish core team member, so I think I owe it to the admins of almost 500 firefish servers out there and to the almost 5000 members of firefish.social.
So, yeah, if you haven't noticed, things aren't looking good for firefish. Its owner, Kainoa, has practically abandoned the project, which had its last stable release out on July. My last message to them was a week ago, and I haven't heard back since. Firefish.social, besides the other severe technical problems it's had due to mismanagement in the last few months, now also has serious federation issues. I hope Kainoa is well irl, but this is irresponsible and unacceptable.
I hear some of you saying "but you're in the core team too, don't try to put the blame elsewhere!". So I have to explain what being a core team member in firefish meant. Kainoa invited me, Namekuji and a few others to be part of the "core team", but kept all decisions and responsibilities. We didn't co-own this. We never shared donations. We were just volunteers, who were honestly trying to make it a great project. This didn't work well due to concentration of power to one person, who didn't keep their promises. I don't mean to be harsh to Kainoa, I mean we knew they were only 19 when they started the project. Still, it's a bummer to anyone who chose to trust and support Firefish. This includes myself.
I don't know if it's early to consider firefish a dead project, but it sure seems like that for a few months now. Maybe it can be resurrected, idk. It's all up to Kainoa.
In the meantime, Namekuji and I are starting #Catodon, which will have some differences with Firefish, and will include many changes I had discussed with Kainoa but were never implemented. If you decide to stick with us, we promise to be serious about this. I strongly believe in the fediverse and its potential, and I want to build a great platform for it. This was my goal when I chose to be involved in Calckey/Firefish. It's still my goal with Catodon, only this time I can stand behind it 100%, as the project will be co-managed by Namekuji and me. If Firefish left you with a bitter aftertaste, we hope we can build a better relationship and prove ourselves worthy of your trust. Catodon will go public in a matter of days, possibly even hours. We'll have more to say about its direction then.
In the meantime, I just wanted to share my apologies for any inconvenience regarding Firefish, as I'm still technically a core team member, whatever that means. But frankly, I tried so hard to make things go differently - but there's only so much you can do when it's someone else's project. I'm really sorry for how things went.
But this is not the end of the fedi journey for me. I'm super excited about the chance to do some things right this time with Catodon. Life goes on, I guess! Hope to see you soon on our #codeberg repo, so we can start a new creative adventure together =)
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 #firefish.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 #Catodon 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 #altText!!)!
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 #Fedi adventure! :catodon:💜🐻🎉
It's almost time. We're super-excited. #FediGroups is entering public testing now, before a full live launch.
Many of us have used other Boosting Groups, but they only work well if you follow from Mastodon accounts. We know there is a wider fediverse. FediGroups works with all the favourites, including #Mastodon, #Firefish, #Iceshrimp, #Catodon, #Sharkey, and more. One big happy family 👪
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!
Alright, I know I haven't given many updates on #Catodon, because frankly there's not a lot to say. We're reorganizing, reprioritizing etc. Things are going slow. I haven't given up on the project, I think we have an interesting approach which is worth exploring, but we're short on human resources atm. Hopefully this will change and things will get exciting again, but we're not there yet. I'll let you know.
However, I wanna talk about another project I'm also sort of involved in lately - #Iceshrimp! So Iceshrimp also started as a #Firefish fork but they are currently rewriting the whole thing on .net/C#! Both the backend and frontend are being rewritten in C# - the frontend on Blazor. AFAIK this is the only fedi project written on .net and I'm really curious for the result!
This has been announced many months before, and Iceshrimp-js is in feature freeze, to allow all efforts to concentrate in the rewrite. Many people were skeptical because it's a huge project - which is true. So let me tell you that finally #Iceshrimp's rewrite will be entering beta soon - meaning, probably before the month is through!
This will practically be a brand new fedi platform, with a UX similar to Firefish (at least initially), with great Mastodon API support for compatibility with existing apps, hopefully with much better performance and a cleaner codebase. I'll keep you posted on how things progress!
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
I've noticed some people refer to me as a dev, although I never claimed to be one. One person even accused me of not having recent commits in Firefish. So... I have to confess I am not a dev.
My role in Firefish was community manager/project coordinator. But isn't it interesting that people assume I'm a dev because I was in the core team? It's so often that community-driven open source projects are run only by devs, that people just assumed I am a dev too. And, with all the respect to the wonderful dev community, I think that's kind of a problem.
You see, an open-source project needs much more than coding. My role in #Catodon will include coordinating development, designing features, testing, communication and feedback from the community, managing issues on the repo, decision making, moderating catodon.social, participating and moderating the matrix channels and I'm sure more will be added to that list. Devs may or may not be good at these things - and this clearly affect some projects. Being a good dev doesn't necessarily mean being good at everything around running an open source project, and that's ok. There's a reason companies hire project managers when developing software. You can add every community request out there - if you don't keep UX on your mind and don't have a consistent vision for your software, it will end up poorly designed and bloated.
So, I have to warn you - I may not be suitable to answer your more technical questions! We have a support channel for that, and our lead dev Namekuji is more knowledgeable about the coding aspect - while other devs, who are interested in our direction, have already reached out and are starting to work with us. So hopefully we will soon have a lively dev and admin community where we can support each other.
I'd say that one of my main goals in Catodon is to offer a safe, inclusive and laid back environment where open source devs will be able to cooperate and contribute in a productive way. Making open source code is a wonderful gesture, you are sharing your work for everyone to freely use. And it deserves to be done in a well organized and self-fulfilling way! Good communication is not always easy, but it's definitely worth trying. We have incredibly talented coders here that can do wonders when working smoothly together. That's the mindset with which we'll be trying to make Catodon a community-driven project.
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?
Im honestly kinda disappointed in all the people jumping on catodon now and calling it firefish successor its kinda very bad as the devs don't intend it to be a firefish successor nor is it trying to be anything like firefish or misskey in general, talking about migrating to catodon while also calling it firefish sucessor is like punching the catodon devs in the face
as they try to create something simple for newer users, not something for existing key users that enjoy fun shit like MFM
please everyone do you research before spreading shit this is also very harmful to the project at least from my POV. if everyone starts hyping the project for something that it is not.
please just give @panos and @catodon some time, and don't put them under pressure for something its not.
If you want a Misskey fork that is unlikely to die as its a softfork (updates with misskey) anytime soon and is community focused and includes #firefish inspired changes go with #sharkey
if you really really want to stick with the firefish sort of thing of doing things try the firefish fork #iceshrimp
and if u want something new more geared towards new users / casual users try looking into #catodon
but don't just jump the gun on things u don't even know fully about
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.
After giving this a lot of thought and discussing with the wonderful people that build Iceshrimp, #Catodon will rebase to #Iceshrimp. We feel that it's the right decision for the road ahead, as Iceshrimp is another #firefish 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.
Just learned about the demise of #Firefish (head is M.I.A.). It's unfortunate for the thousands of instances running it, but with that comes #IceShrimp, #Sharkey, and #Catodon. All of them (I think) are being developed by former Firefish devs. Options.
Hopefully, current FF users are all, if they want to, able to move to another actively-developed community easily.
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?
Alright, I think we now have a better idea of what's happening with #Firefish, so I might as well give a small update. Kainoa quit, and left the project to naskya, who is a person I appreciate very much, as they've always been kind and polite and willing to help. I also think they're very devoted to Firefish, and basically were the last person actively caring about the project. As far as I know, they intend to keep maintaining and developing Firefish, and a new stable version will finally soon be released. This is great news, as you don't need to worry that your server is running unmaintained and vulnerable software. So, alarm off everybody, no need to abandon ship.
As for us, we're standing by our decision to rebase #Catodon to #Iceshrimp. The changes we want to do are long term plans, but we've started redesigning some things and, whenever we are ready, I hope we'll show you something worth your attention. So yeah, firefish, iceshrimp and catodon are all alive and valid options (the first two to be precise, for the time being). All projects share code fixes and I think we're on very good terms, here in our corner of the fediverse. Enjoy the ride.
Ich habe die Gruppe "FirefishTalk" (umbenannt in "KeyTalk", wobei das leider lediglich den Titel, aber nicht das Handle änderte) geschlossen und eine neue Gruppe"MisskeyTalk" erstellt. Ich hoffe, auch hier entstehen interessante Threads, die Nutzern und Admins ggf. weiterhelfen können:
Eine Gruppe für Nutzer und Administratoren des Fediverse-Dienstes Misskey für Fragen, Diskussionen, Anleitungen, Nutzererfahrungen, Hilfsgesuche, Hilfe und mehr...
In der Gruppe sind auch Nutzer und Admins der Dienste Sharkey, Iceshrimp, Catodon, Firefish und vergleichbare willkommen.
I have closed the group "FirefishTalk" (renamed to "KeyTalk", which unfortunately only changed the title but not the handle) and created a new group "MisskeyTalk". I hope that interesting threads will also be posted here, which may help users and admins:
A group for users and administrators of the Fediverse service Misskey for questions, discussions, instructions, user experiences, help requests, help and more...
Users and admins of the services Sharkey, Iceshrimp, Catodon, Firefish and similar are also welcome in the group.
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?
Kinda big day tomorrow as catodon.social's getting updated to our latest dev version, since our announced rebase to #Iceshrimp is finished, which means that, if everything goes well, after tomorrow catodon.social will have all of the performance improvements of Iceshrimp, including full Mastodon API support. It took us back a few weeks but we think it was worth it, and now we can resume development towards our first release. #Catodon
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