@maegul@hachyderm.io
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

maegul

@maegul@hachyderm.io

A little bit of computing and a little bit of neuroscience.

he/him/they

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

maegul, (edited ) to ghost
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

I think the and federations pose interesting questions about what platforms can and should be.

Do we actually want blogs and feeds of blogs folded into a mastodon/microblog social feed?

Do we want to read and comment on blogs on mastodon?

Do we want all the diversity of the fediverse fed into a single platform's UI and hope that it works well?

Are we worried that some choices by our platform or instance admin might hinder this process?

I'm rather skeptical.

1/

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

I feel like this might be mistakenly conflating the strength of the diversity of the fediverse with the convenience of using a single platform or UI for "everything".

I don't think the former necessitates the latter. Moreover, I suspect that the former is suppressed by the latter. Feeding blogs, groups and forums, microblogs, video+audio platforms etc all into a single twitter-like UI/platform ... seems like maybe a bad idea.

2/

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

The first thing it misses, I think, is that platforms naturally develop vibes and cultures and that many naturally learn to match a particular activity and persona to a particular platform/vibe.

Along those lines, it would completely make sense for people to be a bit silly and shitpost-y on mastodon and then more academic over on a blogging platform.

One could even argue that this isn't just natural but healthy, where more focused vibes create more coherent interaction.

3/

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Presuming that a platform is a suitable "master" UI for everything looks to break this utility of platforms and online "spaces".

Moreover, mistaking that a "master platform" is possible for the promise of the fediverse may very well be dangerous if people embrace it with enthusiasm and hype to then be disappointed at how it doesn't work well and then question the value of decentralisation.

And I think that's important because federation doesn't guarantee a good UI. Probably the opposite.

4/

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

We've seen this already with the integration between the threadiverse (lemmy etc) and mastodon/microblogs.

It basically sucks because the platforms are fundamentally incompatible despite how close the protocol brings them together.

Incompatible platforms don't work together.

Federation and the protocol don't change that. People will just reroute around UI friction and basically ignore whatever federation is offering if its UI sucks. The lively app+frontend development indicates the same.

5/

maegul, (edited )
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Beyond having compatible UIs (which is tough if you're aiming for something relatively universal), there's then the issue of feed management.

The more that's pumped into your feed the more you need to filter and separate it out. That's a big UI challenge fediverse platforms don't seem up to either and which is generally tough. Not to mention that separate platforms or "spaces" actually become a feature here for helping one's feed management, as annoying as all the apps can be.

6/

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

So, is the promise of a diverse fediverse a pipe-dream? Are the platforms up to the challenge of integrating with all the others? Or are people happy with a single UI?

I think it's "no" to all three. Which means something is being missed here (this is new after all).

A similar conversation happened recently over on #bluesky. It's a UI issue but at a system level and I'm not sure anyone has good solutions or is even thinking seriously about it.

7/

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

I fear this betrays the web2.0 origins of the fedi and may be short-sighted.

I don't think federating blogs into mastodon is going to be that great (hot take maybe). Too complex or confusing for many to manage and different platforms+accounts for different purposes is just natural/easy.

So ... why federate?

8/

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

I personally (and prob naively) look to the web browser's power to bring us the whole internet as an exemplar.

I think the fedi needs to be more about clients/apps than it is currently.

I think the magic of the fediverse's diversity doesn't materialise until it gets stitched together in the user's client ... and that we're still in an early phase of just laying out infrastructure in the cloud.

Federation is cool, but mostly just the beginning IMO.

9/9

maegul, to random
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Ah ... hello "implicit update to a significant upgrade that introduces non-trivial to fix breaking changes, without any warnings or notifications, requiring github issue trawling to just make sure you're not going insane"-ness my old friend.

Seriously. Us users can be shit to devs a lot, but I will not ever the brazenness with which updates can be just dumped on us like we deserve the punishment or something.

ajsadauskas, to afl
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

Where to now for North?

Smashed by a fairly ordinary Hawthorn side, with some big injuries including Day, Lewis, Jiath, Wingard, and Breust.

The big question: Is the issue North's list? Or has the game gone past Clarko as a coach?

"Meanwhile, North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson concedes his side is still a long way off the pace after forecasting the match would be an indicator of where his rebuilding outfit sits in its development.

"He was left in no doubt and North has now lost 26 of 27 games since success in Clarkson's first two outings at the helm early last year."

https://www.afl.com.au/news/1113608

#AFL @afl

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@kiranc @ajsadauskas @afl

Didn't Malthouse openly attack the carlton management after he left by accusing them of not being willing to rebuild their list as much as they needed and being way too arrogant because they're carlton with 16 premierships?

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@kiranc @ajsadauskas @afl

ha ... checks out

maegul, to bluesky
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

People are actually on BlueSky

There's now a decent measurement of #bluesky user numbers (https://bskycharts.edavis.dev/edavis.dev/bskycharts.edavis.dev/bsky_users_total.html) ...

They've got about 1.6M MAUs ...
& 0.8M Weekly unique users & 0.340M Daily.

That's not nothing!

Roughly double mastodon and 60% more than the whole fediverse (by MAUs, see fedidb.org).

Bluesky is quite "international" with large Japanese and Brazilian popltns, and there's real attrition happening IMO.

Still, let the protocol wars begin I suppose?

@fediverse

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@anderseknert @fediverse

LOL ... yea plenty right.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@anderseknert @fediverse

Fair (kinda the simple explanation why I'm anti-threads-federation).

While I'm no BlueSky-stan, the idea/promise of the system is a hybrid, which I think is generally worthwhile (especially while things like twitter and threads dominate) but also interesting.

How hybridised it becomes (and can become) is the question though with big outstanding questions.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@Loukas @fediverse

Comparatively, it's definitely a lot more into shitposting vibes, for sure.

I think their biggest problem right now is they don't have good community self-organising features (nor masto, but the boost culture corrects for that IMO), so those who want more serious sub-cultures aren't getting much footing (and may never).

Feeds are interesting but not very fruitful IMO and hashtags are new, so it's a bit flat community-wise there, and many users are "wait & see" I suspect.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@Loukas @fediverse

Agreed (and said the same myself)!

As I've said it ... alternative social has run its course in this post-musk-twitter moment. Everyone's settled down where they ended up.

And yea, either more major disruption or some new killer features (rather than clones of big social) will be needed to shake things up. Neither seem particularly likely in the short term ... your EU-meta smackdown is probably the best bet??

thomasfuchs, to random
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io avatar

Wish Apple would have spent the money wasted on the car and the VR stuff on a search engine that actually works

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@thomasfuchs

The “preparing for new platform wars when your competitors are just going to cede established territory on their own that will be relatively easy to pick up” trap … easy to miss.

deadsuperhero, to random
@deadsuperhero@social.wedistribute.org avatar

Okay, I admit it.

The Catch-Up Feed in #Phanpy is brilliant. Looking at screenshots, I was worried it was going to be super confusing…but, it’s honestly a lightning-fast way to catch up on everything.

Absolutely brilliant work.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@deadsuperhero

Has there ever been a better social media client feature?

Even if it’s only in the top whatever, I think it’s notable that it’s in a web client for the fediverse.

atomicpoet, to random
@atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org avatar

Does anyone know of a Pleroma or Akkoma web client or front-end that has a deck UI?

I’m asking because it’s apparently what many people want.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@atomicpoet

There may be a large overlap between those interested in other platforms/self-hosting/akkoma and those who use deck UIs ... basically "power" (more likely obsessive/fussy) users.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@atomicpoet

Relatedly, something interesting that’s happened over on lemmy is the practice of running multiple front ends. Lemmy.world runs 4 apart from the default (5 total). I personally use 2.

And of course mastodon provides both single column and deck view.

As much as you like mangane and as good as it is, decoupling instances, platforms and clients/front ends (with plugins for compat) may just be where things are now.

Also, doesn’t akkoma support the mastodon interface?

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@atomicpoet

FYI, for those / users interested ...

phanpy (eg, phanpy.social) seems to work well with akkomane / akkoma.

It provides deck/columns and picks up on the longer post length too.

No separate post editing view though ... but you can pop it out into a separate window.

No awareness of the local only visibility, which reveals how dire mastodon's influence over that feature has become IMO.

And the wonderful catch-up feature seems to work too!

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@atomicpoet

tagging @phanpy too

maegul, to random
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Sorry, don't know who/what to tag (probably an official akkomane account on another server/platform is good best practice) ...

getting plenty of timeouts and "Server is Down" errors on akkomane.social

Started about 5 minutes ago, still happening now.

@christophertrottier

@atomicpoet

@reiver

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@christophertrottier @atomicpoet @reiver

AFAICT, it's the "mentions" tab in notifications that seems to be causing issues. It never renders, and it feels like it caused by timeouts before. I'm not seeing anything in the browser console FWIW.

Everything else seems to be working fine.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@reiver @christophertrottier @atomicpoet

Yep, able to use dev tools 😃

Also, mentions tab is still not rendering.

From what I can tell, the API call works fine. The response JSON seems to be coming through fine (as in I can tell its the mentions notifications, boosts and likes etc). (though I don't know what types[]: mention is in the header).

It just doesn't seem to render??

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