6 ms·

Bringing Blogging to the Fediverse

105 points by exolymph 8y ago

augustocallejas 8y ago
What advantage does bringing ActivityPub to this blogging platform have over just subscribing via an RSS reader?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jtbayly 8y ago
  I'd say it's that it takes care of the the complaint that RSS is not "social." I think it's a cool idea. If you really want to break the power of FB, you need a way to easily see what people are reading, recommending, talking about etc. and that includes following a whole website, whether written by an individual or a corporation.
  - rainbowmverse 8y ago
    And then you can grab the RSS feed for people whose comments you want to follow. At least, I assume all Fediverse-supporting software generates user RSS like Mastodon.
    - fenwick67 8y ago
      Pleroma does for sure (it even follows the exact same url scheme and feed format) but not sure about others.
- Boulth 8y ago
  Interaction. Comments (toots) and likes (boosts) are built in the platform. And you don't need to log in anywhere to comment, you're using your one ActivityPub identity. While commenting you can add additional people to the thread, recommending the post to your friends.
  - thebaer 8y ago
    Yep, you can see this type of commenting in action already on Plume [0], an AP-enabled blogging platform in development. [0] https://baptiste.gelez.xyz/~/PlumeDevelopment/this-month-in-plume-june-2018/ https://baptiste.gelez.xyz/~/PlumeDevelopment/this-month-in-...
  - anchpop 8y ago
    I'm new to this landscape, how do I have one activitypub identity? I have a Mastodon account, but that's about it
    - Boulth 8y ago
      I mean you can use that account to comment on any ActivityPub enabled blog, no need to register there or for any comments system they support. One identity may refer also to running your own server, then you're safe from any extinction events :)
  - dane-pgp 8y ago
    It would be nice if there were a federated way to accept "likes" from users (not just friends) across all compatible sites, but I don't think there's a good way to stop a site from Sybil-attacking posts with arbitrary numbers of illegitimate likes. My instinct is that there needs to be a second layer reputation system for recording which sites can be trusted not to inflate their like numbers. This becomes similar to the problem of which mail servers can be trusted not to send spam, but perhaps if posts and likes are public (unlike emails) then more useful reputation systems are possible.
  - Torgo 8y ago
    OStatus (the original Fediverse protocol) literally already had this, it just didn't have the developer excitement to keep the ball rolling.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
dest 8y ago
I use Diaspora* as a blog platform
- KajMagnus 8y ago
  Haven't heard about that way of using D*. It'd be interesting to have a look at your Diaspora blog? If you'd like to post a link?
  - dest 8y ago
    Here you are https://pod.storel.li/u/alexandre https://pod.storel.li/u/alexandre then, with a script executed periodically, I convert the Diaspora* Atom feed into a static page: https://alexandre.storelli.fr/ https://alexandre.storelli.fr/
    - KajMagnus 8y ago
      Looks aesthetically nice I think with D* as a blog. B.t.w. Taxi Driver is a great movie :- ) (I recognized the avatar image) & Another World, I played it too all the way to the end. I couldn't post a comment about eating vegan food, compared to meat (I'm a pescetarian b.t.w.), at: https://pod.storel.li/p/164706 https://pod.storel.li/p/164706 — I was a bit confused about this: "meat requires much more fossil fuel to produce than vegetables and grains". Fossil fuel to produce food got me confused (my first thought was: "But humans and cows don't eat oil?") ... and apparently that's for transporting the food and maybe preparing it in food factories or maybe keeping it cold, etc. (?) ... Apparently one needs a D* account oneself, to post comments (?), https://wiki.diasporafoundation.org/FAQ_for_users#Who_can_comment_on.2C_reshare.2C_or_like_my_public_post.3F https://wiki.diasporafoundation.org/FAQ_for_users#Who_can_co...
      - dest 8y ago
        Thanks for your remarks! Good catch for Taxi Driver! To add comments, indeed you need a D* account. The network is federated, go register at one of the pods listed here [0] or start hosting a pod yourself (which I do). As for the article about bicycling vs car, it's a comparison of global contributions. It's not only about fossil fuel burned in motors, it also about methane from cow's farts for example [1]. The conclusion is that being a vegan bicyclist is the best option with regards to greenhouse gas emissions. In the end, if the script to generate the static page is of any interest to you, tell me and I'll put it somewhere on Github. [0] https://the-federation.info/diaspora https://the-federation.info/diaspora [1] https://thinkprogress.org/methane-emissions-are-spiking-but-it-might-be-more-cow-than-car-791e5233dc2a/ https://thinkprogress.org/methane-emissions-are-spiking-but-...
chriswarbo 8y ago
I'd really like to see distributed comments across self-hosted sites and blogs, but I haven't come across a decent way to prevent spam. I used to embed Disqus in my site, but wasn't really happy with its centralised nature (plus it was far slower and bloated than anything else I had; generally a few KB of static HTML with "motherfucking-website" aesthetics).
- frio 8y ago
  I imagine that the answer to that may well end up being the same as it is for email. When a comment arrives, check a few centralised reputation systems (like DNSBL), and then perform a statistical analysis of the comment against some corpus (like SpamAssassin et all) before allowing it or not. We could even introduce greylisting too.
  - KajMagnus 8y ago
    DNSBL — I'm wondering those solutions are never going to work totally well? When even Facebook gets rather many spammers, don't they. It'll be a tech race and the clever spammers can continue spamming? I'm thinking the only? way to deal with clever spammers, that's really going to work, is to manually review the first N comments by each new commenter, and only approve the comments, if they add value to the blog post. Once someone has been able to add value to the blog post 3? 5? times (e.g. provided more useful info or thoughts, or asked on-topic questions whose answers = good for others to know too) — then the likelihood that that person is a spammer is maybe 0.01%, ok to auto approve his/her comments hereafter. I actually built such blog commenting software, link in my profile.
    - paulryanrogers 8y ago
      That still requires a centralized reputation system to be the clearing house. Unless people frequently comment on the same blogs. And in that case the activity would be more centralized again.
  - stevekemp 8y ago
    I setup a service to do just that: https://blogspam.net/ https://blogspam.net/
frio 8y ago
This is neat. The Fediverse is a really exciting development in the re-decentralization of the web. Is there any intent to also expose published articles as, say, IPFS blobs or Dat archives? It'd be cool to see some of these services starting to expand into those realms too.
edhelas 8y ago
This is already possible with the XMPP protocol for many years now :) The good thing is that it simply relies on XMPP Pubsub and the widely deployed Atom standard. You only need an XMPP account with a quite recent server (pas few years) and a client that supports that, such as Movim (https://movim.eu/ https://movim.eu/) or Salut à Toi (https://salut-a-toi.org/ https://salut-a-toi.org/). And here is an example of a Blog handled with XMPP https://nl.movim.eu/?blog/edhelas@movim.eu https://nl.movim.eu/?blog/edhelas@movim.eu. It is also possible to have feeds handled by several users at the same time (called Communities on Movim) https://nl.movim.eu/?node/pubsub.movim.eu/Movim https://nl.movim.eu/?node/pubsub.movim.eu/Movim.

105 points by exolymph 8y ago

augustocallejas 8y ago

What advantage does bringing ActivityPub to this blogging platform have over just subscribing via an RSS reader?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jtbayly 8y ago
I'd say it's that it takes care of the the complaint that RSS is not "social." I think it's a cool idea. If you really want to break the power of FB, you need a way to easily see what people are reading, recommending, talking about etc. and that includes following a whole website, whether written by an individual or a corporation.
- rainbowmverse 8y ago
  And then you can grab the RSS feed for people whose comments you want to follow. At least, I assume all Fediverse-supporting software generates user RSS like Mastodon.
  - fenwick67 8y ago
    Pleroma does for sure (it even follows the exact same url scheme and feed format) but not sure about others.
Boulth 8y ago
Interaction. Comments (toots) and likes (boosts) are built in the platform. And you don't need to log in anywhere to comment, you're using your one ActivityPub identity. While commenting you can add additional people to the thread, recommending the post to your friends.
- thebaer 8y ago
  Yep, you can see this type of commenting in action already on Plume [0], an AP-enabled blogging platform in development. [0] https://baptiste.gelez.xyz/~/PlumeDevelopment/this-month-in-plume-june-2018/ https://baptiste.gelez.xyz/~/PlumeDevelopment/this-month-in-...
- anchpop 8y ago
  I'm new to this landscape, how do I have one activitypub identity? I have a Mastodon account, but that's about it
  - Boulth 8y ago
    I mean you can use that account to comment on any ActivityPub enabled blog, no need to register there or for any comments system they support. One identity may refer also to running your own server, then you're safe from any extinction events :)
- dane-pgp 8y ago
  It would be nice if there were a federated way to accept "likes" from users (not just friends) across all compatible sites, but I don't think there's a good way to stop a site from Sybil-attacking posts with arbitrary numbers of illegitimate likes. My instinct is that there needs to be a second layer reputation system for recording which sites can be trusted not to inflate their like numbers. This becomes similar to the problem of which mail servers can be trusted not to send spam, but perhaps if posts and likes are public (unlike emails) then more useful reputation systems are possible.
- Torgo 8y ago
  OStatus (the original Fediverse protocol) literally already had this, it just didn't have the developer excitement to keep the ball rolling.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

dest 8y ago

I use Diaspora* as a blog platform

KajMagnus 8y ago
Haven't heard about that way of using D*. It'd be interesting to have a look at your Diaspora blog? If you'd like to post a link?
- dest 8y ago
  Here you are https://pod.storel.li/u/alexandre https://pod.storel.li/u/alexandre then, with a script executed periodically, I convert the Diaspora* Atom feed into a static page: https://alexandre.storelli.fr/ https://alexandre.storelli.fr/
  - KajMagnus 8y ago
    Looks aesthetically nice I think with D* as a blog. B.t.w. Taxi Driver is a great movie :- ) (I recognized the avatar image) & Another World, I played it too all the way to the end. I couldn't post a comment about eating vegan food, compared to meat (I'm a pescetarian b.t.w.), at: https://pod.storel.li/p/164706 https://pod.storel.li/p/164706 — I was a bit confused about this: "meat requires much more fossil fuel to produce than vegetables and grains". Fossil fuel to produce food got me confused (my first thought was: "But humans and cows don't eat oil?") ... and apparently that's for transporting the food and maybe preparing it in food factories or maybe keeping it cold, etc. (?) ... Apparently one needs a D* account oneself, to post comments (?), https://wiki.diasporafoundation.org/FAQ_for_users#Who_can_comment_on.2C_reshare.2C_or_like_my_public_post.3F https://wiki.diasporafoundation.org/FAQ_for_users#Who_can_co...
    - dest 8y ago
      Thanks for your remarks! Good catch for Taxi Driver! To add comments, indeed you need a D* account. The network is federated, go register at one of the pods listed here [0] or start hosting a pod yourself (which I do). As for the article about bicycling vs car, it's a comparison of global contributions. It's not only about fossil fuel burned in motors, it also about methane from cow's farts for example [1]. The conclusion is that being a vegan bicyclist is the best option with regards to greenhouse gas emissions. In the end, if the script to generate the static page is of any interest to you, tell me and I'll put it somewhere on Github. [0] https://the-federation.info/diaspora https://the-federation.info/diaspora [1] https://thinkprogress.org/methane-emissions-are-spiking-but-it-might-be-more-cow-than-car-791e5233dc2a/ https://thinkprogress.org/methane-emissions-are-spiking-but-...

chriswarbo 8y ago

I'd really like to see distributed comments across self-hosted sites and blogs, but I haven't come across a decent way to prevent spam. I used to embed Disqus in my site, but wasn't really happy with its centralised nature (plus it was far slower and bloated than anything else I had; generally a few KB of static HTML with "motherfucking-website" aesthetics).

frio 8y ago
I imagine that the answer to that may well end up being the same as it is for email. When a comment arrives, check a few centralised reputation systems (like DNSBL), and then perform a statistical analysis of the comment against some corpus (like SpamAssassin et all) before allowing it or not. We could even introduce greylisting too.
- KajMagnus 8y ago
  DNSBL — I'm wondering those solutions are never going to work totally well? When even Facebook gets rather many spammers, don't they. It'll be a tech race and the clever spammers can continue spamming? I'm thinking the only? way to deal with clever spammers, that's really going to work, is to manually review the first N comments by each new commenter, and only approve the comments, if they add value to the blog post. Once someone has been able to add value to the blog post 3? 5? times (e.g. provided more useful info or thoughts, or asked on-topic questions whose answers = good for others to know too) — then the likelihood that that person is a spammer is maybe 0.01%, ok to auto approve his/her comments hereafter. I actually built such blog commenting software, link in my profile.
  - paulryanrogers 8y ago
    That still requires a centralized reputation system to be the clearing house. Unless people frequently comment on the same blogs. And in that case the activity would be more centralized again.
- stevekemp 8y ago
  I setup a service to do just that: https://blogspam.net/ https://blogspam.net/

frio 8y ago

This is neat. The Fediverse is a really exciting development in the re-decentralization of the web. Is there any intent to also expose published articles as, say, IPFS blobs or Dat archives? It'd be cool to see some of these services starting to expand into those realms too.

edhelas 8y ago

This is already possible with the XMPP protocol for many years now :) The good thing is that it simply relies on XMPP Pubsub and the widely deployed Atom standard. You only need an XMPP account with a quite recent server (pas few years) and a client that supports that, such as Movim (https://movim.eu/ https://movim.eu/) or Salut à Toi (https://salut-a-toi.org/ https://salut-a-toi.org/). And here is an example of a Blog handled with XMPP https://nl.movim.eu/?blog/edhelas@movim.eu https://nl.movim.eu/?blog/edhelas@movim.eu. It is also possible to have feeds handled by several users at the same time (called Communities on Movim) https://nl.movim.eu/?node/pubsub.movim.eu/Movim https://nl.movim.eu/?node/pubsub.movim.eu/Movim.