8 ms·

Yes, on mastodon you can follow @someone@anothermastodon.local even if you are on firstmastodon.local, and the server running your instance will phone out to an

by judge2020 5y ago

Yes, on mastodon you can follow @someone@anothermastodon.local even if you are on firstmastodon.local, and the server running your instance will phone out to anothermastodon.local to retrieve posts from the person you follow.

silisili 5y ago
Thanks. But how would I find said user...is there a way to get erm, the top posts of the day from anothermastodon and firstmastodon together?
- schmorptron 5y ago
  There is a timeline that randomly mixes in posts from users from other instances whom users from your instance follow
  - silisili 5y ago
    Perfect. I'll give it a go. Any specific recommendations? I figured mastodon.social just because it's the largest, is that bad reasoning?
    - folmar 5y ago
      It's not bad for a user, but somewhat kills the distributed effect in the long run.
      - tentacleuno 5y ago
        In reality, Mastodon instances block a lot of other neighboring instances a lot of the time.
    - FiXato 5y ago
      While mastodon.social would ensure you are always on the latest branch of the mainline Mastodon server software as it's the 'flagship' maintained by Mastodon's main/original developer, its large size has caused an increasing number of instances to mute (still allowing their users to follow users on mastodon.social, but not to include its posts in their 'federated timeline'), or outright block the instance (meaning none of the posts on mastodon.social are accessible to the instance's users at all). Reasons for these decisions can include but are not limited to: - the instance has grown too big and thus some consider it counter-productive towards the federated nature of the protocol - disagreement with the direction its main developer / maintainer is taking Mastodon, such as intentionally hiding the local timeline from the official iPhone app - some consider it under-moderated, or not responding quickly enough to reports - disagreement over its content moderation guidelines - in case of a mute, it could also be not wanting their federated timeline to be flooded with primarily mastodon.social posts Lack of federation between these instances and mastodon.social could be a reason not to pick mastodon.social. (Similar situation applies to mastodon.online btw, which is a spin-off server of m.s.) Another reason to pick a different instance could be not wanting to use mainline Mastodon software. For example because you want to run your own instance on limited hardware (Mastodon can get a bit resource intensive), don't like Ruby, miss certain features, don't like the front-end (though alternative external front-ends to Mastodon do exist), or some other reason. Personally I've switched my primary use over to an account on an instance that runs Mastodon Glitch Edition, also known as Glitch-Soc (https://glitch-soc.github.io/docs/ https://glitch-soc.github.io/docs/), which is a compatible fork of Mastodon which implements a bunch of nice features such as increased post character count (Mastodon defaults to 500 characters per post, Glitch-Soc supports increasing this in the server settings), Markdown support (though only instances that also support HTML-formatted posts will see your formatting; mainline Mastodon servers will serve a stripped down version of your post instead), and improved support for filters / content warnings / toot collapsing, optional warnings when posting uncaptioned media, and other additional features. Another alternative Mastodon fork is Hometown (https://github.com/hometown-fork/hometown https://github.com/hometown-fork/hometown) which focuses more on the local timeline (showing posts only from your own instance) with the addition of local-only posts, to nurture a tighter knit community. Aside from Mastodon there are other implementations of ActivityPub which can still federate with Mastodon instances, such as: - Misskey (https://github.com/misskey-dev/misskey https://github.com/misskey-dev/misskey) - diaspora* (https://diasporafoundation.org/ https://diasporafoundation.org/) (which AFAIK inspired Google Plus back in the day) - Hubzilla (https://hubzilla.org//page/hubzilla/hubzilla-project https://hubzilla.org//page/hubzilla/hubzilla-project) - Peertube (https://joinpeertube.org/ https://joinpeertube.org/) (focused on peer-to-peer video distribution) - Friendica (https://friendi.ca/ https://friendi.ca/) - Pleroma (https://pleroma.social/ https://pleroma.social/) - Socialhome (https://socialhome.network/ https://socialhome.network/) - GoToSocial (https://github.com/superseriousbusiness/gotosocial https://github.com/superseriousbusiness/gotosocial) - Pixelfed (https://pixelfed.org/ https://pixelfed.org/) (which started as a sort of federated Instagram alternative) and more. Fediverse.party (https://fediverse.party/ https://fediverse.party/) is a nice way to discover various protocols that make up the bigger Fediverse. Instances.Social (https://instances.social/ https://instances.social/) can also be used as an alternative to find instances, though I believe it is limited to Mastodon-based instances.
      - zimpenfish 5y ago
        There's also the minimalist Honk[1] from 'tedunangst [1] https://humungus.tedunangst.com/r/honk https://humungus.tedunangst.com/r/honk
    - type0 5y ago
      if you're into Free and Open Source Software, fosstodon.org is an option, but you'll have to wait until your account is manually reviewed though.
    - sneak 5y ago
      Beware, many instances will blacklist other instances simply based on rumor or clique, and it makes it impossible to follow or read users on those other instances via the first. I recommend evaluating primarily based on the censorship policies of the instance operator. For example, the list of servers on joinmastodon is restricted to those who are actively engaged in censorship of legal speech (full uncensored instances are not indexed there) so you may be interested in searching for instances not shown there, depending on your attitude toward censorship.
    - schmorptron 5y ago
      I've found koyu.space to be very friendly, as long as you're cool with left leaning politics posts in there.
LinuxBender 5y ago
Do you have to use federation, or can you create your own little bubble and everything is self contained?
- gargron 5y ago
  It's self-contained by default and as you follow outside users it starts receiving their posts and so on. You don't have to participate in the whole fediverse.
  - LinuxBender 5y ago
    Apologies, I should have worded that differently. As the server admin, can I configure it so that it's impossible to follow someone outside of that server and that server has no outbound network dependencies? My /etc/resolv.conf currently uses options attempts:1 timeout:1 max-inflight:1 nameserver 127.0.0.50 There is nothing listening on 127.0.0.50 and iptables does not permit outbound connections.
    - folmar 5y ago
      Yes, but then it's probably not the best tool for whatever you need.
      - LinuxBender 5y ago
        Thankyou. Yes I currently use Murmur/Mumble + UnrealIRCd + phpBB for friends. Just exploring options. The UI's of my existing choices are a little dated.
        rglullis 5y ago
        Federation can be disabled and it will still work totally fine. I am just wondering why is it such a hard requirement for you to stop other people to follow someone else that is not part of your server? Costs?
pokey00 5y ago
Does firstmastodon.local need to be federated with anothermastodon.local for you to follow someone on it? I don't understand the system well enough to know if this is a dumb question or not.
- minoru 5y ago
  Ain't a dumb question at all! It actually takes reading the ActivityPub specs to answer it, so no surprise if you didn't get it just from reading the landing page ;) The answer is: it'll happen automatically. Just search for someone's handle, and your server will talk to that other server. When you follow that other users, your server will start federating with that other servers. Note though that servers might block each other. For example, many Western servers block Japanese pawoo.net, since it allows posting lolicon. Western servers don't want this content in their timelines and caches, so they block it. If your server blocks another.social, you won't be able to follow anyone on there. But your question also hints at a real problem with Fediverse (of which Mastodon is a part), which is: each instance only sees a subset of the Fediverse. Thus, searching by hashtag will only get you a subset of all posts that contain it. Full-text search is even more complicated.
  - pokey00 5y ago
    Gotcha, thanks for the info. That does seem like a real problem, and I do see the complexity of the issue. Are there any current proposals for tackling it without adding centralization? Or do we just acknowledge/accept that that's a tradeoff?
    - tg180 5y ago
      There are ActivityPub relays: they are actors that re-broadcast anything sent to them to anyone who subscribes. They are still decentralised, the aim is to populate the federated timeline. Obviously, the visibility is still a subset of the network.
    - minoru 5y ago
      As far as I can tell, Fediverse embraces this as a privacy feature. (It's more of a bump than a roadblock, but still.) I'm not aware of any projects to fix this (although I'm not very immersed into Fediverse development, so maybe check https://fediverse.party https://fediverse.party, they have a list of Fedi projects).

silisili 5y ago

Thanks. But how would I find said user...is there a way to get erm, the top posts of the day from anothermastodon and firstmastodon together?

schmorptron 5y ago
There is a timeline that randomly mixes in posts from users from other instances whom users from your instance follow
- silisili 5y ago
  Perfect. I'll give it a go. Any specific recommendations? I figured mastodon.social just because it's the largest, is that bad reasoning?
  - folmar 5y ago
    It's not bad for a user, but somewhat kills the distributed effect in the long run.
    - tentacleuno 5y ago
      In reality, Mastodon instances block a lot of other neighboring instances a lot of the time.
  - FiXato 5y ago
    While mastodon.social would ensure you are always on the latest branch of the mainline Mastodon server software as it's the 'flagship' maintained by Mastodon's main/original developer, its large size has caused an increasing number of instances to mute (still allowing their users to follow users on mastodon.social, but not to include its posts in their 'federated timeline'), or outright block the instance (meaning none of the posts on mastodon.social are accessible to the instance's users at all). Reasons for these decisions can include but are not limited to: - the instance has grown too big and thus some consider it counter-productive towards the federated nature of the protocol - disagreement with the direction its main developer / maintainer is taking Mastodon, such as intentionally hiding the local timeline from the official iPhone app - some consider it under-moderated, or not responding quickly enough to reports - disagreement over its content moderation guidelines - in case of a mute, it could also be not wanting their federated timeline to be flooded with primarily mastodon.social posts Lack of federation between these instances and mastodon.social could be a reason not to pick mastodon.social. (Similar situation applies to mastodon.online btw, which is a spin-off server of m.s.) Another reason to pick a different instance could be not wanting to use mainline Mastodon software. For example because you want to run your own instance on limited hardware (Mastodon can get a bit resource intensive), don't like Ruby, miss certain features, don't like the front-end (though alternative external front-ends to Mastodon do exist), or some other reason. Personally I've switched my primary use over to an account on an instance that runs Mastodon Glitch Edition, also known as Glitch-Soc (https://glitch-soc.github.io/docs/ https://glitch-soc.github.io/docs/), which is a compatible fork of Mastodon which implements a bunch of nice features such as increased post character count (Mastodon defaults to 500 characters per post, Glitch-Soc supports increasing this in the server settings), Markdown support (though only instances that also support HTML-formatted posts will see your formatting; mainline Mastodon servers will serve a stripped down version of your post instead), and improved support for filters / content warnings / toot collapsing, optional warnings when posting uncaptioned media, and other additional features. Another alternative Mastodon fork is Hometown (https://github.com/hometown-fork/hometown https://github.com/hometown-fork/hometown) which focuses more on the local timeline (showing posts only from your own instance) with the addition of local-only posts, to nurture a tighter knit community. Aside from Mastodon there are other implementations of ActivityPub which can still federate with Mastodon instances, such as: - Misskey (https://github.com/misskey-dev/misskey https://github.com/misskey-dev/misskey) - diaspora* (https://diasporafoundation.org/ https://diasporafoundation.org/) (which AFAIK inspired Google Plus back in the day) - Hubzilla (https://hubzilla.org//page/hubzilla/hubzilla-project https://hubzilla.org//page/hubzilla/hubzilla-project) - Peertube (https://joinpeertube.org/ https://joinpeertube.org/) (focused on peer-to-peer video distribution) - Friendica (https://friendi.ca/ https://friendi.ca/) - Pleroma (https://pleroma.social/ https://pleroma.social/) - Socialhome (https://socialhome.network/ https://socialhome.network/) - GoToSocial (https://github.com/superseriousbusiness/gotosocial https://github.com/superseriousbusiness/gotosocial) - Pixelfed (https://pixelfed.org/ https://pixelfed.org/) (which started as a sort of federated Instagram alternative) and more. Fediverse.party (https://fediverse.party/ https://fediverse.party/) is a nice way to discover various protocols that make up the bigger Fediverse. Instances.Social (https://instances.social/ https://instances.social/) can also be used as an alternative to find instances, though I believe it is limited to Mastodon-based instances.
    - zimpenfish 5y ago
      There's also the minimalist Honk[1] from 'tedunangst [1] https://humungus.tedunangst.com/r/honk https://humungus.tedunangst.com/r/honk
  - type0 5y ago
    if you're into Free and Open Source Software, fosstodon.org is an option, but you'll have to wait until your account is manually reviewed though.
  - sneak 5y ago
    Beware, many instances will blacklist other instances simply based on rumor or clique, and it makes it impossible to follow or read users on those other instances via the first. I recommend evaluating primarily based on the censorship policies of the instance operator. For example, the list of servers on joinmastodon is restricted to those who are actively engaged in censorship of legal speech (full uncensored instances are not indexed there) so you may be interested in searching for instances not shown there, depending on your attitude toward censorship.
  - schmorptron 5y ago
    I've found koyu.space to be very friendly, as long as you're cool with left leaning politics posts in there.

LinuxBender 5y ago

Do you have to use federation, or can you create your own little bubble and everything is self contained?

gargron 5y ago
It's self-contained by default and as you follow outside users it starts receiving their posts and so on. You don't have to participate in the whole fediverse.
- LinuxBender 5y ago
  Apologies, I should have worded that differently. As the server admin, can I configure it so that it's impossible to follow someone outside of that server and that server has no outbound network dependencies? My /etc/resolv.conf currently uses options attempts:1 timeout:1 max-inflight:1 nameserver 127.0.0.50 There is nothing listening on 127.0.0.50 and iptables does not permit outbound connections.
  - folmar 5y ago
    Yes, but then it's probably not the best tool for whatever you need.
    - LinuxBender 5y ago
      Thankyou. Yes I currently use Murmur/Mumble + UnrealIRCd + phpBB for friends. Just exploring options. The UI's of my existing choices are a little dated.
      - rglullis 5y ago
        Federation can be disabled and it will still work totally fine. I am just wondering why is it such a hard requirement for you to stop other people to follow someone else that is not part of your server? Costs?

pokey00 5y ago

Does firstmastodon.local need to be federated with anothermastodon.local for you to follow someone on it? I don't understand the system well enough to know if this is a dumb question or not.

minoru 5y ago
Ain't a dumb question at all! It actually takes reading the ActivityPub specs to answer it, so no surprise if you didn't get it just from reading the landing page ;) The answer is: it'll happen automatically. Just search for someone's handle, and your server will talk to that other server. When you follow that other users, your server will start federating with that other servers. Note though that servers might block each other. For example, many Western servers block Japanese pawoo.net, since it allows posting lolicon. Western servers don't want this content in their timelines and caches, so they block it. If your server blocks another.social, you won't be able to follow anyone on there. But your question also hints at a real problem with Fediverse (of which Mastodon is a part), which is: each instance only sees a subset of the Fediverse. Thus, searching by hashtag will only get you a subset of all posts that contain it. Full-text search is even more complicated.
- pokey00 5y ago
  Gotcha, thanks for the info. That does seem like a real problem, and I do see the complexity of the issue. Are there any current proposals for tackling it without adding centralization? Or do we just acknowledge/accept that that's a tradeoff?
  - tg180 5y ago
    There are ActivityPub relays: they are actors that re-broadcast anything sent to them to anyone who subscribes. They are still decentralised, the aim is to populate the federated timeline. Obviously, the visibility is still a subset of the network.
  - minoru 5y ago
    As far as I can tell, Fediverse embraces this as a privacy feature. (It's more of a bump than a roadblock, but still.) I'm not aware of any projects to fix this (although I'm not very immersed into Fediverse development, so maybe check https://fediverse.party https://fediverse.party, they have a list of Fedi projects).