Search results for tag #fediverse
#Fediverse folks, doing up your #profile isn't really that hard. A few pertinent, salient details about yourself to tell curious folks whether following you would be a good idea for them, and maybe some strong tags; that's all it really takes.
You can be verbose as hell and give as close to a full autobiography as character limits on your instance will allow if you so choose, and that's hot, but come on. A single-sentence quip with a couple vague tags doesn't help any more than leaving your profile blank. Some interests, your pronouns, an advisory about if your posts disappear or if you don't post images without alt-text. We're here to mesh and mingle. Please, make an effort.
YOU’RE LOOKING
AT THE WRONG PARTS 💎
I sometimes wonder what people imagine is going on inside the life of someone with a visible disability.
I walk very strangely. My left arm doesn’t work at all. My hand is contracted into a claw. I do everything one-handed, and that clearly wasn’t covered in this model’s original operating instructions.
From the outside, I suspect it can look like a life dominated by disability.
“Poor bugger.” “What a tragedy.” “Everything must be so difficult?”
Meanwhile, inside my actual life, I’m usually wondering whether the coffee is ready, what ridiculous thing I can write on Mastodon, whether the dogs have been fed, or why everyone on the internet has suddenly gone mad again.
The disability is there, obviously. I cannot drive, and there are many things I cannot do unaided. Other things just take longer, because much of the world appears to have been designed by someone who assumed every human comes with two fully operational hands.
And most people are remarkably unhelpful.
That sounds like a complaint, but it has an unexpected benefit. If you’re disabled, you become bloody good at finding another way. You have to.
Eventually, you stop wondering how something is supposed to be done and work out how you can do it.
That doesn’t make accessibility unnecessary. Quite the opposite. But disabled people often become extremely skilled at adapting because the world gives us plenty of practice.
Disability is not the central event of my consciousness.
I don’t wake up thinking, “Good morning. I am disabled.”
I wake up thinking, “Coffee.”
Most of the time, I’m not experiencing myself as a tragic medical story. I’m just living.
I’ve had decades to become extremely competent at being this particular slightly damaged model of human being. Sometimes other people seem considerably more concerned about my disability than I am.
It’s sweet.
But unnecessary.
The odd thing about a visible disability is that people often see what doesn’t work before they notice the enormous amount that does.
And from inside here?
It’s mostly just Friday.
_____________________
@DigitalCoup
#Fediverse #OpenWeb #BigTech
@economics_that_works
#Economics #Housing #CostOfLiving
@meditation
#Meditation #Breathwork
#Disability #DisabledLife #Accessibility #Hemiplegia #Stroke #Life #coffee #human #medical #instructions #tragedy #Mastodon
What would happen to your timeline if mastodon.social went away?
(Reposting my tool that helps you figure this out.)
mastodon.social is the biggest server on the #fediverse , with over 21% of accounts, and an even higher percentage of #Mastodon accounts.
But what does that mean to you, personally? Let's say it went away tomorrow - (assuming you aren't on it yourself), how much of your timeline would vanish?
In my case, it turns out - not a lot, actually! The biggest sources of posts that I see are (1) a very small instance that doesn't even federate with much of the Fediverse, but many of my friends are there, (2) my own instance, (3) a large tech-focused instance that is still much smaller than mastodon.social. The big guy is only 5% of the post I've seen recently.
But this might be different for you!
Find out for yourself at https://moderation-explorer.online/ . Use 'advanced mode' to see this analysis, since you need to log into see your actual feed.
You might even decide to try moving to an instance that you're more connected to?
(It's explained more on the site, but all the work happens in your browser, I don't see your identity, auth tokens, posts that get loaded, none of it.)
Alt...
Image summarizing the last 800 messages on my Mastodon feed. types.pl is the top one, with 17%. Mastodon.social is fourth, at 5% of posts.
I self-host now: this account runs on my own server and my own domain, @mbr
The old instance is shutting down and the auto-migration only carried a fraction of you across. If you can read this, you're already in the right place.
Everyone else has to re-follow by hand. Please BOOST this to help me get back everyone :)
SPREAD THE CODE
PRAISE THE CODE
#Fediverse #SelfHosted #Mastodon #mbr #masterbootrecord
Alt...
MBR logo in ASCII art by aNSt / Impure!ASCII
Another step closer to release!
The official website is now live at https://littlefedi.org/ with documentation and project details.
Take a look and let me know what you think!
A little #fluffy reminder, when an #openweb projects gets flooded with conspiracy, dogma and endless prat fights, the grounded, constructive people drift away - sometimes straight back to the #dotcons.
Being independent doesn't mean believing everything. Being radical doesn't mean shutting down dialogue. Let's make spaces where people can think, disagree, learn and still build things together.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT SHOT BY CRANK IN MILWAUKEE STREET
#content_review #unix_surrealism #fediverse #loops #mastodon #lemmy #art #mastoart #javascript #cats #snac
Alt...
Funhole Content Review
FEDIVERSE
I HAVE A DREAM
'you need to enable javascript to run this this app.'
How to make it big? You don't
@mmtmm pls sponsor me
How to get more boosts? Cats.
so many rabbits
LOOPY CONSPIRACY - Who is behind the manufactured fame of a tiktok clone nobody asked for?
THE C BANSHEE: What is snac and should you be worried?
FEDIVERSE MENACE: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?
hackers.town: Is nowhere safe?
ONE FREE ANTI-SLOP KITTO
THE LIST: 50.000 mastodon addresses to avoid if you don't like illegal content.
RE: https://wandering.shop/@mythologymonday/117065983234591258
If you haven't followed @mythologymonday yet, follow them for fascinating themes like this one.
They are the only #folklore -themed "Hashtag Day" organizer who has fully committed to the #Fediverse !
Thanks Hamish. I’ve read it.
I think “leaving matters, but leaving is not enough” is exactly where this conversation has taken me.
The replies have made me much more aware of how deeply Facebook has become infrastructure for councils, businesses, community groups, families and local information.
That makes the open web problem much bigger and much more interesting than simply telling people to delete Facebook.
Tiny reminder that it's important
to boost posts on Mastodon!
Liking only will not help a post being seen more. Boosting will! 
✨
Boost the posts you want others to see. Add hashtags to your posts to help others find them.
This is the Fediverse way 
The #OGB matters because the #openweb needs better ways to have trust-based conversations and trust-based governance.
The project comes from years of grassroots organising: voluntary cooperation, collaboration and human-scale decision-making.
Alternative tech has often copied governance assumptions from the #mainstreaming. The #4opens offers a simpler starting point for building governance structures native to the #Fediverse.
The #OGB is a path to move beyond #mainstreaming: governance that fits the culture of federated, open, grassroots networks rather than forcing them into centralised models.
littleFedi: a Fediverse Server That Doesn't Need a Data Centre
I was fifteen, and there were no BBSes in my city. So every call was long distance, once a day, sometimes twice. I'd start the dialer and wait for that sound - the handshake, the negotiation, the hiss settling into a carrier - and then I was connected to a computer sitting in somebody's bedroom, a few hundred kilometres away. I was a co-sysop of a local board and a national moderator of a FidoNet area. None of my friends understood what I was doing, and they'd stopped asking to avoid an incomprehensible monologue. But I liked it, and that was enough for me.
Here's the thing about that computer in someone's bedroom. There was no data centre. No domain, no certificate authority, no hosting provider, no cloud. Just a machine, a phone line, and a person who'd decided to run it. If you wanted to reach it, you called it.
Now look at what it takes today to put a small server on the network so other people can talk to it. A public address, which most home connections no longer have. A domain, which you rent. A certificate, which somebody has to issue you. And, increasingly, a VPS somewhere, because the software won't fit on the hardware you already own.
We've added a lot of infrastructure between two people who just want to talk. That's what littleFedi is about.
What it is
A single Go binary. No Ruby, no Sidekiq, no Redis, no separate worker processes to babysit. You run init, answer a few questions, and you've got a working instance. It speaks ActivityPub, and it speaks the Mastodon client API well enough that existing apps just work.
It also runs on hardware that would make Mastodon - or even Akkoma - struggle. Most software in this space assumes a VPS with a few gigabytes of RAM and a database server next to it. We assumed a Raspberry Pi Zero W behind a home router. There's a low_power mode that tunes memory use, image decoding and thumbnail generation for exactly that kind of box, and it's tested on that kind of box, not just on a fast dev machine.
In spirit this puts littleFedi close to snac, which I've always liked a lot. Same conviction: a personal server shouldn't need a fleet of services behind it.
Federating without a public address
littleMesh is the part I'm most attached to, and it's the part that goes back to the modem.
Your instance generates an Ed25519 key pair. That key is its identity - the node's address is derived from the public key, so reaching that address means reaching the holder of that key and nobody else. No registrar, no certificate authority, nobody to ask permission from.
A small set of public lighthouse nodes help two instances find each other. Once they're introduced, the traffic runs over a second TLS session pinned to both node IDs. The lighthouse copies encrypted bytes back and forth. It never sees plaintext, and it can't impersonate either side. And if the two nodes can reach each other directly, they drop the relay after the introduction and talk peer to peer.
Which is, more or less, calling the BBS directly. Just without the phone bill.
The gateway into ordinary HTTPS
Mastodon and other regular servers can't resolve a mesh address on their own. There's no domain and no certificate for them to find.
That's what the optional HTTPS gateway is for. A lighthouse operator can run one alongside the relay, and it bridges the mesh into ordinary HTTPS for the rest of the web. The gateway has to terminate TLS to do that, so it can technically see the traffic passing through it. Which is exactly why it's a separate, opt-in piece and not something every node exposes by default.
It has two independent settings: one controls what the gateway lets ordinary internet visitors reach at all, and a second one applies again at the destination node. Left at their defaults, both allow only federation traffic - ActivityPub delivery, discovery, public media. Web login, API and media proxy stay closed unless an operator deliberately opens them.
Mesh peers talking to each other directly never touch the gateway at all. That exposure only applies to the bridge into the wider web. And all of this can be self-hosted.
Chronological timelines
Timelines are chronological. Nothing gets reordered by an engagement model.
If you want something closer to "what did I miss", there's a separate /catchup page you visit on purpose. It ranks posts using signals your own instance already has - how many people you follow boosted something, whether it continues a conversation you took part in. No external popularity score, no telemetry, nothing leaves the machine. You press "mark as read", it moves a divider, and that's the only thing it remembers.
Self-expiring posts
You can set a post to expire, with its own timer, instead of a fixed instance-wide setting.
This isn't a client-side trick that hides the post from view. The expiry goes on the same durable job queue that runs the rest of littleFedi's background work, so the deletion survives restarts and isn't lost if the process happens to be down at the moment the timer fires. When it does fire, the post is deleted and a real Delete activity goes out to everyone who received it - so it actually disappears from remote instances too, not just locally. Editing the post before then can push the timer back or cancel it.
Static blogs, with real threaded replies
littleFedi can take a Fediverse post and publish it as a page on a plain static blog, with its own Atom feed and permalinks that don't move even if you edit the post later. No JavaScript, no database hit on page load.
The part I find more interesting is that the replies aren't left out. If the author turns the option on, littleFedi pulls the public replies that were actually federated to the post, threads them the same way the timeline does, and bakes the whole tree into the generated HTML at build time. So a blog post can show a real comment thread, in the same static file, with the same guarantee as the rest of the page - no JavaScript, no live queries. Only public and unlisted replies qualify, obviously. Anything followers-only or direct never enters the picture.
Why it looks like this
This isn't minimalism for its own sake. It's about how many people simply can't run their own server today, because the requirements are too steep. The hardware, the ops complexity, or just needing a domain and a public address before you can start. We're trying to remove those barriers one at a time, while still shipping a real, federating, reasonably complete server: polls, quotes, scheduled posts, MFA, PostgreSQL and S3 if you want to scale up later.
I've written before about taking a semi-truck to buy salad. Hardware keeps getting more expensive and the software running on it keeps asking for more of it every year. That's backwards. If the machines cost more, the operational cost of what sits on them should go down, not up. Same with complexity: the default direction is to keep adding it, and we'd rather strip it out.
And there's the other half, which is closer to why any of us are doing this at all. It's the same thing that drew me to snac and to the way grunfink works on it, and the same thing that had me dialing a stranger's computer at fifteen. People building tools so that people can talk to each other. Nothing more dressed up than that. We'd rather show the servers running, talk about the Pi sitting in the corner, share a tiramisu photo if it comes up. The joy in this was never about the money it brings in. It's about what we end up building, humanly, because of it.
It's beta software, still short of a first release, and I'd rather say that plainly than oversell it. But it runs, and it federates. That's the part I wanted to write about.
The #OMN is a simple path with a radical aim: to shift power away from the #geekproblem and the #dotcons, and back to the people who actually create media and build communities.
From that grassroots digital commons, new social, economic and cultural ecosystems can grow. The tools redistribute power. What we do with that power is up to us.
I was reading a thread on Reddit bemoaning how every website has gotten progressively worse, and I’m thinking, my Mastodon instance’s software has only gotten better and new features are getting added regularly, all without them selling my data, manipulating me with algorithms, or shoving endless ads in my face (amongst other things). I see similar activity on other instances and Fediverse platforms. So, there is another way, now there only has to be the will to follow it.
The #Fediverse isn't just about connecting software, it's about connecting communities. The technology matters, but people matter more. Federation isn't simply a protocol, it's a way for diverse communities to cooperate while keeping their autonomy.
Build community first. The software follows.
All startups are expressions of the #deathcult. Every #VC is, in effect, a bishop preaching endless growth, extraction and enclosure.
This isn't innovation. It's a business model accelerating social breakdown, deepening inequality, and feeding the #climatechaos that will displace billions and cost millions of lives over the coming century.
If you're serious about activism, stop feeding the machine. Put your energy into building the #openweb commons instead.
The #4opens is a simple, practical tool to evaluate and guide grassroots, alternative tech projects. It judges how "open" and trustworthy a project is, helping to distinguish native #openweb efforts from #closedweb or captured ones (e.g., #dotcons like corporate social media).
The Four Opens
* Open Data - The basic truth of the project. Data (content, metadata, etc.) should be openly accessible and exportable/portable. This prevents lock-in and enables sharing, archiving, and reuse by communities.
* Open Source - The code (or equivalent for non-software projects) is publicly available under a free/open license. This allows inspection, modification, and forking, embodying #FOSS principles but integrated into a wider social context.
* Open Standards - The project uses (and contributes to) interoperable, non-proprietary standards. This supports federation, compatibility across tools/instances, and avoids silos (e.g., #ActivityPub in the #Fediverse).
Open Process (the critical addition) - Transparent, participatory decision-making and governance. This is not just technical openness but social openness: how the project is run, how power is handled, how feedback shapes direction, and how it avoids hidden hierarchies or #NGO-style capture. It emphasizes trust-building, commons-oriented culture, and composting conflicts through visible, inclusive processes.
How this works in practice
Badging system (simple and motivational):
* 2 opens: Bronze badge (basic alt/grassroots alignment).
* 3 opens: Silver badge.
* 4 opens: Gold badge (full native #openweb project).
Projects self-assess and are evaluated by the community using these criteria. It's designed to be #KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) - easy to apply without bureaucracy.
It acts as a compass for #openweb vs. #closedweb. Use it to judge value, compost #techcrap/#techchurn, resist enclosure, and build trust-based digital commons. It's explicitly a social restating/extension of #FOSS paths, adding the missing social layer (#openprocess) that pure technical openness often lacks.
Only technical openness (e.g., open source + data) still leads to #geekproblem outcomes, meritocracy, fragmentation ("just fork it"), or capture by careerists/#fashionistas if process and culture are closed.
The #4opens prioritizes human-centred, trust-based infrastructure over scale, funding, or individual exit. This supports horizontal activism, mutual aid, and decentralized organizing (e.g., in #Indymedia history or current #Fediverse efforts).
Examples: Mastodon (when aligned) can score high; corporate platforms like Facebook score low across the board. It helps grow networks where communities own their storytelling, governance, and tools.
The framework is not rigid dogma but a living tool for "composting the mess" - turning failed and captured projects into fertile ground for better ones. It's central to #OMN projects, which are working on building federated, grassroots media and social infrastructure.
To sum up, it’s a powerful, low-overhead way to keep tech aligned with grassroots values rather than drifting into #mainstreaming or #deathcult logics of extraction and control.
Definitions should stay flexible. Turning them into rigid rules is a classic #Geekproblem that creates unnecessary conflict.
The #Fediverse is a vibrant, active #openweb project - currently one of the healthiest examples of this "native" path.
That's why the #4opens rely on openness, interpretation, and good judgment - not dogma. #OMN #KISS
The old #openweb wasn't destroyed by one thing, but by many. The #encryptionists security theatre, broken #UX and trustless relationships. The #geekproblem turned living communities into technical subcultures. The #fashionistas chased novelty, status and hype. The #dotcons enclosed our data and metadata for profit and social control.
Each played a part. The #Fediverse is a first step in rebooting the #openweb. But we need to stop copying old mistakes and grow "native" alternatives based on community, trust and the #4opens.
That's the path #OMN is building.
Your viral lefty memes might feel like resistance, but #mainstreaming their part of the problem.
Comedy and sarcasm drive engagement, clicks, data collection and on the #dotcons ad revenue. Mocking the system while feeding its algorithms doesn't weaken it - it strengthens it.
Real resistance isn't better content for their platforms. It's building and moving to the #openweb.
#StepAway, and bring your community with you.
With #OGB there is no path toward stricter governance. The goal is native governance that grows from the community itself.
Likewise, #FOSS is, by its nature, one of the largest anti-market experiments in existence. The market-first approach belongs more to "open source", which has spent decades trying to reconcile itself with commercial priorities.
Ideas based on force, control, and top-down management simply don't fit the native #openweb path. They're asking the wrong questions.
The challenge isn't how to control communities. It's how to help them organise themselves through trust, transparency, and the #4opens.
#XMPP implementations are still too stuck in the #geekproblem and attempt to change this have failed so far. We tried outreaching the simplest implementation and we failed.
#Signal is a big compromise, but you can get people to use it - but It's still hard to get people to keep using it. So this is still half fail too for out reach.
These are as much social statements as much as tech.
Chat is a mess, and we are currently not making this better #KISS
The #Fediverse is fab, but we are letting the #fashionistas and chattering classes take charge... it's a recurring problem that we should be socially working to compost.
https://hamishcampbell.com/online-chat-is-a-social-problem-not-just-a-technical-one/
Add this to the last article: hy Stories Matter on the #OMN
Facts matter, technology matters, governance matters. But people rarely change because they read theory, a specification or a list of features. People change because of stories, this is why storytelling is central to the #OMN path. A story gives people somewhere to stand, it connects ideas to lived experience.
Instead of explaining the #4opens as an abstract framework, tell the story of a community escaping a #dotcons platform by building trust on the #openweb. Instead of arguing about governance, tell the story of how a group solved a conflict through #OpenProcess. Instead of listing technical features, tell the story of someone who regained control of their community tech after years of platform lock-in.
Stories carry values, the last forty years of #mainstreaming have been held together by stories about competition, consumption and individual success. These stories have normalised the #deathcult, making extraction and enclosure feel like "common sense." We now need better stories about cooperation instead of competition, commons balancing ownership, about trust instead of surveillance. Stories about building rather than consuming.
The #Fediverse itself is a story, an accidental reboot of the #openweb that proves another internet is possible. It isn't perfect, but it demonstrates that people can build social infrastructure without billionaires directing the conversation.
The challenge is that the academics or the #geekproblem tell stories only to other, academics or geeks, technical and academic paths are important, but they don't inspire people to act, so we need stories that people can understand:
A neighbourhood rebuilding local media.
Boaters organising to defend the waterways as a commons.
Communities escaping the #dotcons.
Volunteers composting #techchurn into useful tools.
Ordinary people discovering that they can build infrastructure together.
These stories become shared memory, shared memory becomes culture, culture shapes "common sense." and changing common sense is how lasting social change happens. So don't just build software or academic theory, tell stories that help people imagine themselves as part of a healthier #openweb.
#OMN #FOSS #openweb #4opens #ActivityPub #Fediverse #commons #DIY #makinghistory
One of our mistakes is treating every #fashionista project as if it were native #openweb.
Too often, grassroots ideas are picked up, systematised, and reshaped into something acceptable to #mainstreaming institutions. The tools may remain "open", but the social process and governance shift.
The #Fediverse shows both sides of this. It has revived the #openweb, but it also carries the assumptions of the wider culture. Without care, we reproduce the same hierarchies, gatekeeping, and #geekproblem we were trying to escape.
The answer isn't rejection, it's composting, use the #4opens to ask simple questions:
Is the data open? Is the code open? Are the standards open? Most importantly, is the process open?
If not, we're probably looking at another layer of #mainstreaming rather than genuine commons. Let's balance the repeating inherited agendas and start building native grassroots alternatives please.
Here are a few #fediverse folks to follow!
@mntmn - Regular MNT updates
@netbsd - NetBSD Foundation (free unix-like portable OS)
@Aphelion - Prolific Poet: Michelle
@icm - Interim Computer Museum (Seattle)
@lardmotel - Tom Ellard Severed Heads, synths, rabbits
@interlisp - Medley Interslip Project
Please note that @icm is a non-profit charity affiliated with SDF.ORG
@netbsd non-profit brands with products for the betterment of society are truly welcome on the #fediverse
The amount of #SPAM in the #Fediverse is going up - most is from Mastodon.Social, but this also is spam crossing over from #Bluesky.
What is your plan to compost this mess?