@freemo Hi, and thank you! Great question, I really do think so! Accessibility is really important, and I feel often overlooked in the tech community.

Groups is one of the key obstacles in popularizing the fediverse as a fb alternative.

It is easier to tell a newcomer "just tag @public.group," than "@groups.qoto.org " --although it is a small detail, I think attention to it has high payoff.

Plus the scale, since this improved UX would affect every single mastodon instance, makes this seem like a valuable use of resources.

What do you think? And thanks again for your kind regards :)

@evanb If there is interest in it im willing to support it. It certainly gives the impression of a more universal service rather than one specific to QOTO. Perhaps we can find a good domain name that is actually free?

@evanb int he meantime you might also want to take a peek at our integration with groups (works with any groups server not just the QOTO one. When you open the menu for the timelines (getting started) you will see our group directory which lists and orders groups based on their activity on the fediverse. It includes other group servers too (though there arent many)

@freemo Yes, it is really impressive!

Do you add the group servers to check manually?

And do you think this sort of integration would be possible on Pleroma as well?

@evanb it isnt checked manually it is discovered through federation, the same way the federated timeline gets populated with user accounts.

I see no reason it wouldnt be possible on pleroma, I know they are working on group servers too and from what I hear they are following the same activityPub standard that QOTO groups is based on.

@freemo Very interesting, so it can sense if gup.pe or something is set to be a group actor? Do friendica groups get tracked too?

Great to hear that Pleroma's group protocol will be compatible! That is a great step forward

@evanb yes it will detect gup.pe groups and any activity pub endpoint that is a group actor and federating with us.

I am not sure how friendica implements groups so im not sure.

@evanb I just checked and there is at least one friendica group listed in our group directory. So it would appear that friendica groups are compatible.

@freemo Hi, is QOTO group directory public? I'd be very interested to see a list of groups Fedi already has. And I'm probably not alone in this. Gup.pe lists only its own groups AFAIK, but surely there're now many more different group-bot accounts on different servers.

@lightone

Does this link work for you?

https://qoto.org/web/group_directory

@freemo Nope, redirects to sign-in

@lightone Then sadly it seems the answer is no. But it should be, maybe on the next code edit i can make it public, **maybe**.

You are of course more than welcome to sign up just to view the directory even if you dont use your account.

@freemo Thank you! I *might* sign up. But that will help only me, not everyone else who wants to explore Fedi groups :) I think it would be super handy if there were some public hub listing known public Fedi groups. Kinda like Friendica provides lists of its forums - https://dir.friendica.social/forum - but for a broader Fediverse.

@lightone A public hub listing would be nice. Also other mastodon servers are welcome to integrate our code and bring the directory to their local instance.

@freemo Can you please share the link to the repo with your groups implementation? I think we aren't listing it at https://git.feneas.org/feneas/fediverse/-/wikis/watchlist-for-activitypub-apps#extensions yet. I'll add it (if the code is public:)

@lightone sure let me fetch it for you when im by my computer again later today.

@lightone Your own link you just shared is 502 error btw.

@freemo Better check it later. The server must be busy 😳

@freemo @evanb

fediverse.group is a couple orders of magnitude cheaper.

@mcduquesne @freemo Ohh, that's a really good one, nice catch!!

@mcduquesne

@evanb If you want to run the server yourself feel free to buy it and i will be happy to help you setup the server if you need help.

If you want me to run a group server at that address I can buy it and set something up. You can admin it of course and run it.

@freemo @mcduquesne

I just got the domain! I'd be happy to run the server myself, thank you! I have a server of federated services I am starting, but since I am new to this I am still getting set up (trying to get Mobilizon and Pleroma working).

I would be very glad to host the groups service too! I can let you know when my server is set up, or if you want, I can also point the DNS to one of your servers too!

@evanb

I'm not a big fan of a third party owning the domain name to a service hosted with QOTO donations (on our servers). It would give you the ability to shutdown or take over a server. Of course if you host it yourself I have no objects and am happy to help you get setup or contribute in anyway I can.

@mcduquesne

@freemo @mcduquesne

Perfectly understandable! And that is very kind of you to offer help. I will get started on this soon and message you if I have any questions!

After installation I'll try to work on a nice frontend for the landing page too :) Really excited about this, thanks so much once again!

@evanb

Awesome. Always glad to see the fediverse grow. More than happy to help so just hit me up. I have a lot of infrastructure based code that might be useful to you, the QOTO infrastructure is fairly mature and well designed (elastic, scalable, built on open source tech, fully containerized, etc)

@mcduquesne

@freemo @mcduquesne

Thank you so much! Really grateful for the innovations you've done with qoto.org and really looking forward to collaborate! I have a domain public.garden that I am looking to make into an accessible fediverse node :)

@evanb

If you need help with public.garden let me know. The infrastructure code I mentioned should be pretty universally useful for any sort of server, but double so for mastodon instances which i already containerized

@mcduquesne

@freemo @mcduquesne

Thank you so much! Do you think the QOTO infrastructure would work on Pleroma, or would it be largely simpler as a Mastodon instance? I'm very interested in soapbox.pub and it's potential for theme-ability.

For qoto.org, have you ever considered adding a Mobilizon service as a SSO? events.qoto.org or something?

@evanb

Would work just fine for pleorma or any other web service. We have quite a few different servers running on the same infrastructure.

@mcduquesne

@freemo @evanb @mcduquesne just jumping around hashtags since I’m new. You can broadcast to an entire server ?

@steve

Not sure you what you mean by broadcast to a server...

@evanb @mcduquesne

@freemo @evanb @mcduquesne ah I’m new and don’t know how everything works. The original poster made it sound like you could send a message to everyone belonging to a particular community / server

@steve

Not so directly no. If you are on a particular server, and if that server has the feature (most dont) you can do that as a local-only post where basically only users from the local server can see it. But otherwise it looks like a regular post in the timeline, not a direct message or anything.

@evanb @mcduquesne

@freemo @evanb my 2¢.. save the 2000 bucks..

@bonifartius thanks for the input. It seems like the payment is only one time, and then very cheap after that. 13$ per month is quite sustainable, I'd be willing to personally pay it for the accessibility benefits it would provide to federated infrastructure

@evanb i'm fully behind the goal! :)