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# Managed Groups
Should be launched on QOTO tomorrow! but the dev server with a test group is up now!
We will be opening up the Groups Server, most likely, tomorrow. I just need to get email confirmations working (not sure why they arent)...
In the meantime I created a single group for testing purposes and have the server running just to see if its stable overnight and so I can continue working on it. I will let everyone know when its open for registration so you can create your own managed group on the fediverse.
If you'd like to try out the first group, which is intended for general discussion about the group server, QOTO, or really anything really, then just post an original message and tag @QOTO and it should post to the QOTO group.
Keep in mind while QOTO users have the native group expiernce and the groups will appear to work as just a shared space where people can post publicly, users on other servers will not have the integrated expiernce, however it will still be usable and works rather well. The threads in a group will just show up as boosts instead, but functionally its the same so no big deal.
Anyway feedback welcome, play around with the QOTO group while I get some sleep and tomorrow keep your eyes out for the announcement of open-registration so you can create your own moderated group on fediverse.
@freemo @lain Is there a branch for it here? https://git.qoto.org/qoto/qoto/-/branches/active I’m pretty curious to know more.
Sorry I went to bed right before you sent this reply.
NO it isnt there yet, it will have its own repo and right now the repo only exists locally and privately since I need to add some licensing stuff and make sure all the contributors are recognized. With that said i will be making the server public very shortly (today) since I need to do that now that the server is live.
I will be posting the link to the repo when its up so just follow my timeline and I'll have it for you shortly. Its effectively a modified version of v3.2.1 of QOTO with significant edits to make it work as a group server, the following are the notable edits:
* All users have actor_type group instead of person/service/application
* Users can not follow other users at all and as such the home timeline is removed
* Accounts behave as per the standard approach to groups, that is, when someone posts a message and tags the group then the group will automatically reboost that post.
The above points are the part that are no different than guppy, the following aspects are where it differs.
* Unlike with guppy a group isnt automatically created the first time someone tags it. Groups are only created if someone explicitly creates it by registering on the server.
* Group owners when logged into the group have all the usual moderation tools an individual account would have that has the following consequences:
* A group can be made follow only, in which case it will be a private group and the owner must approve requests to join the group
* a group can silence or suspend servers and people, this allows a public/open group to moderate bad actors (spammers for example). It also allows the owner to let people into a private group but not necessarily allow them to post (with a silence)
sorry I seemed to have missed this.
so private groups are only private in terms of their membership (who can follow it or see the posts). The actual posts that originate with a user and get boosted by the group are still going to retain whatever level of access the OP granted (which generally needs to be public if you want everyone in a group to see it)..
But thats just for now. We will be rolling out fully-private groups (including the original posts) shortly. Those will work by the group using the quote standard we and misskey use to link to the original post and then recreating the content of the post with a new post from the group itself. This way the OP can make their original post fully private (and even a DM to the group) and we can have roundtrip privacy on groups.
@freemo @lain What is the implementation then?