Since the BridgyFed drama, there might be four more reasons for Mastodon users to want Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams) out of the Fediverse. I mean, aside from their usual atrocities like their users writing well over 500 characters, using text formatting, quoting and quote-posting like it's totally normal. Because it is for them. And aside from no instance on any of the three having rules and moderator numbers on par with Mastodon.

One, they aren't based on ActivityPub. They're technically bridged to Mastodon. They're bridged one instance at the time, and the bridge is a plug-in on the instance and therefore part of the project. But still, it isn't that much different from BridgyFed connecting Bluesky to the rest of the Fediverse.

Two, since they aren't based on ActivityPub, they're aliens. Aliens of basically the same kind as Bluesky, only that they've mostly got those features that Mastodon has that Bluesky doesn't. But the BridgyFed drama isn't about Bluesky's features or lack thereof, and it isn't only about Bluesky being commercial either. It's also about Bluesky being too different in technology, functionality and culture. But let me tell you a secret: Bluesky is probably much closer to Mastodon than Hubzilla. I mean, I've already mentioned how Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams) users "misbehave" from a Mastodon point of view. You won't see any of this come from Bluesky anytime soon.

Three, Friendica is already fully federated with Bluesky. It's a feature that was introduced with the latest stable release.

Four, speaking of Friendica, that allegedly "hate-fuelling" Fediverse News is a public group account on Friendica. Only that the user who started that particular thread is on Firefish, and Fediverse News only automatically forwarded what he had posted.

So where's the outrage?

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #BridgyFed #Bluesky #Bridge #BlueskyBridge

@jupiter_rowland Hi Jupiter. I learn new stuff each time i read your posts, it seems, but here i'm quite struggling. I seem to be entirely ignorant of most of the things you've mentioned above.

"the BridgyFed drama" ... 🤷‍♀️
"Mastodon users to want Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams) out of the Fediverse" ... they do? OMZ! Why? I mean, yes i read & understand all your points about our formatting & character limits, but i had no idea this was causing some adverse Masto user conflict 😮
"aren't based on ActivityPub" ... OMZ, i nearly fell over at this one. I thought everything in the fediverse was predicated on this, in that that was how the fediverse was even a thing. Geez i am so ignorant. 🤦‍♀️
"Friendica is already fully federated with Bluesky" ... oh, well, this one i do dislike. Now i need to research how i can block #Bluesky; i really want nothing to do with it, nor #Threads.
"allegedly "hate-fuelling" Fediverse News is a public group account on Friendica" ... sigh. I simply don't understand how i am so unaware. I am active each day in my account, yet somehow remain cluelessly obliviously ignorant of nuclear wars raging around me. Sigh.

@alfred

@MsDropbear42 [venera] 🐨♀🌈🐧​🦘 Someone is building a bridge between ActivityPub and AT Protocol.

This means that the AT Protocol Servers (currently Bluesky, Friendica) can talk to ActivityPub servers (Mastodon, Friendica, Hubzilla, PeerTube, Pixelfed, etc., etc.).

Some people are so angry that they are flipping out and dropping F bombs.

And there are many protocols in the fediverse. ActivityPub is the most popular, but there are also Zot, Nomad, OpenWebAuth, Diaspora, and more. There is even a protocol called Scuttlebutt.

For example, Hubzilla uses the Zot protocol to talk to other Hubzilla servers, and Streams uses the Nomad protocol to talk to other Streams servers. Streams uses Zot to talk to Hubzilla. And both can use ActivityPub as well.

And far as Friendica federating with Bluesky, the administrator of the server would have to activate that. So not all Friendica servers would support AT protocol since it is an optional addon the admin would have to install.

The reality is that we have over 46,000 independently operated servers on the fediverse, and that is growing every day. Bluesky would simply be server number 46,001.

@scott Hello Scott, t/y muchly for taking the time to explain that helpfully for me. 🤗 At the risk of appearing even more stupid...

"building a bridge between ActivityPub and AT Protocol" ... yes i had heard of that, but til now had been naively unaware of all the Sturm und Drang this is apparently generating, eg... "so angry that they are flipping out and dropping F bombs" --> to the extent that i am doing my several hours of daily fediversing, i spend all that time in my Home timeline, not in the local server nor global timelines, & in my Home i follow a very large number of #hashtags, + a smaller but not negligible number of accounts. Clearly an unintended by-product of my curation has been to insulate me almost entirely from these apparent "range wars" raging beyond my purview.
You listed #Friendica twice, ie, in both of the "protocol camps". Is that a typo, or deliberate? If the latter, it might explain & resolve my confusion when reading Jupiter's OP, given somehow i had been thinking that Friendica is using AP.
"Scuttlebutt" ... i love this, & shall now immediately begin searching for suitable instances i can join! 😜
"far as Friendica federating with Bluesky, the administrator of the server would have to activate that" ... yes, that's exactly as i hoped it would be, which is why before, & again now, i have cc'd @alfred

Thanks again.

@MsDropbear42 [venera] 🐨♀🌈🐧​🦘 Thanks for the complements. To answer your questions:

1. Most of the hate was directed at the developer who created the bridge and appeared as replies to his post announcing the bridge. Unless you were following him, or visited his channel on his website, you probably would have missed it anyway. The developer seemed to take it well and listened to people's feedback, but some people were inexcusably mean and hateful. Lots of F bombs directed at the developer. And there was a lot of ignorance about how the fediverse actually works (i.e. most didn't know that their posts are already federated beyond Mastodon).  

2. When AT Protocol officially federates, Friendica admins will have the option of turn on AT protocol support natively, which means that Friendica would become a server on the AT protocol network, just like Bluesky. It will probably be one of the first implementations of AT protocol outside of Bluesky itself. Friendica also supports ActivityPub natively as well, so if an admin has both turned on, they are operating on both networks simultaneously. That's why they are listed on both sides.

3. Scuttlebutt is an interesting protocol. It is designed for social interactions using devices that are not always connected to the internet or not connected to the internet at all. Devices basically pass on messages to one another without the use of the internet. (At least that is my limited understanding of it.)

4. The nice thing about platforms like Friendica, Hubzilla, and Streams is that they are big on user choice and control. So even if your administrator activated it, you still have some control as a user as to whether you see posts from Bluesky.

@Scott M. Stolz

And there was a lot of ignorance about how the fediverse actually works (i.e. most didn't know that their posts are already federated beyond Mastodon).

...much less beyond ActivityPub.

Not to mention that a lot of Mastodon users don't understand how Mastodon works. They think it must have a pool of all accounts and all posts and all that somewhere, and the BridgyFed Bluesky bridge will give Bluesky unlimited access to it all.

They also think that Bluesky will be able to post nasty stuff to everyone, even those who aren't connected to anyone on Bluesky. They think the same about Threads, because in their heads, they're still on Twitter where the secret-sauce algorithm would probably allow for that to happen.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Threads #Meta #BridgyFed #Bluesky #Bridge #BlueskyBridge

@jupiter_rowland @scott
#Mastodon
Hi Jupiter I like the framing of this "How does Mastodon work?" post as it describes 'me' or a typical user and prompts them to then think "so how if not all the account and posts somewhere?" etc etc...

I think it's a good way to educate actually, and could you reply again what you would reply typically to your own post if someone asked "ok so how is it if not that?" since I / they would be ready to hear at that point

- and then kind of rounding your words towards how it will not be true that "Bluesky bridge will give Bluesky unlimited access to it all." (or at least the commercial company access and plans to exploit things unlike existing others on the Fediverse and like never before... (not even the smaller Nazi's probably because they don't have no money or care, but Capitalism... I'm not so sure!)

@FreeSchool=Learn Respect Love

I think it's a good way to educate actually, and could you reply again what you would reply typically to your own post if someone asked "ok so how is it if not that?" since I / they would be ready to hear at that point

Let's see if I can make this halfway understandable. But it's going to be looooooooong.


First of all, Bluesky only knows what's being delivered to it. Not by BridgyFed. By Mastodon and the rest of the Fediverse through BridgyFed. BridgyFed does not scrape any information itself. Neither does Bluesky, also because it can't do that through Bluesky.

No, really. No, no, really. Calm down.

No, Bluesky won't have your profile and your posts right off the bat. In fact, Bluesky won't have any of the posts you've posted until now unless someone with at least one Bluesky follower boosts one of your old posts. And even only then, Bluesky will only have that one single post.

So what does Bluesky get from you then?

Well, normally, nothing. No, really.

At first, Bluesky won't even know you exist, much less where. Again, BridgyFed is not a scraper, and Bluesky doesn't have a Fediverse scraper either. And even if it had one, it wouldn't work through BridgyFed because BridgyFed doesn't support that.

And seriously: If Bluesky really wanted to scrape the Fediverse, it wouldn't do that through that tiny third-party keyhole that's BridgyFed! It'd set up search crawlers like Google that crawl Fediverse instances and send everything they find to Bluesky.

But Bluesky doesn't do that. I can reassure you that Bluesky doesn't do that.

Because Bluesky isn't interested in the Fediverse.

No, really, it isn't. If it were, it would have used ActivityPub right away instead of developing a wholly new and incompatible protocol. Or it could at least have included its own ActivityPub "translators" just like Hubzilla and (streams) have them and like Friendica used to have until it switched to ActivityPub.

But does Bluesky support ActivityPub in any way? No, it doesn't. Even though ActivityPub would have made a whole lot of things a whole lot easier for Bluesky itself already, it doesn't. Go figure.

Which goes to show that Bluesky isn't interested in the Fediverse. Bluesky doesn't want your data. And, again, if it did, it wouldn't rely on a third-party bridge to get them.

Okay, so again, what does Bluesky get from you?

Again, nothing. At least at first.

Now, let's suppose someone with at least one Bluesky follower mentions you in a public post. That public post also goes to that Bluesky follower, thus to Bluesky, with a link to your profile in it.

Then Bluesky has your name, and it has the URL of your profile. No different from how Mastodon works.

But it doesn't go through that link and scrape all your profile information. It isn't interested in that.

And besides, Mastodon profiles or any other Fediverse profiles are probably completely and utterly incompatible with Bluesky's profile structure anyway. So all that stuff would have to be "translated to Blueskyish". Extra effort for something that Bluesky isn't even interested in. Again, if it were, don't you think it'd use ActivityPub instead of their own AT protocol? Yeah, but it doesn't.

So from when on will Bluesky know your profile?

Normally, not at all.

Only when someone from Bluesky wants to follow you. And you've either got your profile set up so that anyone can follow you without your explicit consent. Or you actively confirm that follow request.

Then you're connected to Bluesky.

And only then will Bluesky know you. As in know your profile. Or what profile information makes it through BridgyFed in the first place. And what of it Bluesky has a way of handling. Maybe not more than your profile picture and your profile text. All stuff that's public anyway, and that Google might have scraped a gajillion times already.

But it will not have your whole backlog of posts.

I mean, if you start following another Mastodon user who has been here for four years, you won't get four years worth of their old posts piled upon your timeline either, right? Or has that ever occurred to you? I guess not.

This is not only because Bluesky doesn't do that. This is because Mastodon doesn't do that. It doesn't send any old posts to new followers, and it doesn't request old posts from new followers.

Let me show this to you from somewhere else in the Fediverse.

I'm on Hubzilla. Hubzilla supports importing old posts to a certain degree. If I follow someone on Hubzilla or (streams), I think, also on Friendica, I get their 10 latest posts into my stream. And I get them as new posts. The perk of this is that I can interact with fairly certain posts that only connections are allowed to interact with (yes, that's possible here) by connecting to the poster.

Also, if I subscribe to an RSS or Atom feed, depending on the feed, I get a certain number of old posts.

But if I connect to someone on Mastodon, I don't get even a single one of their old posts. Because Mastodon doesn't support that.

I don't get their ten latest posts, and I don't get their whole post history either or what's left of it after auto-deletion.

If Hubzilla which supports such stuff doesn't get them, then Bluesky won't get them either. Regardless of what Bluesky may or may not want, and regardless of what BridgyFed is or isn't capable of. Mastodon won't send them, full stop.

The only posts from you that Bluesky will ever get are your public posts which you send after letting someone on Bluesky follow you. And public posts from you that someone with at least one Bluesky follower boosts.

And "public" really means "public". Just because you're on Mastodon and no longer on Twitter, doesn't mean you're in a fully safe haven and fully shielded from the world outside Mastodon. Yes, that's an uncomfortable truth if you've believed otherwise up until now, but it's the truth. Deal with it. You'd have to deal with it sooner or later anyway.


Seriously, what the Fediverse desperately needs is 10-minute videos from a true Fediverse expert, done in the style of "Academic expert explains science like I'm 5 years old" videos with colourful animations, that explain the Fediverse to journalists as well as to fresh or aspiring 𝕏 converts.

And that would take someone who

really knows the whole Fediverse inside-out, all the way into its deepest nooks and crannies

still doesn't only "speak dev" or "speak admin" and can actually make things understandable to your average tech-illiterate 𝕏 user with only a phone

can make such animations

can also make these videos fully accessible, not only with a verbatim transcript, but, if necessary, with additional real-time audio descriptions that optionally tell blind or visually-impaired users what happens on-screen, even if what happens on-screen only serves as illustrations for the explanations

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Bluesky #Bridge #BridgyFed #BlueskyBridge

@jupiter_rowland So I'm happy with that explanation and seems like you've put yourself in with half a chance to do such a small video and even prepped it now!
Even this as audio with pics... even here native... I'd listen (not sure elsewhere if I'd click).

So as side-note I'll be happy to help you produce such a thing and even invite you to send similar points by audio (your text above as script already pretty much lol) and I'll arrange it and send back to you complete!

Ok so suggestion and a offer aside, it makes sense what you say and I think I can move on!
(great huh!)

If I can move on to next major point... without too many left...
Here is the next thing people feel:

The whole difference between almost any Fediverse instance and then one owned by Massive Corporate Entity - call it MCE just for fun is clearer a different fish 🐟 (or shark 🦈 we don't know but any big business I guess has to do it's thing)

So the next point is trust vs. commercial entity.
In the same mindset as before where you explained about people scared about "copying my data", could you also have a stab at "how can you trust capitalism" lol... I mean trust Bluesky not to exploit and use everything it can for profit or other political reasons... or not be taken over, rug-pulled etc" lol asking the world 🌐 here :)

Again that point seems prevalent as others, and as we have instances now, even if they could get data they don't care and are too small.

It's a heroic thing to read my words and answer in similar way but seems we can both handle it (other are in short text world)

What we know historically as capitalism (through no fault of Bluesky or even /Meta/Threads - but the nature of those things means it's an entirely different beast we invite... 🐻 🦈 !

As a slightly fun or typical extreme take - "what about the Nazis" is usually a serious fear too but seriously even they care less online and have more innocent fun, whereas I can imagine corporations suddenly changing the game or suddenly changing their position that could leave any believer or Jack Dorsey stunned... just very little control or too much control from top...

So some here think we are growing overall nicer smaller, more innocent hubs of cmmunity and separation of protocol made that choice easier and fairer in terms of these politics / commercialisation considerations... I think we know the politics of capitalism... POWER!

(ending only for theatrics but helps you answer if you wish how these differences are in people's minds)

Thanks and liked your last writing and not too long at all for me!