#FreeSchool <---> Hashtag #️⃣ @freeschool@qoto.org

#Question Do you think what money brings together or what is even free is #togetherness ?

In both cases of paid product or free... NOBODY REALLY CARES SOMETIMES !

Or they care up to a certain amount (doing the whole program and killing themselves) but really shallow level on the people side of things (walking through with users, explaining personally and emotionally, helping others understand the whole ethos).

#Mastodon included... can just disappear and people move on to the next free thing if NOBODY REALLY TRAINING LIKE LIVE / INSTANTLY - Not saying it's all bad but without people upgrade all tech is render useless.

So we have to do create ad-hoc ourselves... from scratch or what we have - money / job etc by design is flawed deliberately - PLEASE ACCEPT THOSE ROADS FOR MONEY ARE BAD AND MONEY (BANKS SELLING DEBT) IS ACTIVELY AGAINST ALL LIFE / DOMINATING IT / GIVING DEBT

I guess all things come down to money and that's very political...

"They have saved multiple Mastodon servers from shutting down by taking over their maintenance when the original owners were unable to continue to operate them, and in 2021, we had teamed up to build the first prototype of the official iOS app for Mastodon."

Excerpt from "Thank you Sujitech"
by Felix Hlatky / #Mastodon

https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/11/thank-you-sujitech/

===============================
TEXT VERSION BELOW OR SEE MASTODON LINK
===============================

Thank you Sujitech

Felix Hlatky

CFO

Today we would like to thank Sujitech for kindly donating $100k USD to Mastodon, by far the largest single donation to our non-profit so far. Building Mastodon, which encompasses the core software on one end, and two native mobile applications on the other, is not cheap, and we can only afford a handful of full-time positions right now, relying in many ways on volunteer work.

Sujitech is a Japanese tech company whose mission is to achieve a truly free and open internet, and that has supported Mastodon in various ways for many years. They have saved multiple Mastodon servers from shutting down by taking over their maintenance when the original owners were unable to continue to operate them, and in 2021, we had teamed up to build the first prototype of the official iOS app for Mastodon.

We believe that to make the social web succeed it is crucial for Mastodon as an organization to be able to offer full-time roles with market-based salaries, and continue to invest heavily in design and usability. As a non-profit, we rely primarily on your donations through Patreon to achieve this goal. Thanks again to Sujitech to bringing us a little closer to it.

All good things come to an end. Mastodon included.

This is what we need to prepare for:
When #Mastodon changes (not even ends but *changes*) into something less than it was or others override it...

Like all good things, naturally others will try to merge with it / railroad it / buy it out in other ways (even if it's not for profit etc it can be done). What holds it together is "better average users" else people are the same 'dumb' users that end up somewhere else with maybe only a bit of a better clue after getting here...
(progress or potential is still more than just creating an account)...

What we do about this inevitable point in time (when the time comes) is most important to move and keep doing things well.
I'm not encouraging a downfall but it's obvious we're already being merged etc.

So changing to funnel ourselves in into better things is likely... because "all good things come to an end."

====================
WHY / WHAT'S YOUR IDEA?
====================

The commercial links on Mastodon / Fediverse is killing us and our movements - no doubt about that per click (millions per day and per link).

I think if we (developers included) don't try develop curve better habits using our software then we are losing big. Because on the one hand we do good work (even over-do it) but then the other hand is letting things slip too easily with links to commercial links like YouTube ( Google ) that could be filtered by user and even helped by software to add automatically another 'Alternative Link' as part of software and options.

So I mean specifically links to YouTube and Google video that could be #redirects and #filtered link / #proxy - e.g. this link is better than a youtube .com or youtu.be link:

https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=YCN_OFF0tHQ

The above for ALMOST EVERY LINK is possible and not feeding the Google farms ...
Links are basically what that harvest our users and developers that don't say / do anything about that... and inside their free model that's bad. Kinda like Linux servers and GPL licenses it's given away all too easily to be exploited.

When users are slack (in being harvested and offering poor links) it's also part of social or developer responsibility I think to advise at least or train - else just becomes another X or Twitter... (both in uneducated users 👥 and uneducated links 🔗)

So "all good things come to an end" is a phrase but "Unless responsibility is taken / given... then you can be more sure it ends sooner or just gets taken over so we need to upgrade brains too 🧠
🔧 -> 👥 <-> 🔗 🧠

Responsibility is needed else things get taken over / weeds overrun.

========================
ADDENDUM / MORE POSITIVE NOTES
=========================

I have to say some of the recently added privacy options added to Mastodon recently are great - mostly listed here in V4.2.0 log:

https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/tag/v4.2.0

but still lack the social habit of users is leaking things and the weak-point. Giving a tool also needs also this kind of guide or training and let people know "how to links better" using @invidious etc... and hand-holding (a cringe term for most developers I expect who are just wanting to focus on code) is needed... whichever way you go - else you allow people the misunderstanding this is just another commercial social.

If this is a social movement (ask yourself if Mastodon is born a social movement or brings many part of many movements combined?) and if surely a yes for why we came politically in the first place or personally motivated, then as choices and wanting to contribute here more than commercial models as tendencies, it means we must also do the propaganda / advice type work.

====================
Ok that's the end of this section.
Comments appreciated...
====================

#QUESTIONS

====================

- is it mostly political or personally involved being on / using Mastodon ?

- developers and admins should care about the links both on their space or as movement to advise people?

- maybe users wouldn't mind changing to Invidious links (or similar newpipe style youtube filters) for the same video?

☑️ It saves them and their followers viewing the adverts and allows download of video too optionally in the interface!

Try it https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=YCN_OFF0tHQ

or https://redirect.invidious.io

#RSS for backing up #Mastodon posts?

RSS could be a way to backup my posts - what do you think?

My existing RSS feed backed up err.. somewhere / in an app / browser ?

Something that fetches from back in time...

Any thoughts from RSS method?

#Mastodon #Writing #Space

I use this Fediverse space to perfect things by writing to actual people 💬 . This works in many ways funnel other things.

First it's all the more real and practical.

Second it's copied to others also either directly or openly available so can spread / be appreciated...

Third it saves a lot of work as done first time almost "without thinking" or "not so serious" so we can choose the best bits and add that to more focused work without thinking much more or it gives us the focus we needed when we we write most of our stuff in the replies anyway and DM others what we really care about.

====================
Ok that's enough from me...
====================

If you want more insights and #tips like these, try adding me as friend and also add notifications bell (🔔) next to follow button to get icon and 5s auto- fade-in and fade-out showing when I post...

Call it a test. And after a few days take the bell off if no fruit or juice from my words :) 🥝 🍑 🍐 or only lemons and no lemonade 🍋 🍋 🍋

#FreeSchool

#Mastodon #Pics I'm using <10kb JPG files for what can be safely auto-scaled, like big text and line drawings...

Ask if you want bigger version - but right now it's saving the planet being 10's of KB less per post in transit and storage...

<1Kb for this post and pic!

#RSS Follow #Mastodon hashtags
(most hashtags direct to your RSS reader)...

For example, follow #a11y hashtag, just by adding in your RSS reader: mastodon.social/tags/a11y.rss

Handy.

Using #Mastodon as a #RSS reader

For example: Like #Comic #XKCD ?

In the Search bar, search for site like this...

@ xkcd.com @ mastofeeder.com
(WITHOUT THE SPACES)

...then see site come up as a user and add o your follows XKCD! 👤

#Mastodon vs. Twitter #Feedback

Q. Is the quality of the engagement better?

A1. It isn’t worse on Mastodon. I am not sure it is objectively better.

A2.That’s a pretty low bar, the comparison is to Twitter.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36461701

==================
+ JAVASCRIPT COMMENT:
==================

"The #JS requirement still annoys me. Mastodon is a whole lot faster than Twitter, but it still can't compete with Nitter and that's just rather silly.

I'm fine with things like pagination and submitting forms being broken without #Javascript, but at least make it possible to view a linked thread.

I've been running a #Lemmy server or my own for a bit and I have to say, Mastodon just seems so incredibly wasteful. Lemmy's UI may be quite barebones in comparison but the server component runs a lot more efficiently while also providing actual #HTML when you ask for content."

#Feedback #Mastodon #Fediverse

Until developers and projects develop *without using Google* (being used by them also) then the alignment is going to be bad all the meanwhile in development and in favour of other teams who give us tools like trojan horses. They are much faster than us at doing bad work (often directly against our projects too).

...many don't care for 2-way communication, and that's important for you time... and you projects to link up too.

So people not engaging

☑️ shows contentment in their work and world and not much extending actively the time to anyone else's world or work.

☑️ outputting to internet more blind, half complaining and wanting for more but not willing to do any human work around it (half of Tech people perhaps - sorry it's not accurate numbers but "lots").

Overall 0 reply will be more evident as signal and you can focus effort on those that care...

It is about attention seeking if we are to make world better together somewhat almost like talking to bots for profiles - which is kind of ok if people have that as it's clear, but for those that pick and choose about who to reply to, not great.

Let the zero's rain! ☔

Happy to hear thoughts on "strategy" which is more about not letting myself be disappointed / managing expectations. I do give notice sometimes too so it's a chance to explain or not total disservice even in the exit / leaving them to it...

#Fediverse #Mastodon #Everyday #Problems #Etiquette

"Attention Economy" for sure,..

But "Lack of Attention" (depth) on Fediverse also!

"hey you I'm looking for more concrete constructive focus!!"
(That's from me)

The lack of depth on Fediverse could be waaay more on every level (perhaps the lower needs more than specialist) and seed things on every level like a fish frendzy (FRIENDZY) even from the most silliest or backward things *if* being genuine IT WILL GROW CONVERSATION AND THUS MORE...

AND THEN CONTRIBUTE TO HIGHER LEVELS... YES level up indeed....

"Lack of Economy" in Attention means these users will either not use platform and stagnate AND also be gobbled up by mainstream Guardian, CBNC, BBC, CBB'S, BBCBCCBCBBCBS, BBSBSBSBBSSS, ETC !!!

(THOSE THAT WILL SUPPLY THEM FISH CAKES (OR FISH FOOD, WHATEVER)... AND WILL SERVE / USE THEM INSTEAD...

We have to make our own economy here (in all the meaning: financial / giving for the attention seeking / eventually contributing)

We need them / you to sharpen our principle's and focus here

Or else get taken the fuck over / ran the fuck over! #NOOO
#FEDIVERSE #MASTODON #ETC

==================================

hey you I'm #bored.... (looking for more concrete constructive focus)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy

PICTURES ARE REPRESENTATION OF MY TALENTS

YOUR GUIDANCE REQUIRED IN CREATING THE FUTURE.... AS A KIND BETTER SCHOOL FOR KIDS (AND ADULTS)... #FREESCHOOL

#RSS #Question #Mastodon
Best software to pull in my Mastodon posts into another window or offline perspective?

Reducing the scope of question may help you, but feel free to answer without these:

- distance is probably is big factor (for other people and the work itself, but maybe this is just an excuse as plenty to get on with and even better by distance!)

- also the anonymous requirements (so neither of us can be ratted on) and similar personal privacy for those that appreciate it while having a proof-of-work way of trust (even audio chats or whatever) can be achieved (even if still not 100% trustful BECAUSE I THINK MOSTLY RIGHT NOW are and it's people's own mistrust that's the issue - OK that I'll write in a new post as it's a good point)

Overall I still feel like we could get on with a lot even with 2 things above as requirements - we could draw out / contribute to each other's work, even saying how clear or not it is and improve that way over the net. No? Tell me... #Fediverse

#Question #QOTO #Mastodon
#World #Together #Eventually No?

Google scrapes all public posts on Fediverse.

Yes I was shocked to hear that until someone said and showed me (I'm encouraging you to search or dox yourself by searching).

All users... from Mastodon's developers... Admin's of instances... User's everywhere... have responsibility... and if truly the 'alternative' they will not let commercialism take over and simply harvest here *unchallenged / unsaid*.

So maybe this will help Mastodon not be scraped onto Search by choosing "Followers only" to filter who it goes to (for some posts, or you decide which types of posts at whatever status...)

===================
🔽 EXTRA ABOUT #MASTODON /
+ #FEDIVERSE COMMERCIALISATION
===================

Mastodon's developer @Gargron told me (years back) that it's not for him to "tell" or even recommend people not to use Google / Youtube links... (we have #indvidious for example which be honest is much better now then when I asked him)... but any who not ACTIVE IN BEING AGAINST / WON'T PUT A SIGN on their instances etc so not working against this and even helping if it's so clear they are scraping commercially from non-commercial Fediverse, Mastodon, Lemmy, Friendica, etc...

So then we should anyway do something ourselves in posting more consciously and bio description to say "no"...

"NO CONSENT TO COMMERCIAL SCRAPING" or choose whatever words as cover your back more CLEARLY / legally / etc.

Overall it would help if everyone did it or made it clear which side they are against on the:

software level
instance level....
user level...

➿ #Mastodon 👀 💻 ⬅️ ➡️ 💻 🔎 ➿

BBC Extending Mastodon / Fediverse social media...

Summary of facts and notes below (almost cut and paste + full text source is after this list):

█ Trial has been for 6 accounts for 6 months: incl. R&D, Radio 4, and 5 Live.

█ 60,000 followers total (six trial accounts, not all as main focus)

█ very little moderation of replies were needed

█ most comments and feedback have been positive,

█ replies, re-posts and likes sometimes significantly larger engagement for some specific topics they've posted

====================
VERY GOOD POINT BELOW (FOR ALL EXISTING FEDIVERSE COMMUNITIES)...
====================

█ "we may not be able to engage and reply as much as the Mastodon community and culture expect, and we recognise this could be an issue going forward."

I think already lots of people don't answer as individual or even worse as a company on Fediverse...
And... They really should (especially the alternative communities) for the many types of positive or "just don't wait to get eaten by the Google T-Rex dinosaur" type of reasons I'll list below:

● respecting fans
● involving fans (recirculating the movements / causes / skills)
● allowing a safer place than Facebook / Github or at least more neutral even if they have benefits to do a "public test" phase here until it gets really unmanageable and then accept defeat IF NEEDED.

Many companies don't want to do the human work... maybe all of them...

█ "we need to be particularly careful with our editorial processes and within the scope of this trial we are not in a position to guarantee time and effort from other teams outside of R&D. This means we haven't been able to include BBC News in the trial yet, but we are working on it."

=========================
FULL TEXT VERSION OF SOURCE BELOW
=========================

BBC - Extending Mastodon social media...

Posted by Tristan Ferne, Bill Thompson on 13 Feb 2024

In July 2023 we announced our plan to establish a BBC presence in the distributed collection of social networks known as the Fediverse, a collection of social media applications all linked together by common protocols, as part of our research into social technologies. The experimental BBC Mastodon server at https://social.bbc has now been running for six months and hosts accounts for R&D, Radio 4, and 5 Live.
Extending our Mastodon social media trial

We were aiming to learn about how much work and cost this involved, how many people we’d reach, what levels of engagement we would get and to explore the risks and benefits of the federated model. The trial so far has been really effective in helping us learn about how the Fediverse is evolving, what technical support a Mastodon server needs, what the costs are, and how a large media organisation like the BBC can engage with the many different overlapping communities that exist in this rapidly changing space.
We are therefore pleased to say that we are going to continue the trial for at least another six months while we share our findings internally and seek more engagement from other BBC teams. We are also planning to start some technical work into investigating ways to publish BBC content more widely using ActivityPub, the underlying protocol of Mastodon and the Fediverse.

So far in the trial we’ve amassed around 60,000 followers across our six trial accounts, and we have had to do very little moderation of replies associated with our content. Reassuringly, most of the comments and feedback have been positive, welcoming both our interest and the way we have set things up.We’ve had really encouraging levels of engagement (i.e. replies, re-posts and likes) on Mastodon. For some equivalent posts we’ve seen significantly larger engagement numbers for Mastodon compared to X/Twitter, particularly given the relative sizes of different platforms. We think this is partly due to the culture of Mastodon, and partly because of some of the topics we’ve posted about. Because this an experiment and a trial, it's not always the main priority for all the teams involved, so we may not be able to engage and reply as much as the Mastodon community and culture expect, and we recognise this could be an issue going forward.

We have been asked by a number of people on Mastodon to include BBC News social accounts in the trial. Because of the potential sensitivity around news stories, we need to be particularly careful with our editorial processes and within the scope of this trial we are not in a position to guarantee time and effort from other teams outside of R&D. This means we haven't been able to include BBC News in the trial yet, but we are working on it.
And to be clear, the @BBC_News_Labs account represents the R&D team working on news technologies and doesn't represent BBC News as a whole.

Over the next six months the trial will continue and we will continue to learn. We will make best efforts to post and engage with our audiences and add more BBC accounts to the trial. Internally, we’ll continue to talk to teams about future plans and strategies for a BBC presence on Mastodon and other emerging social technologies, and we’ll stay in touch with the community by publishing updates like this, hoping that they are useful and relevant to others using or considering a presence on Mastodon or in the wider Fediverse.

The last six months have been invaluable in improving our understanding of what it takes for an organisation like the BBC to be a good member of the Fediverse, and opened up new areas for investigation, such as looking at ways of using ActivityPub as an alternative publishing mechanism for BBC content, alongside the social uses of Mastodon.

We have been encouraged by the support we’ve had from the wider community and found a lot of interest internally. Our hope is that this work will lead to long-term BBC engagement with the wider network of federated online services, and that we will be able to serve the communities here just as we provide public value in other online spaces.

Topics: Social Internet

Post related to source: https://social.bbc/@BBCRD/111924897917996449

#Fediverse #Mastodon #BBC
#News #Summary #Notes
for Other Groups / #Communities to consider

#Mastodon = link farm

The newest ad-farm tool for youtube google and other commercial links in Mastodon...

#Mastodon Posts Backup Export+Import? #Job - #Fedihire

☑️ I want my Mastodon profile exported to a format I can read as a more standalone or more common standard (like a HTML / XML, book or perhaps Wordpress site, but simpler is more the idea or both / all these).

May take a bit of figuring out how to export to something more standalone but happy to pay even if I could do it myself... (an endless scroll would be good almost emulating Mastodon).

👎 Currently Mastodon has NOTHING you can export and import to...

(you are stuck on server you post on!)

So not even importing to itself will work... 👀

*Although* maybe a 'local' instance all to myself might mean I can run a 1 person profile and just copy my posts file over ?,,,
hmmm that would be ok too to have my posts as reference / non-public, but who knows?...)

thoughts welcome....

The mentality of upgrades = bad / too erratic for long term if used unwisely, abused even...

Info here is not a deep techie look but basically "new" today is constantly "obsolescent-encouraging" or more temporary stuff shooting for the moon or claiming it's better.

So I'm not claiming any projects mentioned here are bad, but just I would prefer what can actually load in an "old(er)" browser!

I mean we have enough solutions already for everything at all levels and if we can stick to "old" protocols (unless really really revolutionary like WebRTC) then oldER = betTER or at least not to be exchanged - and newer is just a platform for more problems / high requirements that you can't rollback on.

Imagine Windows and realising once you do this, you can't go back! And you like features from before and in the new!

That is why you get Firefox add-on extension reverting people back to old or taking out the new... people are forced to new for using their banking or whatever but have to try find things to undo everything else...

YES the new is all trial and error / hit and miss but Tech seems to encourage the old to be tossed out and forgotten too early - it is BigTech at root after all (and don't you forget that despire your bubble) and as upgrades eventually are pushed / forced in exchange for bells, it's easily encouraged to be readily forgetting what works or try pretend "we can trip to the moon with this version better" ... I admit it cam ne hard to put finger on but I'm sure you know what I mean and have example you can add comments to here...

Things like Android needing a higher version of the same application - like why? And anyone that points to the 👉 "security problem" is likely just a parrot because "you should upgrade as it's no longer secure" and "for security reasons" you need Window 112 now...

Why can't I run the same calculator program on Android 4 now? (Android 4 = 10 years ago) ? Nothing big really changed but people still up the requirements and basically alienate oldER mobile users and retro-tech..

===================
MASTODON vs. Misskey / Iceshrimp, forks
===================
So I wasn't a fan of the Misskey and similar Mastodon forks FROM DAY 0 when I loaded it in my browser and saw it didn't load apart from the title (not even informative error message or reduced version available).

I mean newer stuff or forks could at least allow rendering to basics of site or skeleton like RSS does or more universally compatible version (I mean mostly it's a login box right?) so almost purely because most of they have very bloated UIs I skipped it! Call it picky but principle stands... and they could have done better to *accommodate* the old -(backwards-compatibility ) NOT make ultimatums / ignore them.

Not being able to be loaded by "old browsers" even 5years or less is a kind of bar I have with "new" bells-and-whistles style upgrading constantly moving the bar and deliberately requiring BigTech-style "upgrade now for another UI change or change in design"

==================
OTHER NOTES:
==================
* Iceshrimp wasn't on Wikipedia
but does redirect to Fediverse page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse

Do you have any favourite pages related / feature comparisons?

* Iceshrimp is A #csharp fediverse platform, forked from Calckey in 2023 (Firefish is formerly Calckey)

* Misskey was not designed as a distributed social network, so its main philosophy is not based on an decentralized approach...

========================
HASHTAG VERSION OF THIS POST!
========================
#Computing #Computers #New and #OlderNew

#RSS = good example for retro-tech because of it's backwards-compatibility with Universal / basic access by design/

#PlannedObsolescence #upgrades + bogus / parroted #Security reasons

#BigTech pushes tech - People just #parrot what's best

#Iceshrimp #Misskey #Mastodon #Firefox Forks aesthetics

========================
Final thought... To upgrade or Not?...

People do like the idea of new, even if it's old! (was just reading people upgrading their NAS software (running perfect for years) and then regretting it! Doh!
Tempting isn't it ?)

Using YouTube directly (without tracking filter) doesn't help free, libre software movements, including Mastodon I believe.

We could all use https://invidious.privacyredirect.com/ instead for better links (ad-free / no tracking on Youtube):

https://redirect.invidious.io/

#floss #opensource #software #foss #mastodon #fediverse #youtube #google

Using YouTube directly (without tracking filter?)