@freemo @cambridgeport90 And later fork hubzilla to add more Writer focused social networking options.

@LWFlouisa @freemo what is the difference between that, and some of the other networks such as other Friendica or diaspora? I've heard of all of them, but never did seem to get the hang of their differences.

@cambridgeport90 @freemo Hubzilla is closer to an alternative to wordpress, but has some features that to me make it better. You can switch color layouts for example:

I use night mode.

@cambridgeport90 @freemo Diaspora is closest to Google+, while Friendica is more like Facebook. GNU Social and others based on it are more like Twitter. Halcyon is almost a twitter clone.

@cambridgeport90 @freemo Goblin refuge is very much like Deviantart.

@cambridgeport90 @freemo Well any mediagoblin is like Deviantart.

@cambridgeport90 @freemo Just to add, I'm puzzled why they wanted to use Pixelfed to replace instagram, and yet they haven't replaced Wattpad or Inkitt yet.

It seems like, with all the creative types here, Wattpad seemed, at least to me, the most logical choice for a centralized service to replace.

@LWFlouisa @freemo I think as much as we'd love to, it's going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to replace all of the decentralized services. I would like to migrate all of my YouTube users over to here. However, I don't think I'm ever going to do that. After all, it would involve moving so many videos over here. And besides, how would anyone know to come here instead?

@cambridgeport90
The difference is in the UI and the standards employed for federation. Mastodon uses OStatus, ActivityPub. A lot of other networks (like diaspora) just use OStatus which is older and on the verge of becoming obsolete but still used.

Mastodon and QOTO seem to cover the most standards so it allows for a larger audience IMO.

@LWFlouisa

@freemo @cambridgeport90 I wonder if that's why Diaspora can't federate with Mastodon?

Plus Diaspora is started to show its age in other ways.

@freemo @LWFlouisa @cambridgeport90 Diaspora does not use OStatus.If it did,it would be compatible with Mastodon because that still has OStatus support additionally to ActivityPub.Diaspora has its completely own protocol.That's why it doesn't federate with many softwares.As far as I know only with itself and Friendica which has support for the Diaspora protocol,too.Friendica and GNUsocial are good examples for OStatus implementations.And they still federate with Mastodon.

@nipos
It uses OStatus in a sense, it would be more accurate to say it uses the diaspora-dialect of ostatus. It was just different enough from the standard that mastodon cant talk to it.

@LWFlouisa @cambridgeport90

@freemo @cambridgeport90 @nipos Its weird though, sometimes you'll find people that also have a Mastodon along with a diaspora.

@LWFlouisa @freemo @nipos the big question. How did you guys implement the extended features on the server? Like the nearly unlimited number of characters of posts, for instance? That's pretty cool.

@cambridgeport90 @freemo @LWFlouisa On Mastodon the char limit is unfortunately hardcoded as far as I know but Qoto uses GlitchSoc,a Fork of it.The char number is just a simple variable there and it's easy to change.The limit isn't defined by the protocol but only by the Mastodon software.

@nipos @cambridgeport90 @freemo I'm curious what makes it hard coded. Here the limit is around a little less than 66000 (characters, not words).

On Hubzilla, what I'm considering forking just to learn how it works, doesn't have any limit, as far as I know.

@LWFlouisa @nipos @freemo isn't it 500 characters by default on here? In that case, I take it then that there was some extra code modifications done over here.

@cambridgeport90
This server is significantly modified, yea that is one of the aspects I changed.

@LWFlouisa @nipos

@LWFlouisa
The hard coding is basic, just a few checks in a few places. It was easy to override with some coding knowledge.

@nipos @cambridgeport90

@freemo @LWFlouisa @nipos darn. Looks like I have to add Ruby to the list of languages that I desire to learn, then.

@cambridgeport90
Always happy to help.

@LWFlouisa @nipos

@cambridgeport90 @nipos @freemo It wont be difficult, it's considerably better than learning C++ which people on Diaspora are still trying to force down my throat.

@freemo @cambridgeport90 @nipos When I think of hard coding, I'm used to thinking of it in terms of graphic design for games:

Instead of reading from a file, the roguelike game would have the map and its different movements programmed directly into the code.

I've learned since it's generally better to read things from a file whenever it's possible. It creates less code you have to write overall.

@cambridgeport90 You can migrate, if you do this anyone going to your old profile will be notified and forwarded to your new one. I havent used the migration tool myself but ive seen it used.

@freemo darn. Had I known I could do that, I wouldn't have people still looking for me on my other account. LOL