We're getting ready to start creating the #GoToSocial 0.17.0 release candidates, finally :)

We're now running this instance on the latest snapshot, to try stuff out and ensure it's working correctly. So far, it seems good!

To celebrate, here's a couple of MP3s, since it's possible to upload those now. Enjoy! And sit tight for the release candidates in a week or two ^_^

I've been running this single-user instance from October 2022. It's interesting that only this week I went past the threshold of 5000 federated peers. I'm sure this is not even the majority of peers on the fedi (though it probably is the majority of users).

This is not a complaint. I'm not especially popular or interesting and I get plenty of good stuff in my timeline. Rather, it's a reminder to myself that the fedi really has no centre, and the experience one gets of it is really different depending on one's point of access and connections.

Also, thanks to the #GoToSocial team for making it easy to run an instance.

Hey folks, I’m on a new instance using GotoSocial and having issues migrating from my other instance.

Would you mind sharing this post so I can federate and regain connections? Thanks!

#AskFedi #Federation #GotoSocial

#Pachli 2.6.0 is now available. This version has a new "Suggested accounts" feature to find accounts to follow, improves filter support on #GoToSocial servers, makes parts of the UI more readable, and fixes several bugs.

See pachli.app/pachli/2024/06/27/2… for details.

Thank you to @mileskrell, @kallekn, and @bittin for their contributions to this release.

#AndroidDev

Pachli 2.6.0 released

Pachli 2.6.0 is now available. This release allows you to find new people to follow with a “Suggested accounts” feature, and has the usual bug fixes and other improvements. Read on for more details about these.

^Pachli

Hi nerds! We've just released #GoToSocial version 0.16.0 Snappy Sloth into the wild. Look at it go! Climbing trees and all sorts, covered in algae, and #pooping once a week.

github.com/superseriousbusines…

Thanks to everyone who helped us comb the bugs out of its fur during the release candidate process. We hope the protein you gained from eating the bugs was reward enough.

As usual, when updating to this version (which you really should, because it's quite good), please read the release notes carefully, particularly the database migration notes; and make sure you don't interrupt the database migrations.

Ta!

Highlights of this release (nothing new since 0.16.0-rc1, just reiterating):

• Sign up / registration: In this release, you can open your instance to new registrations (aka sign-ups) via the new signup page at https://[your-instance.tld]/signup. No more manually creating new users via the CLI :)
  Documentation here: docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/…
• Accounts overview for moderators: To support the new sign-up feature, and help instance admins to moderate, we made a new section in the settings panel where admins + moderators can get an overview of accounts, and filter by instance, status, and more. You'll find this new accounts view in the settings panel.
• Totally reworked message delivery system and worker queues: We've completely reworked the way GoToSocial sends out messages to your followers and performs worker-related tasks; this should drastically increase the speed that outgoing messages are delivered, especially for users with lots of followers. It also paves the way for future work in terms of persisting worker and message queues over restarts.
• Account mutes: The account mute API endpoints are now implemented, meaning you can put (timed) mutes of accounts in place, to hide statuses from specific accounts from your home timeline, and/or hide notifications from muted accounts.
• Accurate account stats: This release introduces code to pull up-to-date counts of statuses, followers, and following from remote instances and show these stats via the API. So now in your client of choice, you should see an accurate count of the number of statuses and followers/following of a given account, no more "0 followers, 0 following, 0 statuses".
• HTTP header permissions settings: The settings panel now has a section that allows admins to set regular expressions to deny requests depending on HTTP headers.
  Documentation here: docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/…
• Filters v2 implementation: We've now implemented the v2 API for filters, which means you can create more complex filters to hide keywords or statuses, and more clients should be able to create filters on GoToSocial.
• Send test email: Admins can now use the settings panel to send a test email, to check if their SMTP (email) configuration is valid.
• Profile API: Clients that use the profile API to delete avatar + header images should now work, since we've now implemented this part of the API.
• Search operators: We've added a first search operator to GoToSocial, so when you're searching for statuses, you can add from:@[username]@[domain] to your search term, to search only within statuses created by the given account (while still respecting the search limitations we already had in place).
  Documentation here: docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/…
• Email change: Users can now change their email address in the settings panel without admin intervention.
  Documentation here: docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/…
• Memory usage optimizations: GoToSocial now uses memory more conservatively than before; you should only need about 150-200MiB of memory to run GtS with a full cache, and it will spike less.

Release v0.16.0 Snappy Sloth · superseriousbusiness/gotosocial

Hello internet! Roll up roll up and see ye all version 0.16.0 of GoToSocial, codename SNAPPY SLOTH. Release highlights Sign up / registration: In this release, you can open your instance to new re...

^GitHub

Hello hello good morning, here's the second release candidate for #GoToSocial v0.16.0!

github.com/superseriousbusines…

We fixed a bug that was preventing brand new instances from federating properly, and a bug where two accounts could refer to each other as moved_to targets.

Get it while it's fresh! 🍞 ☕️

Release v0.16.0-rc2 · superseriousbusiness/gotosocial

Hiya! Second RC for 0.16.0! No db migrations or config file changes between v0.16.0-rc1 and this version, so upgrading is as simple as updating your docker container or stopping GtS, untarring the ...

^GitHub

i made a CLI tool for moving data in and out of GtS and Mastodon instances using the API: github.com/VyrCossont/slurp

it can handle CSV data in Mastodon export format for blocks, bookmarks, follows, and lists. there is no Mastodon CSV format for filters so i made one up. (note that you need to be running GtS 0.15 for filter support.)

it doesn't handle posts or media yet; i have ideas about extending the GtS API to allow backdating posts and suppressing push federation, but probably won't get to that for a while.

#GtS #GotoSocial

GitHub - VyrCossont/slurp: tool for exporting data from and importing data to Fediverse instances

tool for exporting data from and importing data to Fediverse instances - VyrCossont/slurp

^GitHub

Hello everyone!

We've just made the first release candidate for version 0.16.0 of #GoToSocial, aka Snappy Sloth.

github.com/superseriousbusines…

For adventurous instance admins, please read the release + migration notes very carefully when updating to this release, paying particular attention to the database migrations section.

Here are the release highlights:

• Sign up / registration: In this release, you can open your instance to new registrations (aka sign-ups) via the new signup page at https://[your-instance.tld]/signup. No more manually creating new users via the CLI :)
  Documentation here: docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/…
• Accounts overview for moderators: To support the new sign-up feature, and help instance admins to moderate, we made a new section in the settings panel where admins + moderators can get an overview of accounts, and filter by instance, status, and more. You'll find this new accounts view in the settings panel.
• Totally reworked message delivery system and worker queues: We've completely reworked the way GoToSocial sends out messages to your followers and performs worker-related tasks; this should drastically increase the speed that outgoing messages are delivered, especially for users with lots of followers. It also paves the way for future work in terms of persisting worker and message queues over restarts.
• Account mutes: The account mute API endpoints are now implemented, meaning you can put (timed) mutes of accounts in place, to hide statuses from specific accounts from your home timeline, and/or hide notifications from muted accounts.
• Accurate account stats: This release introduces code to pull up-to-date counts of statuses, followers, and following from remote instances and show these stats via the API. So now in your client of choice, you should see an accurate count of the number of statuses and followers/following of a given account, no more "0 followers, 0 following, 0 statuses".
• HTTP header permissions settings: The settings panel now has a section that allows admins to set regular expressions to deny requests depending on HTTP headers.
  Documentation here: docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/…
• Filters v2 implementation: We've now implemented the v2 API for filters, which means you can create more complex filters to hide keywords or statuses, and more clients should be able to create filters on GoToSocial.
• Send test email: Admins can now use the settings panel to send a test email, to check if their SMTP (email) configuration is valid.
• Profile API: Clients that use the profile API to delete avatar + header images should now work, since we've now implemented this part of the API.
• Search operators: We've added a first search operator to GoToSocial, so when you're searching for statuses, you can add from:@[username]@[domain] to your search term, to search only within statuses created by the given account (while still respecting the search limitations we already had in place).
  Documentation here: docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/…
• Email change: Users can now change their email address in the settings panel without admin intervention.
  Documentation here: docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/…
• Memory usage optimizations: GoToSocial now uses memory more conservatively than before; you should only need about 150-200MiB of memory to run GtS with a full cache, and it will spike less.

Release v0.16.0-rc1 Snappy Sloth · superseriousbusiness/gotosocial

Hello you nerds, dorks, and dweebs ❤️ This here is the first release candidate for version 0.16.0 of GoToSocial, codename SNAPPY SLOTH. Release highlights Sign up / registration: In this release, ...

^GitHub

Oh yes, and v1 of filters is here as well in this release candidate! Depending on the client you're using, you'll be able to add filters to hide certain phrases from posts in your timeline :)

#GoToSocial

Hey nerds! 🌸

First spring time release of #GoToSocial, here's the first release candidate for version 0.15.0 Shagadelic Sloth!

github.com/superseriousbusines…

For adventurous admins updating to this release candidate, please read the migration notes carefully, especially regarding database migrations :)

Release highlights

• Incoming and outgoing Move Activities are now processed properly. This means you will automatically follow other people when they move their accounts, and you can also Move your own account from your GtS instance to somewhere else!
  User docs here: docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/…
  Federation docs (for devs) here: docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/…
• You can hide your followers and following collections now! When hidden, your followers/following count will no longer appear on your profile, and your collections of followers/following will be hidden from other servers (and other accounts on your server).
  User docs here: docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/…
• Preset user-selectable CSS themes are here! In the settings page, you can now choose a theme for your profile, which will change how it appears in the web view of your account! For now we added 5 different themes to choose from, screenshots below!
  User docs: docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/…
  Docs for admins (how to add your own themes to your instance): docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/…

#GoToSocial bugfix release v0.14.1!

👢
🐛

github.com/superseriousbusines…

There was a bug in 0.14.0 which was causing SQLite-backed instances to sometimes become unresponsive, with lots of errors in the logs containing interrupted(9) (see github.com/superseriousbusines….

We poked around and this looks like an issue in our SQLite dependency, so we stepped down to the most recent stable version, and also added some code to prevent the problem from rendering an instance unresponsive.

No db migrations or config file changes between v0.14.0 and this version, so upgrading is as simple as updating your docker container or stopping GtS, untarring the release, and starting GtS again.

For instructions to update to this release from versions < v0.14.0, see the v0.14.0 release notes, but replace v0.14.0 with v0.14.1 throughout.

Thanks!

Issues · superseriousbusiness/gotosocial

Fast, fun, small ActivityPub server. Contribute to superseriousbusiness/gotosocial development by creating an account on GitHub.

^GitHub

Hi everyone!

We've just released v0.14.0 of #GoToSocial! Say hello to the Spoiled Sloth

github.com/superseriousbusines…

We're really proud of this release! It fixes a lot of longstanding annoying bugs, and adds some very neat features tooooo

Thanks to everyone who helped us with code and trying out release candidates and filing issues, and a big thank you to all our financial supporters who help us out via opencollective and liberapay :)

When upgrading to this version from a previous release, please note that there are CSS and HTML updates, config file changes, and several database migrations which may take a while to run! So please read the migration notes carefully :)

Release highlights:

• Account aliasing. You can now set the alsoKnownAs field on your account via the settings panel, to indicate other accounts you own. This doesn't do much now, but it's the first step towards the Move implementation for account migration coming in v0.15.0. We originally wanted to include Move in this release but it needs more testing so we pushed it back. Hang in there :)
• Much better thread sorting. Conversation threads on both the web view and client API use a new sorting mechanism which makes them way more readable. No longer will replies in a thread be scattered all over the place.
• Better HTTP signature support. We fixed a longstanding issue with including vs not including query parameters in signed GET requests. We now try (and accept) both methods of constructing signatures. Which leads to...
• Improved thread fetching. You'll see far fewer "orphaned" statuses in your timeline now, and you'll see more replies on statuses from other instances.
• Syntax highlighting for code blocks on the web UI. When you include a code block in your markdown now, and correctly indicate the language the code is written in, it will be syntax highlighted when rendered on your profile in the web UI. This requires javascript, but it's a progressive enhancement feature. Visitors to your profile with javascript turned off will just see the code block without syntax highlighting :)
• Improved "about this instance" page, with a link to the page in the nav bar. Previously the "about this instance" page was more or less hidden. We've now surfaced it better, so you can write all your terms and conditions and instance description stuff there. Relatedly....
• Parse instance descriptions and terms and conditions as markdown. Previously it was very difficult to properly edit these fields, because you had to read + write HTML to do so. Now they're parsed as markdown. This means you can more easily include things like blockquotes, lists, etc.
• Big refactor of HTML templates + CSS. We did a serious rework of HTML templates to fix indentation. Previously if you did "view source" on a GoToSocial profile page, you'd see a mess of sloppily-indented HTML. With this refactor, the HTML is now nicely indented and much more readable. We also did an accessibility pass and tested our HTML with various screen readers to try to make the web view a bit less annoying to navigate.
• First pass at a basic spam filtering system. In light of spam waves happening on the fediverse recently we took a crack at implementing a filter to drop messages identified as spam. This is still in the experimental stage, but it's included in this release so you can try it out already. See the docs for details.

Hi everyone! We just made the second release candidate (rc2) for #GoToSocial v0.14.0. Here it is!

github.com/superseriousbusines…

What happened to the first release candidate, you say? Well, it didn't work properly 🤦 But this one does.

If you're the type of badass admin who uses release candidates, please give it a shot :) If you find any bugs particular to this release candidate, let us know on our issues page so we can fix them before 0.14.0 proper.

As always, please read the migration notes carefully!

Highlights of this release (candidate):

• Account aliasing. You can now set the alsoKnownAs field on your account via the settings panel, to indicate other accounts you own. This doesn't do much now, but it's the first step towards the Move implementation for account migration coming in v0.15.0. We originally wanted to include Move in this release but it needs more testing so we pushed it back. Hang in there :)
• Much better thread sorting. Conversation threads on both the web view and client API use a new sorting mechanism which makes them way more readable. No longer will replies in a thread be scattered all over the place.
• Better HTTP signature support. We fixed a longstanding issue with including vs not including query parameters in signed GET requests. We now try (and accept) both methods of constructing signatures. Which leads to...
• Improved thread fetching. You'll see far fewer "orphaned" statuses in your timeline now, and you'll see more replies on statuses from other instances.
• Syntax highlighting for code blocks on the web UI. When you include a code block in your markdown now, and correctly indicate the language the code is written in, it will be syntax highlighted when rendered on your profile in the web UI. This requires javascript to be enabled in a visitor's web browser, but it's a progressive enhancement feature. Visitors to your profile with javascript turned off will just see the code block without syntax highlighting :)
• Improved "about this instance" page, with a link to the page in the nav bar. Previously the "about this instance" page was more or less hidden. We've now surfaced it better, so you can write all your terms and conditions and instance description stuff there. Relatedly....
• Parse instance descriptions and terms and conditions as markdown. Previously it was very difficult to properly edit these fields, because you had to read + write HTML to do so. Now they're parsed as markdown. This means you can more easily include things like blockquotes, lists, etc.
• Big refactor of HTML templates + CSS. We did a serious rework of HTML templates to fix indentation. Previously if you did "view source" on a GoToSocial profile page, you'd see a mess of sloppily-indented HTML. With this refactor, the HTML is now nicely indented and much more readable. We also did an accessibility pass and tested our HTML with various screen readers to try to make the web view a bit less annoying to navigate.
• First pass at a basic spam filtering system. In light of spam waves happening on the fediverse recently we took a crack at implementing a filter to drop messages identified as spam. This is still in the experimental stage, but it's included in this release so you can try it out already. See the docs for details.

Thanks for reading!

Hi everyone! We just made another security + bugfix release for #GoToSocial

github.com/superseriousbusines…

If you're running on v0.13.2 or below, you should update to this release as soon as you have the time. There are no database migrations or frontend file changes, so this should be fairly easy!

Similar to the v0.13.2 release, this one closes a couple gaps with regard to ensuring that remote accounts and statuses can't be imitated.

It also fixes a couple different bugs with regard to your instance trying to dereference accounts who've blocked you, or whose instances have blocked you, leading to less weird-looking behavior from the user's side :)

Oh, and as a nice side effect of the above changes, federation with Bookwyrm should work a bit better now too! 📖 🪱

If you're running on a main snapshot build, you should update to the latest code on main by either refreshing the Docker snapshot tag, or taking the latest binary snapshot bundle.

Now with that out of the way we can get on with working on features for 0.14.0 :P

Thanks for reading! Have a good Thursday!

Release v0.13.3 Spideriest Sloth 2: The re-slothening · superseriousbusiness/gotosocial

Hi everyone! This here's a security + bugfix release for GoToSocial! Similar to the v0.13.2 release, this one closes a couple gaps with regard to ensuring that models of remote Activities or Object...

^GitHub

Hi everyone!

We've just released a new version of #GoToSocial, v0.13.0 aka Spider Sloth!

You can get the release from here: github.com/superseriousbusines…

As usual, please read the migration notes carefully when upgrading to this version.

Thanks! Enjoy!

Highlights of this release:

• Create, view, and vote in polls. It's been a while in the making but GoToSocial now has support for polls, aka Question activity types. You can create, view, and vote in polls using your client of choice.
• Show unsupported media placeholders in incoming posts, where media could not be downloaded (temporarily or otherwise). No more dropped media on posts! You'll instead now get a link to the media on the originating instance, that you can click through in your (mobile) browser.
• Mute threads that you're being overwhelmed by. Notifications for replies, likes, and boosts in that thread will no longer be generated.
• Media cleanup scheduling. Previously media scheduling took place every night at 12am. With the new media scheduling settings in the config, you can customize the schedule to run it at different times and frequencies. docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/…
• Support for setting instance language . You can use the new instance-languages setting to indicate one or more primary languages for your instance. docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/…
• Support for language tags on posts. Language of posts is now correctly federated in and out of your instance. The language of posts is also shown on the web view of statuses and threads.
• Gather and expose prometheus format metrics. You can now expose a /metrics endpoint to allow a Prometheus instance to scrape metrics about Go runtime memory usage, http request and database metrics, and more. docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/…

Release v0.13.0 Spider Sloth 🕷️ · superseriousbusiness/gotosocial

Spider Sloth, Spider Sloth, does whatever a .... sloth does? Release highlights Create, view, and vote in polls. It's been a while in the making but GoToSocial now has support for polls, aka Quest...

^GitHub

Hiya! It's a gloomy day so here's a little ray of sunshine:

We just tagged + pushed the second release candidate for 0.13.0 of GoToSocial!

This contains mostly fixes for pesky bugs from the first release candidate. You can get rc2 here:

github.com/superseriousbusines…

Note that on SQLite, when you start up your instance an analyze will run when you switch to this version. The analyze might take a good few minutes to run, depending on how large your SQLite database is, and how performant your system is. Please be patient and don't interrupt it, it's optimizing your database :)

As usual, if you find any bugs specific to this release candidate, please open them on our issue tracker.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the release candidate!

#GoToSocial #Slothware

Issues · superseriousbusiness/gotosocial

Fast, fun, ActivityPub server, powered by Go. Contribute to superseriousbusiness/gotosocial development by creating an account on GitHub.

^GitHub

Happy Friday everyone! Hope you're staying warm!

To celebrate the weekend, here's the first release candidate (rc1) for #GoToSocial 0.13.0 Spider Sloth!

github.com/superseriousbusines…

As always, please read the migration notes carefully when updating. If you find any bugs in the release candidate, kindly let us know on Github!

Release highlights below the line.

• Create, view, and vote in polls. It's been a while in the making but GoToSocial now has support for polls, aka Question activity types. You can create, view, and vote in polls using your client of choice.
• Show unsupported media placeholders in incoming posts, where media could not be downloaded (temporarily or otherwise). No more dropped media on posts! You'll instead now get a link to the media on the originating instance, that you can click through in your (mobile) browser.
• Mute threads that you're being overwhelmed by. Notifications for replies, likes, and boosts in that thread will no longer be generated.
• Media cleanup scheduling. Previously media scheduling took place every night at 12am. With the new media scheduling settings in the config, you can customize the schedule to run it at different times and frequencies. docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/…
• Support for setting instance languages . You can use the new instance-languages setting to indicate one or more primary languages for your instance. docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/…
• Support for language tags on posts. Language of posts is now correctly federated in and out of your instance. The language of posts is also shown on the web view of statuses and threads.
• Gather and expose prometheus format metrics. You can now expose a /metrics endpoint to allow a Prometheus instance to scrape metrics about Go runtime memory usage, http request and database metrics, and more. docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/…

Release v0.13.0-rc1 · superseriousbusiness/gotosocial

Well well well, look what the sloth dragged in... the first release candidate for v0.13.0, Spider Sloth. Release highlights Create, view, and vote in polls. It's been a while in the making but GoT...

^GitHub

documented how #GoToSocial formats Mentions when federating, and how it tries to parse incoming Mentions:

docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/…

Bugfix release! ❌ 🐛

Here's #GoToSocial 0.12.1 Spaghettier Sloth:

github.com/superseriousbusines…

Notes for this release:

Hiya! This here is a bugfix release for 0.12.0 Spaghetti Sloth!

We fixed csv block/allowlist import/export in the settings panel, instance terms and conditions updating, and also a silly issue where you couldn't use the settings panel to update your profile if you didn't have custom CSS enabled on your instance (blame me, tobi, for all these shiny new frontend bugs).

For detailed release notes, instructions, and warnings, please follow the 0.12.0 release notes and just replace 0.12.0 with 0.12.1 throughout. Thanks! Enjoy!

Release v0.12.0 Spaghetti Sloth 🍝 · superseriousbusiness/gotosocial

Hello! Here's version 0.12.0 of GoToSocial, codename SPAGHETTI SLOTH 🍝 Release highlights This release brings initial support for different federation modes, starting with allowlist federation mode...

^GitHub

tobi here; here's an update on 0.12.0!

we had a few more yaks to shave than we realized, so we're still taking our time shaving them

this includes refactoring some of the settings panel code by introducing some typescript into the codebase where appropriate, to hopefully make future admin/settings panel changes a little easier to implement

we're also working on adding some initial support for polls and for processing incoming status edits -- these two features are surprisingly intertwined, with one another, so getting them implemented nicely involves a bit of juggling

so sit tight for a bit longer for 0.12.0 :)

if you're feeling daring and want to try the latest changes without waiting for a proper release, we have instructions right here for running from the latest snapshot build from main (at your own risk)

that's it from us for now! have a good monday!

#GoToSocial

GitHub - superseriousbusiness/gotosocial: Fast, fun, ActivityPub server, powered by Go.

Fast, fun, ActivityPub server, powered by Go. Contribute to superseriousbusiness/gotosocial development by creating an account on GitHub.

^GitHub

The #GoToSocial stats have really popped off in the past 2 months.

There's over 600 servers online! This is scary and exciting!

gotosocial.fediverse.observer/…

Please consider supporting us with €12/ year if you run as server, or use a server, or just wanna support us in general! (there are other donation options available)

opencollective.com/gotosocial

GoToSocial - Open Collective

Develops open source Fediverse/ActivityPub software

^{opencollective.com}

I keep seeing lots of people who are totally giddy about the #Fediverse, who are gushing over it, who want to promote it, who want it to spread.

And who want it to advance. To learn new abilities. To grow new features.

That's all fine and dandy.

But almost all of these people are still fully convinced that the Fediverse equals #Mastodon. And nothing else. At least not until Tumblr and P92 join the fray. Okay, maybe the #WordPress plug-in that's the talk of the town now that it has become official. Okay, maybe a few of them have also heard of #Pixelfed and/or #PeerTube because their makers are all over the Fediverse.

When these people are talking about the Fediverse, they mean Mastodon. And when they're thinking about the Fediverse, they're only thinking about Mastodon. Because that's all they know.

So these people want new cool features or even new cool use-cases in the Fediverse, stuff that Mastodon doesn't have. They want Mastodon to have it, or they want new projects to be launched that have these features.

If only they knew.

If only they knew that everything, literally everything they propose has already been done. Yes, in the Fediverse. In projects which are fully federated with Mastodon. Why don't they know? Because they've never heard of any of these projects, much less what they can do.

So they want "quote-tweets" in the Fediverse. Which means they want Mastodon to introduce them.

Tell you what: Mastodon is the only microblogging project in the Fediverse that doesn't have quotes. Not only will Eugen Rochko never introduce them, but all the other projects have them with Mastodon forks #GlitchSoc such as being the exception. #Pleroma has them. #Akkoma has them. #MissKey has them. #CalcKey has them. #FoundKey has them. #GoToSocial has them. The old heavyweights #Friendica and #Hubzilla have them, and so does Hubzilla's youngest decendant, the #Streams project. Et cetera.

You want "quote-tweets"? Switch to something that isn't Mastodon, and you've got "quote-tweets".

Or text formatting in posts like bold type, italics, underline, strikethrough, code blocks etc. Would be great if Mastodon had that, in spite of other people saying they don't want it.

Again: Pleroma already has it. Akkoma already has it. MissKey already has it. CalcKey already has it. FoundKey already hasit. GoToSocial already has it. Friendica already has it. Hubzilla already has it (look at this post at its source in a Web browser and weep). (streams) already has it. And so forth. This time, even Mastodon forks have it.

It has been done. It has been done many times. It has actually been done before Mastodon.

Next, long-form blog posting. We need something like #Medium in the Fediverse that isn't Medium itself. Mastodon's 500 characters are too few, and Twitter-like threads are inconvenient.

Except we already have that, too. #Plume and #WriteFreely are about as close to Medium as Mastodon is to Twitter, including clean and distraction-less layouts. Oh, and Hubzilla can do that, too.

By the way: Again, Mastodon is the only Fediverse project that can do microblogging that has a 500-character limit. Pleroma, Mastodon's oldest direct competitor, raised it to a default of 6,000. MissKey and its forks have 3,000 as a default. Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams) have character limits of "go ahead, drop your short story in one post in its entirety," so virtually none at all. And yes, Hubzilla has long-form writing on top of that.

Speaking of Hubzilla: Most recently, there has been the idea to uncouple one's online identity from a specific instance. Your online self should no longer be firmly tied to any one server exclusively. Now, this sounds so ambitious, it might just as well be science-fiction.

What if I told you that just this very thing already exists as well?

No, really. No, I'm not making this up. But you should know by now that I'm not.

Better yet: It was conceived as early as 2011. By the guy who launched Friendica in 2010. He invented a new principle named #NomadicIdentity and a new protocol named #Zot. In its early stages already, even with no technical implementation yet, Zot was more powerful than ActivityPub is today.

In 2012, Zot became reality as the basis of a Friendica fork which later became known as #RedMatrix and, upon its 1.0 stable release in late 2015, which is still prior to Mastodon's initial release, Hubzilla. Hubzilla is still being developed and improved, and it has a fledgling but growing "successor of a successor" named (streams) which offers nomadic identity, too.

Now, what does this nomadic identity even look like? Well, not only does it let you move your channel(s) around from instance to instance with ease and, unlike on Mastodon, with absolutely everything on it. No, it also lets you have your channel on multiple instances at once. Identical clones, automagically kept in sync in real-time, all with the same identity, the same content, the same connections.

Your identity is no longer strapped down to one instance. Not only that, but your channel, your posts, your content is no longer hosted on only one server. This means that if one instance with one of your clones goes down, you still have spares.

Okay, so how about community groups/forums? That'd be cool.

Well, for one, there's #Guppe. It's basically bolted on Mastodon, and in practice, it's centralised because there's only one instance. But it's impractical to use.

Besides, this is becoming a running gag here, Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams) have exactly this built-in and open for the rest of the Fediverse.

Better yet: There's also #Lemmy which amounts to a federated #Reddit or #HackerNews clone. So not only does Lemmy offer this, it specialises in it.

Hubzilla alone can provide Fediverse feature suggestions with "has been done" for years to come. Not to mention what else the Fediverse has to offer. Even if someone should want a free, non-commercial, decentralised, federated #GoodReads clone in the Fediverse, it has been done: #BookWyrm.

- Fediverse.Party - explore federated networks

Let's make social media free, federated and fun! Fediverse.Party is your guide into the world of decentralized, autonomous networks running on free open software on a myriad of servers across the world. No ads and no algorithms.

^{fediverse.party}

Hey everyone! We're launching #GoToSocial fundraising on our brand spanking new #OpenCollective page today, to help raise funds to pay contributors!

The open collective page is here:

opencollective.com/gotosocial/

And the post launching the Open Collective page is here:

opencollective.com/gotosocial/…

An extract from that launch post is below :)

Thanks for reading!

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We're organizing a long-term fundraising for #GoToSocial, on #OpenCollective! Some of you may have already supported us over on Liberapay, which we're incredibly grateful for, and it has helped us jumpstart some of this process (and to pay for our cute sloth logo!). In future, we want to use Open Collective.

Our short-term goals are simple.

Firstly, we want to be able to pay people for code contributions to the project, when they need it.

Secondly, we're looking for contributions to help us cover basic costs like hosting fees for our automated build system.

Finally, we also want to be able to put money forward for translation work, graphic design, accessibility audits, security audits, or any other small pieces of work that GoToSocial might require.

Eventually, we want to be able to hire developers, either salaried or freelance. As a milestone on the way to this goal, we're looking to make SuperSeriousBusiness into a non-profit organization by the end of 2022.

GoToSocial - Open Collective

Develops open source Fediverse/ActivityPub software

^{opencollective.com}