Regular Fediverse federation check.

According to @fedidb (https://fedidb.org) 22,37% of monthly active Fediverse users are currently on mastodon.social.

I very much welcome the upcoming Mastodon feature that closes registrations if the mods and admins abandon the server (no activity for a week), but when do we finally close servers automatically that have 10k active users?

I'll post about this somewhat regularly under #FederationCheck, but if someone wants to automate that with a bot feel free.

#Fediverse #FediverseMeta #federation #MastodonSocial #Mastodon

Tiny Mastodon Suggestion for
Job Recruiters and Job Seekers 🗄✨

I see many people posting jobs
and seeking jobs here, but there aren't enough organization to make this efficient.

People are advertising and
looking for jobs around the globe on the Fediverse, and this produces a lot of noise for everyone 🌍​🌏​🌎​

Why don't we start using hashtags
per country to restrict the search when positions have geographical limitations?

I suggest we start using:

#JobsCanada
#JobsUSA
#JobsIndia
#JobsSenegal
#JobsFrance
#JobsAustralia
#JobsUK
#JobsGermany
Etc, etc, etc...

This could be used by both job seekers and job posters.

We could even add something like:

#JobsCanadaLooking (for recruiters to follow)
#JobsCanadaHiring (for job seekers to follow)

What do you think? 👀

#TinyMastodonTip #Mastodon #JobSearch #Hiring #Recruiters #GetFediHired #FediHired #JobOpportunity

Boost if you think groups like @NGIZero and others should band together and fund a hard fork of #Mastodon that prioritizes trust and safety, and the needs of #Fediverse admins to protect their users from abuse.

⭐ Favorite if you would support with a little money, too.

#MastoAdmin #FediAdmin #spam #ForkTogether

Yes, #Mastodon supports #HCaptcha, but HCaptcha mines details of some of us with disabilities by asking us to sign up with an email address to, as they put it, 'get an accessibility cookie.' If you use that service, it is a bad time for many. HCaptcha is not my friend.
Edit: For reasons why I categorically state HCaptcha is evil, see this post I made in response to someone else. People have quite rightly asked me to clarify my stance, so here it is: https://universeodon.com/@FreakyFwoof/111956924313468553

Andre Louis

2024-02-19 07:18:12

@craftxbox It's evil, because *only* if you're blind or unable to complete the visual captcha, do they require your email address.
'Oh, let's be another corporation, but we're niche and specific. We only want email addresses of those who are blind/visually impaired, so we could, at our discretion, spam them with blindness-specific products or services that our visual users would never see, as they never had to provide an email address.'
When you go to the chemist (drug store or whatever it's called today) to buy, oh I dono, tampons, do you have to give them your email address because you're a woman?
Nope. Very, very definitely nope, but because I'm blind, I have to give some nameless, faceless company my address, to have a cookie that hardly ever works anyway at the best of times, and even when it does, is now tracking me across any site with *their* version of so-called captcha?
No. Absolutely not. Get the hell out with that.

#Mastodon on Monday: "we don't want your stinking, privacy-violating, opt-out bridges around here!"

Mastodon on Sunday: "we recommend enabling hCaptcha on your instance."

Internationalise The Fediverse
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/02/internationalise-the-fediverse/

We live in the future now. It is OK to use Unicode everywhere.

It seems bizarre to me that modern Internet services sometimes "forget" that there's a world outside the Anglosphere. Some people have the temerity to speak foreign languages! And some of those languages have accents on their letters!! Even worse, some don't use English letters at all!!!

A decade ago, I was miffed that GitHub only supported some ASCII characters in its project names. There's no technical reason why your repo can't be called "ഹലോ വേൾഡ്".

Similarly, I'm frustrated that Mastodon (the largest ActivityPub service) doesn't allow Unicode usernames and has resisted efforts to change.

So I built a small ActivityPub server which publishes content from an Actor called @你好@i18n.viii.fi - it is only a demo account, but it works!

Some ActivityPub clients report that they are able to follow it and receive messages from it. Others - like Mastodon - simply can't see anything from it. Take a look at the replies on Mastodon to see which services work. You can also see some of its posts on the Fediverse.

What Does The Fox Spec Say?

The ActivityPub specification says:

Building an international base of users is important in a federated network.
Internationalization

I can't find anything in the specifications which limits what languages a username can be written in. But there are a few clues scattered about.

The user's @ name is defined by preferredUsername which is:

A short username which may be used to refer to the actor, with no uniqueness guarantees.
4.1 Actor objects

There's nothing in there about what scripts it can contain. However, later on, the spec says:

Properties containing natural language values, such as name, preferredUsername, or summary, make use of natural language support defined in ActivityStreams.
4. Actors

So it is expected that a preferred username could be written in multiple scripts. Which implies that the default need not be limited to A-Z0-9.

The ActivityStreams specification talks about language mapping.

Finally, the ActivityPub specification has some examples on non-Latin text in names.

So, I think that it is acceptable for usernames to be written in a variety of non-Latin scripts.

But What About...?

There are usually a few objections to "Unicode Everywhere" zealots like me. I'd like to forestall any arguments.

What about homograph attacks?

Well, what about them? ASCII has plenty of similar looking characters. I doubt most people would notice when a capital i is replaced by a lower L - and vice-versa. Similarly the kerning issue of an r and n looking like an m is well known. Are mixed language homographs more dangerous? I don't think so.

What if people make names that can't be typed?

Well, what if they do? Maybe not being found by people who can't type your language is a feature, not a bug. But, anyway, clients can let users search for other people, or copy and paste their names.

What about weird "Zalgo" text?

It is up to a client to decide how they want to render text input. The "problems" of strange Unicode combinations are well known. This is not a hard computer-science problem.

What about bi-directional text?

The spec makes clear this is allowed.

Do people even want a username in their own script?

I have no evidence for this. But I bet you'd get pretty frustrated if you had to switch keyboard just to type your own name, wouldn't you? In any case, why can't I have a username of @😉

What's Next?

If you build ActivityPub software, give some thought to the billions of people who don't have names which easily fit into ASCII.

If your software can see @你好@i18n.viii.fi and its posts, please let me know.

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/02/internationalise-the-fediverse/

#ActivityPub #fediverse #i18n #mastodon #unicode

I'd like to run an instance with non-ASCII usernames · Issue #8417 · mastodon/mastodon

Mastodon usernames are currently restricted to Latin characters. I'd like to have the option to run an instance which allows usernames like "莎士比亚". I'm not saying that it should be mandatory that e...

^GitHub

Na Mastodonu je prostě zdravější komunita. Jsme nejlepší!

"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."

#Mastodon #BBC

We’ve just published an update about this Mastodon trial which has been running for the last 6 months – you can read it here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2024-02-extending-our-mastodon-social-media-trial

We are going to continue our trial here 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 researching ways to publish more BBC content using ActivityPub.

#mastodon #ActivityPub #socialmedia

Some cool #Firefox add-ons for improving #Mastodon:

Simplified Federation: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mastodon-simplified-federation/?ref=upstract.com
Automatically take you to your home instance when you try to follow people from a page on another instance.

StreetPass: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/streetpass-for-mastodon/
Automatically discovers mastodon accounts on any web page you visit. Keeps a list so you can browse accounts at your convenience.

Substitoot: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/substitoot/
Fill in missing replies, boost/favorite counts, profile pages.

Mastodon – Simplified Federation! – Get this Extension for 🦊 Firefox (en-US)

Download Mastodon – Simplified Federation! for Firefox. Simplifies following or interacting with other users on remote Mastodon instances in the Fediverse.

^{addons.mozilla.org}

Estaría chulo poder enviar alt de imágenes realizadas por terceros. Si a alguien no le gusta un alt o le parece pobre ... podría escribir uno y darle a mandar solicitud.

A la persona le llega ese alt y puede validarlo si quiere.

#mastodon #pullrequests #alt #images

Uz nejakou dobu pouzivam na @wrksart klienta https://phanpy.social. Je hodne minimalisticky. Krade IP z pokemonu, mastodon pokemon, ha, genialni! Hodne veci mi vadi.

Ale jeho naprosta killer feature a duvod, proc si ho pro doom scrolling hudby a dalsiho umeni na WRKS necham, je vizualni oddeleni boostu od originalnich postu.

Vubec nechapu, proc to jeste nema kazdy klient. UX je uplny no-brainer. Obri timeline neskutecne zprehledni.

#mastodon #phanpy #ux #app

Phanpy

Minimalistic opinionated Mastodon web client

^{phanpy.social}

At long last, the Thunderbird blog now has a "Share To Mastodon" button!

A hearty round of applause and eternal thanks to @micah, @oopsallnaps, and @devmount for making it happen 💙

#Mastodon #Community #OpenSource

Here’s what people are saying about #Dgar’s moon-rock song “It’s Always Monday On The Moon”.

“Tasty!”
~ Rev. Watt deFalk, O.C.D.

“awesome…”
~ karin Sorenby

“I aways enjoy it!”
~ Maj1

“It's well-written and fun…”
~ Steve’s Place

“…it's outta this WORLD!!”
~ x.Félix_de_Fomento.x

“Yeah. We had that last week.”
~ Clara Listensprechen

“I never been there.”
~ Ken Dillermand

“Wha??? When did NASA ever go to the moon?”
~ ideaPDish

“I've got a gimp in the back room...”
~ Nuki writes Erotica in ur Feed

So what are you waiting for? Check out the song that’s taking #Mastodon by storm!

It’s Always Monday On The Moon
~ Dgar

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/dgarmusic/its-always-monday-on-the-moon

Everywhere else: https://songwhip.com/dgar/its-always-monday-on-the-moon

It's Always Monday On The Moon by Dgar

Listen to "It's Always Monday On The Moon" by Dgar on any music platform - Free smart music links by Songwhip

^{Dgar (Songwhip)}

Why do you like Mastodon (or any open source Fediverse app of your choosing) the most? (You can choose multiple choices)

Boosts appreciated for reach.

#Fediverse #Mastodon #SocialWeb #SocialMedia

• It's free (43%, 381 votes)
• No ads (71%, 633 votes)
• No commercial algorithms (79%, 700 votes)
• It has many apps (20%, 181 votes)
• Features towards healthier social media (like content warnings) (53%, 473 votes)
• Most features in general (15%, 137 votes)
• Not owned by a single company and cannot be bought (79%, 706 votes)
• You own your data (49%, 434 votes)
• You can choose your privacy level even per-post (44%, 390 votes)
• Something else (10%, 97 votes)

I like on #Mastodon how you can upload items (with images) on your phone and then edit them (on your laptop).

Makes it much easier to add alt text and make it more #accessible

More conference testing with @Mastodon at #FOSDEM

If you're a #Mastodon admin, you're going to want to apply the latest security patch as soon as possible.

https://wedistribute.org/2024/02/mastodon-remote-takeover/

#CVE #Admin

"Mastodon: Diebstahl beliebiger Identitäten im föderierten Kurznachrichtendienst" 😬

Die Versionen 3.5.17, 4.0.13, 4.1.13 und 4.2.5 beheben die Sicherheitslücke. 👇

https://www.heise.de/news/Mastodon-Diebstahl-beliebiger-Identitaeten-im-foederierten-Kurznachrichtendienst-9615961.html

#mastodon #security #vulnerability #schwachstelle #sicherheit

Mastodon: Diebstahl beliebiger Identitäten im föderierten Kurznachrichtendienst

In einem knappen Sicherheitshinweis lassen die Entwickler eine Bombe platzen: Angreifer können jeden beliebigen Account übernehmen und fälschen.

^{Dr. Christopher Kunz (heise online)}

@Friendica Support

Question to any #Friendica users who are also familiar with federating to #Mastodon servers.

Why don't Friendica Likes of posts federate across to Mastodon?

• is there any known solution for this annoyance, or at least a workaround?
• does the problem lie within Friendica, within Mastodon, or somewhere else?
• doesn't this IMO sizable flaw rather mock the mantra that the Fediverse via #ActivityPub facilitates widespread interoperability amongst myriad clients?

When i recently discovered that none of my Masto friends was seeing any of my Friendica Likes to their toots, i felt a bit devastated, not least coz it might have connotated rudeness on my part in their minds.

Content warning: I'm getting a little tired of the method I use to connect to the Fediverse. Click to open/close

!Friendica Support
Hat hier schon mal die Kommunikation zwischen #Gotosocial und #Friendica getestet?
Ich habe hier von Gotosocial Nutzern die Info erhalten, das er/sie mein Profil bzw. mein Profilbild nicht angezeigt bekommt.
Wenn er dann aber mit #Mastodon oder #Calckey einen Kontakt hat - dann wäre das gar kein Problem.
Da ich das jetzt nicht nachvollziehen kann in Ermangelung einer Gotosocial Instanz

Ist hier etwas bekannt?

Voici une liste de comptes que je suis sur #mastodon en lien avec le #logiciellibre.
N'hésitez pas à les suivre aussi et à booster leurs pouets pour que j'aie plus de chance de les voir passer :)

(1/x)

#recommandations

Appreciation toot for everyone on #Mastodon following, interacting, and being awesome on this platform and helping grow the federated community.

You get one wool heart each.

Hey #fediverse,

Can y'all Please tell #NPR about #mastodon, #activityPub (and #Matrix!), please?

No really.. They're literally asking for it,

https://www.npr.org/2024/01/11/1223974976/social-media-tiktok-instagram-facebook-youtube-twitter-meta-influencers

Ok, I could be reading too much into it, but it really would be nice if maybe I wasn't the only one that mentioned maybe it's something they should look into?

kthx,
- A. Rando

Frage | Friendica: Fehlende Bezüge

Ich hatte eben unten stehenden Austausch und frage mich da natürlich ob mir irgendwelche Informationen fehlen bzw. ob es bei Mastodon Bezüge gibt die ich so nicht sehe.

Wäre schon interessant zu erfahren ob man da mit Mastdon mehr sieht.

Tags: #Frage #Friendica #Mastodon #Bezüge #Fediverse #Sascha #2024-01-12 !Friendica Support

Im Januar 2024 richtete das Aktionsb. neue Soziale Medien einen offenen Brief an die Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (#HRK). Darin werden die #Hochschulen in Deutschland aufgefordert, ihre X/Twitter-Präsenzen zu beenden und stattdessen auf dezentrale Plattformen im #Fediverse wie #Mastodon umzusteigen. Diese seien besser geeignet, den Regeln eines demokratischen und nachhaltigen Miteinanders zu entsprechen. Ich bin Erstunterzeichner des offenen Briefs! Mitmachen. 👇

https://www.openpetition.de/petition/online/appell-an-die-hochschulrektorenkonferenz-zur-nutzung-sozialer-medien

@neuSoM

The free fediverses should focus on consent (including consent-based federation), privacy, and safety

https://privacy.thenexus.today/free-fediverses-and-consent/

(Part 2 of "Strategies for the free fediverses")

#fediverse #mastodon #fedipact @fediversenews

The free fediverses should focus on consent (including consent-based federation), privacy, and safety

Part 2 of Strategies for the free fediverses

^{Jon (The Nexus Of Privacy)}

Výborná prezentace z #OpenAlt o #Fediverse a #Mastodon od @sesivany

Pokud budete sdílet dál, dovolím si rovnou doplnit:

* Je možné sledovat i hashtagy
* Pro vyhledávání uživatelů je dobrý FediSearch https://fedisearch.skorpil.cz od @stepan
* V ČR běží také instance #Piráti https://mastodon.pirati.cz a na vlastním železe

https://invidious.cz/watch?v=xsfSpCNfgyw

People

Search people on Fediverse

^{fedisearch.skorpil.cz}

"I noticed that the vanilla mastodon server uses Ruby on Rails; and they picked Puma as their rack server which is a poor choice. I experimented by setting up a VM with common VPS specs and tested a single line change in the Gemfile and got massive performance and efficiency increases"
https://reddit.com/r/Mastodon/comments/18q2s05/i_noticed_that_the_vanilla_mastodon_server_uses/

#Mastodon #MastodonDev