Scott M. Stolz

That’s because most fediverse platforms have no privacy features. You’d have to use something like Hubzilla or Friendica if you want access control, privacy, and groups with limited membership. They also allow users to control what they see and don’t see.

There are solutions in the fediverse out there. They’re just not widely known.

It depends on how your platform handles unsolicited posts and whether it supports threads and the concept of conversation containers.

For example, let’s compare Mastodon and Hubzilla.

Mastodon does not notify you of replies to your posts, but does notify you if someone mentions you. It does not support threaded conversations, which means that anyone can comment on your post without your permission. You can block people, but that does not remove their posts or mentions.

Hubzilla takes a different approach. Conversations are organized in threads, and the thread has a conversation owner. It is similar to how Facebook works in that regard. If you create a top level post on your own wall, you own that conversation. Similarly, if you post in a forum/group, the forum/group owns that conversation.

As such, they can control who comments on it and even delete comments. You can even make private or group conversations that only certain people can participate in. Unsolicited comments are either discarded or accepted for moderation. They only appear if approved by the owner of the thread.

And there are additional filtering and notification settings available.

Because of this difference, undesired posts are more like to appear on Mastodon than on Hubzilla. And even if they do appear, they are easier to remove.

The more tools you have to control notifications and what appears as replies to your posts, the better. But it also makes the system slightly more complicated. Think Facebook vs. Twitter. Both are social media, but how they handle things are very different.

I am guessing that some platforms will fare better than others, and many platforms will have to adjust how they handle incoming posts as more people arrive in the fediverse.

@compostgoblin Some of the earliest platforms included StatusNet, Diaspora, Friendica, Red Matrix/Hubzilla, etc. All are much older than Mastodon.

@compostgoblin There were several other protocols such as OStatus, Diaspora, and Zot prior to ActivityPub. Mastodon originally used OStatus, and switched to ActivityPub later. A lot of platforms are older than Mastodon too.

@underscores

In some cases it could also be people that genuinely want to follow you. People often talk about one topic but still care about other stuff.

Many people fall into that category. I follow a lot of interesting accounts that have nothing to do with what I talk about on my channel. Sometimes you follow people because they know more about a subject than you do, or are just interesting.

@julian I just reported the issue over on the @Hubzilla Support Forum and created an issue in our repository.

#^[1](https://hubzilla.org/channel/adminsforum?mid=7296e345-0ba9-51f9-b376-8e29368f3a07)

Note: To prevent spam, you must be following adminsforum@hubzilla.org to participate in the Hubzilla Support Forum.

@לאצי I agree with @julian, you shouldn’t don’t have to change your username. It’s just a technical hurdle to jump over.

Since I can follow you on Hubzilla (via a specific URL), I don’t think it is an issue with ActivityPub or WebFinger. I’m sure there is some solution that would allow other platforms to follow your account.

In Hubzilla, I was able to follow this user by pasting this URL into the “Add Connection” box:

#^[1](https://community.nodebb.org/user/לאצי)

I copied the URL in the browser for that user’s profile (which contained the Hebrew characters). When I pasted it, it converted it to UTF-8 text (seen above).

Hubzilla was able to find the user based on that UTF-8 URL. So it is possible to follow such an account, at least with Hubzilla, via the UTF-8 URL.

It could not find %D7%9C%D7%90%D7%A6%D7%99@community.nodebb.org though, probably because NodeBB is not expecting the UTF-8 version of the username.

Would their ActivityPub username be לאצי@community.nodebb.org then?

I tried to follow that username and it would not let me.

Considering that different states and countries have different laws, which range from 12 to 16, it would be hard to find servers willing to host anyone under those ages.

Since it is possible to host your own fediverse server, in some countries, it would be possible for the parents to setup a fediverse server that their child could use.

This would only be legal in countries where “parental consent” is required. It would be illegal in countries where there is an absolute ban on children using social media.

@AnonomousWolf I would redefine it like this:

• Very Easy: Works with common hosting platforms and non-developers can install it using simple instructions.
• Easy: One-command Docker or install script, low resources, great documentation
• Moderate: Docker or manual setup, some config, active community support
• Hard: Complex setup, needs regular updates or custom config (e.g. DNS, spam)
• Very Hard or Proprietary: Little to no self-hosting support, undocumented

@AnonomousWolf What if you can install it with only a couple of commands and Docker is not required? Docker should not be the gold standard.

Option 1: Execute a couple commands to execute an install script.

Option 2: Figure out what Docker is. Figure out that Docker is not installed. Research how to install Docker. Install Docker. Execute the the Docker command. Screw it up. Ask for help from a developer since you never heard of Docker before.

Option 2 is way harder unless you are a developer and know what Docker is.

It is not user friendly to install if you have to be a developer to install it! In fact, I would call that user-hostile because the average power user or administrator can’t install it.

For “easy” I think it should have an install script (of any kind) and that it does not have to be Docker.

For “very easy” it should be like the WordPress 5 minute install. Upload the files, set up the database, and go to a URL to configure it.

This was supposed to be a reply to a different post, but it wasn’t attached somehow.

None of these projects are made by companies. They are made by individuals or small groups, and although they know how to code, they usually know nothing about marketing. That is why they are small compared to Threads or Bluesky. Marketing expertise, or lack thereof.

True. But when talking to someone who lives on traditional social media, it is an explanation they would understand. Sometimes you have to meet people where they are, not where you want them to be.

For those on traditional social media, I just say “What if Facebook and Twitter and YouTube could all talk to each other? People on Facebook could follow people on Twitter and people on Twitter can follow people on Facebook.” Then they usually reply “that would be neat” and then I tell them “yeah, that’s what we are building over here in the fediverse.”

It usually is easier to give them an analogy related to something they are familiar with.

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One thing that you have to consider is that some forums and categories might have post permissions attached to them. For example, many Hubzilla forums restrict creating new posts to members of the forum. (To become a member of a forum, you would need to connect to or follow the forum, and then be allowed to join by the administrator, either automatically or by admin approval.) In that case, not everyone can create a new top level post. There may also be comment restrictions as well, regarding who can comment on a post in the forum.

If you were to cross post between multiple forums or categories, if you want them to be synced, you would have to take into account the relevant permissions, and decide what to do with posts that don’t conform.

One option is for the admin of a forum to allow which other forums they allow a full sync (ignoring existing forum permissions and providing an exception for other trusted forums). If a cross-posted post comes from a non-trusted forum, then no exceptions will be allowed and the existing forum permissions are enforced.

Of course, nothing has to be done about this and we can just let the forums enforce their own permissions. But if we don’t communicate these permissions, some users might not realize why their cross-post has been silently dropped since the UI does not make it clear that a user had to be a member of certain forums to post to that forum.

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