Fediverse

I have decided to write down the reasoning behind me not (yet) closing my Facebook account. Which I really want to do, but feel like I cannot (yet).

My background: software developer.

What I use Facebook for: to keep up to date with family and friends.

In other words: I do not need "outside" people to see my posts. Not everything has to be shared with everyone for me.

I have noticed a lot of people opening up bluesky accounts "because it is not meta", (which is a good thing, obviously).

The only issue is that the fediverse is a twitter (I refuse the name X) platform. Everything is public. On friendica, I can at least control who follows me, but I cannot determine who can see my posts.

So in my case, what happens is that some people might open a bsky/fediverse account, realize that everything is public and not use it again.

Why does the fediverse not have a privacy control to limit who can see and interact with your posts? While I do realize that with the Federation protocol everything is sort of public, this is the thing that keeps me from moving from fb to fediverse.

Today I noticed a huge wall of spam from UniversalMonk from 2 different accounts and didn't initially think much of it and blocked their communities but more spam came from different communities.

At this point I checked and saw that they had created several communities which then led me down the rabbit hole to discover that their posts had almost entirely covered the new posts page of both sh.itjust.works and lemm.ee. Later on I discovered that they're posting right-wing propaganda and misinformation from breitbart, foxnews you name it.

He's already caused and stirred shit 2 months ago and clearly I can see why now.

At this point it's difficult to believe that UniversalMonk will learn proper netiquette in: not post spamming, being considerate to others, and not sharing right-wing extremist content that no one wants.

In the last few months i really gotten into the whole Fediverse thing, but i noticed that, despite it being the most popular Social Media Platform, there isn't a TikTok alternative. I know there is Loops, but it's not open source or federated yet, so it's not really an option. Why is that?

🚀 A little guide on how to communicate with #Lemmy from #Mastodon #Friendica #Hubzilla #Sharkey etc

(this is the English translation of this German post: anonsys.net/display/bf69967c-1… If something is linguistically incorrect or incomprehensible, please let me know)

Lemmy is a kind of forum software in the #Fediverse: You can subscribe to forums (called ‘communities’ in Lemmy), share links and participate in discussions. @Tealk and I have described it in more detail (in German) here.

On the one hand, you can follow #Lemmy accounts, in which case the posts will appear in your timeline and you can reply to them, share them, etc.
On the other hand, you can also create posts in Lemmy communities from Mastodon etc.

Follow a community:
The easiest way is to type the account name in full into the search or copy the URL into the search field. This applies to communities (e.g. [ät]fediversede@feddit.de) and Lemmy accounts (e.g. @caos is my Lemmy account) as well as to individual posts in Lemmy (e.g. feddit.org/post/201081 is a post in Lemmy).

Creating posts in communities:
You can create posts in Lemmy communities by tagging the community account
(It should be a public post)
If the community account is tagged with @, it will share the post and the post will also appear in the forum.
For example, this is a post I created from Mastodon in feddit's #Tischtennis forum: metalhead.club/@caos/112749905… ... and this is how it is displayed in Lemmy: feddit.org/post/556495

The only thing to note from Mastodon and Akkoma etc. is: The beginning of the post/the first paragraph becomes the title of the forum post, as Mastodon does not have a heading field. (see also: Instructions Creating a post from Mastodon)

So it is best to start the post like this (see image 1):

This is my headline (as descriptive a title as possible)
@community@lemmy-instance
This is the further text, link etc.
if necessary a picture (only in the initial post a picture is transferred from Mastodon to Lemmy, between Lemmy and Friendica all images in answers are transferred in the meantime)

Send post to multiple communities / groups at the same time
The post can only be sent to one Lemmy community at a time. If several community accounts are tagged, the post will only appear in the last one mentioned. If several different group accounts are tagged in a post, the Lemmy account should come first. According to my tests, it works in the following order: 1. lemmy community 2. friendica forum 3. a.gup.pe group . Then all groups share the post, otherwise it doesn't work with all of them so far.

Search for communities
You can search for interesting forums/communities either on an instance page or here in the ‘Lemmy Explorer’ (see image 2).
If you are interested, enter the URL in the search field and follow the account.

If you have found an interesting community, you can copy its URL into the search field to follow the community account (see image 3) or enter the handle of the account in the form @communityname@lemmy-instance (in Friendica etc. also with !).

The past posts are then often not displayed, but those that come in the future will appear in your timeline.
What is not possible from Mastodon etc. is to create your own community. This requires a Lemmy or kbin account. Otherwise almost everything works (except for pictures in replies, which are not federated, see in detail (in German) here).

If you follow many or very active communities, it can get a bit confusing, especially in Mastodon. A clearer view is available if you view it on the page of the community itself, i.e. open it externally in the browser.
(the original URL of posts is sometimes hidden behind the #Fediverse logo)

There are also other public groups in the #Fediverse, e.g. Friendica-Forums and kbin-Magazines, which work in a similar way.

@fediverse

Follow from the fediverse at https://podcast.james.network/@linuxprepper/follow or access rss feed directly

When I upload a short video to Pixelfed, I don't get a preview image. The video is mp4 H.264. Is there a solution? I would find Pixelfed super as an Instagram replacement. But without a preview, it's not that nice. I gave an example as a link. What experiences do you have with pixelfed and videos?

https://pixelfed.de/stickbro

jointhefediverse.net seems to be a commonly linked resource for directing people to join the Fediverse.

Curiously, it does not list Lemmy under the list of Reddit alternatives. Their GitHub README explains why.

Previous relevant discussion: https://lemmy.ml/post/78808

I would like to know if there's any (automatic) ways of translating the instances which are not my native language (English). I think many of them would be well worth participating in, or at least being able to lightly skim over.

I know many get annoyed by them, and end up filtering/blocking. I don't find myself annoyed by them or anything like that, I just feel like I'm missing out a bit. I think if there was an easier and more inclusive way to join in with these communities it would be a great benefit to the fediverse.

It seems that the time for a facebook replacement is now, just based on the sense I have gotten. A lot of my friends, who would previously have clung onto facebook through all the terrible things it did over the years, are now looking for alternatives. The current consensus for most is joining Bluesky. I would love to be able to recommend them to the fediverse equivalent, Friendica, but it is nowhere close to ready for primetime.

So my question is this. How can we work to make friendica more user friendly and develop it's features to a point that it can be a true facebook alternative? Or, do we need to come up with a new platform entirely, possibly one that is forked from Friendica, that has the required features. Specifically, these are the things I think need work:

• Simplify user sign up. No one cares about servers, and I think this is one of the biggest thorns in the side of the fediverse in general. Make a single landing page, where you type in your location and will be auto assigned to a server based on the closest one to you. If one does not exist within a certain radius, a server is instantly created (details of this mechanism tbd), and a member of a dedicated team of admins will be assigned as a moderator of that server. This is just an idea, but we need to greatly simply the user sign up process and make scaling easier.
• EDIT: Nevermind, it was an issue with the wrong version I downloaded. I did find a couple apps, but both were still in somewhat early development: Raccoon - https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/com.livefast.eattrash.raccoonforfriendica Relatica - https://gitlab.com/mysocialportal/relatica ~~A working mobile app. There is only one app I know of that is not even in beta, and I couldn't get it work at all. Most people will not use a site if it doesn't have an app.~~
• Clean up of basic functionalities. Default to the most intuitive and user friendly options (no delete box enabled on posts/comments that aren't yours, infinite feed on by default, prominent option dropdown to turn on darkmode or different styles, etc). I should not be taken to someone's page when I click the "follow" button. Following should also be a two way street, and require consent. You cannot see someone's content on facebook unless they approve your friend request. This is how it should be on friendica. Improve groups. I see they exist, but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to browse or search for them. Stop notifying me after I make a post. I know I made the post, I don't need to be notified. Develop more appealing UI/UX overall that is easy for a layman to understand and use. Allow editing to show updates without needing to refresh the page. Etc, etc, etc.
• Add expected functionalities. Tagging users, live videos, gifs, reaction emojis, marketplace, public events, unshare, reshare with commentary, recommend friends from contacts, etc.

I know this is a lot, but this is my honest assessment of the situation. This is why I mentioned potentially creating a new platform. What do people think? Are these changes doable within the friendica framework, or should we start from scratch? What are the thoughts on a facebook alternative in general? I definitely think there is value in enabling people to have a page on the internet that is "them", that people can add and keep up with their life. That is the value that facebook provides, but the existing fediverse doesn't really have such capabilities right now. How can we change that?

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/30906218

A video essay about the Fediverse that I made. I'm by no means an expert I've only been in the Fediverse for a few months, but I felt very passionate about it and wanted to share that with others. Lemme know what you think :)

I plan to end my Facebook account before January 19. I like the format and would like something similar in the Fediverse. Also, I need a good Facebook alternative I can show people when trying to convince them to leave Facebook.

So what is the best Facebook alternative as of 2025? Frendica, Diaspora or Pleroma? Or something new and promising?

Hey everyone! I'm excited to introduce BotKit, a new framework specifically designed for creating standalone ActivityPub bots.

What makes BotKit different from typical Mastodon bot approaches is that it creates fully independent ActivityPub servers. This means your bots aren't constrained by platform-specific limitations like character limits or attachment restrictions. Each bot is a complete ActivityPub server in itself.

The API is designed to be extremely straightforward. You can create a complete bot in a single TypeScript file, with intuitive event handlers for follows, mentions, replies, and more. Here's a quick example:

const bot = createBot<void>({
  username: "mybot",
  name: "My Bot",
  summary: text`A bot powered by BotKit.`,
  kv: new MemoryKvStore(),
  queue: new InProcessMessageQueue(),
});

bot.onMention = async (session, message) => {
  await message.reply(text`Hi, ${message.actor}!`);
};

BotKit currently supports Deno, with plans to add Node.js and Bun support in future releases. It leverages all the federation capabilities of Fedify but abstracts away the complexity, letting you focus purely on your bot's behavior.

The framework is still in early development, but we'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback. Feel free to try it out and let us know what kind of bots you build with it!

• Repository: https://github.com/dahlia/botkit
• Documentation: https://botkit.fedify.dev/

cross-posted from: https://rblind.com/post/3476242

As part of OurBlind's continued efforts to provide accessible online spaces for the blind and visually impaired community, we've developed custom themes for Lemmy, to use on our Lemmy instance on Rblind, and to make available for others, in keeping with the themes' license terms and the spirit of free and open source software.

If you're reading this on www.rblind.com and are not signed in, you're using RBlind-Dark. We hope you're enjoying it! If you log in, you can switch to RBlind-Light. Once logged in, go to your username, then Settings and, use the Themes dropdown to make your selection: we suggest RBlind-Dark or RBlind-Light at the end of the list.

Why these themes matter to us

We started this Lemmy instance back in 2023, prompted by the Reddit API protests. Reddit Inc., the company that controls the website our community r/Blind is on, had announced policy changes that made the apps most of us used to participate in the Reddit community impossible to maintain. During this time it became clear to us and many other online communities that a corporate-owned platform would always be subject to pressures that are contrary to our needs. We launched this site as our blind-friendly home base in the fediverse, a decentralized and often self-hosted social media platform.

The goal of having our own home server was always to be able to make our own decisions about the software we run on it. One of those decisions is that the visual styling should always be comfortable for low-vision users and other disabled people, as part of our core audience. That meant designing and providing themes that, within our technical limitations, conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

How we designed our Lemmy themes

OurBlind admins contracted Travis, a talented graphic designer from within the community, for this project. Check out his website here. Together we went over specific requirenments within WCAG and the site's usage, colors, layout, preliminary testing, and communication, to develop both the themes themselves and the framework for future work and sharing.

How these themes meet our goals

In short, the new themes ensure high contrast, colorblind friendly colors, readable fonts, and appropriately-sized and readable buttons and links.

Following are examples of the home feed using the new themes.

RBlind-Dark example

RBlind-Light example

Time for testing and feedback

These have been audited by OurBlind admins, but that's only part of the validation process. If you're using this site and have low vision, colorblindness, a cognitive or a motor disability, consider providing feedback. Do they work well given your needs and use case? Do you like them? Does something not work quite right? Comment below or fill out the anonymous survey. Don't hesitate to comment if you're not a member of this instance or not disabled - we want these to be helpful to as many people as possible. Thank you!

We'll be collecting feedback and open to revisions until February 1st 2025. Even after that, we'll still be interested in your experience, but will take longer to respond and adjust.

How to use these themes on your own instance

As mentioned, this project is all about the value of free and open source software in ensuring control and autonomy. We're making this our home in the fediverse and we want to be good neighbors. We already offer the broader community a place for discussions around blindness, but we also want to contribute back.

These themes are licensed under GNU AFFERO General Public License and available at the Codeberg repo to be used or modified. Updates to the themes that come as a result of user feedback will be available there. Definitely give Travis a star and consider hiring for your own design needs, he's been a delight to work with.

The repo is also mirrored on GitHub for accessibility reasons.

Thanks, from RBlind

This community's journey has been long and thrilling, across three platforms and over a decade. Everybody on the admin and moderation team has deeply benefitted from and grown with the community. These themes are a humble gift to our members and our neighbors on the fediverse. May they make all our lives that bit more comfortable.

I can see the !fallout@lemmy.world and join, but I can't see !fallout76@lemmy.world unless I search anonymous. Is it my instance? I've felt that finding communities is hard before. I've been looking for a place to post art requests, 3d model requests, chat about certain books, etc. I haven't found the communities, but I hear others refer to them as if they are there. Is my instance limited? How can I find out?

Edit: I found fallout76 on an anonymous search. When I search logged in to my account it does not show. But I clicked my own link, and it let me hit subscribe.