I came here to post that link. Now I don’t have to. :)

The design flaw with “Quote Tweets” is right there in the name, but not where you think it is. Is it not the “Quote” part, but the “Tweets” part. Twitter inherently works differently than the services in the Fediverse.

The design flaw of Twitter is its algorithm combined with that it is advertising driven. An algorithm that benefits from people interacting with posts. An algorithm that repeatedly pushes controversial things in front of as many eyeballs as possible, to create even more interaction. If you didn’t (re-) act the first time, it keeps doing it. It does that because it means more eyeballs watching ads too. That is what they sell.

Mastodon and the Fediverse does not have an algorithm nor do they have ads. Here a post, regardless of content, gets its slot in the chronological timeline and…well, that’s it.

To be able to quote on the other hand has been a feature of many different platforms/services for tens of years. It is one tool of many to enrich a dialogue, to make a point or to reinforce an argument with external facts etc. It has been used for years without the Twitter-like abuse, because unlike Twitter most services/platforms do not have an algorithm infested at its core, just users who wish to interact in the most sociable and simple way possible.

Further to that, in none of the Fediverse services that, as pointed out earlier in the thread, has quote capability does it work like it does on Twitter. Why? Because people here decided to do it “right”. Here a quote isn’t about someone who isn’t informed of that you’ve quoted them. In fact, depending on their notification settings they can see if someone has quoted them just as easily as they can see if someone has replied to their post. They can keep an eye on their own post, even interact with more/new users that get to see the original, if they wish. The original poster still has control.

Currently that doesn’t work on Mastodon though. On Mastodon people still quote others, it isn’t like it isn’t happening already today. They are sadly forced to “hack” their way around it in an ugly way that

a) Doesn’t have to involve the original poster at all, or send a notification to a user that someone has quoted them, and that there now is a discussion about their post “over there”. The creator of the original post has absolutely no control.

b) Is really quite bad for accessibility (turning text into images for example is very rarely a great thing)

EDIT: correcting spelling

Just thinking out loud: Does ActivityPub say anything about titles? I’m asking as I don’t know, but I am also thinking whichever route that is the closest to “the standard” probably should be the preferred route.

Ideally all Fediverse services should be using an as-close-as-possible interpretation of ActivityPub. If that standard in turn is lacking, that is the problem that should be solved.

The Fediverse in general and Mastodon in particular lack the functionality of “groups”, which surely is one of the most asked-for features for both Mastodon and the rest of the services. With Lemmy the Fediverse can get groups (of sorts). However, if Lemmy bend-over backwards just for Mastodon it might set a precedence in “you/me/we are all on Mastodon” as opposed to “we are all in the Fediverse, using ActivityPub”.

If on the other hand “everyone but Mastodon” is (or could be) using titles already, the Mastodon leadership (hah) has to look at how badly they want the groups-functionality, and if they therefore would be willing to adapt to Lemmy, ActivityPub and the rest of the services that are closer to the actual standard.

Perhaps can find a way forward at the bottom of this link: https://docs.akkoma.dev/stable/installation/otp_en/

There is a comparison here too: https://akkoma.dev/AkkomaGang/akkoma/

Hah, forgot to say: Yes, the shoutbox and chat was removed. As I run an instance-of-one in any case I don’t miss them.

Also, Akkoma dev has made friends with the Glitch-social people and so the “advanced” Mastodon-fe is updated and available again. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles in functionality from Akkomas pleroma-fe though. Also, for those inclined, there is a soapbox-fe too. I don’t run it so don’t know much about it, other than that it looks simplistic and nice, but I prefer pleroma-fe (in Akkomas version) so haven’t tried it.

Firstly, this will have to be from memory of my old (actually current stable version) install of Pleroma, and things I have reacted positively on:

• There are back-end changes. Not sure what impact they have had, but I’ve seen the Pleroma devs migrating in things to Pleroma from Akkoma, so obviously some things have been solved by Akkoma.
• Regular updates - not something Pleroma can be accused of. Akkoma does a new release the second Saturday each month, and has a clear roadmap everyone can see (good expectation management).
• Admin options in admin-fe has been cleared up, and actually work. Still areas that could do with improvements (as they are inherited from Pleroma), but I remember settings that were confusing and/or plainly didn’t work for me in Pleroma “just works” in Akkoma. Possibly related to first point in this list.
• The rest is GUI things (and now I am only talking about pleroma-fe). I don’t know how, or who, configured the instances you’ve been looking at, but I have not encountered any other micro-blogging service, on the Fediverse or elsewhere, with as much functionality before (I have accounts on “everything”, for testing).
• Tree-view of threads (an optional account setting)
• A “floating” bar saying “Collapse” that always stay within reach if you’ve “folded out” a thread which turned out to be 3 miles long and you’re not looking forward to scrolling the next 5 minutes.
• Search (full-text) works fine (IMHO). Was a hit-and-miss in my old Pleroma instance, and could previously generate different results on repeated searches. With Akkoma it seems to “just work”.
• Lists and list management - massive improvement. Could still be improved further, but a huge step up from Pleroma.
• Follow hashtags
• Translations (I use DeepL)

A lot of the rest it has inherited from Pleroma, which was good to start with. Pretty much everything can be styled (except easily changing fonts unless you wish to code) from GUI settings (I run a Dracula inspired self-styled theme). It has Misskey emojis/animations, but I don’t care (at all) about those. Quote posting is the same as in Pleroma. It has all the filter-options from Pleroma too. There is nothing in Pleroma that isn’t in Akkoma. There’s lots in Akkoma that isn’t in Pleroma.

Most importantly, compared to Mastodon and pretty much all other fediverse micro-blogging services: it dynamically shows the contents in all threads, and on profiles. If it doesn’t have the stuff you are looking at (say, a profile), it runs off to get it for you, and within a couple of seconds it has populated that profile, instead of staying empty (like on Mastodon, Misskey, Calckey etc). The same goes for threads: it goes out to collect replies from people even if you haven’t seen them (or, their instances) before, instead of staying empty/invisible (like on Mastodon/Calckey). So…“proper” Federation.

But yeah, something like that. :)

It is indeed what I’m running these days. Loving it. It is like someone has made a “paper cuts”-list of Pleroma and then “just fixed it”, and then added small sweet little things that make for better usability. Great stuff. Made me finally sort out a Liberapay account so I could show my support in ways that matter.

This is what that settings panel looks like for ActivityPub, within Akkoma.

Pretty sure it is a group. I can search for it, and see its “profile” page, which is the same profile as over here in Lemmy. Only shows “Request Sent!” since yesterday when I tried to add it.

Hmm…found the setting alright, but it was already on “off”, so I guess it is something else then.

Thanks. I shall have a look. It is an Akkoma instance-of-one with only me on it, so I am the admin.

Wait, what? I tried to follow a couple of Lemmy groups from my Akkoma (fork of Pleroma) account. It shows as ”requested follow” in Akkoma. A day later I still haven’t actually followed the groups in question. You say there is a switch somewhere I can flick? In Lemmy, or in my other service(s)?

Yeah, but even though that is cool I’m not sure how well that will scale when Lemmy picks up lots of users.

From a Lemmy users perspective: You have a cool link that you wish others get to see. To post it you need to pick a group where it fits in. It might not be the groups you normally hang in. Or it is, and the group might have 100’s (in the future maybe 1000’s) of contributors and the group stream is moving rather fast.

From another Fediverse service: That Lemmy group you started following is flooding your home stream as it is really active. Sadly you also published a Lemmy post in a group you don’t normally hang in, but you now have to follow to be able to boost your own post in it to the further Fediverse.

I can imagine how that quickly creates both noise and scalability issues.

Indeed. I just now came back here to Lemmy to see if that had changed, seeing as I could find my Lemmy user (this account) from my Akkoma instance, and I could press “follow” over on Akkoma. That apparently sends back to Akkoma that my Akkoma user has “requested” to follow my Lemmy user, but I can see no trace of that over here at Lemmy, and here is no way to “approve” followers.

It would be great if I could follow my Lemmy user from my other Fediverse accounts and then re-post (boost) my entries from Lemmy to the further Fediverse without having to make a separate post about it. Much like Pixelfed works.

I haven’t actually had to touch the code of it at all, so can’t answer for how the development community is. I have heard “Pleroma is like Mastodon Lite”, and indeed if I look at server resources that seems to be correct. That is however also the only place where I find Pleroma lighter than Mastodon. IMHO Pleroma has an added feature set compared to Mastodon that make it more competent than Mastodon out of the box, and even more so if you have admin rights.

I really like the old-school front-end (Pleroma-fe) too, but if that is not to everyones liking there is also Soapbox front-end (slick one content column “theme”) and, of course, there is also a front-end (included in the default Pleroma install) called Masto-fe, which literally is the Mastodon frontend (though a fork from Glitch I believe).

The one thing the default front-end doesn’t do that Mastodon does is “lists”, i.e. being able to group your contacts into lists. That functionality is actually in Pleroma though, and accessible from masto-fe as well as from Soapbox, so for some reason they have chosen not to show it on the default pleroma-fe.

The pleroma-fe you need to “fetch new posts” manually though, which can be irritating at times and a blessing at other times. If I wish for the feed to “flow” I switch over to masto-fe and it updates itself. Swapping between pleroma-fe and masto-fe is as easy as clicking a link in either.

Apart from Pleroma having a larger default post character count compared to a default install of Mastodon, it also has built-in chat (which is on top of “direct message” and other privacy groupings).

Also, for those that like to “skin” or “theme” their things (I do) it has quite comprehensive settings for doing exactly that when it comes to the default pleroma-fe. As Pleroma has great interconnectivity with Mastodon, Friendica (who is the king of the connectivity hill) and Pixelfed etc I have been really quite pleased with Pleroma.

Having said all of that, Friendica is currently my “main” service. As the Fediverse services are “algorithm” free (i.e. chronological) one can easily miss good content, due to not watching the screen as it flows past. In Friendica you can group and filter with great flexibility, which can slow down the “news feed” quite a bit, to make it readable. Also, as Friendica properly supports threading you can select to bump messages to the top based on activity in a thread (it will also highlight which message is new, as it, just like Lemmy, is possible to give a reply in the “middle” of the flow (just like this reply). In Friendica one doesn’t miss in what context a given post is made, because it is all there. In Mastodon/Pleroma it can take quite some work to back-pedal a long thread.

I “came back” to the Fediverse not too long ago (fed up with Big Tech services) and started exploring the various ActivityPub services. I already had accounts on Mastodon and Diaspora. When looking in to self-hosting (as that would be the “ultimate federation”) I learnt that Mastodon required a server (in my case virtual) that I didn’t have the budget for. It simply wouldn’t compile on the small Digital Ocean instances and it ran like crap on the next one up too.

That made me look around for other alternatives. Today I have one instance of Pleroma running, which was dead easy to install as long as anyone has access to a sudo commandline. Literally copy/paste between windows and it was done.

I also have an instance of Friendica running. It was slightly more involved to install as I have a baseline of wanting to use HTTPS, Nginx etc (which wasn’t part of the standard instructions, though there is info out there to find), but it also went well. Both instances have been running for a couple of weeks, admittedly with only me as the sole user of either, but I follow a couple of hundred people on each service.

I have since learnt about Misskey, which I have been test driving on a public server and been quite impressed by how slick it feels. I shall see if I can bother setting up a server for that too, hehe.

Pixelfed I am using on a public instance so haven’t tried installing that. Have (just during last week) contemplated on if I should run various little services like Lemmy, Searx etc on one of my servers already up, as they don’t seem stressed out at all today. Haven’t investigated how resource hungry Lemmy or Searx are though.