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Mastodon.technology Shutdown

ashfurrow.com

381–390 of 604 posts

Re: Mastodon.technology Shutdown

#381

This is one of the strengths of a federated system run by people who aren't looking to profit. Firstly, they care about their users and are more likely to take difficult decisions, like the one Ash has made, for the good of themselves and their users. In doing so everyone involved has time to make an orderly move. Secondly, the service survives. Mastodon didn't shut down. The Fediverse didn't close. One beloved insta…

> Secondly, the service survives. Mastodon didn't shut down. The Fediverse didn't close. One beloved instance bows out and whilst it is a loss to many, their network endures as they thank the admin(s) and move on.

I'm understanding that the data is gone and you're bragging about the observation that the protocol still functions?

I'm not sure this is an aspect any of us care about?

I think we can all observe that a common interface for posting and interacting with people will remain and that no corporation right now can unilaterally change that. I don't think pointing that out in a thread about all of the data on that server being gone is a strength.

Re: Mastodon.technology Shutdown

#382
post #45
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$1500/mo does not even begin to cover a single 24/7 oncall devops person’s rate.

I think capableweb's comment is an unintentionally good example of the fact that a lot of people don't understand how much it takes to run these sorts of things. The comment was in the dimension of money, but I'm sure there is a similar lack of information attending the dimensions of people and time as well.

I think bilbo0s's comment is an unintentionally good example of the fact that a lot of people don't understand how little it takes to run these sort of things if you know what you're doing.

"The cloud" has ruined people thinking that everything has to cost 10x or even 100x compared to what it would cost if you just spend some time learning about administration yourself and set up a dedicated instance instead of using anything cloud.

As an exercise, without looking it up beforehand, what kind of hardware do you think HN runs on and how much they pay for that per month?

Also, $1500/month is a proper salary in many places in the world. Not everyone lives in a metropolitan city where wages tend to be much, much higher.

Re: Mastodon.technology Shutdown

#383
post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "social network" is a networked system for leaving and retrieving messages. Again, it is not a group of friends. It is a messaging system for a group of friends, just like a map is a graphical system for navigating a piece of terrain.

Sorry, wait, also you're definition of social network is incorrect. It /is/ a group of friends. It's a network made up of social relationships. Think of it like business networking, but for your friends. The connection itself is what matters.

That's what "social networking" is, but not what a "social networking website" is. Social networks don't require computers or websites.

Re: Mastodon.technology Shutdown

#385
post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "social network" is a networked system for leaving and retrieving messages. Again, it is not a group of friends. It is a messaging system for a group of friends, just like a map is a graphical system for navigating a piece of terrain.

It seems as though you're putting emphasis on the wrong thing. Mastodon clearly believe the emphasis is on the _network_, as in, the people you follow and who follow you. But I'm not entirely sure why you're arguing semantics with me. It can, by their definition, be considered migration.

> It seems as though you're putting emphasis on the wrong thing.

No, I'm just trying to be clear. If you can't move your messages in a messenger, you're not doing migration.

> It can, by their definition, be considered migration.

Their definition doesn't even require software. If they (and you) are trying to say that Mastodon is a group of friends, I'm going to beg to differ and say that it is a computer program that supports messaging.

edit: and why I'm going on an on about it? I'm clearly being persnickety, but because I think it's an important distinction, especially irt expectations that a user would have. The mystery for me is why you would insist that a messaging system that can't migrate messages has implemented migration.

Re: Mastodon.technology Shutdown

#386
post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like matrix solves a different problem, I believe that ActivityPub and Matrix can coexist. Honestly the very late game plan for the projects I'm working on is to be able gather under a single umbrella a suite of opensource applications to create a meta social network pod that can be easily launched in a similar way to Google apps on a custom domain (ActivityPub and Matrix for a starters). I think there could b…

I'm working on flockingbird.social, a "linkedin for the fediverse"[1]. Aside from a job-search bot, I haven't written many software, and it looks like what you are working on might actually be a very solid foundation. It's a pity my go isn't that established (rust and ruby here) but certainly will consider this going forward. Huddling around common base libraries is also certainly something the fediverse needs, rathe…

If you're working in rust I would recommend to have a look at the go-ap/processing[1] package, which provides a close representation of what the ActivityPub spec details about how to handle each Activity type. It's not complete at the moment, but it should be readable (I think) even for non Go developers and, in my experience it's not the vocabulary that trips people up.

For your use case you probably need to define your own custom ActivityPub types and logic, but for the default ones, it's a good starting point (I hope). :)

The go-ap org on github has a mailing list you can reach if you have questions or feedback.

[1] https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/go-ap/processing#CreateActivit...

Re: Mastodon.technology Shutdown

#387
post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems as though you're putting emphasis on the wrong thing. Mastodon clearly believe the emphasis is on the _network_, as in, the people you follow and who follow you. But I'm not entirely sure why you're arguing semantics with me. It can, by their definition, be considered migration.

> It seems as though you're putting emphasis on the wrong thing. No, I'm just trying to be clear. If you can't move your messages in a messenger, you're not doing migration. > It can, by their definition, be considered migration. Their definition doesn't even require software. If they (and you) are trying to say that Mastodon is a group of friends, I'm going to beg to differ and say that it is a computer program that…

It's not a messenger, though. It's a social network.

And you can disagree with that, just as I do you.

Post migration still supports messaging.

Re: Mastodon.technology Shutdown

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just a guess, but probably various subreddits and Discord servers. It's probably not the same because the platforms are very different, but people will find new platforms even if the conversation changes due to different forum/messaging UI designs.

"and Discord servers" vomits in my mouth a bit

Could be more different. In less tech-focused communities, the migration that follows a forum closure goes to Facebook groups instead of subreddits, and Slack channels instead of Discord.

Re: Mastodon.technology Shutdown

#390
post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems as though you're putting emphasis on the wrong thing. Mastodon clearly believe the emphasis is on the _network_, as in, the people you follow and who follow you. But I'm not entirely sure why you're arguing semantics with me. It can, by their definition, be considered migration.

> It seems as though you're putting emphasis on the wrong thing. No, I'm just trying to be clear. If you can't move your messages in a messenger, you're not doing migration. > It can, by their definition, be considered migration. Their definition doesn't even require software. If they (and you) are trying to say that Mastodon is a group of friends, I'm going to beg to differ and say that it is a computer program that…

You're not making a distinction, you're classifying it incorrectly. Containing a messaging component does not make it a messenger.

It's a social network, it clearly believes that the connections between people is the most important part of its offering. It can migrate a user and their connections.

Again, I would enjoy it if it did take posts, too, but clearly they disagree. I'm not going to say that they cannot claim it to be a migration as a result of that.

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