(digital) doodling a little

#c2s #activitypub #ios #fediverse #wordpress

Resurrected the nodeinfo helper service for the #FedBOX generic #ActivityPub service.

Hopefully this will lead to better integration with other federated services, but I find very little practical use for these hamfisted .well-known APIs integrated into the fediverse...

Don’t miss Caleb James DeLisle’s talk “The case for the unattributed message” — a sharp, surprising look at anonymous imageboards and why protocol designers should pay attention. Essential viewing for Fediverse builders and internet-culture nerds! #PeerTube #ActivityPub #Fediverse #InternetCulture #Anonymity #Privacy #Decentralization #English
https://conf.tube/videos/watch/07913bfd-7f6b-4b44-84c2-8df1ef41ccf9

@django @liaizonwakest ⁂ @voboda

When looking through the lens of Social experience design we can say that the fediverse-we-have and the #ActivityPub social network promise in the W3C specs, have become diverged to the extent they are hard forks.

A #SX solution is said to exist as soon as you can write it down on a sticky note in the form of a vision, need, objective, or solution.

The AS/AP fediverse sticky note reads: "The future of social networking is decentralized".

The fediverse-we-have note reads: "Decentralized microblogging"

Besides that both sticky notes express a tech focus, exist in the technosphere not sociosphere, they express no vision.. A place where we want to be, and why. There is complete misconception both on technical, let alone social direction, and that leads to endless confusion and again those mismatched expectations.

App devs now try to hammer their apps onto "Decentralized microblogging" in hopes "future of social networking" somehow emerges. That is unlikely.

Dear fellow or potential fellow gotosocial instance admins,
I've come up with a novel way to set up a #gotosocial server behind a reverse proxy, which avoids the use of making new firewalling rules - both on a VPS, and creating port forwarding on one's home router. This method is ideal for minimizing the cost of running one's own #ActivityPub/#Mastodon server, in a way that leverages inexpensive fast storage on the backend (say, on a #RaspberryPi 5, 2GB of RAM, with an NVMe). As many valiant and praiseworthy Mastodon server admins might attest to, renting cloud VPS' can cost a lot, especially when storing many tens or hundreds of GB of user data.

My method avoids the need of forwarding ports 443 and 80 into one's home LAN, using DNAT (on the VPS) and port forwarding (on one's home router). In a nutshell, it's a novel use of #Wireguard, in conjunction with #nginx on the frontend, and gotosocial on the backend. This can save the cost of renting a dedicated VPS, to get the exclusive use of ports 443 and 80, in conjunction with static IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. My method optimizes on reliability and cheapness, but it's not the most secure - decryption and re-encryption happens on the VPS, before the data travels down the Wireguard tunnel. This exposes the data to any underlying hypervisor at one's hosting company. So full disclosure there.

I've run my method by the helpful gotosocial furries in their #Matrix Help chatroom (and I'm grateful for their help to debug subtle warts the method had), and got their blessing, at least to the technical soundness of the method.

I have a testing instance of gotosocial 0.21.0 set up with this new method: https://g.toque.im

I'm the user @owlG Toque, the Owl on that instance, should you wish to befriend me there.

I'll make a longer blog post on this in the days to come, and post it in a reply to this post. (This is a cross-post of the original:)
https://autistics.life/@d1/116142628225937092

#DevOps #Linux #infosec #SelfHosting #DataSovereignty #OpenSource

RE: https://indieweb.social/@laurenshof/116103545853411360

This thread talks about going back to an #ActivityPub users's home server to validate a user's content, because you can't trust that the event you got for it is unmodified.

But you can't trust what the home server tells you the content of the message is either! There's nothing stopping a home server from serving a modified version of your content every time it's requested, say, to inject ads into it, or censor bits it doesn't like.

Or to just completely fabricate new content from you.

So happy to see that #Mastodon has become a member of the W3C and is now coming to the renewed #ActivityPub standardization activity.

From today's notes: https://hackmd.io/PaXqEd7-T7CLULV9Y4nwcA?view

Week in Fediverse 2026-03-06

Servers

- Hollo v0.7.5
- Lemmy v0.19.16
- Ktistec v3.3.2
- Stegodon v1.8.1
- GoToSocial v0.21.1
- ActivityPub for WordPress v8.0.0
- gathio v1.6.2
- Misskey v2026.3.0
- Castopod v1.15.5
- flohmarkt v0.16.1
- NodeBB v4.9.1
- PieFed v1.6.9
- Lemmy Development Update February 2026
- FediProfile: A linktree for the fediverse - ActivityPub enabled profiles

Clients

- Sengi v1.9.0
- Summit v1.79.1
- Blorp v1.10.8

Tools and Plugins

- Poduptime v6.3.0
- share.joinmastodon.org: Share widget for Mastodon

Protocol

- FEP-82f6: Actor statuses (Final comments)

Articles

- Gotosocial Reverse Proxy With Wireguard
- FR#156 – Share Where?

-----

#WeekInFediverse #Fediverse #ActivityPub

Previous edition: https://mitra.social/objects/019ca0a0-4fce-c180-89e4-071244c530a4

@evanEvan Prodromou @dariusDarius Kazemi what about switching to YAML for #ActivityPub 2.0

https://www.w3.org/TR/yaml-ld-10/

why? because we could!

😅 </irony>

#fediverse #socialwebwg

One downside to Mastadon for me so far: the servers I join keep shutting down. 😕

I figure joining the main place will increase my odds of longevity! Also got #activitypub going on my #wordpress website, but still haven't configured after installing last year 😕

I guess I'm just usually adverse to all social no matter who runs the platforms

But I'd also love to see the fruition of a truly open web, so 'be the change you wish to see'. 👋

The #ActivityPub for #WordPress team is just crushing it. They just released 8.0.0 of the integration. It’s getting better all the time.

Huge thanks to @pfefferleMatthias Pfefferle for amazing work!

https://activitypub.blog/2026/03/05/8-0-0-smash-that-like-button/

#gotosocial was really nice and easy to setup - but does not have a web client built-in. I would prefer that.

can anyone recommend a lightweight #ActivityPub server+client, will probably be max 5-10 users?

snac2 looks good, but i think i might have to fiddle with the stylesheet quite a bit..

is misskey good?

halp

#askfedi #smallweb #selfhost #yunohost

I'm making an ActivityPub server for distributing transit alerts 🎉 The tool is completely open-source and fetches alerts from GTFS-realtime Service Alerts feeds

Official instance: https://transit.alerts.social
Currently works with:
@kingcountymetro
@commtrans
@soundtransit

I expect to add a lot more agencies to the instance in the near-ish future—want to validate more before going wider

GitHub: https://github.com/kona314/transit-fedilerts

#GTFS #GTFSrealtime #ActivityPub #fediverse #transit

I started a #zotero group library focused on research about #activitypub, #decentralization, #affordances, Mastodon, migration, #moderation, and #newcomers.

Collaborators welcome! #TheorizingTheFediverse #TheoryOfMastodon #twittermigration

https://www.zotero.org/groups/4861035/fediverse_observatory/library

@smallcircles🫧 socialcoding.. "Even more remarkable is the near complete absence of the #ActivityPub developer community in mingling in the social side of the discussion."

Once you've been here for a little longer you'll realise this statement isn't the case.

Even more remarkable is the near complete absence of the #ActivityPub developer community in mingling in the social side of the discussion.

To learn how #fedizens actually *experience* this here fediverse. A #fediverse which results from them tying their apps together, to hopefully get more than the sum of individual parts. By means of facilitating #interoperability, technically speaking. But it involves more than getting that feature across the wire to the next app.

There's exists a clear gap between #sociosphere and #technosphere, where the latter must serve the former to bring real solutions. Otherwise it is all apps and not much seamless social fabric to navigate. No peopleverse anywhere in sight. Just apps and users of them.

The apps see great success, and I enjoy their use a lot. But I don't see a future for the app-centric fediverse where it comes to providing mankind the future of #SocialNetworking.

https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116109447243110037

#SX #SocialCoding #SocialWeb

@jwildeboerJan Wildeboer 😷

Besides falling in the thread by context collapse with an unsubstantive remark (which I don't blame you for, as such is the nature of this communication medium), I've been posting extensively on some of the wicked challenges we must overcome, and which determine the future(s) of the fediverse(s) we have today. There is a lot to ponder about. It is not all technical in nature, and I'd argue our problems are more on the social side of things even.

An open standard is a technical artifact. The reason why someone creates the next standard, is a social one. Coding is social.

What is very remarkable is that on a poll asking fedizens about their social experience, and discussing deeper issues in the various subthreads, not any of the #ActivityPub developers are mingling in.

This shows more than anything to me the app-centric nature of the fediverse, and how it evolves in a pure technosphere where app devs are in charge, the rest are users.

@foxFox Ritch 🇩🇪 @raphaelRaphael Lullis @julian @mariusormarius

@csarvenSarven Capadisli @strypey @FinchHavenFinchHaven sfba @naturzukunft2026naturzukunft

My arguments of the last two weeks that are spread about the timeline, boils down that Coding is Social, and code alone and passion for tech isn't always enough. Esp. if one depends on an entire technology ecosystem in a pioneering stage of its technology adoption lifecycle, that should evolve along with them. And which evolves on the basis of chaotic grassroots social dynamics that no one is able to steer onto a healthy adoption path. There are wicked problems to overcome, and they are mostly social in nature. I took notes on this for the fediverse years ago, and these challenges are still the same to this day, haven't been tackled.

https://discuss.coding.social/t/major-challenges-for-the-fediverse/67

We have a successful fediverse now, but also one who has limited its application area, hemmed themselves in wrt the original 'promise' of AP. With the #ActivityPub API there's opportunity to make step in place, and get some of that back. And go LD route too.

https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116109447243110037

I'm happy to see new canadian social media like https://ehnow.ca/ and https://hey.cafe #canada

But so far, I still think #activitypub #mastodon and the #fediverse are the superior options.

Mostly because it's #decentralized and #federated

But most non-tech (normal) people don't understand those concepts.

They don't wanna deal with the fediverse because the learning curve is too high and they simply don't understand.

They just want something simple and that works.

@johannabJohanna, CanCon variant

Read the blog post, and these are astute observation and valuable way of thinking about the networking environment, both offline as well as online, and how they interact together, how they intertwine. #SX envisions a peopleverse (which is a concept, not a name), a hypothetical space where the interaction is seamless and technology unobtrusively serves our day to day needs.

#PersonalSocialNetworking is a powerful instrument to design better social experiences.

Often the talk of the town in the #ActivityPub dev circles is about some feature or other, an app functionality and the extent to which it can be made interoperable. Technical implementation details dominate the discussion. And drama ensues on the broader #fediverse if social impact and other externalities are overlooked in an app design.

When comparing #microblogging we have today, it really is like sticky notes on the fridge, which fall off or are removed by people. And we project all communication modes onto them.

@johannabJohanna, CanCon variant

Oww, that is interesting. See here what brought me to the #ActivityPub fediverse ages ago on IT timescales..

https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116109998586728783

@smallcircles🫧 socialcoding.. @strypey @FinchHavenFinchHaven sfba @naturzukunft2026naturzukunft

Hi, author of some things here. I can assure you that that is more of that big bad "semantic web" stuff baked into #ActivityPub than there is to #SolidProject but people spin things as they want to for a narrative. That said, totally agree with you that do x and y will come is not enough. Folks conflate various variables or attempt to boil things down to a single perspective. The reality is far more strange and unpredictable.

@strypey @FinchHavenFinchHaven sfba @naturzukunft2026naturzukunft

For the sake of further clarity I should point to your starting post and this text:

> we need domain-specific applications that leverage ActivityPub’s full semantic potential

And remark that in my opinion and by observation, tapping the sign "Reminder: #ActivityPub is #JSONLD, folks!" isn't enough. Much more is needed than pointing to the #OpenStandards to win back developers minds to adopt #LinkedData. There is a high reluctance and resistance to adoption that must be overcome.

Referring again to that adoption chart I drafted the other day - which is about #SolidProject, but this is where LD is strong(est?) today - "build open standards, and they will come" isn't going so well. I hope that changes, as I have always been a fan of the *notion* of the semantic web. Yet in role of a technology decision maker, not ready to bet on it for a social networking environment.

@johannabJohanna, CanCon variant I for my part are very happy you find this interesting. Addressing the social side is not the most popular among developer-heavy crowds :)

Feel welcome to participate in our matrix channels or forum. The latter serves as a note-taking tool, or - under SX definition - as a commons based prosperity vault, aggregating value over time as people leave their 2 cents.

Note the SX Mindfulness principle of Social coding commons.. the movement moves, or it pauses awaiting value aggregation by the next participant. Timeless. Everything hinges on proactive participation (and on the basis of intrinsic motivation following Hedonic peer production principles).

I am mentioning, as at the moment the movement is slow-moving, since I am looking for income to sustain my work in the commons. In other words I must let the SX Sustainability principle prevail now :)

Here a link to the core principles of Social experience design:

https://coding.social/blog/reimagine-social/#core-principles

#SX #SocialCoding #SocialWeb #ActivityPub

We published #HolosDiscover 1.2.5, this release fixes RSS issues on some readers:

https://discover.holos.social/feeds

Also, for more transparency, we added a real-time stats page showing processed #ActivityPub activities, blocked instances and more.

https://discover.holos.social/stats

#ThoughtProvoker 🤔

With quote posts we are able to shape our own micro #wiki's within our timelines and those of others, buld social graphs (technosphere) and navigate social fabric (socioshere) ..

What might we be be able to weave if the #ActivityPub #LinkedData aspects were used to their full extent and benefit?

Social semantic fabrics.

#SX #SocialCoding #SocialWeb #fediverse

Do I know anyone who's implemented an #ActivityPub service in #python ?

Which libs would you recommend?

What do you advise I learn?

Glimmers of hope in dark times, #fediverse!

Look at the #delightful responses to this #poll asking how people experience our emerging fedi..

https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116154415408228188

A #SocialMedia landscape of small villages, scattered with occasional larger cities, is the general perception thus far and that is a wonderful difference when contrasting to corporate ad-driven influencer-dominated platforms we have today.

It would be nice if some of the people who voted Ghost Town gave their impression and needs they have wrt the fediverse.. cc @mikeymikeytoo many names

Also ghost-towners, check out @FediThingFediThing 🏳️‍🌈 reply to the poll's thread:

https://social.chinwag.org/@FediThing/116159075105561569

And @nicolNicol Wistreich reply at:

https://social.coop/@nicol/116159026520231736

If you didn't vote yet, do so now. And consider adding your boost. It is literally about uplifting our online social universe. 🌻

#SX #SocialCoding #SocialWeb #ActivityPub

Did you know that with #Fediprofile you can enable verification?

If your Fediprofile links to your Mastodon account, and your Mastodon account links back to your Fediprofile, both will show as verified. Simple, mutual verification.

And you can go beyond the 4-link limit. One link to rule them all.

Check out the project here: https://hub.vocalcat.com and if you are willing to get your hands-dirty and test, send me a private message for an invitation code.

#fediverse #activitypub

@nlnet @michielMichiel Leenaars

And see also the extensive posts I made the past 2 weeks on the subject matter, reiterating the many subjects and challenges of healthy ecosystem formation that ail the #ActivityPub community and #fediverse at large for many years now. I pinned one of those relevant threads to my profile at:

https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116109447243110037

Even more than Gleam community the AS/AP based fediverse faces existential threats where it comes to the promise to lead us towards "the future of social networking", a peopleverse. And #AI poses high danger risks that must be known, so we can anticipate and mitigate them timely.

But above all we have to find ways to constructively collaborate with each in this chaotic grassroots environment we are part of.

#Collaboration and #cocreation at scale, organic growth and sustainable evolution are applied research areas of Social coding commons, where participants add value while working on their own solutions, following their self-interests in alignment with those of other people

To folks who are interested in the general subject matter I addressed above, I recommend watching the talk given by Michiel Leenaars of @nlnet at #FOSDEM last month:

"FOSS in times of war, scarcity and (adversarial) AI" by @michielMichiel Leenaars

https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/FE7ULY-foss-in-times-of-war-scarcity-and-ai/

#SX #SocialCoding #fediverse #ActivityPub #SocialWeb

There's a new project called Holos which makes it a lot easier to host a Fediverse server on your own mobile device. You can follow the project at:

➡️ @HolosSocial

The official site explains how it works:

➡️ https://holos.social/how-it-works

To manage expectations, it's still in its early days and mainly for techy people at the moment. However, it will be interesting to follow its development 🙂

Holos is by the makers of the Mastodon/Fediverse mobile app Fedilab.

#SelfHosting #Fediverse #ActivityPub

There have been many experiments with adding simple ActivityPub support to static blogs, enabling authors to publish their blog into the fediverse to be followed and get commented on. Some of these experimenters have documented what they did, and I've started a list of examples here;

https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fediparty/wiki/Fediverse-comments-on-static-blogs

I chucked this together in a hurry, so please prod me about any mistakes, or any additions that could be made to the list.

#FediDevs #ActivityPub #blogs #StaticSites #FediverseParty

@fwtlDawa

Note btw, that for the most part algorithms are not causing the issue of bad integrations between apps. These are due to the pragmatic nature in which our current app-centric fediverse evolves, i.e. by means of post-facto interoperability. Here app developers focus on getting app features on the wire, and whomever first succeeds in making their new custom protocol extension to become popular, becomes the de-facto standard for that feature. And everyone else should "follow the leader" or push themselves out of mainstream fediverse adoption, into their own app niche.

This is not a sustainable path, and I am among years-long advocates that we should do better in how we collectively evolve the fedi, so that it can truly become the social networking of the future. See also my posts from last week, like:

https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116109447243110037

#SX #SocialCoding #ActivityPub

(2/2)

Would it be inappropriate to draft an FEP for this? One that addresses;

* #FediDevs (or whatever) as the standard tag for fediverse dev meta

* Filtering out posts with the tag by default for new accounts, unless they opt-in to receiving them

* Auto-adding the tag to all posts output by developer forums like SocialHub and ActivityPub.Space

* Methods like the ones @julian describes above, for ingesting and making use of posts with the tag

* ?

#fediverse #ActivityPub #onboarding #FEP

RE: https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116154415408228188

@Coho @maikelMaikel 🇪🇺 🇪🇸

I think we also have to be careful and gauge the extent to which we get informed on problems by the way we shaped our own bubble / echo chamber over time.

Today for instance I sent a poll and got astoundingly and delightful positive responses on how people experience #fediverse..

I intend to follow up with another poll. But the poll results already show a new paradigm of social networking that #fediverse which Social experience design calls #PersonalSocialNetworking. On the fedi you are in control over your own #SocialExperience by carefully curating your social graph.

https://coding.social/blog/reimagine-social/#personal-social-networking

Here's that poll btw, which will run for 6 more days. Curious about the final results.

#SX #SocialCoding #SocialWeb #ActivityPub

@thePBPaul

Available apps may not serve your purposes, but check out the #GeoSocialNetworking category in the delightful #fediverse curated list, where I collected all non-developer #ActivityPub related #FOSS projects..

https://delightful.coding.social/delightful-fediverse-experience/#geosocial-networking

And here's my question in English: Is there any good place that does more or less the same thing as Yelp, Foursquare or Google Maps (i.e. a service that lets you discover, rate and recommend places), but based on the #fediverse / #activitypub and/or #openstreetmap?

Frage: Was ist der alternative Ort für Bewertungen/Empfehlungen von Orten? Gibt es da irgendwas #openstreetmap und/oder #activitypub bzw. #fediverse basiertes? Ich denke da an etwas wie Google Maps, Foursquare, Yelp, etc

Complete this sentence:

"I experience #fediverse as a .."

#Poll #AskFedi #Microblogging #Mastodon #ActivityPub

Loops just shipped support for more interactionPolicy types, giving our community more control to limit certain interactions, like disabling comments or QuotePosts.

Huge shout out to GotoSocial and @dumpsterqueertobi (they/them) is writing bugs for stewarding this ActivityPub extension to better protect our communities.

Isn't it amazing what is possible when projects that would normally compete with each other, can instead collaborate and build safer communities for all?

We all win when we put people first.

#ActivityPub

@fd93Frank Davies Discourse is not distributed (#ActivityPub) and people need a distinct account. Discourse is also good for knowledge management, questions and answers pages, newsletters. It encourages longer posts.

Loops Starter Kits are almost ready to ship!

Consent is crucial to prevent abuse, so you will need to get approval for every account you want to include in each kit.

We will add a setting to auto approve every request, as well as the ability to disable this for your account to auto reject if desired.

Shipping soon!

#Loops #StarterKits #Onboarding #ActivityPub

以前から、東アジアにもFediConのようなイベントがあればいいなと言い続けてきました。独自のカンファレンスはまだ難しそうですが、小さな一歩として考えていることがあります。

@COSCUP 2026（台北、8月8日〜9日）がコミュニティトラックの提案を受け付けています。FOSDEMのSocial Web devroomのような感じで、Social Webトラックを開けないかなと思っているところです。

まだ構想段階ですが、ActivityPubやフェディバース、ソーシャルウェブ全般に取り組んでいて、発表や共同オーガナイズに興味があるという方がいれば、ぜひ話しかけてください。

https://floss.social/@COSCUP/116152356550445285

#SocialWeb #ActivityPub #fediverse #フェディバース #COSCUP #fedidev

東(동)아시아에도 FediCon 같은 行事(행사)가 있으면 좋겠다는 말을 여러 番(번) 해왔는데요. 獨立的(독립적)인 컨퍼런스는 아직 어렵더라도, 작은 첫걸음으로 생각해보고 있는 게 있습니다.

@COSCUP 2026(臺北(타이베이), 8月(월) 8日(일)–9日(일))이 커뮤니티 트랙 提案(제안)을 받고 있어요. FOSDEM의 Social Web devroom 같은 느낌으로, 거기서 Social Web 트랙을 열 수 있지 않을까 하고 構想(구상) 중입니다.

아직 確定(확정)된 건 아무것도 없지만, #ActivityPub, #聯合宇宙(연합우주), 或(혹)은 소셜 웹 全般(전반)을 다루고 있고 發表(발표)나 共同(공동) 오거나이징에 關心(관심)이 있으신 분이 있다면 이야기 걸어주세요.

https://floss.social/@COSCUP/116152356550445285

#SocialWeb #fediverse #연합우주 #페디버스 #COSCUP #fedidev

I've been saying for a while that we need something like FediCon in East Asia. A dedicated conference is still a stretch, but I've been thinking about a smaller step:

@COSCUP 2026 (Taipei, Aug 8–9) is accepting proposals for community tracks. It might be worth trying to open a Social Web track there—something in the spirit of the Social Web devroom at FOSDEM.

Nothing is decided yet, but if you're working on #ActivityPub, the #fediverse, or anything in the social web space and might be interested in speaking (or co-organizing), I'd love to hear from you.

https://floss.social/@COSCUP/116152356550445285

#SocialWeb #COSCUP #fedidev