What is Nostr?
Fabio Manganiello /
npub1s9u…dnmu
2024-06-13 12:06:54
in reply to nevent1q…5jrg

Fabio Manganiello on Nostr: I definitely understand the cultural issue. But ActivityPub isn’t Mastodon. I’ve ...

I definitely understand the cultural issue. But ActivityPub isn’t Mastodon.

I’ve lost track of the feuds I’ve had with Mastodon talibans. When it comes to search, discoverability, quotes, markdown/rich text, customizable post length (without having to change the source code), emoji reactions, interaction with other large platforms…

Whenever you propose a new feature, there will always be a Mastodon taliban who will call you a privileged techbro and will attack you for not doing enough for protecting <insert name of oppressed minority here>. There are indeed people who will oppose any change to their “safe island” and will be very aggressive towards anyone who doesn’t unconditionally support them.

I’m personally sick of this kind of extremists as well, and they are the ones who hold back the progress for the Fediverse as a whole.

But, again, ActivityPub ≠ Mastodon, even though Mastodon of course if the largest platform.

I’ve given up on getting anything changed on the Mastodon side, given up on wasting time maintaining my fork with features that will never be merged upstream anyways, and I’ve spun up my Akkoma instance instead.

And, guess what? You’ve got quotes here, as well as Markdown, authenticated API calls enabled by default, emoji reactions, customizable post length, and much more. All while remaining compatible with ActivityPub. If a feature isn’t supported on Mastodon, then Mastodon instances simply won’t render it, but they’ll render at least the basic text.

I believe that BlueSky could have followed a similar pattern. Embrace ActivityPub and work on extending it, regardless of what the Mastodon talibans think. The folks who work on Pleroma, Akkoma, Calckey, and probably even Threads, would have probably supported their efforts, as we all share many objectives. Some competition against Mastodon’s opaque and top-down conservative approach would have been more than welcome.

Instead, we’ve now got another protocol that is basically 90-95% ActivityPub, and developers will have to work hard to bridge.
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