Any interest in creating an nnfediverse backend?

Any interest in creating an nnfediverse backend?

[Steinar Bang]

Is there any interest in creating one, or more, backend(s) for "the
fediverse"?

"The fediverse" is a common term for services that aim to replace
today's social media with decentralized alternatives.

I have tried two of them:
 1. The twitter replacement mastodon
 2. The facebook replacement diaspora

Both of them are based on having no centralized node, but instead having
decentralized server that talk to other servers and exchange postings
(similar to USENET).

Not too many people on either service right now.  This means that there
are fewer crazies there than on "mainstream social media".  It also
means that they are less likely to become a time thief.

Both services have a server side and a web client running in the
browser.

It's the web client I'm thinking could be replaced by a Gnus backend.

Thoughts...?

Re: Any interest in creating an nnfediverse backend?

[Emanuel Berg]

Steinar Bang wrote:

> Not too many people on either service right now.
> This means that there are fewer crazies there than
> on "mainstream social media". It also means that
> they are less likely to become a time thief.

Well, I think the one reason to do use for example
Facebook is to communicate with people who aren't
computer people. I'm mean, I don't do it, but it's
the one reason I can see.

And because _they_ are unlikely to go for any obscure
alternative, I see even less reason to do it myself.

So sorry :)

I like the architecture tho.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
https://dataswamp.org/~incal

Re: Any interest in creating an nnfediverse backend?

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Steinar Bang <sb@dod.no> writes:

> Is there any interest in creating one, or more, backend(s) for "the
> fediverse"?
>
> "The fediverse" is a common term for services that aim to replace
> today's social media with decentralized alternatives.
>
> I have tried two of them:
>  1. The twitter replacement mastodon
>  2. The facebook replacement diaspora
>
> Both of them are based on having no centralized node, but instead having
> decentralized server that talk to other servers and exchange postings
> (similar to USENET).

But these all must have their own APIs and protocols, right? I doubt it
will be possible to write one nnfediverse backend that could serve all
these different services -- we'd need an nnmastodon, nndiaspora... etc.

Not to say it couldn't be done! I wonder about usability, though. The
more a service moves away from "email-like" and towards the direction of
"chat-like", the less appropriate Gnus will be, I think. Mastodon is
probably fine, but I don't know how diaspora works.

It would be nice to have Gnus handle pub/sub stuff, too.

Re: Any interest in creating an nnfediverse backend?

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>:

> But these all must have their own APIs and protocols, right? I doubt
> it will be possible to write one nnfediverse backend that could serve
> all these different services -- we'd need an nnmastodon,
> nndiaspora... etc.

Most probably, yes.

> Not to say it couldn't be done! I wonder about usability, though. The
> more a service moves away from "email-like" and towards the direction
> of "chat-like", the less appropriate Gnus will be, I think. Mastodon
> is probably fine, but I don't know how diaspora works.

Well It's similar in many ways, but postings can be longer (not limited
to the 500 characters of a "toot").

And replies are similar to comments on online newspaper articles.

They also have a concept named "aspects" that I find a little hard to
grasp.

I haven't found an equivalent to facebook groups.

(mind, my knowledge of facebook is entirely second hand. So I may not
have grasped what facebook groups are, either. I'm
#zuckervegan (ie. no facebook, instagram or snapchat))

> It would be nice to have Gnus handle pub/sub stuff, too.

Yes, it would.

Re: Any interest in creating an nnfediverse backend?

[Andreas Schwab]

On Sep 24 2020, Eric Abrahamsen wrote:

> Not to say it couldn't be done! I wonder about usability, though. The
> more a service moves away from "email-like" and towards the direction of
> "chat-like", the less appropriate Gnus will be, I think. Mastodon is
> probably fine, but I don't know how diaspora works.

Gnus can already handle twitter
<https://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/2020/09/19/you-can-read-twitter-with-gnus/>.

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, schwab@linux-m68k.org
GPG Key fingerprint = 7578 EB47 D4E5 4D69 2510  2552 DF73 E780 A9DA AEC1
"And now for something completely different."

Re: Any interest in creating an nnfediverse backend?

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Andreas Schwab <schwab@linux-m68k.org> writes:

> On Sep 24 2020, Eric Abrahamsen wrote:
>
>> Not to say it couldn't be done! I wonder about usability, though. The
>> more a service moves away from "email-like" and towards the direction of
>> "chat-like", the less appropriate Gnus will be, I think. Mastodon is
>> probably fine, but I don't know how diaspora works.
>
> Gnus can already handle twitter
> <https://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/2020/09/19/you-can-read-twitter-with-gnus/>.

Oh, that's cool! Somehow I was not following Lars' blog, an oversight
now remedied.

Re: Any interest in creating an nnfediverse backend?

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>:

> Andreas Schwab <schwab@linux-m68k.org> writes:

>> Gnus can already handle twitter
>> <https://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/2020/09/19/you-can-read-twitter-with-gnus/>.

> Oh, that's cool! Somehow I was not following Lars' blog, an oversight
> now remedied.

Interesting!

Now reading.

Re: Any interest in creating an nnfediverse backend?

[黃炳熙]

> Gnus can already handle twitter
> <https://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/2020/09/19/you-can-read-twitter-with-gnus/>.

Wow amazing! Thanks for information, Andreas^^^

Sincerely, Byung-Hee

-- 
^고맙습니다 _救濟蒼生_ 감사합니다_^))//

Re: Any interest in creating an nnfediverse backend?

[Tassilo Horn]

Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:

> But these all must have their own APIs and protocols, right? I doubt
> it will be possible to write one nnfediverse backend that could serve
> all these different services -- we'd need an nnmastodon,
> nndiaspora... etc.

No, I think they are all just implementations of the ActivityPub W3C
standard.  Of course, each implementation might have a slightly
different interpretation of the standard. ;-)

Anyway, I wonder how usable such a nnfediverse backend would be.  I
mean, for most parts the fediverse is like Twitter and/or Instagram,
i.e., hundreds of small "toots" a day.  Usually, you just scroll through
them in chronological order until you find something interesting.
Having to first open each "toot" from the summary to see its contents in
the article buffer doesn't seem very viable.

Of course, that shouldn't stop anyone from having fun trying to do it
anyway!

Bye,
Tassilo

Re: Any interest in creating an nnfediverse backend?

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org> writes:

> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:
>
>> But these all must have their own APIs and protocols, right? I doubt
>> it will be possible to write one nnfediverse backend that could serve
>> all these different services -- we'd need an nnmastodon,
>> nndiaspora... etc.
>
> No, I think they are all just implementations of the ActivityPub W3C
> standard.  Of course, each implementation might have a slightly
> different interpretation of the standard. ;-)
>
> Anyway, I wonder how usable such a nnfediverse backend would be.  I
> mean, for most parts the fediverse is like Twitter and/or Instagram,
> i.e., hundreds of small "toots" a day.  Usually, you just scroll through
> them in chronological order until you find something interesting.
> Having to first open each "toot" from the summary to see its contents in
> the article buffer doesn't seem very viable.

I agree -- I'm a little skeptical about the utility of this, on the
other hand someone recently made a nntwitter, so...

But the fact that they might all be able to share some code is actually
an incentive to do it!