silverpill

ActivityPub messages are not encrypted, but they could be signed. Signing doesn’t prevent edits and deletes.

Yes, if someone has unsubscribed they are unlikely to be notified about the deletion.

As I understand it ActivityPub uses a combination of push notifications at time of publishing and pull notifications at time of subscription/query for objects?

It’s a mix of pushing and pulling. When something happens, the server pushes a notification (“activity”) to other servers. But recipients often need to pull additional data, such as user profiles or related posts.

Duration of caching is set by the instance admin I take it?

Yes, and it also depends on the software. Some applications may keep cached objects forever and only prune cached media (because objects don’t require much space).

Regarding Authorship, if there wasn’t an issue then ATProtocol devs wouldn’t have made it the cornerstone feature of their network

Moving in ActivityPub world is difficult because authorship is tied to a specific server. We can solve this problem by using cryptographic identities and signing everything, like ATProto and Nostr do.

I’d like to know how delete requests propagate, when the “Object” is deleted does a request to clear cache go out to all federating instances?

Deletes and edits are usually sent to followers of a user or a community. Delivering them to all known instances is not practical.

The main advantage is efficiency. You don’t need to poll 1000 servers every minute to get fresh content because everything is delivered straight to your inbox.

the cost of broad redundancy of content and authorship issues

ActivityPub doesn’t have redundancy or authorship issues. An object only exists on the originating sever, other servers merely cache it. This is not different from what RSS readers do, for example.

I think Solid had some interesting ideas, but was ruined by Linked Data.
ActivityPub has a chance of evolving into something like Solid, but better.

Actually, I am already using a single account for interacting with most Fediverse apps. Aren’t you on Mbin? I thought it also can interact with blogs, forums and everything in between

I would like to use a single account for everything, rather than separate accounts for different kinds of content. A server that works like super-app.

I don’t like the idea, but at least one such application is already being developed:

https://codeberg.org/rozodru/Bridge

FEP-ef61: Portable Objects describes how to use DIDs with ActivityPub. Here’s a slightly less technical introduction: https://codeberg.org/ap-next/ap-next/src/branch/main/nomadpub.md

It’s not easy, though. Adding this feature to an existing project will require a lot of work, especially if you don’t want to share signing keys with servers. This was discussed in #3100, Lemmy devs are not opposed to FEP-ef61, but they don’t plan to work on it.

Also, I don’t recommend copying solutions from ATProto, their did:plc and did:web are not really “decentralized”.

Mastodon enforces character limit for its own posts, but not for posts coming through federation. Most Fediverse platforms work in the same way, so differing character limits is not a problem.

I don’t know about Bluesky, it may truncate long posts because it uses a different protocol.

ActivityPub is supposed to be a solution to this problem.

As far as I know, Mastodon and Pixelfed are already interoperable, and shouldn’t need a cross poster. Bluesky users can be reached through BridgyFed. Lemmy is only partially interoperable with Mastodon, but this is a result of developers’ choices and not a limitation of the protocol. I can post to all four services, for example.

Fediverse is tens of thousands of instances. You may need a VPN to access your home instance (e.g. if it is blocked in your country), the rest of the network can be accessed from there.
I never heard about instances doing KYC (which is usually done by payments processors). If your home instance requires KYC, you can always move to another instance that doesn’t require it, because there are so many of them all across the world.

VPNs are not much different from the Fediverse, by the way. It’s just servers, they can be blocked by ISPs, and they can geoblock users. This is also true for Nostr relays, IPFS gateways, Tor relays, etc.

@fediverse

Fediverse is very good at censorship resistance, much better than alternatives.
If internet is restricted in your country, use a VPN. If you’re an admin, move your server to a different country.

If internet is not restricted, then there is nothing to worry about.

@fediverse

One of Mitra users made a video about subs long time ago, I can’t find it now. You’re right, I should make a video too (and also a website etc etc).
But I need to finish nomadic identity first, as it is the main objective of the project.

@fediverse

That’s fine, my posts were not about any particular services. I am concerned with false statements in widely shared articles.

@fediverse

>the Fediverse today lacks any kind of commerce

This is not true. I already told you about that when you published a promotional post about subclub (which didn’t last), but now you’re saying it again. Why?

@fediverse

Boards are actors, and every message on the board is attributed to the board actor.

I think it would be easier to make it interoperate with microblogs than with forum-like software.

@fediverse

This is what ActivityPub client-to-server API was designed for.

Most servers don’t implement it, but some do:

https://codeberg.org/fediverse/delightful-fediverse-apps/issues/130

Clients are even harder to find, and none of them are good, AFAIK

@fediverse

FChannel is a federated anonymous imageboard powered by ActivityPub:

https://github.com/anomalous69/FChannel

@fediverse

@AnonomousWolf @fediverse

Looks reasonable overall, but I don’t understand some of your assessments.

>Easy (Leverage email hosting services)

What are those email hosting services? If hosting and maintenance are delegated to 3rd parties, that doesn’t count towards decentralization.

>Top Provider User Share: Reddit ≈ 48.4%

Why this is not 100%?

>Very Easy: One-command Docker,

I think the easiest option is distro’s default package manager – docker is additional layer of complexity. Also some services are nearly impossible to self-host without docker, and points should be subtracted if that is the case.