Real Life

The Fediverse: A Wildly Incomplete Primer

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Good morning friends. It was not my original intent to make this post but after having several people ask me to do one I am bending to public sentiment, or at least as public as this blog audience and my social sphere is. I’ve been on Mastodon… or as it is more correctly known The Fediverse, since the great Wheaton Exodus of 2018. Most people left… I stayed around at least partially active and have some words to say about the matter. These are by no means authoritative words, because like many things the Fediverse is what you make of it. However I am still going to fill a post with words nonetheless.

So You Want to Leave Twitter?

Every so often an event happens to make people extremely nervous about the future of their social media platforms. We’ve gone through this many times over the course of the years with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, and even further back when you start counting instant messaging platforms and IRC networks. So what happened to cause this current disturbance int he force? Basically an asshole bought Twitter, and has spouted off some random bullshit as he is wont to do about his grand plans for it. What is going to happen as a result is anyone’s guess. Elon could be playing 5D chess right now and trying to rattle the cage to get the stock price to go down… so he can pay less to buy the company. He could also be completely serious because he has had more than one run in with a Twitter user… like this situation where a bot was tracking his plane.

I wanted to start this post with a bit of editorializing, to get it out of the way. Twitter can be an awful experience for anyone who is being harassed or is in any way marginalized and abused because of it. Twitter can also be a magical place where you can connect to people of similar interests from around the world. Coming up this Friday, it will mark my thirteenth year on the platform and I have seen so many things over those years and it has both positively and negatively impacted my mental health. There is no replacement for Twitter… I know I have looked many times. There are OTHER networks that exist out there, but if you go into them attempting to remove twitter and replace it with something else… you are going to end up sorely disappointed. Again I know… I have looked… and while I enjoy the various places I have found in the process there is no direct Twitter Killer just like there is no WoW Killer (other than sometimes itself).

What is Mastodon / The Fediverse?

So let’s start things off right by stealing a definition directly from Wikipedia!

The fediverse (a portmanteau of “federation” and “universe”) is an ensemble of federated (i.e. interconnected) servers that are used for web publishing (i.e. social networking, microblogging, blogging, or websites) and file hosting, but which, while independently hosted, can communicate with each other. On different servers (instances), users can create so-called identities. These identities are able to communicate over the boundaries of the instances because the software running on the servers supports one or more communication protocols which follow an open standard.[1] As an identity on the fediverse, users are able to post text and other media, or to follow posts by other identities.[2] In some cases, users can even show or share data (video, audio, text, and other files) publicly or to a selected group of identities and allow other identities to edit other users’ data (such as a calendar or an address book).

Wikipedia

Twitter is a single open platform and everyone on it can see everyone else on it and all of the content contained within… with a few caveats for things like blocks and mutes. The Fediverse instead is a group of individual platforms running on the same protocol and agreeing to “federate” data between them in order to facilitate communication across multiple platforms at the same time. There are many different software platforms running on this shared protocol but the most popular of these is called Mastodon. This is in part why everyone mistakes the name of the broader platform for Mastodon, when in actuality it is just a subset of the greater Fediverse running on ActivityPub. There is some nuance here but really for sake of understanding that is about all you really need to know.

Usernames and Instance Names

In The Fediverse you are your username combined with your Instance name. So for example I currently reside on the Mstdn.social instance of the Fediverse which is largely gaming focused. I am Belghast on that instance and in order to reach me you would use my username and the instance name like this:

@belghast@mstdn.social

Essentially you are telling one the instance who has authority over your account. When you follow someone from another server, there is some verification that takes place to make sure that both accounts are valid before setting up the syndication of content between them. Once followed, that user will effectively act like they are on your instance with you and you will see content from them similar to following someone on twitter.

The Feeds

The default web interface for Mastodon/Fediverse looks an awful lot like Tweetdeck, so for me it is extremely familiar and comfortable. However at a high level the Fediverse itself functions a little different than twitter. Everyone has Four feeds that they can access without any additional configuration. Lets talk about these and give a quick overview of how each functions.

  • Home – This is essentially a feed of everyone you are following on your account. Unlike twitter you will often times see partial conversations as the @ behavior is a little odd at times.
  • Notifications – This is a feed of mentions, favorites, and boots… which is the equivalent of a retweet. There are no quote retweets in the Fediverse, so those simply don’t exist.
  • Local – This is a feed of everything that is being talked about currently on your local instance and is ultimately what gives a given server a “community” feel.
  • Fediverse – This is everything being talked about on the Fediverse as a whole or at least the servers that your instance is currently Federating content for.

Apart from that you can create columns for Hashtags and create user lists similar to twitter and configure your interface to include these. There are also mobile apps but I will get into those later.

Post Audience

Let’s talk about a little quirk that is a bit different from Twitter. Each post you make has the ability to change the audience that it is currently targeting. In twitter when you send someone a direct message, it shows up in a completely different interface. When you send someone a Direct message in the Fediverse, there is a visual indication that it is private but it shows up in your feed. The only difference between the two is that the “audience” is set to one or more users. You get to this interface by clicking the Globe icon and you have a handful of options by default. I am going to run through these but please note that various servers have various other options because these can be configured by the server admin.

  • Public – This shows as available to anyone who is federating content with your server and is watching the local feed of the server.
  • Unlisted – If someone is following you directly they will see the content or if someone clicks on your profile, but otherwise it will not show up in public timelines.
  • Followers-only – This will only show up if someone follows you, and will not show in public feeds or on your timeline if someone clicks through and is not following you.
  • Direct – This is flagged to only show up as the users included in the message.

This message was going around yesterday and causing some great concern. The truth is that nothing you say online or on your phone should ever been considered private full stop. There is some nuance here, but everything that you say on ANY platform… is readable by someone. When I used to run forums all the time, it would have been trivial for me to get in and read private messages sent between users. I didn’t do that because it would be a violation of privacy. Having administered a Fediverse server, the truth is there is no EASY back end interface to allow admins to read your messages. They would have to get into the table structure and mung around with the data to find them… but just like your corporate email administrators can read your messages… it is a possibility. Someone at twitter can also read your messages as well… you never had any privacy there either.

That might not be the assurance that you want, but it is the truth. So let’s move on to another “quirk” of the network when some things start to break down.

Remember the Joy of Netsplits?

The largest “Instance” is called Mastodon.social and there is a similarly sized overflow instance called Mastodon.online. The first is run by a man named Gargon, who lists himself as the CEO and Lead Developer for the Mastodon project. He is both revered and reviled depending upon which segment of the broader Fediverse you are talking to, and mostly based on my long distance view of his actions… does whatever the hell he wants without taking into account the suggestions of other server admins. Mastodon.social is both the most twitter-like of instances, but also largely lawless and un-moderated. It could just be the sheer scale of the server, but little has been done to take action on known bad actors on both .social and .online.

So instead various segments of the community and server admins have taken action for them. This means that sometime between I went absent in December 2021 and now… the instance I am on has actively stopped federation with those two servers. That is one of the unique “features” of the Fediverse is that each community can determine who they will and will not accept posts from. The end result however is that you can have users on two different server instances that cannot communicate with each other… effectively breaking the “miracle” of open federation. I culled through my friends list yesterday removing everyone that I could no longer reach and it was not an enjoyable thing. Apparently votes were taken among the community I am on, but I was not paying attention at the time and as such did not get to vote.

Moving Instances

One of the interesting features of the Fediverse is that essentially took into account that it is unlikely that you are going to stay on the same instance forever. If decisions like blocking an instance end up harshing your enjoyment of the platform, you can effectively pick up “your house” and move it. There are semi-automated and manual ways that you can export all of the people you are following, blocking, and muting and import them into a brand new account on a different instance. This does not move the people who are following you, but when you move you will ultimately ping everyone when you “follow” them from the import, and given that this is a fairly common practice most people just take it as a normal practice on the network.

During the course of my stay on the Fediverse I started on Mastodon.Online, then decided that the community was not my jam and moved to Elek.xyz, and now more recently moved to Mstdn.social. When my good friend Liore decided to roll her own instance I moved again to Nineties.Cafe while it was active, and then again when my friend Gazimoff started MMORPG.social moved over there. In both of those cases I helped with the moderation and administration a bit, or at least enough to understand what a pain in the ass it is. Finally when both of those instances ended… I came back to Elekk.xyz, and just moved to a newer more general purpose instance Mstdn.social. One of the default features of The Fediverse is the ability to go into user preferences and indicate you have moved and the account that you are moving to.

Remember the Term Netiquette?

Since every server that you interface with is effectively its own small island on the larger collective federated platform, they are each going to have their own “community norms”. For example Elekk.xyz the gaming instance that I spent most of my time on tends to be very queer and very liberal. There are going to be instances that are very much the opposite of that… like Parler that darling of the rightwingers. Currently I am on a more twitter like general instance, but finding a community that fits you is fairly important. However one of the things you are going to see a lot more on the Fediverse than on Twitter is “Content Warnings” because they actually do something. The above screenshot is an example of the interface when I have clicked the CW icon, giving me a line to write what my warning entails and then the normal dialog for composing a message.

What is shown to other users is something that looks like the above image. You get a line indicating what the warning is and then a Show More button allowing you to unroll the image. You can go into the back end interface and determine if you want this default behavior to happen or not, but honestly I find it terribly useful. If you want to “toot” about game spoilers then you absolutely can, just indicate that your content warning is a game spoiler and what game it is for and talk away. Anyone who responds to the original message is going to will also be wrapped within the content warning keeping the thread hidden from anyone who does not want to look upon it.

Similarly you can mark images as sensitive and they will not by shown by default unless the user clicks on them. The negative side of this is that users will self police their instances and give you a piece of their mind if you are posting something potentially triggering that does not happen within a content warning or sensitive flag. Another thing that the fediverse is extremely big on is accessibility, and as such there are users who will give you a good deal of grief if you make it your practice to regularly post images without descriptions. To get to this interface click the Edit button after uploading an image, and it will bring up the dialog shown above allowing you to give a description of the image for the visually impaired. It also has a functionality where it attempts to auto-describe it with AI… but that does not seem to work on any of the video game screenshots I have tried it on.

Read the Room

If I had one piece of advice to give potential folks migrating over to the Fediverse, is to lurk for a bit and read the room. Scroll through the local feed to see what sorts of interactions are happening on the server. Each Instance Server in the Fediverse honestly has more akin with an old school forum than it does Twitter. When I used to join forums all the time for different groups of friends, or even more modernly new discords… I would attempt to pattern my own behavior after the behavior of what I was seeing in the community. That is not to say that I would behave significantly differently than I normally do, I would just attempt to adopt the customs of a given server/forum/discord.

The Fediverse/Mastodon is not the new Twitter and honestly anyone saying that is being disingenuous. I’ve been here roughly four years and what I found instead was an interesting and wildly different community to the one I had on twitter. It can scratch a bit of the same itch, but if you go into this experience looking for a one to one replacement, then I feel like you are going to be sorely disappointed. I posted a long “explainer” thread yesterday not in an attempt to get people to convert, but to explain the network at a high level. I have no plans currently to leave Twitter and am mostly keeping a wait and see attitude, but it did give me reason to become more active in the Fediverse.

A Land Without FOMO

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Do you ever find yourself not taking action because you can’t wrap your brain around exactly how you want to do something? This is something that has plagued me my entire life as I sit back and overanalyze a situation and end up just postponing actually doing anything. If I am under pressure I am extremely good at making snap decisions, but when I don’t feel that sense of pressure… I tend to sit on something indefinitely without actually ever taking action. So much of my life, I put myself into situations that artificially cause that pressure and tension… so that I actually go through with things.

For example I’ve had an additional camera for our security system for two years now, but never quite got around to figuring out how I wanted to mount it. Yesterday I decided that I would mount it by the end of the day… and in truth, it took me all of ten minutes to do it. However, I spent two years at least once a week mulling over what angle and position I wanted to mount this damned camera when in truth it doesn’t really matter that much. Its entire purpose was to let us watch Tripod, the three-legged calico that has been living in our backyard for going on three years. I put it up and it is finally serving this purpose… and also letting us know that apparently Splotchy, the cat that is patiently waiting on Tripod to finish eating… is back hanging out in our yard again. I think while phantom (the cat we found his original owners for) was around he had made himself scarce.

Last night I made marinated boneless pork ribs and stovetop stuffing and sat down after dinner to play some more Quantum Break. Yesterday I have to admit I was not entirely sold on this game but felt obligated to see it through to the end. Yesterday however the game hooked me and by the time I got through the fourth chapter I am honestly on pins and needles to see how this all shakes out in the end. I have to give credit to Remedy for a handful of things. Firstly they make extremely interesting landscapes for your characters to roam around in. Even in Alan Wake which was basically a blue-toned rainy woods simulator… there were some absolutely stunning setpieces. Control was a visual feast and each time you discovered a new area you were introduced to some situation that should not be able to exist in the real world.

The other thing that I have to give them credit for is creating very interesting stories. A time travel story is something that has been done so many times, but they managed to figure out a way to make this feel fresh. I guess another aspect of this is that they seem to be able to capture really great acting performances both with in-camera live-action sequences worthy of a high production value show and in the orchestration of assets to create very believable digital actors. I mean I have been impressed by acting performances in games before, but always it was in the voice-over delivery… never really in the digital manifestation of those actors in video game form. Sure there is a noticeable difference… but it feels natural when you shift between the player-controlled digital sequences and the live-action denouement at the end of each chapter.

It is extremely likely that I am going to wrap this up in a few hours this evening, and now I am not really sure what I am going to roll into next. Right now I am thinking probably Ghost of Tsushima, which I left in a very partially completed state on the PlayStation 5. My goal for today… like my goal of putting up the camera yesterday… is to stop calculating how to do it… and just move my PS5 setup downstairs to live beside the Xbox Series X. Ultimately this NEEDS to happen before Horizon Forbidden West launches next week. Essentially most of this single-player gaming has been me in a holding pattern until that game releases, but I have been greatly enjoying this time.

One of the core problems that I have playing MMOs is the constant sense of FOMO that they instill in the player base. There is always some new thing that is coming around the corner and will only be available for a limited amount of time. Be this a new season in Destiny, a holiday event in FFXIV, or the feeling of needing to do your daily chores so that you don’t fall behind in World of Warcraft. It is the aspect of those games that I like the least and honestly, over the last few years, it has been one of the major turn-offs. Instead of making me want to engage and no-life something until I have ticked all of the boxes… it makes me want to check out completely and not even participate.

Playing all of these single-player games has made me realize that more or less they are completely immune to FOMO. The game exists as it is and the experience will more or less be the same if I play it tomorrow or if I play it three years from now. They are experiences that happen on my schedule and on my terms. There is no need to rush around and make sure that I get this thing done by this deadline… because the game will always be there waiting on me. That is not to say that I don’t want to play MMORPGs anymore, but this week and watching the zeitgeist scurry around Lost Ark has made me realize that maybe just maybe I am done for a while. I greatly enjoyed the story of Endwalker and I do want to return at some point and play more… but I also don’t really feel like I am on a specific timetable for that.

Patio Open Time

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It seems like each weekend we have attempted to tackle one big thing. While the options are limited due to the fact that we are still very much sheltered in place, we have done a fairly decent job of finding something meaningful to do. Before the wider lock down happen we made a trip out to Garden Ridge, or whatever that store is currently called and found new outdoor rugs and throw pillows that have been sitting in the garage waiting on us to open the back yard officially. We’ve had a very cold and wet year thusfar and as a result we pushed this back further than either of us would have liked. However our little backyard oasis is officially open for business… or at least open to the two of us.

In theory we should be opening the pool within the next week, which will be nice because I think given the amount of time we are at home I might actually start using it every day. We need to figure out some sort of clothes line or something for swim suits and towels. The last step will be getting flowers, and from what I can tell our favorite greenhouse is open for business. We are trying to avoid leaving the house when possible, but I think at some point we will risk a trip out to get flowers. The flowers and the ritual of watering and care will start making things seem more normal, even though we are largely stuck in stasis.

As far as Friday’s post goes, I want to thank everyone for their comments. It seems like every so often I need to get one of those sort of posts out of my system and once I have I can move on with life. It is like I am putting all of those thoughts onto the written page and sending them out into the world where they develop a life of their own. However the process of exorcising them from the recesses of my mind helps me to get on with life and stop dwelling on them. I could just as easily write them on a piece of paper and then wad the paper up and toss it into the trash can, but at least on some level I think it is helpful to let those around you who are also struggling know that they are not necessarily alone.

On the gaming front, I managed to hit 120 on the Dino Druid. I actually dinged a few minutes into the podcast on Sunday evening and have since gotten his gear up to around 380 in a few days of World Quests. What I need desperately is a weapon upgrade, and I might actually target some of the LFR options that I have open to me trying to get a polearm or something similar. I’ve been spending some time working on factions on the Alliance Paladin, and managed to unlock Dark Iron over the weekend. The next target is Kul Tirans, which requires me to keep doing daily quests… and there are probably a few zone quests that I could also do to help speed that process up.

That is me and leveling four 120s in very rapid succession. Rather than start with another lowbie and run it all of the way up, I feel like I should probably finish off my Warlock as it is sitting at 113. I could in theory finish it off in a few days and would at least make me feel like less of a slacker for leaving it sitting in BFA level ranges for so long. All of this is oddly soothing because it gives me micro objectives to play towards without really having to think much about it. I know that is not exactly everyone’s idea of fun, but for me it is helping me bring order to chaos. Special thanks to my wife for providing a picture of the bedroom patio, since I failed to take one over the weekend. I hope you all have an excellent week and that you find peace in the midst of the nonsense times we are living.

Fear and Weariness

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Cute Co-Conspirators

This is a post that almost wasn’t. This morning I had the strong desire just to say screw it and call this an unofficial vacation day. My morning routine in pandemia has been greatly modified from my normal one. Traditionally I get up, kick the children out of the bedroom, start the Keurig and then go hop in the shower. After the shower I make coffee for both my wife and me, give Kenzie her insulin shot and feed the cats. Then I go into the bedroom and try and roust my wife from the bed and get her into the shower. Over the last several this step has become more challenging and stalling the whole fixing our breakfast and heading up to my office. What used to be a few minutes has started turning into a fifteen minute stall fest. I get that she is exhausted because I too have an exhaustion that is eating away at my core. It sorta reminds me of what it is like when you go without sleep for too long. There is just a weariness that never seems to fully go away and I am guessing it is thanks to six full weeks now of isolation.

In these morning interactions I attempt to be the adult and get us up and moving… but this morning was an extreme struggle. I wanted nothing more than to give in and return to the warm embrace of our bed. Why the hell does the bed feel so good in the morning, but a complete shit show at night when you are struggling to get to sleep? The thing is… I feel horrible for feeling horrible. My life is a freaking charmed existence because while I am taking a 10% cut in pay, my wife and I both have jobs that we can do remotely and stay safe and sheltered within our home. I am risking nothing while there are folks who are struggling to feed themselves, while we have stockpiles of food that we are slowly working our way through. That said I am glad I checked the “best before” date on the pasta I almost stuck in the oven from the bottom of our freezer… because the date was some point in 2010.

Numbers for Oklahoma

I have to admit that I am scared on many levels right now. I am scared that our economy is crashing around us and I am scared about how long it is going to take for this to recover. On some level I am scared wondering if this is going to lead to societal collapse. Then on other levels I am scared even more that we are going to open up everything too soon and start the entire process all over again. I live in a state with a Governor that is hell bent on pushing folks out the door, but I am not interpreting the numbers in quite the same way he is. I see that we are still in full swing of infection and that while the numbers are not increasing, they are not really decreasing either. I am tired of being afraid and I think more than anything that might be the source of the weariness that I can’t quite shake.

Early in the process I made a decision to start tracking the numbers for myself. I felt like I kept seeing completely different numbers being reported by different sources, and the only real way to keep from getting “spun” is to look at the raw data. So each day at 11 am, the state health department releases new data and each day I copy this down into a google sheet, and now I have my own charts that I can reference. The problem with the data still is the fact that we are testing a woefully small number of individuals. However based on what I am seeing I am not seeing an infection in the decline, but one that is still more than happy to keep going like the energizer bunny. The shutting down of everything and the social distancing orders have kept things stable, but my fear is that once we stop these things in what is likely to be the coming weeks… we are going to see a significant spike.

Kenzie guarding her Hairband

I realize I just did a bait and switch with this post, given that I posted photos of my adorable co-workers but have really not talked about them at all. Right now they are likely the only part of my personal equation that is keeping me sane. Sure it is annoying as hell to have Kenzie screaming at me at the top of her lungs to toss a hairband while I am on a conference call… but it is also super sweet when she wants to crawl up into my arms and snuggle. Kenzie and Josie are very much a team, and here lately I have ended up with both snuggled on my legs together while I am hanging out on the sofa. I just wish Mollie could find a way to get along with the two of them, because we have this circle of abuse going on. Kenzie picks on Mollie and in turn Mollie picks on Josie. There are times I think Mollie just is trying to play with Josie… and then there are other times that she absolutely seems like she is terrorizing her.

I am sorry that this isn’t the most interesting post to be reading today. I am likely not going to syndicate it, because I generally don’t when it is something deeply personal and not at all game related. I figure posts like this are only for my most regular readers, the ones who are going to check in regardless if it sounds like I have something interesting to say. I still think in the grand scheme of things I am doing pretty good, but the edges are most definitely fraying. Week five is when things started to get real for me, and I am worried about my friends who are on week nine now. I partially heeded the warnings coming from my friends in the Seattle area, so at least we have toilet paper. Getting food and stuff has mostly been a number of no-contact pickups from Walmart Neighborhood Market. We are doing fine, but both suffer from an exhaustion that we probably will never shake until we are able to move around freely again.

I love you all, and I hope you are doing okay out there.