If you haven't heard, sadly, #ChirpSocial, one of the popular #ActivityPub “groups” platform, is shutting down “probably” on February 29th.
In an email they sent to admins, the owner and developer can no longer support https://chirp.social financially as they failed to find a new job after they were laid off by #Google last year.
This reminds us the importance of having a built-in groups feature, and one where the groups feature actually federates.
Back in 2008, when the #Fediverse was born, we did have a built-in federated groups in #Laconica / #StatusNet (today known as #GNUsocial). We used bang (!) instead of at (@). A built-in groups feature is more stable as established instances can host them.
Today, we have #Friendica and #Hubzilla (as well as #Streams-based instances) to fill in that, as groups is a built-in feature in those software products. It's just a matter of finding an instance that's open to hosting groups for any topic for the ActivityPub protocol.
That said, any Friendica, Hubzilla, Streams-based instances you suggest for groups?
♻️ @grahamdowns@mastodon.africa Smartphones are very expensive in #Africa. In South Africa specifically, lots…
Smartphones are very expensive in #Africa. In South Africa specifically, lots of people still use feature phones. In fact, some companies are producing NEW feature phones. Some of them run #Android, some run completely home-grown operating systems, but most have no touch screens and you're stuck with traditional [1-9]#* keypads where you press and hold a number to get letters, remember those?
Browsing the #Internet on those devices is painful, to say the least.
Oh, people have data. Data's coming down in price nicely. I mean, it could be better, and it probably will get better, but for the most part, Internet access is fairly easy to come by.
It's the devices required to make use of the Internet which are beyond the reach of many people on this continent.
https://techcentral.co.za/africa-has-a-feature-phone-problem/235714/?utm_source=Mastodon
Disappointed that I can't follow #lemmy users/communites from #GNUsocial nor follow GS #groups from #lemmy. I think #kbin may work, but it's really unstable so it's hard to tell. !sns
I meant to respond to this directly, sorry for the late response. I think that there should be an option for both long-term retaining of data and index-ability by search engines.
For fedi to be a replacement of certain microblogging 'dot-cons' I think it needs to provide the above as options, via admin approval. I feel that instructing people to setup a #microblogging site is counter-productive, does fedi a disservice, and raises barriers for people to engage with there community, both local and global. I understand that maybe not all user will be granted such privileges (I am thinking shitposters, frequent image posters, and for-profits that don't donate) but there should be an option for storage and for search engine index-ability (understanding that all servers are fallible and to backup your data for extreme cases of server going offline).
It should however be up to the admin to grant such privileges, we also don't want bad-faith actors having that capability for /obvious/ reasons, but it is needed in GNUSocial, in the long-term.
on my personal #GNUsocial server, @i@gnu.jimfulner.com, I try to reset my password, but the recovery email is so slower that by the time I get it, the token has already expired. Anone have a recommendation? @gnusocialjp@administrator @lnxw48a1@nu.federati.net @lxo