Notices by Julian Fietkau (julian@fietkau.social)

@evan @FediTips @andypiper 100% for setting up small servers. The Fediverse is almost certainly best off with lots of fairly small and fairly socially cohesive servers.

There is, however, a mismatch between the suggestion to set up a server and the audience of people who have heard about Mastodon somewhere and are willing to download an app to give it a shot. We're veering close to the “the Fediverse is built for tech-savvy people” kind of elitism that I'm personally hoping we can grow out of.

@FediTips We can't be telling people “don't worry too much about all that server stuff for now” and also “oh you don't know if your account was on mstdn.social or mas.to, then you're just outta luck sorry”.

We also know that asking fedi newcomers to pick their own server does not work. Your suggestion addresses this point.

My conclusion is that having a default server for all newbies (not invited by a friend) is the best practical approach. Somewhere people can get their bearings.

@FediTips And yes, I understand the cons.

IMHO the path forward is to improve the scope & simplicity of the account moving process, and then encouraging people on m.s to use it after some time. Not to abolish the default server.

I've been holding my tongue on this since @andypiper said Mastodon may reply to this with a blog post. But I hope we can acknowledge that a “rotating servers” suggestion is incomplete without an idea to (unobtrusively but reliably) teach people about their own server.

@FediTips I feel like when people ask for randomly assigned servers, there's a strange forgetfulness about which specific problem the default server was meant to solve.

Among people who signed up in 2022, the biggest reason (by far!) why people involuntarily left – that is, wanted to keep using Mastodon but failed to – was that they changed phones or browsers or just wanted to sign in on another device, and couldn't because they didn't know what server they were on.

RE: https://fietkau.software/daily_rucks/ap/activity/2025-11-08

I have added Mastodon-style (FEP-044f) quote post compatibility to my @DailyRucks bot. You can now quote post the daily voice lines as much as you want! 🥳

This would be noteworthy on its own if there weren't already a bunch of non-Mastodon implementations, but I'm actually late to the party. WordPress, Bonfire, micro.blog, dotmakeup, and ActivityBot all got there before I did.

However, I think my approach is novel for being *stateless*. Thread incoming.

🧵 1/6

#Fediverse #FediDev #ActivityPub

You may have read that Mastodon quote posts are technically opt-in. To give you the options to opt out of being quoted or to revoke a prior quote permission, each post that tries to quote you applies for an individualized “permission slip” behind the scenes.

This permission slip actually points back to your own server, allowing you to revoke a quote post permission without needing the cooperation of the server where you're being quoted.

Full technical details: https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/044f/fep-044f.md

🧵 2/6

This bureaucracy is necessary for verification of consent, but it is a bit of a pain for software implementers who want to give blanket quoting permissions, like bot authors.

Making your account quotable by Mastodon takes more than a simple declaration: it has to have the ability to respond affirmatively to quote requests, and to confirm or deny the legitimacy of existing quotes.

Generally this means having to at least keep track of everyone who has quoted you.

🧵 3/6

While reading FEP-044f, I had an idea for getting around that requirement. It's difficult to explain without getting extremely technical, but I think it could be interesting for platform implementers who want to offer blanket quotability to Mastodon users, but who have shied away from FEP-044f for its state management requirements.

Basically, a quote authorization stamp payload (see https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/044f/fep-044f.md#example-of-quoteauthorization) has to contain the IDs of the quoting post and the quoted post.

🧵 4/6

That's why it's not possible to simply reply “ya sure” to every quote verification request. The response has to affirmatively state which quote it is for.

So I thought, instead of keeping a list of prior quotes in a local database, why not embed them in the ID (URI) of the verification stamp? That way the code could simply echo them back out for any future request.

Turns out this works! You can see an example here: https://fietkau.software/daily_rucks/ap/quoteAuth?stamp=2025-11-08;https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2Fsome-post

🧵 5/6

This way, @DailyRucks gives out permission slips which are “shaped” in a way that is instantly verifiable, no database and no internal state required.

The only problem is that the ID of the quoting post is an arbitrary URI, and passing full URIs as query string parameters is brittle. It seems to work for Mastodon post IDs, but other platforms might have more complex URI schemas.

I guess we'll see what happens! 😀

Project website with link to the git repository: https://fietkau.software/daily_rucks

🧵 6/6

@encyclia I'll tag my own Encyclia account to see how this goes: @0000-0001-7264-8496

Bracing for some kind of technical collapse. 😬 But also curious what people will say!

@jupiter_rowland Hey Jupiter, I usually appreciate your advocacy for the non-Mastodon Fediverse, but let's stick to the truth.

1. The spec was developed openly, with input from the ActivityPub community: https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/pre-fep-quote-posts-quote-policies-and-quote-controls/5031
2. Its schema was invented by GoToSocial: https://docs.gotosocial.org/en/stable/federation/interaction_policy/
3. It is compatible with quotes from Misskey, Pixelfed, etc. that do not require permission (mainly self-quotes).
4. There are already three other implementations in GoToSocial, Smithereen, and dotmakeup.

@jonny If you want that, you would probably want FEP-e232: https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/e232/fep-e232.md Has a good number of fedi platforms that support it. I've run into @silverpill posts with multiple quoted posts embedded in the text, although Mastodon only displays them as links.

@MastodonEngineering Let's work together on the starter pack FEP! 🙂 I've been putting gas into ActivityPub starter packs recently with @anze3db and we're already interoperating with WordPress (cc @pfefferle). I'm down to make our stuff match Mastodon's so we can have compatibility in both directions, plus there are considerations on our side for the AP object schema as well. DMs are of course open.

@evan Taking the liberty to tag @Edent and @liaizon for this, since I've seen both of them put work into it previously and their insight and experience could be valuable. Also just happened to catch @trochee talk about related concerns earlier today.

@joemcken.net Hey from the other side 👋

Mastodon's quote posts require individual permission from the quoted author (this can be set to be given automatically). Bridgy Fed still needs to implement that part. Progress is tracked here: https://github.com/snarfed/bridgy-fed/issues/1956

cc @tchambers

@rimu @hollo @thisismissem @julian@community.nodebb.org @dansup @renchap

I was thinking about letting people pick one color and having the FEP provide wiggle room and guidance for platforms on what to do with it, like e.g. nudging very light or very dark colors for different backgrounds. I think Twitch does something like that for custom name colors.

It'd be up to the theme creators to decide how to incorporate it while preserving contrasts, or which colors can't work at all.

Gonna keep thinking it over.

@hollo @thisismissem Congratulations!

I'm still kind of obsessed with the idea of turning the profile color into a federatable actor property and creating an FEP to let server platforms (and ultimately clients) display people's profiles with visual accents in their chosen color.

It's not MySpace level of customization, but giving people a sense of ownership of "their" space is nice.

Would that be a waste of time or would any other platform want to buy in? @julian@community.nodebb.org @dansup @renchap @rimu

I'm finally unveiling the #ActivityPub project that has been consuming my weekends: Encyclia, an #ORCID bridge that will make ORCID records followable and interactable on the fediverse. 🙂

It's early-stage and the ORCID following function is not publicly available yet. We're seeking community feedback on functionality and safety aspects. Read more at https://encyclia.pub or follow @encyclia for news!

#fediverse #fedidev #scicomm #wisskomm #academicchatter

A cursed #ActivityPub idea.

Problem: Remote profiles sometimes look empty on Mastodon because only the stickied posts are synchronized on profile update.

Observation: Neither the ActivityPub nor Mastodon specs limit the number of sticky posts on a profile. Nothing says you can't have 100 000 sticky posts.

Solution: an ActivityPub server implementation that auto-stickies every single post you write.

The things I come up with thinking about @fedify while in the shower.