Last Week in Fediverse - ep 42

In this edition: Mastodon shares some plans for future updates, social network Pebble shuts down and starts a Mastodon experiment, and more information about Mozilla's fediverse project.

Pebble shuts down and starts a Mastodon server

https://laurenshof.online/pebble-shuts-down-and-restarts/

Mastodon plans for 4.3 update

Mastodon CTO Renaud Chaput has posted a small thread with a near-term roadmap for update 4.3 for Mastodon. It is tentatively scheduled to be released before Christmas. One item specifically stands out:

• "Notify users when relationships (follows, followers) are severed, due to a server block, display the list of impacted relationships, and have a button to restore them if the remote server is unblocked."

Server blocks can be impactful on users, where they suddenly lose relationships with other accounts due to the connection between their servers being blocked. Currently people are not notified when this happens, even though the impact can be severe. The ability to restore connections after an unblock will also help with harm mitigations.

Other proposed improvements include grouped notifications, improved account recommendations, and more.

Mastodon quote posting timeline

Renaud Chaput gave a short update on Mastodon's work on implementing quote posting. He stated that Mastodon is working on adding quote posts, and also on making sure that it is properly implemented in ActivityPub. The protocol currently has no formal specification for quote posts, and other platforms such as Misskey, Pleroma and Streams have all implemented quote posting in their own manner. Mastodon is looking to add a formal definition to the ActivityPub specification first, where it is also possible to get notified if you are quoted, and to control who can quote your post.

Expanding the protocol is currently mainly done via Fediverse Enhancement Proposals (FEP), which allows everyone to submit a documents on how the ActivityPub protocol can be improved. An FEP is not mandatory, and fediverse platforms do not have to implement an FEP.

Kbin dev logs

Mbin recently appeared as a community-focused fork of Kbin. This week Mbin had their first release, with a large variety of small fixes by a group of contributors. The fork Mbin was created as a response perceived issues with governance at Kbin; contributors struggled with lack of engagement and interaction by Kbin creator Ernest, with contributions not being added or even reversed. Mbin is set up as a community project, where any of the (around 8) owners can add a feature by a contributor. Ernest has set up a new dev blog series, called the Road to Release, where he documents his progress on getting Kbin to release. The first update is the ability for admins to delete magazines, a often-requested feature.

In other news

This week marks the 1-year anniversary since the start of the Twittermigration, which lead to a massive inflow of people that left Twitter and joined the fediverse. Quite some people are writing up their reflections as part of their 'fediversary'. It is fun to browse the #fediversity hashtag and see people's posts. Personally I have enjoyed reading these four reflections.

Techcrunch has an extensive article and interview about Mozilla's upcoming fediverse server mozilla.social. The server is currently still in closed beta. The entire article is worth reading, and provides some good insight in how Mozilla is thinking about their project. Techcrunch says that the "timeline to a public launch isn’t yet determined", and it seems like it might take a while.

The links

• Alt text health leaderboard.
• Pixelfed has simplified registration for new users.
• Embedding Mastodon posts.
• Pleroma had released a significant update, and also recently got an NLnet grant.