TrickJarrett.com

Adding Search

Tonight I started work on writing code to add a search function to this blog. However, not just posts on the blog, also posts I make on social media. So I wrote code for importing posts from Bluesky and Mastodon, the latter mainly for completeness as I don't post there much anymore. It imported my backlog and then I modified the same code to be usable for a nightly cron job.

The search itself is still something I'm wrestling with. Aside from the added sources of content, I am trying to figure out how to best do this.

It's no secret that search is complicated. Which makes this a fun mental challenge.

So I have the most basic parts done, and now it is the gritty details of adding logic for ordering these posts, as well as adding things like spam protection, caching, XSS protection, etc. And then it will be writing the client side code and display functionality.

I'd guess I'm like 30% done.... famous last words. We'll see.

Share to: | Tags: glowbug, programming, search, bluesky, mastodon

"Decentralized Social Media Is the Only Alternative to the Tech Oligarchy"

If it wasn’t already obvious, the last 72 hours have made it crystal clear that it is urgent to build and mainstream alternative, decentralized social media platforms that are resistant to government censorship and control, are not owned by oligarchs and dominated by their algorithms, and in which users own their follower list and can port it elsewhere easily and without restriction.

Relevant to this, I came across this excellent resource for helping people get onto Mastodon and find their community.

I am curious to find someone more knowledgeable than me to dive into the technological implementations of both fediverse and atprotocol infrastructure to understand the longterm prospects for both. My current (ill informed) belief is that fediverse has the better underlying protocol, but Bluesky has the easier onboarding which has given it the short term growth that makes it a more viable longterm option.

Share to: | Tags: social media, mastodon, atprotocol, fediverse, bluesky

Mastodon Change

I officially moved from @trick@hachyderm.io to @trick@kind.social as my Mastodon social account. Driven largely because I was feeling hachyderm's community was less relevant to me regularly. So, giving a new instance a try and we'll see how it goes.

Shout out to the kind.social admin, Texan_Reverand for an excellent set of instructions for migrating between instances.

Share to: | Tags: social media, mastodon

This is a really good idea

This is a really good idea. Ensuring that if the mods somehow fall off an instance in the network, it switches to block new users to avoid being brigaded for spam purposes.

Share to: | Tags: fediverse, mastodon

Mastodon Platform Analytics

I got curious to see the trends of users on Mastodon and it appears that it grows during certain events on X, but otherwise it is slowly fading. We'll see what it's longterm performance and potential is.

Share to: | Tags: social media, mastodon

I had an interesting observation of the Threads -> Mastodon pipeline that is built into Threads yesterday.

Posts on Threads which include hashtags have the octothorpe (#) removed, and are linked to that hashtag's page. Because of this, the octothorpe is missing when viewing a Threads post via Mastodon, meaning a "#programming" is simply included in the post as "programming" with no sign it was a hashtag.

Share to: | Tags: mastodon, fediverse, threads

Hachyderm's server report says there are 36,143 peer instances for it on the Mastodon network. My blog runs a cron job which pings instances.social for the top 1000 instances by active users. I then capture any new ones from that list and add it to my list. As of tonight, my blog knows 2,417 of the instance domains. This represents just 6.7% of the network by instance quantity, but my estimate is that it is 90+% of the userbase.

This code enables my blog to automatically identify when I link to a post on Mastodon (admittedly, not something I'm doing a great deal of these days.) When it knows the link is for a Mastodon post, it can generate the code for embedding the post directly into the blog, rather than simply linking to it.

Share to: | Tags: mastodon, fediverse, glowbug, programming

Insight from a meeting with Meta about Threads & the Fediverse

Some interesting insights from a meeting with Meta in December about their plans with Threads and integrating with the Fediverse & Mastodon.

The timeline as outline from the blog entry:

• December 2023 – A user will be able to opt in via the Threads app to have their posts visible to Mastodon clients. People would be able to reply and like those posts using their Mastodon clients, but those replies and likes would not be visible within the Threads application. Threads users would not be able to follow or see posts published across Mastodon servers, or reply to them or like then.

• Early 2024 (Part One) – the Like counts on the Threads app would combine likes from Mastodon and Threads users

• Early 2024 (Part Two) – replies posted on Mastodon servers would be visible in the Threads application

• Late 2024 – A “mixed” Fediverse and Threads experience where you will be able to follow Mastodon users within Threads, and reply to them and like them

• TBD – Full blended interoperability between Threads and Mastodon

Later in the entry, the author does note:

I have to tell you based on my limited knowledge at this point I think this roadmap is probably wildly optimistic. But I guess we’ll see.

I did find the write-up interesting and provided some insights into the plans, though there is still much to be seen for what the platform holds and if it will take more active usage in the future.

Share to: | Tags: social media, meta, threads, fediverse, mastodon

Phanpy.social is my new Mastodon website

No, I didn't change my account, this is the site I'm using to connect to Mastodon. It's not perfect, but I really enjoy the UI and plan to use it moving forward.

Also, I think it's pronounced "fan-pie"? No idea.

Share to: | Tags: mastodon, social media

Following Sports on Mastodon

Since I refuse to engage with Twitter when able, I'm enjoying Mastodon for my Women's World Cup coverage conversation. My top advice is to follow the hashtags for the sporting event(s) you care about. This means that posts using that hashtag, by anyone, will appear in my timeline as if I was following that user.

So I'm following #WWC, #WWC2023, and #FIFAWWC and getting a nice and manageable amount of posts about the Women's World Cup game right now.

The other thing I did was for posting. I installed an app called Espanso (props to Adam Gessaman for the recommendation.) The reason being I can now type a shortened string and have it put in the above hashtags to ensure my post reaches other people interested in the topic. The hashtag usage is critical for Mastodon given it's search limitations.

Share to: | Tags: us soccer, womens sports, social media, mastodon, world cup

The Four Twitters

Share to: | Tags: social media, twitter, bluesky, mastodon, threads

Founder of Mastodon answers questions about Threads

The finishing paragraph outlines his stance on it:

We have been advocating for interoperability between platforms for years. The biggest hurdle to users switching platforms when those platforms become exploitative is the lock-in of the social graph, the fact that switching platforms means abandoning everyone you know and who knows you. The fact that large platforms are adopting ActivityPub is not only validation of the movement towards decentralized social media, but a path forward for people locked into these platforms to switch to better providers. Which in turn, puts pressure on such platforms to provide better, less exploitative services. This is a clear victory for our cause, hopefully one of many to come.

Share to: | Tags: social media, mastodon, threads

This is a test of making posts from my blog to both Bluesky and Mastodon.

Edit:

Success!

I intend to give myself control over which to post to, but right now it defaults to both. I'm not bringing the bot posts over to Bluesky because I feel strongly about being able to delete them automatically, but we're on our way.

The base PHP came from James Cridland's blog. It's rudimentary for just posting text for now, but we'll get there for the rest.

Share to: | Tags: testing, programming, bluesky, mastodon

Social media is all about moving goal posts

An excellent observation regarding the growth of new social media platforms. The goal posts will continue to move.

Share to: | Tags: social media, mastodon, fediverse, twitter