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316 results for “oliphaunt”
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I’m on my way home from my first #PyConUS, which was as fun and friendly as I’d expected ❤️🐍❤️. Always great to meet folks IRL whom I’d previously only known through Discord et al (especially so many @pyladies!), and to see folks I’ve been lucky enough to get know before at @pybay, @NorthBayPython, or @pybeach.
And kind of a trip to hear Travis Oliphant refer several times to work Paul Dubois did in the 90s on Numerical Python, when in the 90s I only knew Paul as “Friend’s dad who drives us to the movies and helps with Mortal Kombat”!
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CW: Daily random quote out of context from my academic book about Mastodon
Speaking personally, Rochko’s acceptance of importable instance blocklists happened just in time for me. Right after version 4.1.0 of Mastodon was released, I started as the admin of AoIR.social, an instance for members of the Association of Internet Researchers. My very first act as admin was to importing both Oliphant’s Tier 0 list and Ro’s Bad Space list....
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And speaking of "Stop CSAM", it won't actually stop CSAM. Here's how EFF describes it
"But if the STOP CSAM Act passes, it would make it a crime to offer encryption, because it could "facilitate" the sharing of illegal child abuse material (CSAM)—even if there's no evidence that a platform or service intended to do so."
Here's EFF's action page: https://act.eff.org/action/tell-congress-don-t-outlaw-encrypted-applications
Or, to find out more, here's EFF's deep dive
@jdp23 @oliphant @letsbekind2 @TNLNYC @seachanger @benjamim @Gargron
@privacy
#BadInternetBills #STOPCSAM -
#RhodeIsland - Warming Centers | Emergency Management Agency
"Below is a list of warming centers throughout the state. If you do not see your community listed or to verify times and center locations, contact your local municipalities for more information. If you need additional assistance, call 2-1-1.
All details and information are subject to change at any time. Individuals seeking resources are encouraged to call ahead before visiting."
Pets:
Pets needing sheltering may be taken to the Potter League for Animals, located at 87 Oliphant Ln, Middletown, RI. The potter league closes at 5:00 PM daily. If emergency pet sheltering is needed call (401) 846-8276 during and after normal work hours.#BarringtonRI
#BristolRI
#BurrillvilleRI
#CentralFallsRI
#CharlestownRI
#CoventryRI
#CranstonRI
#CumberlandRI
#EastGreenwichRI
#EastProvidence
#ExeterRI
#GlocesterRI
#HarmonyRI
#HopkintonRI
#JamestownRI
#JohnstonRI
#LincolnRI
#LittleComptonRI
#MiddletownRI
#NewportRI
#NorthKingstownRI
#NorthProvidenceRI
#NorthSmithfieldRI
#PawtucketRI
#PortsmouthRI
#ProvidenceRI
#SouthProvidenceRI
#SmithfieldRI
#TivertonRI
#WarrenRI
#WarwickRI
#WesterlyRI
#WestGreenwichRI
#WestWarwickRI
#WoonsocketRIFMI - https://riema.ri.gov/warming-centers
For an extended and detailed list of resources provided by Executive Office of Housing for Rhode Islanders experiencing homelessness, please visit, click below.
https://housing.ri.gov/resources/individuals-experiencing-homelessness#WarmingCenters #WarmingShelters #LibrariesRule #Unhoused #Houseless
#PolarVortex #ArcticBlast #Homeless #WarmingCenterRhodeIsland #EmergencyShelters -
Was das #Mobbing, wie es von z.B.
mastodon.art,xim.ca,mstdn.socialund deren Freaks mit einem machen können: https://tly.be/pbOoeDas Fediverse ist kein Safe-Space. Für niemanden, wenn Personen wie WelshPixie, Alex, Schratze oder Rysiek jemanden mit ihren Lügen bis hin zu Suizidgedanken treiben!
I've not planned to translate the text to English. If you need it in another language, use deepl.com and NOT Google Translate!
#FediBlockMeta #TheBadSpace #Oliphant #FediBlock #CyberMobbing #HassReden #Harassment #HateSpeech #Bullying #Framing #Gaslighting #Deplatforming #Derailing #Despotism #Discrimination #Disinformation #Dogmatism #Dogpiling #Fascism #Gatekeeping #Hatemongering #Narcissism #Sealioning #Scam #Sectarianism #WitchHunting #VictimBlaming #Antifa #Bigotry #Blackmailing #Censorship #Corrupt #Fearmongering #FediSeer
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CW: The Fediverse has quote-posts right now, it can quote-post Mastodon toots with no problems, and no Mastodon switch will change that; CW: long (over 4,500 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse beyond Mastodon meta, quote-post meta
One of the worst aspects of Mastodon's plans to introduce quote-posts with a switch:
You keep having to tell Mastodon users that the Fediverse is not only Mastodon. That (insert a long list of Fediverse server applications here¹) have had quote-posts from the beginning. That they're all in the Fediverse. That they're all fully federated with Mastodon. That they can all quote-post any Mastodon toot they can possibly receive or import. And that they will be able to quote-post any Mastodon toot they can in the future, regardless of Mastodon account settings.
Up until this point, they were fully, firmly convinced that they're 100% safe from quote-posts on Mastodon. Either because they could not for the lives of them imagine that anything in the Fediverse has them. Or simply because they "knew" up until this point that the Fediverse is Mastodon. And if Mastodon introduces an opt-out or opt-in switch, this switch will mean absolute, 100% water-tight safety from quote-posts.
But for the Fediverse outside of Mastodon, the quote-post switch will be completely useless. Again: These lots of Fediverse server apps have had quote-posts before Mastodon introduced them. They had quote-posts before Mastodon invented the opt-in or opt-out switch. I mean, at least two of them have had quote-posts since before Mastodon even existed! So how are they supposed to support a proprietary, non-standard, Mastodon-specific switch which probably won't be documented anywhere before Mastodon rolls out quote-posts?
I'll tell you what'll happen.
Mastodon users will deactivate quote-posts for their accounts or not activate them in the first place. Non-Mastodon users, not knowing about the status of that switch, will quote-post them regardless with zero resistance. Upon which these Mastodon users will shit brix. And they'll call for either blocking that obviously rogue Mastodon user instance-wide, or blocking that user's instance, or Fediblocking that user's instance.
At this point, someone else who is not on Mastodon either will chime in and tell them: That particular user is, in fact, not on Mastodon. The Fediverse is not only Mastodon. That user is on Friendica. No, Friendica is not a rogue Mastodon instance. Friendica is not Mastodon at all. No, Friendica isn't a Mastodon fork either. Friendica has nothing to do with Mastodon. In fact, Friendica is older than Mastodon. On Friendica, quote-posts are perfectly normal. Friendica has had quote-posts for longer than Mastodon has even existed. And so forth.
Cue the Mastodon user shitting brix again, foaming with anger and calling for a Fediblock of all of Friendica.
In fact, I'm pretty sure that if Mastodon's quote-post feature and the rest of the Fediverse disregarding it leads to more awareness of the non-Mastodon Fediverse and its non-Mastodon features on Mastodon, it will also lead to demands for being able to completely block everything that isn't Mastodon, either on an account level (and then on by default, of course) or on an instance level or both.
Oh, by the way: The ability to completely lock out entire Fediverse projects already exists in the Fediverse right now, too. It's exclusive to two other Fediverse server apps that aren't Mastodon, both of which introduced this feature in September.
¹Here's a probably incomplete list of still-active Fediverse server apps with quote-posts which, yes, can quote-post Mastodon toots right now and will be able to quote-post Mastodon toots regardless of opt-in or opt-out:- Pleroma
- Akkoma
- Misskey
- Firefish
- Sharkey
- Iceshrimp
- Iceshrimp.NET
- CherryPick
- Neko
- Catodon
- Meisskey
- Tanukey
- Metaskey
- Mitra
- Friendica
- Hubzilla
- (streams)
- Forte
(Inb4 both Oliphant and The Bad Space trying hard to catch all instances of the server apps mentioned above to blocklist them all.)
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse #Mastodon #Pleroma #Akkoma #Misskey #Calckey #Firefish #Sharkey #Iceshrimp #Iceshrimp.NET #CherryPick #Neko #Catodon #Meisskey #Tanukey #Metaskey #Mitra #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Threads #BridgyFed #Bluesky #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #QuotePostDebate #QuoteTootDebate #FediblockMeta #Oliphant #TheBadSpace -
Was das #Mobbing, wie es von z.B.
mastodon.art,xim.ca,mstdn.socialund deren Freaks mit einem machen können: https://tly.be/pbOoeDas Fediverse ist kein Safe-Space. Für niemanden, wenn Personen wie WelshPixie, Alex, Schratze oder Rysiek jemanden mit ihren Lügen bis hin zu Suizidgedanken treiben!
I've not planned to translate the text to English. If you need it in another language, use deepl.com and NOT Google Translate!
#FediBlockMeta #TheBadSpace #Oliphant #FediBlock #CyberMobbing #HassReden #Harassment #HateSpeech #Bullying #Framing #Gaslighting #Deplatforming #Derailing #Despotism #Discrimination #Disinformation #Dogmatism #Dogpiling #Fascism #Gatekeeping #Hatemongering #Narcissism #Sealioning #Scam #Sectarianism #WitchHunting #VictimBlaming #Antifa #Bigotry #Blackmailing #Censorship #Corrupt #Fearmongering #FediSeer
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Was das #Mobbing, wie es von z.B.
mastodon.art,xim.ca,mstdn.socialund deren Freaks mit einem machen können: https://tly.be/pbOoeDas Fediverse ist kein Safe-Space. Für niemanden, wenn Personen wie WelshPixie, Alex, Schratze oder Rysiek jemanden mit ihren Lügen bis hin zu Suizidgedanken treiben!
I've not planned to translate the text to English. If you need it in another language, use deepl.com and NOT Google Translate!
#FediBlockMeta #TheBadSpace #Oliphant #FediBlock #CyberMobbing #HassReden #Harassment #HateSpeech #Bullying #Framing #Gaslighting #Deplatforming #Derailing #Despotism #Discrimination #Disinformation #Dogmatism #Dogpiling #Fascism #Gatekeeping #Hatemongering #Narcissism #Sealioning #Scam #Sectarianism #WitchHunting #VictimBlaming #Antifa #Bigotry #Blackmailing #Censorship #Corrupt #Fearmongering #FediSeer
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Video of a Roll Cloud
by reedme76"This weather phenomenon, known as a Roll Cloud stretched across the sky and spun in a spiral rotation on May 27, 2007. The cloud came in off of Lake Huron and passed over Chief's Point and our family's property at the southern end of Oliphant in Bruce County, Ontario. We quickly realized that this cloud was being pushed by a cold air mass as the temperature dropped from the low-70s down to the mid-50s in about 3 minutes. Chilly gusts of wind picked up as the cloud passed overhead."
CREDIT
Text & Video
reedme76
https://www.youtube.com/@reedme76#space #earth #atmophere #clouds #weather #photography #science #physics #meteorology #nature #education
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Mahmoud Khalil speaks out from the ICE detention facility in Louisiana:
"Visa-holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs. In the weeks ahead, students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all."
https://writer.oliphant.social/dispatch/a-letter-from-mahmoud-khalil
#FreeKhalil #FreeMahmoudKhalil
#CivilLiberties
#HumanRights
#Palestine -
#RhodeIsland - Warming Centers | Emergency Management Agency
"Below is a list of warming centers throughout the state. If you do not see your community listed or to verify times and center locations, contact your local municipalities for more information. If you need additional assistance, call 2-1-1.
All details and information are subject to change at any time. Individuals seeking resources are encouraged to call ahead before visiting."
Pets:
Pets needing sheltering may be taken to the Potter League for Animals, located at 87 Oliphant Ln, Middletown, RI. The potter league closes at 5:00 PM daily. If emergency pet sheltering is needed call (401) 846-8276 during and after normal work hours.#BarringtonRI
#BristolRI
#BurrillvilleRI
#CentralFallsRI
#CharlestownRI
#CoventryRI
#CranstonRI
#CumberlandRI
#EastGreenwichRI
#EastProvidence
#ExeterRI
#GlocesterRI
#HarmonyRI
#HopkintonRI
#JamestownRI
#JohnstonRI
#LincolnRI
#LittleComptonRI
#MiddletownRI
#NewportRI
#NorthKingstownRI
#NorthProvidenceRI
#NorthSmithfieldRI
#PawtucketRI
#PortsmouthRI
#ProvidenceRI
#SouthProvidenceRI
#SmithfieldRI
#TivertonRI
#WarrenRI
#WarwickRI
#WesterlyRI
#WestGreenwichRI
#WestWarwickRI
#WoonsocketRIFMI - https://riema.ri.gov/warming-centers
For an extended and detailed list of resources provided by Executive Office of Housing for Rhode Islanders experiencing homelessness, please visit, click below.
https://housing.ri.gov/resources/individuals-experiencing-homelessness#WarmingCenters #WarmingShelters #LibrariesRule #Unhoused #Houseless
#PolarVortex #ArcticBlast #Homeless #WarmingCenterRhodeIsland #EmergencyShelters -
#RhodeIsland - Warming Centers | Emergency Management Agency
"Below is a list of warming centers throughout the state. If you do not see your community listed or to verify times and center locations, contact your local municipalities for more information. If you need additional assistance, call 2-1-1.
All details and information are subject to change at any time. Individuals seeking resources are encouraged to call ahead before visiting."
Pets:
Pets needing sheltering may be taken to the Potter League for Animals, located at 87 Oliphant Ln, Middletown, RI. The potter league closes at 5:00 PM daily. If emergency pet sheltering is needed call (401) 846-8276 during and after normal work hours.#BarringtonRI
#BristolRI
#BurrillvilleRI
#CentralFallsRI
#CharlestownRI
#CoventryRI
#CranstonRI
#CumberlandRI
#EastGreenwichRI
#EastProvidence
#ExeterRI
#GlocesterRI
#HarmonyRI
#HopkintonRI
#JamestownRI
#JohnstonRI
#LincolnRI
#LittleComptonRI
#MiddletownRI
#NewportRI
#NorthKingstownRI
#NorthProvidenceRI
#NorthSmithfieldRI
#PawtucketRI
#PortsmouthRI
#ProvidenceRI
#SouthProvidenceRI
#SmithfieldRI
#TivertonRI
#WarrenRI
#WarwickRI
#WesterlyRI
#WestGreenwichRI
#WestWarwickRI
#WoonsocketRIFMI - https://riema.ri.gov/warming-centers
For an extended and detailed list of resources provided by Executive Office of Housing for Rhode Islanders experiencing homelessness, please visit, click below.
https://housing.ri.gov/resources/individuals-experiencing-homelessness#WarmingCenters #WarmingShelters #LibrariesRule #Unhoused #Houseless
#PolarVortex #ArcticBlast #Homeless #WarmingCenterRhodeIsland #EmergencyShelters -
#RhodeIsland - Warming Centers | Emergency Management Agency
"Below is a list of warming centers throughout the state. If you do not see your community listed or to verify times and center locations, contact your local municipalities for more information. If you need additional assistance, call 2-1-1.
All details and information are subject to change at any time. Individuals seeking resources are encouraged to call ahead before visiting."
Pets:
Pets needing sheltering may be taken to the Potter League for Animals, located at 87 Oliphant Ln, Middletown, RI. The potter league closes at 5:00 PM daily. If emergency pet sheltering is needed call (401) 846-8276 during and after normal work hours.#BarringtonRI
#BristolRI
#BurrillvilleRI
#CentralFallsRI
#CharlestownRI
#CoventryRI
#CranstonRI
#CumberlandRI
#EastGreenwichRI
#EastProvidence
#ExeterRI
#GlocesterRI
#HarmonyRI
#HopkintonRI
#JamestownRI
#JohnstonRI
#LincolnRI
#LittleComptonRI
#MiddletownRI
#NewportRI
#NorthKingstownRI
#NorthProvidenceRI
#NorthSmithfieldRI
#PawtucketRI
#PortsmouthRI
#ProvidenceRI
#SouthProvidenceRI
#SmithfieldRI
#TivertonRI
#WarrenRI
#WarwickRI
#WesterlyRI
#WestGreenwichRI
#WestWarwickRI
#WoonsocketRIFMI - https://riema.ri.gov/warming-centers
For an extended and detailed list of resources provided by Executive Office of Housing for Rhode Islanders experiencing homelessness, please visit, click below.
https://housing.ri.gov/resources/individuals-experiencing-homelessness#WarmingCenters #WarmingShelters #LibrariesRule #Unhoused #Houseless
#PolarVortex #ArcticBlast #Homeless #WarmingCenterRhodeIsland #EmergencyShelters -
#RhodeIsland - Warming Centers | Emergency Management Agency
"Below is a list of warming centers throughout the state. If you do not see your community listed or to verify times and center locations, contact your local municipalities for more information. If you need additional assistance, call 2-1-1.
All details and information are subject to change at any time. Individuals seeking resources are encouraged to call ahead before visiting."
Pets:
Pets needing sheltering may be taken to the Potter League for Animals, located at 87 Oliphant Ln, Middletown, RI. The potter league closes at 5:00 PM daily. If emergency pet sheltering is needed call (401) 846-8276 during and after normal work hours.#BarringtonRI
#BristolRI
#BurrillvilleRI
#CentralFallsRI
#CharlestownRI
#CoventryRI
#CranstonRI
#CumberlandRI
#EastGreenwichRI
#EastProvidence
#ExeterRI
#GlocesterRI
#HarmonyRI
#HopkintonRI
#JamestownRI
#JohnstonRI
#LincolnRI
#LittleComptonRI
#MiddletownRI
#NewportRI
#NorthKingstownRI
#NorthProvidenceRI
#NorthSmithfieldRI
#PawtucketRI
#PortsmouthRI
#ProvidenceRI
#SouthProvidenceRI
#SmithfieldRI
#TivertonRI
#WarrenRI
#WarwickRI
#WesterlyRI
#WestGreenwichRI
#WestWarwickRI
#WoonsocketRIFMI - https://riema.ri.gov/warming-centers
For an extended and detailed list of resources provided by Executive Office of Housing for Rhode Islanders experiencing homelessness, please visit, click below.
https://housing.ri.gov/resources/individuals-experiencing-homelessness#WarmingCenters #WarmingShelters #LibrariesRule #Unhoused #Houseless
#PolarVortex #ArcticBlast #Homeless #WarmingCenterRhodeIsland #EmergencyShelters -
"Laughing is not the first expression of joy.... A person laughs in idleness, for fun, not for joy. Joy has nothing, nothing but the old way of tears."
A House in Bloomsbury (1894)
~Margaret Oliphant (4 April 1828 – 20 June 1897)
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Hi theATL.social! 👋
Hope everyone is doing alright. I've been a bit quiet the past couple of weeks, as I was on vacation in the French Pyrenees! I had some very amazing hikes, including this one near Laruns, #France around the Pic du Midi d'Ossau.
A quick note about domain blocks and federation: working with @DecaturNature, the domain block list for theATL.social has been updated.This block list is based on (but is not exactly) the Tier0 Oliphant list. From now on, this list will be reviewed and updated monthly.
The general criteria for a domain block are instances whose primary activity is hate speech, or if the primary moderators express their intent to permit or encourage hate speech.
Thankfully, this only applies to a relatively small number of sites, many of which quickly go defunct.
Feel free to reach out with any questions, comments, or concerns!
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CW: Daily random quote out of context from my academic book about Mastodon
Speaking personally, Rochko’s acceptance of importable instance blocklists happened just in time for me. Right after version 4.1.0 of Mastodon was released, I started as the admin of AoIR.social, an instance for members of the Association of Internet Researchers. My very first act as admin was to importing both Oliphant’s Tier 0 list and Ro’s Bad Space list....
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Emergence of governance in open communities
How the Fediverse is growing to meet its challenges
[German language version of this text will be published in FIfF-Kommunikation, the journal of the Forum InformatikerInnen für Frieden und gesellschaftliche Verantwortung (FIfF e.V.)]
ToC
The dead live longer
Multi-layered self-regulation
Gab: the Nazis are coming
Threads and Bluesky: Federation Washing?
Conclusio: Small is Beautiful
LiteraturThe social media landscape has been undergoing a tectonic shift since Elon Musk took over Twitter and Donald Trump took over the USA. The Fediverse emerged at a time when the previous phase of decentralised social networks – the blogosphere – was being supplanted by globally centralised platforms such as Facebook (2004), YouTube (2005) and Twitter (2006). With them came the problems: surveillance-based advertising, election manipulation by Cambridge Analytica, addictive design, enshittification of previously useful services (Cory Doctorow), techno-feudalism (Yanis Varoufakis).
In contrast, a counter-movement for the recentralisation of the Internet (Kahle 2016, Berners-Lee et al. 2016) is emerging and for sovereignty in Europe, which is becoming painfully aware of its comprehensive technological dependence on the US.
The perception of a crisis is giving rise to a new digital universe, the decentralised and federated Fediverse. For many migrants from toxic environments, it feels like a friendly neighbourhood where reason and civilised conversation prevail. Of course, this is not a genetic trait, hard-coded into Mastodon & Co. But how does an open community oriented towards the common good, a bustling field of players and technologies, organise itself? How does the governance of complex socio-technical systems unfold?
Resilient structures of self-organisation, so the theory goes, are the result of experiences of conflict. Current external or internal conflicts as well as structural problems (onboarding, money, etc.) trigger a collective reflection that challenges open communities to emerge from a lack of structure. The solutions, as I would like to show with examples, can be of technical or social protocols, usually a combination of both.
The dead live longer
Distributed and federated protocols have been around since 1999 with XMPP. According to official historiography, the Fediverse began in 2008 with the decentralised OpenMicroBlogging protocol and the platform Identi.ca, a free version of Twitter based on it, both developed by Evan Prodromou.
In January 2016, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) presented the ActivityPub protocol to improve the interoperability of the various decentralised platforms in the Fediverse. Prodromou is again co-author. Also since 2016, Eugen Rochko has been developing the microblog Mastodon, which is now the star among the decentralised platforms with around ten million users. In addition to Mastodon, the microblog Misskey, the photo platform Pixelfed, the link aggregator Lemmy and the video platform Peertube are also popular in the ActivityPub universe (FediDB: Software, April 2025).
As already mentioned, the development is motivated by criticism of the techno-feudalism of the mega-platforms. The current lead author of ActivityPub, Christine Lemmer-Webber, notes that no companies are involved in the team developing the protocol, which is very unusual for technical committees. In addition, the team identifies predominantly as queer, which leads to functions in the protocol and in the clients that help users and administrators to protect themselves from ‘unwanted interaction’ (Klemens 2023).
Mastodon is run by a non-profit limited company. The community excludes venture capital as well as surveillance advertising, which has made the mega-platforms the richest companies in the world. Mastodon per default does not even include a function for displaying adverts. But how is a global community that is essentially financed by collecting donations supposed to build an alternative to this overwhelming power and lure people out of the lock-in by the mega-companies?
As the Fediverse contradicts all business logic, experts predicted that it would soon come to an end (Woźniak 2025). The opposite is the case. At Berlin Fediday 2024, Prodromou (2024) reported on growth by all criteria: ActivityPub is being implemented by more and more platforms (WordPress, Ghost.org, Flipboard, Threads). The number of users is growing continuously, as are the bridges to other protocols, applications, content, publications and institutions of self-organisation: the SocialCG (Community Group) for ActivityPub at the W3C, the online conference FediForum, the moderator community IFTAS, Mastodon’s non-profit offshoot in the USA. He answers the question of his presentation title ‘Is Bigger Better?’ with a resounding yes.
A week later, Prodromou announced the creation of the Social Web Foundation (SWF), whose mission is a ‘growing, healthy, sustainable and multipolar Fediverse’. Shortly afterwards, the foundation became a member of the W3C as a community front-end for ActivityPub: ‘We collect requirements and design potential extensions to the ActivityPub protocol and guide them through standardisation’ (SWF 2025).
Multi-layered self-regulation
The Fediverse is, of course, also subject to external regulation through laws, etc. The focus here is on the area in which the Fediverse players are free to regulate themselves. The Fediverse project unites them on the basis of a normative conviction: a different, decentralised, federated Internet is possible. Civil society and the public sector can collectively create an online environment in which people treat each other in a civilised and respectful manner. Common values are initially shared tacitly. As the community grows and becomes more diverse, but especially when conflicts challenge these values, they are made explicit in rules of conduct, mission statements, etc. and operationalised with mechanisms for their implementation and enforcement.
Projects usually start with minimal ad hoc organisational structures and move on to more permanent forms as required. Regulation arises in order to solve problems, e.g. a legal form must be established in order to open a bank account and thus collect donations. Internal dynamic lead to the problem of the Benevolent Dictator For Life (BDFL). A free software project is started by a man (is there really not a single woman in the Wikipedia list of BDFLs?), becomes popular, grows into a community of co-developers and users, in which the founder remains at the top, respected for his valuable contributions. A meritocracy that, if left unchecked, becomes dysfunctional. The term was coined for Linus Torvalds and his Linux kernel. In the Fediverse, this currently affects Matt Mullenweg from WordPress, Daniel Supernault from Pixelfed and Loops and Eugen Rochko from Mastodon, for example. The latter announced in January 2025 that he would retire from management and concentrate on development. A new non-profit company is to be founded to which he will transfer the Mastodon brand and the copyrights to the code. This means that Mastodon’s independence no longer depends on a single person (Mastodon 2025).
Gab: the Nazis are coming
2016 was a breakthrough year for the Fediverse. It was also the year of Brexit and Trump’s first presidential election. And behind both, the Alt-Right movement emerged onto the research radar from image boards like 4Chan. An Internet-native movement that only half-jokingly boasts of having voted Trump into office and promotes “Fashy”, a “fashionable fascism” (Cramer 2017).
Gab was launched in August 2016 as a social network for radical free speech. Co-founder Andrew Torba cited ‘the total left-wing monopoly of Big Social’ as the motive. Especially during the 2016 election, Facebook and Twitter censored conservative voices. Gab started on its own technology as a mixture of Twitter and Reddit.
Gab was soon banned from the app stores for hate and pornography. In October 2018, a white supremacist killed eleven people in a synagogue in Pittsburgh. The perpetrator had posted his anti-Semitism on Gab for almost a year. As a result, payment services, web hosts and cloud providers also blocked Gab. To circumvent this block, the creators decided to migrate Gab to a fork of Mastodon in July 2019, making it accessible with every Mastodon app.
Mastodon founder Rochko spoke out on the same day. He explained that the licence (AGPLv3) does not allow certain uses or users to be excluded as long as it is complied with. At the same time, he expressed his disgust at Gab,
“which uses the pretense of free speech absolutism as an excuse to platform racist and otherwise dehumanizing content. Mastodon has been originally developed by a person of Jewish heritage and first-generation immigrant background, and Mastodon’s userbase includes many people from marginalized communities.
Mastodon’s decentralized approach that allows communities to self-govern according to their needs has enabled those marginalized communities to create safe spaces for themselves where previously they were reliant on big companies like Twitter to stand up for them, which these companies have often failed to do.” (Rochko 2019)
It was precisely decentralisation and federation that brought about a social protocol as a solution. On the one hand, many Mastodon admins had already decided to block Gab, including mastodon.social, which is operated by the Mastodon gGmbH itself. On the other hand, rules have been made explicit for the servers listed on joinmastodon.org, which is also operated by the gGmbH. With the Mastodon Server Covenant, server operators commit to
1. Active moderation against racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia,
2. Daily backups,
3. At least one other person with emergency access to the server infrastructure,
4. And to give users at least 3 months of advance warning in case of shutting down. (Mastodon: Covenant)
There is no technical switch against Nazis. Although there have been discussions about inserting code into the clients to prevent them from logging into Gab servers, such changes can be easily reversed. The copyright licence also does not allow Nazis to be excluded from using one’s own software. There is a long debate about banning use for military purposes, for example (Kreutzer 2006). In practice, restrictions on use by licence violate the definition of free software and have not become established.
Nazis can set up their own Fediverse servers. However, the Federation’s code of conduct, the Covenant, ensures that these instances remain isolated, like Gab and Truth Social, and do no harm in the Federation. For newcomers, this level is less visible than the policies of the individual instances. However, it is crucial for the information space as a whole.
Regulations are only as good as their enforcement. Block lists for accounts and instances are maintained as tools for the daily work of admins and moderators (e.g. Oliphant). The moderators have joined forces in the IFTAS (Independent Federated Trust & Safety) forum.
Looking back at research on “alternative social media” (ASM), Robert W. Gehl (2025) notes that the widespread assumption that ASM are progressive had a blind spot: they can just as easily be used by the political right. The deplatforming of right-wing radicals on the mega-platforms increased the pressure to build their own places for radical freedom of speech. Now the research has turned into the opposite and reduced ASM to ‘alt-right social media’. However, Gehl sees an advantage in the fact that an aspect that was largely missing from the earlier literature has since been addressed: governance. ‘Much of the earliest scholarship focused on how technical elements such as free and open source software and decentralized architectures would shift power away from corporate social media to end users, but had less to say about how those users might govern themselves.’ (ibid.)
Threads and Bluesky: Federation Washing?
The next invasion of the Fediverse threatened to come from one of the mega-platforms that the alternative was up against. Meta wanted to capitalise on the Twitter exodus following Musk’s takeover and planned a text-based companion app to Instagram. Threads launches with fanfare on 5 July 2023. Thanks to Instagram’s more than two billion users, the new service gained 100 million users within five days, except in Europe, where a data protection clarification delayed the launch until December. Threads also began integrating the ActivityPub protocol in December 2023 (The Verge 2023).
The bridge from Instagram to the Fediverse has triggered even more heated debates than Gab, including reciprocal death threats. Above all, there were fears about the well-known strategy of embrace, extend, extinguish. From this camp, the tried and tested instrument used against Gab was brought up: a campaign for the collective exclusion of threads from the federation, which was followed by many instances.
Conversely, Fediverse stakeholders welcomed threads because they see interoperability between platforms as a major step forward. ‘We’ve been advocating for this for years,’ wrote Rochko (2023) on the day of the threads launch. In his blog post, he addresses accusations (data tracking, advertising, being overwhelmed by huge servers, embrace-extend-extinguish, moderation). However, he describes the lock-in of the social graph as the biggest problem, which prevents users from switching platforms if they do not want to lose all their contacts.
“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.” (ibid.)
Prodromou also welcomed the mega-platform’s access so that the Fediverse can quickly grow and become a powerful alternative. If there are problems, every site and all users are free not to connect to the newcomers. ‘Choice is part of the strength of the Fediverse.’ (Prodromou 2024)
Another invasion came from Twitter, specifically from its co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey. In 2019, he launched an initiative that gave rise to the AT Protocol and Bluesky Social. The platform with the look and feel of the original Twitter was launched in 2023. In January 2025, Bluesky claimed to have 30 million users (BNO News 2025).
Technically, the AT protocol allows decentralisation. In fact, the system is currently neither decentralised nor federated, as Lemmer-Webber (2024) discusses in detail. Furthermore, venture capital financing, not least from blockchain circles, raises doubts about sustainable freedom.
Conclusio: Small is Beautiful
The mega-platforms must continue to be rendered less hazardous through legal regulation. Buying oneself free is not an option. Rather, building alternatives is crucial. Decentralisation from above leads to a Fedi-Washing that only looks like it. The inherently decentralised network of protocol-connected nodes that has grown over the years and organises itself from below is sustainable. Last but not least, the Fediverse offers an opportunity for Europe. Many of the developers and more than twice as many Fediverse servers are in the EU (8,818) than in the USA (4,275) (Fediverse Observer, April 2025).
The non-profit nature and small size of the communities are clearly positive features of the Fediverse. Kissane & Kazemi (2024) have investigated how governance is organised on individual servers and between servers. Their conclusion: ‘Fediverse governance as we encountered it in our research conversations is emergent, unevenly distributed, and often reactive.’ The majority of Fediverse servers are operated by individuals or small groups. Medium-sized servers offer uniquely favourable conditions for community self-governance according to local norms and allow for very direct, context-dependent moderation that is superior to that of centralised platforms. ‘The Fediverse’s combined emphasis on the sovereignty of local norms and a federated form of network diplomacy can offer a real and optimistic challenge to the dead end of centralized content moderation at scale’ (ibid.).
To summarise: local, manageable communities form the basis, create diplomatic networks and grow organically into a fediverse that is more than the sum of its parts. Small is Beautiful as a prerequisite for Bigger is Better.
Literatur
Berners-Lee, Tim et al. (2016). Solid: A Platform for Decentralized Social Applications Based on Linked Data, 2016, http://emansour.com/research/meccano/solid_protocols.pdf.
BNO News (2015). Twitter alternative Bluesky hits 30 million users, 28.01.2025, https://bnonews.com/index.php/2025/01/twitter-alternative-bluesky-hits-30-million-users/.
Cramer, Florian (2017). Meme Wars: Internet culture and the ‘alt right’, at FACT Liverpool, 07.03.2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiNYuhLKzi8.
FediDB: Software (o.J.). https://fedidb.org/software.
Fediverse Observer (o.J.). Server nach Land, https://fediverse.observer/stats.
Gehl, Robert W. (2025). A Brief History of Alternative Social Media Scholarship, 07.02.2025, https://www.socialmediaalternatives.org/2025/02/07/asm-scholarship-history.html.
Kahle, Brewster (2016). Locking the Web Open: A Call for a Decentralized Web, Juni 2016, https://archive.org/details/LockingTheWebOpen_2016.
Kissane, Erin & Darius Kazemi (2024). Findings Report: Governance on Fediverse Microblogging Servers, https://fediverse-governance.github.io/.
Klemens, Ben (2023). Mastodon – and the pros and cons of moving beyond Big Tech gatekeepers, Ars Technica, 02.01.2023, https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/01/mastodon-highlights-pros-and-cons-of-moving-beyond-big-tech-gatekeepers/.
Kreutzer, Till (2006). Open-Source-Software zwischen Moral und Freiheit, iRights, 15.08.2006, https://irights.info/artikel/open-source-software-zwischen-moral-und-freiheit/6219.
Lemmer-Webber, Christine (2024). How decentralized is Bluesky really?, 22.11.2024, https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/.
Lemmer-Webber, Christine (2025). Toot, 19.01.2025, https://social.coop/@cwebber/113856458328842294.
Mastdon: Covenant (n.d.), https://joinmastodon.org/covenant.
Mastodon (2025). The people should own the town square, 13.01.2025, https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/01/the-people-should-own-the-town-square/.
Prodromou, Evan (2024). A Bigger Better Fediverse, presentation at Berlin Fediday 2024, 14.10.2024, https://berlinfedi.day/2024/.
Rochko, Eugen (2019). Gab switches to Mastodon’s code. Our statement, 04.07.2019, https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2019/07/statement-on-gabs-fork-of-mastodon/.
Rochko, Eugen (2023). What to know about Threads, 05.07.2023, https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/07/what-to-know-about-threads/.
SWF (2025). The Social Web Foundation announces its membership in the World Wide Web Consortium, 11.2.2025, https://socialwebfoundation.org/2025/02/11/the-social-web-foundation-announces-its-membership-in-the-world-wide-web-consortium/.
The Verge (2023). Threads is officially starting to test ActivityPub integration, 13.12.2023, https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/13/24000120/threads-meta-activitypub-test-mastodon.
Woźniak, Michał “rysiek” (2025). Eight years on, Mastodon stubbornly survives, personal blog, 05.04.2025, https://rys.io/en/177.html.
#Fediverse #FreeCulture #Internet #mediaScience #publicSphere
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@Kevin Karhan :verified: To quote Arthur C. Clarke:Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
And for your average Musk escapees, Mastodon alone is more than sufficiently advanced. These people believe that there's some magic going on that makes their fully public posts private and secure regardless. They want perfect security, but with zero inconvenience, and they think Mastodon provides them with exactly this.
In fact, they expect Mastodon to be an absolutely perfectly safe haven, simply because it isn't a corporate silo. Little do they know how close to being a corporate silo Mastodon is, what with having a US-based company and a lighthouse instance that accounts for 22% of the whole Fediverse in terms of MAUs.
On top of that, more than half of all Mastodon users think the Fediverse is only Mastodon, and most of the rest can't imagine that anything in the Fediverse could possibly have features that Mastodon doesn't have. Not unless you slap them right into their faces like character limits over 500.
They cling hard to and rely on an imagination of the Fediverse that has never even been close to reality and never will.
As for The Bad Space, its blocklist looks like it's curated not by evidence, but by emotional triggers. Generally, some blocklists go so wild that you have to ask yourself whether the reason why nobody has tried to block out everything that isn't vanilla Mastodon is because that'd be too big an effort (two out of three Fediverse instances aren't Mastodon), or whether such people simply don't know how far the Fediverse extends beyond Mastodon, so they don't know what to block. I mean, there should be reasons enough to block everything that isn't Mastodon.
Blocklist import from other instances doesn't make things any better. Just like on all networks where everyone can run a server, the Fediverse, especially Mastodon, has got admins who really shouldn't run a server. It looks very tempting to pick blocklists by length rather than content, the longer, the more "secure", import a bunch of them, but not curate them because that'd be extra effort.
In this light, it's a good thing that Oliphant put the tier-1 to tier-3 blocklists onto the chopping block when switching from manual list curation to automated list aggregation a while ago. Especially tier 3 would have been easy to exploit with little to no curation, and there certainly were enough sufficiently paranoid Mastodon admins who'd subscribe to tier 3 without ever taking a single peek at the list.
Sometimes I feel like going to Mastodon's GitHub repository and submitting blocking or allowing entire Fediverse server applications by user agent, both for admins and for users, as a feature request, just to see what'll happen. Maybe dumbed down on the user side to a switch that blocks everything that isn't Mastodon. But maybe I should also mention that (streams) already has this feature on the admin side so that the Mastodon devs have to think up a way to sell this as invented by Mastodon.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse #Blocklist #Blocklists #BlocklistMeta #CWBlocklistMeta -
@Montag
Ich mache mir allerdings ein bisschen Sorgen, was passiert wenn irgendjemand auf Friendica/Hubzilla/Whatever einen Mastodon Beitrag von jemanden zitiert (quoteposted) der das nicht möchte und der dann mitbekommt das sein Beitrag zitiert wird. Ich auf Friendica kann ja nicht sehen, ob jemand damit einverstanden ist, es kann also leicht passieren das man einen Beitrag von jemanden zitiert (wenn ich jetzt "zitiert" schreibe meine ich einen Quoted-Share), der das nicht möchte.
Zumal, wie ich schon schrieb, kaum jemand auf Mastodon weiß, daß praktisch alles, was Mikro- oder Makroblogging kann und nicht Mastodon ist, schon lange Quote-Posts kann und problemlos Mastodon-Tröts quote-posten kann. Oder daß überhaupt irgendwas Quote-Posts kann. Daraus, daß Mastodon jetzt Quote-Posts anzeigen, aber noch keine erzeugen kann, schlußfolgert irgendwie niemand, daß diese Quote-Posts, die Mastodon anzeigen kann, ja irgendwoher kommen müssen. Und nicht von mastodon.social, das jetzt schon eine 4.5-Alpha fährt. Dadurch wird vielleicht noch ein paar mehr Mastodon-Nutzern klar, daß es da draußen noch einiges mehr als Mastodon geben muß.
Auf der anderen Seite können aber auch wir nicht wissen, wer auf Mastodon jetzt bei welchem Tröt das Quote-Posten erlaubt hat.
Dazu kommt, und das weiß ich aus Erfahrung: Wenn man auf Friendica oder einem Nachfahren jemanden auf Mastodon quote-postet, dann wird derjenige darüber benachrichtigt, als wenn er erwähnt worden wäre. Das heißt, Mastodon-Nutzer werden das mitkriegen.
Deine Angst vor Fediblocks ist nicht ungerechtfertigt. Hast du mal den Feature Request auf GitHub gesehen? Da stand zusätzlich, daß es eine mastodonweit verbindliche Regel geben muß, nach der jede Instanz, die Mastodons Quote-Post-Erlaubnis nicht berücksichtigt, sofort gefediblockt werden soll. Daran alleine erkennt man schon, daß die Autorin des Feature Request vom Fediverse keine Ahnung hat. Konsequent durchgezogen hätte das nämlich bedeutet, daß Pleroma und alle Forks, Misskey und alle Forks, Friendica und sein ganzer Stammbaum, Mitra usw. usf. als ganze Projekte komplett hätten gefediblockt werden müssen.
Konkret sehe ich jetzt zwei gefährliche Szenarien.
Das eine ist, daß jemand, der nicht gequote-postet werden will und dann von außerhalb von Mastodon tatsächlich gequote-postet wird, davon derart schockiert ist, daß das direkt zur Forderung führt, die Instanz des Quoteposters sofort zu fediblocken. Das kann ja nur eine böswilligerweise gehackte Instanz sein! Die Folge ist, daß darauf etliche Mastodon-Admins anspringen, die auch nicht wissen, daß das Fediverse außerhalb von Mastodon a) schon ewig quote-posten kann und b) natürlich Mastodons proprietäre Non-Standard-"Berechtigung" nicht implementiert hat, und tausende Mastodon-Instanzen tatsächlich diese Nicht-Mastodon-Instanz sofort blocken.
Schlimmstenfalls bekommt davon einer derjenigen Wind, die eine dieser berühmt-berüchtigten Blocklisten pflegen. Ohne zu überprüfen, was da eigentlich los ist und warum diese Instanz quote-posten kann (z. B. weil das Friendica ist und Friendica schon seit 15 Jahren quote-posten kann), setzt derjenige die Instanz auf die Blockliste, und tausende Mastodon-Instanzen (und womöglich auch andere) blocken sie dann vollautomatisch.
Das andere ist, daß alsbald irgendjemand sich mal die Mühe macht zu gucken, was das da eigentlich ist, was gerade jemanden unerlaubterweise gequote-postet hat. Aha, Akkoma/Misskey/Sharkey/Friendica/Hubzilla/Mitra/was auch immer. Das kann also quote-posten, wie man gerade eben erst auf die harte Tour gelernt hat. Unabhängig davon, ob man nun annimmt, daß es gerade erst kürzlich Quote-Posts eingeführt hat, also nach Mastodon, oder ob man dann doch in Erwägung zieht, daß diese Software schon länger quote-posten kann.
Jedenfalls könnte so ein Ereignis oder gar eine ganze Kette davon genau den Kreuzzug auf Mastodon-Seite gegen die "Eindringlinge" aus dem Nicht-Mastodon-Fediverse einleiten, mit dem ich sowieso schon seit Jahren rechne. Allmählich lernen die Mastodon-Nutzer zum einen, was die Nicht-Mastodon-Serveranwendungen für Sachen können, die der Mastodon-Kultur entgegenstehen (nicht nur Quote-Posts, sondern auch weit über 500 Zeichen und so), und zum anderen, welche Serveranwendungen solche Sachen können.
Dann wird es Forderungen, auch auf GitHub, geben nach:- einem Schalter, mit dem man im eigenen Konto all diese Software blockieren kann
- einem Schalter, mit dem man im eigenen Konto alles blockieren kann, was nicht Mastodon ist
- dito, aber standardmäßig aktiviert (der Einfachheit für die Nutzer halber)
- dito, aber zusätzlich oder ausschließlich (der Einfachheit für die Nutzer halber) für Admins
- einer harten, fest eingebauten Totalblockade aller Software, von der bekannt ist, daß sie sich nicht an Mastodons ungeschriebene Regeln hält (hier wird es vielleicht schon ein bißchen Protest geben)
- der kompletten Deföderation Mastodons von allem, was nicht Mastodon ist, damit "das Fediverse" endlich "wieder" nur Mastodon ist (hier wird es hoffentlich mehr Protest geben)
Generell wird es zunehmend Feindseligkeiten gegenüber den Teilen des Fediverse geben, die weder Mastodon sind noch wie Mastodon-Extras aussehen. Schon jetzt streiten ja praktisch sämtliche Mastodon-Nutzer vehement ab, daß das Nicht-Mastodon-Fediverse systematisch diskriminiert wird. Dann aber werden sie von "Selbstverteidigung" reden.
Es wird behauptet werden, einzig Mastodon sei links im Fediverse. Es wird behauptet werden, einzig Mastodon sei "sicher" im Fediverse. Möglicherweise werden sogar Gerüchte herumgehen, daß so Sachen wie Akkoma, Misskey, Sharkey, Friendica, Hubzilla usw., von denen man ja erst durch das Quote-Post-Drama gehört hat, erst im Juli oder August 2025 erfunden wurden und auch das nur zu dem Zweck, Mastodons Quote-Post-Erlaubnis umgehen zu können.
Irgendjemand wird dann anfangen, per Hand die Adressen aller Instanzen von Serversoftware zu sammeln, von der auf Mastodon bekannt ist, daß sie quote-posten kann, und daraus eine Blockliste zu bauen, die jeder Mastodon-Admin verwenden kann. Jemand anders wird das Ganze stark vereinfachen und den Fediverse Observer und die FediDB automatisiert scrapen, also alle gefundenen Instanzen von Friendica, alle gefundenen Instanzen von Hubzilla, alle gefundenen Instanzen von Misskey usw. automatisch in eine Blockliste eintragen zu lassen.
Bei The Bad Space ist es dann keine Frage mehr, ob, sondern wann da die ersten abonnierbaren Listen ganze Fediverse-Software ausschließen. Und sogar bei Oliphant halte ich es für denkbar, daß die automatisierte Liste mit als Quelle aufgenommen wird. Immerhin geht es jetzt um die Sicherheit von Mastodon.Das kann ich auch sehr gut nachvollziehen, ich glaube allerdings, das eine technische Lösung für ein Soziales Problem nicht funktioniert.
Quote-Posts sind ohnehin praktisch nicht zu verhindern. Innerhalb Mastodons nur mit einer proprietären Lösung, und die hat Mastodon ja auch noch nicht mal implementiert.
Fediverseweit funktioniert das schon mal erst recht nicht. ActivityPub hat ja kein Berechtigungssystem vorgesehen. Und selbst wenn jemand das Berechtigungssystem von Forte und seinen Vorfahren in FEPs gießen würde: Selbst die haben keine Quote-Post-Berechtigung. Und wenn die das schon nicht haben, kann man das prinzipiell als Käse abhängen.
Das sagt Mike ja immer wieder gebetsmühlenartig: Die einzige wirksame Möglichkeit, Quote-Posts zu verhindern, ist, nicht öffentlich zu posten.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #LangerPost #CWLangerPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #NichtNurMastodon #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteTröt #QuoteTröts #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #QuotePostDebatte #QuoteTrötDebatte -
Found 34 new servers found and 48 servers de-listed since 13 hours ago. Check out the Monthly and Daily Stats by software or server or the entire fediverse.
25,428 servers checked. 12,553,937 Total Users, 2,002,106 Monthly Active Users today vs 2,008,728 yesterday for the entire fediverse.
New #fediverse servers found:
urbansound.social a #mastodon server from Poland
cerritos.glitch.me a #shuttlecraft server from United States
test.as200950.com a #owncast server from Germany
social.sys2nix.de a #mastodon server from Germany
feed.bad-dragon.ch a #owncast server from Private
fed.kirbo.xyz a #pleroma server from United Kingdom
buddyverse.xyz a #mastodon server from India
pl.evilmuff.in a #pleroma server from Private
somaliland.media a #mastodon server from United States
mastodon.wazongtest.de a #mastodon server from Germany
social.twelve.icu a #gotosocial server from Private
mastodon.musicstudio.pro a #mastodon server from Germany
mastodon.familleboisteau.fr a #mastodon server from France
p.barcelo.ynh.fr a #pixelfed server from France
arasaka.biz a #mastodon server from Finland
pipesmarks.glitch.me a #postmarks server from United States
troublemaker.social a #mastodon server from Private
mastodon.zapfmeister.net a #mastodon server from Private
social.mapleshrine.eu a #firefish server from Finland
mastodon.cluboftone.com a #mastodon server from Germany
gts.grnwds.uk a #gotosocial server from United Kingdom
mastodon.baderpetrick.de a #mastodon server from Germany
watch.brvy.space a #owncast server from France
toot.st a #mastodon server from Private
mastodon.freelands.cloud a #mastodon server from Private
test.oliphant.social a #mastodon server from Private
social.venith.net a #lemmy server from Private
meow.church a #akkoma server from United States
bormann2.de a #cloudy server from Germany
fedi.levi.land a #firefish server from Sweden
video.niwim.ovh a #peertube server from Poland
kagura.ch a #misskey server from Private
library.tonybark.art a #bookwyrm server from United States
friends.navin.synology.me a #friendica server from United StatesDe-Listed servers: dataprotection.social
kiai.lemmy.ninja
hydrocelestis.com
lemmy.devils.house
mi.hilot06.com
social.seliaste.com
fas.zer0hero.tk
mastodon.pandoli365.com
mi.howamun.day
pix.ilbery.social
mastodon.cdroma.me
social.adastral.net
mastodon.cacharreo.duckdns.org
mastodon.k6qw.com
lemmy.davidbuckley.ca
meko.arclight.pro
mastodon.smither.org
pix.campbellwireless.net
panha.misskey.one
lemmy.k6qw.com
lemmy.havocperil.uk
ck.nsh.social
lem.amd.im
mastodon.hopbox.in
nakedsushi.org
misskey.choro-s.net
key.hollow.capital
kynkiruka.com
lemmy.flo.kbytes.at
suitbertmonz.de
mastodon.r3networks.uk
live.ilbery.online
owncast.wertercatt.com
akkoma.lameni.tk
pleroma.guizzyordi.info
the.libbie.cloud
hasenpanier.de
elephant.ugrash.org
owncast.ranger.vegas
technopolitic.social
mosfear.de
social.atommac.com
p.concho.bar
tulsa.social
calckey-example.atlas-media.co.uk
bird.froth.zone
mastodon.henabytes.com
葵.moeHelp others find a home, send them to fediverse.observer
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The thread about an A to Z (almost!) of Edinburgh and Leith streets named after women
For International Women’s Day (on March 8th 2021), I thought I would flick through the books and do an A-Z (as far as possible) of Edinburgh and Leith places named after women. Unsurprisingly there are relatively few, to pick from – but there are some fascinating women behind some of the names.
n.b I have tried to keep this thread up to date on occasion, with new street names to fill in some blanks.A is for Annfield in Newhaven. Named for Ann Steuart, wife of John Steuart of Blairhaw, who built a house in late Georgian times. There was a trend for giving places fancy names at the time in the form x–field, where x was usually the name of a wife or daughter.
B is for Mary Burton (1819-1909), a suffragist and campaigner for women’s rights who lived at Liberton Bank House between 1844 and 1898. A street of new-build houses nearby in Gilmerton has been named Burton Place in her honour.
C is for Clarice Mcnab Lane, a brand new street off of West Bowling Green Street in Leith. Born in Leith and known usually by her married name Clarice Shaw, she was a prominent interwar Labour party member and activist. She was MP for Kilmarnock for a year, dying in 1946.
D is for Dauline Road. Marion, Margaret and Helen Dauline of South Queensferry were accused, alongside Helen Thomson, Marion Stein, Marion Little and Isobel Young, of Witchcraft in 1643. At least 8 of the women were executed by burning at the stake. A new build street in South Queensferry is name for them.
E is for Edith Burnet Hughes (1888-1971), the first practising female architect in the UK, establishing her own firm in 1920, and the first woman nominated to the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). She was born at West Circus Place in Stockbridge and is buried in Warriston Cemetery. A new build street that can be seen from that cemetery and that is about half a mile downstream on the Water of Leith from Stockbridge has been named Hughes Close in her honour.
F is for Flora Stevenson‘s, a primary school in Comely Bank named for the Glasgow-borne social reformer who was an early campaigner (with her sister Louisa) for women’s entry into universities and became an organiser of education in the city for poor children; particularly girls and would serve as a convenor on the Edinburgh School Board.
G is for Geissler Drive, named for Alison Geissler and (as of June 2020) one of the newest additions to the street names of Edinburgh. Alison was a lauded glass engraver with an MBE for her services to her craft and lived to the grand age of 103. Her grandson is Martin Geissler, the ITV and BBC news broadcaster and correspondent.
H is for Hope Street. Not named after a woman, but named because of a woman. In 1803, Mrs Maxwell of Carriden (nee Mary Charlotte Bouverie) wrote to the town council to complain that she lived on a street with no name. The council obliged by naming it for a man: Stuart Harris says this may have been Charles Hope of Granton MP, Lord Advocate. An alternative explanation may be that it was for Admiral Sir George Hope of Carriden, a 2nd cousin of Granton.
I is for Elsie Inglis Way, named in 2019 in Abbeyhill for the well known (but not well enough) WW1 military doctor, suffragist, teacher, campaigner, philanthropist, organiser and pioneer of women’s’ medicine in the city. A maternity hospital nearby once bore her name.
J is for Jex-Blake Drive, a new build street in Abbeyhill named for Sophia Jex-Blake, one of the first seven women to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh, the first female doctor in Scotland and founder of 2 medical schools for women, Bruntsfield Maternity Hospital, amongst many other things.
K is for Mary King’s Close, that well known tourist trap, and subject of endless paranormal hot air. Mary King was the widow of Alexander King, a burgess of the city, in the early-mid 17th c. – except that she probably wasn’t… Who she actually was is not entirely clear. The close had been partially abandoned after the plague of 1645, and was still vacant in 1751 when a neighbouring tenement collapsed. This opened up a gap that was widened to create a space for the construction of the Royal Exchange, which would later become the City Chambers. The tenements in the upper parts of Mary King’s Close (and two others) were largely built over, but the lower parts remained occupied, and were so well into the 19th century. It was the construction of Cockburn Street in 1854 that really swept away Mary King’s Close.
L is for Lady Lawson Street, formed from Lady Lawson’s Wynd. The Lawsons were landowners in the West Port as early as the 15th century. That Lady Lawson herself became recorded as landowner is unusual and notable in itself.
M is for Murray Cottages, named after David Murray, Deputy Controller for Excise in Scotland, but on behalf of his last surviving daughter, who left the family fortune to a fund for providing housing for the “deserving (and pious) poor“. The Almonry Fund (an Almoner is someone who distributes funds to the poor, usually on behalf of the church) was set up on her behalf in 1905. Prospective candidates were to be “sober, respectable, men and women about sixty years” (i.e. a married couple) who “must have spent most of their lives in Edinburgh or its immediate vicinity and preferably have belonged to the Church of Scotland“.
N is for Nicolson Square (and Street). These were built between 1765-1780 on the park lands and house of Lady Nicolson, Elizabeth Carnegie. She moved to the Pear Tree House (now the Pear Tree pub) to allow the road and square to be built. The Nicolson Baronets had owned the land here since the early 16th century, the title becoming dormant in 1743 on the death of her husband, the 7th Baronet. The house (highlighted yellow) remained here until around 1790 when Nicolson Street and South Bridge were connected.
O is for Lady Nairne a neighbourhood (and Beefeater pub and restaurant) in Duddingston with 4 streets taking the honorific name of Carolina Oliphant. Baroness Nairne lived here in the early 19th century. A prolific songwriter, and contemporary of Burns, amongst other well known romantic ballads she wrote “Will ye no’ come back again?” and “Charlie is my Darling“.
P is for Pape’s Cottages in Roseburn, named by George Pape in his will, in memory of his wife Jessie Paterson, who was the landowner of Coltbridge House. The three cottages were built for “the use of poor widows in all time coming“.
Q is for Queens take your pick of Queens; Anne, Charlotte, Margaret, Alexandra, Mary of Guise or Ferry. Queen Charlotte Street in Leith, was originally Charlotte Street, but was renamed in the 1960s to avoid confusion with the street of the same name in Edinburgh’s New Town.
R is for the Reverend Elizabeth Wardlaw, whose name is on the name bank for Leith. The long time minister of Hermitage United Free Church and a Councillor for Leith Links from 1984 – 2003. She was a supporter of Leith Festival.
S is for Saint Triduana, long associated with Restalrig, and gives her name to some streets and a medical centre in the area. Her beautiful eyes were lusted after by a Pictish king, so she plucked them out and sent him them, thereafter devoting her life to the blind. The church at Restalrig and the cult of Triduana were both destroyed in the Scottish reformation in 1560.
T is for Townswomen’s Guild Walk, one of the paths across the Meadows. It was named in 1973 after the gift to the city of the trees that line it by the guild.
I’m afraid I drew a blank on U…
V is for anything named after Queen Victoria. Victoria Terrace, Park, School, Baths etc. Take your pick, the lady needs no introduction.
W is for Mary and Barbara Walker of Coates, sisters who lived at Coates Hall in the 19th c. They gifted the land for – and huge funds to – the Episcopal Church of Scotland in 1873 for the building of St Mary’s Cathedral. Coates Hall was left by them in their will as the Choir School.
X is a blank, as there are no X– streets in Edinburgh.
Y is for Lady Yester, Margaret Hay, who in 1647 gave a benefaction of 10,000 Merks to the city to establish a new parish church. This became known as Lady Yester’s Kirk, and served the south east district of the Old Town.
Finally, there is only one Z street in Edinburgh (which is named for Zetland, the archaic form of Shetland), so that too is a blank.
I’ve frequently referred to the council’s name bank here, you can see it too at this link. There is meant to be a presumption towards giving women’s names priority, but look at the list and make of that priority what you will.
Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.
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#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret -
CW: The Fediverse has quote-posts right now, it can quote-post Mastodon toots with no problems, and no Mastodon switch will change that; CW: long (over 4,500 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse beyond Mastodon meta, quote-post meta
One of the worst aspects of Mastodon's plans to introduce quote-posts with a switch:
You keep having to tell Mastodon users that the Fediverse is not only Mastodon. That (insert a long list of Fediverse server applications here¹) have had quote-posts from the beginning. That they're all in the Fediverse. That they're all fully federated with Mastodon. That they can all quote-post any Mastodon toot they can possibly receive or import. And that they will be able to quote-post any Mastodon toot they can in the future, regardless of Mastodon account settings.
Up until this point, they were fully, firmly convinced that they're 100% safe from quote-posts on Mastodon. Either because they could not for the lives of them imagine that anything in the Fediverse has them. Or simply because they "knew" up until this point that the Fediverse is Mastodon. And if Mastodon introduces an opt-out or opt-in switch, this switch will mean absolute, 100% water-tight safety from quote-posts.
But for the Fediverse outside of Mastodon, the quote-post switch will be completely useless. Again: These lots of Fediverse server apps have had quote-posts before Mastodon introduced them. They had quote-posts before Mastodon invented the opt-in or opt-out switch. I mean, at least two of them have had quote-posts since before Mastodon even existed! So how are they supposed to support a proprietary, non-standard, Mastodon-specific switch which probably won't be documented anywhere before Mastodon rolls out quote-posts?
I'll tell you what'll happen.
Mastodon users will deactivate quote-posts for their accounts or not activate them in the first place. Non-Mastodon users, not knowing about the status of that switch, will quote-post them regardless with zero resistance. Upon which these Mastodon users will shit brix. And they'll call for either blocking that obviously rogue Mastodon user instance-wide, or blocking that user's instance, or Fediblocking that user's instance.
At this point, someone else who is not on Mastodon either will chime in and tell them: That particular user is, in fact, not on Mastodon. The Fediverse is not only Mastodon. That user is on Friendica. No, Friendica is not a rogue Mastodon instance. Friendica is not Mastodon at all. No, Friendica isn't a Mastodon fork either. Friendica has nothing to do with Mastodon. In fact, Friendica is older than Mastodon. On Friendica, quote-posts are perfectly normal. Friendica has had quote-posts for longer than Mastodon has even existed. And so forth.
Cue the Mastodon user shitting brix again, foaming with anger and calling for a Fediblock of all of Friendica.
In fact, I'm pretty sure that if Mastodon's quote-post feature and the rest of the Fediverse disregarding it leads to more awareness of the non-Mastodon Fediverse and its non-Mastodon features on Mastodon, it will also lead to demands for being able to completely block everything that isn't Mastodon, either on an account level (and then on by default, of course) or on an instance level or both.
Oh, by the way: The ability to completely lock out entire Fediverse projects already exists in the Fediverse right now, too. It's exclusive to two other Fediverse server apps that aren't Mastodon, both of which introduced this feature in September.
¹Here's a probably incomplete list of still-active Fediverse server apps with quote-posts which, yes, can quote-post Mastodon toots right now and will be able to quote-post Mastodon toots regardless of opt-in or opt-out:- Pleroma
- Akkoma
- Misskey
- Firefish
- Sharkey
- Iceshrimp
- Iceshrimp.NET
- CherryPick
- Neko
- Catodon
- Meisskey
- Tanukey
- Metaskey
- Mitra
- Friendica
- Hubzilla
- (streams)
- Forte
(Inb4 both Oliphant and The Bad Space trying hard to catch all instances of the server apps mentioned above to blocklist them all.)
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse #Mastodon #Pleroma #Akkoma #Misskey #Calckey #Firefish #Sharkey #Iceshrimp #Iceshrimp.NET #CherryPick #Neko #Catodon #Meisskey #Tanukey #Metaskey #Mitra #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Threads #BridgyFed #Bluesky #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #QuotePostDebate #QuoteTootDebate #FediblockMeta #Oliphant #TheBadSpace -
CW: The Fediverse has quote-posts right now, it can quote-post Mastodon toots with no problems, and no Mastodon switch will change that; CW: long (over 4,500 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse beyond Mastodon meta, quote-post meta
One of the worst aspects of Mastodon's plans to introduce quote-posts with a switch:
You keep having to tell Mastodon users that the Fediverse is not only Mastodon. That (insert a long list of Fediverse server applications here¹) have had quote-posts from the beginning. That they're all in the Fediverse. That they're all fully federated with Mastodon. That they can all quote-post any Mastodon toot they can possibly receive or import. And that they will be able to quote-post any Mastodon toot they can in the future, regardless of Mastodon account settings.
Up until this point, they were fully, firmly convinced that they're 100% safe from quote-posts on Mastodon. Either because they could not for the lives of them imagine that anything in the Fediverse has them. Or simply because they "knew" up until this point that the Fediverse is Mastodon. And if Mastodon introduces an opt-out or opt-in switch, this switch will mean absolute, 100% water-tight safety from quote-posts.
But for the Fediverse outside of Mastodon, the quote-post switch will be completely useless. Again: These lots of Fediverse server apps have had quote-posts before Mastodon introduced them. They had quote-posts before Mastodon invented the opt-in or opt-out switch. I mean, at least two of them have had quote-posts since before Mastodon even existed! So how are they supposed to support a proprietary, non-standard, Mastodon-specific switch which probably won't be documented anywhere before Mastodon rolls out quote-posts?
I'll tell you what'll happen.
Mastodon users will deactivate quote-posts for their accounts or not activate them in the first place. Non-Mastodon users, not knowing about the status of that switch, will quote-post them regardless with zero resistance. Upon which these Mastodon users will shit brix. And they'll call for either blocking that obviously rogue Mastodon user instance-wide, or blocking that user's instance, or Fediblocking that user's instance.
At this point, someone else who is not on Mastodon either will chime in and tell them: That particular user is, in fact, not on Mastodon. The Fediverse is not only Mastodon. That user is on Friendica. No, Friendica is not a rogue Mastodon instance. Friendica is not Mastodon at all. No, Friendica isn't a Mastodon fork either. Friendica has nothing to do with Mastodon. In fact, Friendica is older than Mastodon. On Friendica, quote-posts are perfectly normal. Friendica has had quote-posts for longer than Mastodon has even existed. And so forth.
Cue the Mastodon user shitting brix again, foaming with anger and calling for a Fediblock of all of Friendica.
In fact, I'm pretty sure that if Mastodon's quote-post feature and the rest of the Fediverse disregarding it leads to more awareness of the non-Mastodon Fediverse and its non-Mastodon features on Mastodon, it will also lead to demands for being able to completely block everything that isn't Mastodon, either on an account level (and then on by default, of course) or on an instance level or both.
Oh, by the way: The ability to completely lock out entire Fediverse projects already exists in the Fediverse right now, too. It's exclusive to two other Fediverse server apps that aren't Mastodon, both of which introduced this feature in September.
¹Here's a probably incomplete list of still-active Fediverse server apps with quote-posts which, yes, can quote-post Mastodon toots right now and will be able to quote-post Mastodon toots regardless of opt-in or opt-out:- Pleroma
- Akkoma
- Misskey
- Firefish
- Sharkey
- Iceshrimp
- Iceshrimp.NET
- CherryPick
- Neko
- Catodon
- Meisskey
- Tanukey
- Metaskey
- Mitra
- Friendica
- Hubzilla
- (streams)
- Forte
(Inb4 both Oliphant and The Bad Space trying hard to catch all instances of the server apps mentioned above to blocklist them all.)
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse #Mastodon #Pleroma #Akkoma #Misskey #Calckey #Firefish #Sharkey #Iceshrimp #Iceshrimp.NET #CherryPick #Neko #Catodon #Meisskey #Tanukey #Metaskey #Mitra #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Threads #BridgyFed #Bluesky #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #QuotePostDebate #QuoteTootDebate #FediblockMeta #Oliphant #TheBadSpace -
CW: The Fediverse has quote-posts right now, it can quote-post Mastodon toots with no problems, and no Mastodon switch will change that; CW: long (over 4,500 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse beyond Mastodon meta, quote-post meta
One of the worst aspects of Mastodon's plans to introduce quote-posts with a switch:
You keep having to tell Mastodon users that the Fediverse is not only Mastodon. That (insert a long list of Fediverse server applications here¹) have had quote-posts from the beginning. That they're all in the Fediverse. That they're all fully federated with Mastodon. That they can all quote-post any Mastodon toot they can possibly receive or import. And that they will be able to quote-post any Mastodon toot they can in the future, regardless of Mastodon account settings.
Up until this point, they were fully, firmly convinced that they're 100% safe from quote-posts on Mastodon. Either because they could not for the lives of them imagine that anything in the Fediverse has them. Or simply because they "knew" up until this point that the Fediverse is Mastodon. And if Mastodon introduces an opt-out or opt-in switch, this switch will mean absolute, 100% water-tight safety from quote-posts.
But for the Fediverse outside of Mastodon, the quote-post switch will be completely useless. Again: These lots of Fediverse server apps have had quote-posts before Mastodon introduced them. They had quote-posts before Mastodon invented the opt-in or opt-out switch. I mean, at least two of them have had quote-posts since before Mastodon even existed! So how are they supposed to support a proprietary, non-standard, Mastodon-specific switch which probably won't be documented anywhere before Mastodon rolls out quote-posts?
I'll tell you what'll happen.
Mastodon users will deactivate quote-posts for their accounts or not activate them in the first place. Non-Mastodon users, not knowing about the status of that switch, will quote-post them regardless with zero resistance. Upon which these Mastodon users will shit brix. And they'll call for either blocking that obviously rogue Mastodon user instance-wide, or blocking that user's instance, or Fediblocking that user's instance.
At this point, someone else who is not on Mastodon either will chime in and tell them: That particular user is, in fact, not on Mastodon. The Fediverse is not only Mastodon. That user is on Friendica. No, Friendica is not a rogue Mastodon instance. Friendica is not Mastodon at all. No, Friendica isn't a Mastodon fork either. Friendica has nothing to do with Mastodon. In fact, Friendica is older than Mastodon. On Friendica, quote-posts are perfectly normal. Friendica has had quote-posts for longer than Mastodon has even existed. And so forth.
Cue the Mastodon user shitting brix again, foaming with anger and calling for a Fediblock of all of Friendica.
In fact, I'm pretty sure that if Mastodon's quote-post feature and the rest of the Fediverse disregarding it leads to more awareness of the non-Mastodon Fediverse and its non-Mastodon features on Mastodon, it will also lead to demands for being able to completely block everything that isn't Mastodon, either on an account level (and then on by default, of course) or on an instance level or both.
Oh, by the way: The ability to completely lock out entire Fediverse projects already exists in the Fediverse right now, too. It's exclusive to two other Fediverse server apps that aren't Mastodon, both of which introduced this feature in September.
¹Here's a probably incomplete list of still-active Fediverse server apps with quote-posts which, yes, can quote-post Mastodon toots right now and will be able to quote-post Mastodon toots regardless of opt-in or opt-out:- Pleroma
- Akkoma
- Misskey
- Firefish
- Sharkey
- Iceshrimp
- Iceshrimp.NET
- CherryPick
- Neko
- Catodon
- Meisskey
- Tanukey
- Metaskey
- Mitra
- Friendica
- Hubzilla
- (streams)
- Forte
(Inb4 both Oliphant and The Bad Space trying hard to catch all instances of the server apps mentioned above to blocklist them all.)
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse #Mastodon #Pleroma #Akkoma #Misskey #Calckey #Firefish #Sharkey #Iceshrimp #Iceshrimp.NET #CherryPick #Neko #Catodon #Meisskey #Tanukey #Metaskey #Mitra #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Threads #BridgyFed #Bluesky #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #QuotePostDebate #QuoteTootDebate #FediblockMeta #Oliphant #TheBadSpace -
CW: The Fediverse has quote-posts right now, it can quote-post Mastodon toots with no problems, and no Mastodon switch will change that; CW: long (over 4,500 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse beyond Mastodon meta, quote-post meta
One of the worst aspects of Mastodon's plans to introduce quote-posts with a switch:
You keep having to tell Mastodon users that the Fediverse is not only Mastodon. That (insert a long list of Fediverse server applications here¹) have had quote-posts from the beginning. That they're all in the Fediverse. That they're all fully federated with Mastodon. That they can all quote-post any Mastodon toot they can possibly receive or import. And that they will be able to quote-post any Mastodon toot they can in the future, regardless of Mastodon account settings.
Up until this point, they were fully, firmly convinced that they're 100% safe from quote-posts on Mastodon. Either because they could not for the lives of them imagine that anything in the Fediverse has them. Or simply because they "knew" up until this point that the Fediverse is Mastodon. And if Mastodon introduces an opt-out or opt-in switch, this switch will mean absolute, 100% water-tight safety from quote-posts.
But for the Fediverse outside of Mastodon, the quote-post switch will be completely useless. Again: These lots of Fediverse server apps have had quote-posts before Mastodon introduced them. They had quote-posts before Mastodon invented the opt-in or opt-out switch. I mean, at least two of them have had quote-posts since before Mastodon even existed! So how are they supposed to support a proprietary, non-standard, Mastodon-specific switch which probably won't be documented anywhere before Mastodon rolls out quote-posts?
I'll tell you what'll happen.
Mastodon users will deactivate quote-posts for their accounts or not activate them in the first place. Non-Mastodon users, not knowing about the status of that switch, will quote-post them regardless with zero resistance. Upon which these Mastodon users will shit brix. And they'll call for either blocking that obviously rogue Mastodon user instance-wide, or blocking that user's instance, or Fediblocking that user's instance.
At this point, someone else who is not on Mastodon either will chime in and tell them: That particular user is, in fact, not on Mastodon. The Fediverse is not only Mastodon. That user is on Friendica. No, Friendica is not a rogue Mastodon instance. Friendica is not Mastodon at all. No, Friendica isn't a Mastodon fork either. Friendica has nothing to do with Mastodon. In fact, Friendica is older than Mastodon. On Friendica, quote-posts are perfectly normal. Friendica has had quote-posts for longer than Mastodon has even existed. And so forth.
Cue the Mastodon user shitting brix again, foaming with anger and calling for a Fediblock of all of Friendica.
In fact, I'm pretty sure that if Mastodon's quote-post feature and the rest of the Fediverse disregarding it leads to more awareness of the non-Mastodon Fediverse and its non-Mastodon features on Mastodon, it will also lead to demands for being able to completely block everything that isn't Mastodon, either on an account level (and then on by default, of course) or on an instance level or both.
Oh, by the way: The ability to completely lock out entire Fediverse projects already exists in the Fediverse right now, too. It's exclusive to two other Fediverse server apps that aren't Mastodon, both of which introduced this feature in September.
¹Here's a probably incomplete list of still-active Fediverse server apps with quote-posts which, yes, can quote-post Mastodon toots right now and will be able to quote-post Mastodon toots regardless of opt-in or opt-out:- Pleroma
- Akkoma
- Misskey
- Firefish
- Sharkey
- Iceshrimp
- Iceshrimp.NET
- CherryPick
- Neko
- Catodon
- Meisskey
- Tanukey
- Metaskey
- Mitra
- Friendica
- Hubzilla
- (streams)
- Forte
(Inb4 both Oliphant and The Bad Space trying hard to catch all instances of the server apps mentioned above to blocklist them all.)
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse #Mastodon #Pleroma #Akkoma #Misskey #Calckey #Firefish #Sharkey #Iceshrimp #Iceshrimp.NET #CherryPick #Neko #Catodon #Meisskey #Tanukey #Metaskey #Mitra #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Threads #BridgyFed #Bluesky #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #QuotePostDebate #QuoteTootDebate #FediblockMeta #Oliphant #TheBadSpace -
An experiment in local self-improvement: the thread about Thomas Chalmers and the West Port Territorial Free Church
This site likes to indulge in occasional posts to answer the question of “why did the Victorians build so many churches and why should we care?” Well, this is another such post! The Chalmers Territorial Free Church and its associated school was established in 1844 in the early days of the Free Kirk as a Territorial church; that is, a church with its own defined territory to serve, but not one that had a legally defined parish. “Rapid urbanisation left many city communities entirely un-churched. Limitations on how churches and parishes were authorised hampered “planting” churches… So Territorial churches were established to meet the need.” (my thanks to Neil Macleod for keeping me right on this subject).
Chalmers was Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847); minister, theologian, moral philosopher, political economist and reformer. Born in the Fife village of Anstruther, he found himself at different times as moderator of both the Kirk (the Church of Scotland) and Free Kirk. Ministering in Glasgow after 1815, he was acutely aware of the lack of churches in urban, industrial communities and therefore the social security services they provided to people, particularly the urban poor. He made a survey of his parish (the Tron) and found of 10,000 people, there were fewer than 100 boys in Sabbath school. To remedy this he sought to establish such schools but was not content to just wait for people to come to his schools, he saw the task as akin mission work and “they must go forth to the population inhabiting [the] territory“. And so he recruited 4 Sabbath school teachers but instead of spreading them amongst the entire parish, he assigned each a neighbourhood containing 30 families and instructed them to concentrate on trying to encourage as much of their “territory” into Sunday education as possible. The scheme was a success and drew recruits to it; he soon had 44 teachers.
Thomas Chalmers by John Faed, 1847Chalmers believed that communities should be assisted to help themselves at a local scale; financially, socially and morally; rather than just exist on charitable or state support (or with neither!). And he of course believed that the church could – no, should – be at the centre of such a self-improving community; this was his concept of Territorial ministry. Back in Edinburgh and as head of the Free Kirk (which went its own way in The Disruption of 1843), the West Port district was selected by him as an ideal community to test his ideas, and the Territorial Church was established in 1844.
The West Port in 1850 by William Channing. A densely packed, run-down neighbourhood of ancient dwellings and hostelries mixed amongst tanneries and slaughterhouses. © Edinburgh City LibrariesHe called this scheme an Experimentum Crucis; an experiment of the Cross. This would go on to serve a territory that encompassed the districts of the West Port, Grassmarket, part of the Lawnmarket and upper Cowgate; however he was clear that to be a success the scheme would have to start small, and local, and grow from there.
The eventual West Port Territory, drawn after MSS. CHA 5.13.318. Base map is 1832 “Great Reform Act” town plan of Edinburgh. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandChalmers’ first school in the Territory (which doubled as a preaching hall on Sundays) was established in November 1844 in a disused tannery in the West Port, until more permanent premises were constructed. It was “rather repulsive in character” entered “by a close, which is so low that people are obliged to stoop to make their way through it“. This school, in Chalmers’ words, should show a preference to “one and all of the families of [the] district, where the great object is that the school should be filled from among the families of the district“. This may seem a sensible concept to those of us brought up in a system of school catchments, but these did not exist at the time. His idea was that a community school, serving the community, would increase the education of the community as a whole; not just distribute it thinly across the city to where its scholars were drawn from. The school charged a token 2d per week per child, to “[teach] people that education was worthy of its price“. It began with fewer than 60 scholars but soon had 280. Entrance was strictly for families of the Territory.
The first minister for the Territory was the Rev. William Tasker. Tasker’s task would not be easy, and he initially reported:
We remember of having the seventh successive door slapped in our face ere we had time to tell our message, and of then going to another tenement and entering house by house only to find men and women rolling on the floor of a desolate dwelling in indiscriminate drunkenness; whilst mingling with their curses and their blasphemies, the heart-piercing looks and cries of their infant children assailed us with irresistible appeals for bread to allay the cutting pangs of hunger.
Rev. William Tasker, quoted from New College Library Blog.The permanent church (that in the illustration at the top of this post) was established in 1845 thanks to a bequest of £300 from Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne. It had seats for 600 worshippers, included a purpose-built school room and also had a washing house, drying green and playground for the children, “so that they have a great step in advance towards the completion of their parochial economy“.
1849 OS Town Plan centred on Chalmers Territorial Free Church and School. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandThe Experiment would go on to include the schools and church, a savings bank and a library. While the local population paid for these services, the church provided an enthusiastic corps of visitors, teachers and improvers to attend to the needs of the Territory. It should be noted that the latter “do-gooders” were not always welcomed with open arms.
The first building of the Chalmers Territorial Free Church, further down the West Port than the 1884 church. 1846 print by F. Schenck. © Edinburgh City LibrariesThomas Chalmers died in 1847, 176 years ago tomorrow (at the time of writing). He went to bed after working on a report for the General Assembly of the Free Kirk, and never woke up. His photograph was taken by Hill and Adamson in 1845 as part of their grand photography project for Painting the Disruption.
Thomas Chalmers, photograph, c. 1845 by David Octavius Hill and Robert AdamsonBy the 1880s the Territorial congregation had outgrown its initial, humble premises. In 1884 a new, grander church, 50% larger than its predecessor, was built up the road on the corner of a widened Lady Lawson Street. The old church was retained as a mission hall. Its minister was the Rev. James Jolly, who had served the community here since 1872.
The new church, with the old church retained as a mission hall. 1893 OS Town Plan, Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandThis 1914 photo by the Edinburgh Photographic Society shows the new church of 1884, by which time it was in the United Free Church following the merger of (most of) the Free Kirk and the United Presbyterian (U.P.) Church.
Chalmers Territorial Free Church, a photograph by a member of the Edinburgh Photographic Society. © Edinburgh City LibrariesIn 1929 the majority of the United Free Church merged into the Church of Scotland and so too did the Territorial. The old church buildings was by now surplus to requirements and was sold in 1930. It became a store and commercial premises. The below photo is also an Edinburgh Photographic Society one from 1914, the close-up of the painted sign in the window of the neighbouring restaurant is fascinating. FISH & TRIPE. SUPPERS. HOT PIES.
West Port – south side – old Chalmer’s Territorial Church, a photograph by a member of the Edinburgh Photographic Society. © Edinburgh City LibrariesA new church hall was built, adjoining the 1884 church, with the proceeds of the sale of the first church, The Chalmers Hall, seen in this 1972 photo by S. G. Jackman.
West Port looking towards the Grassmarket, S. G. Jackman, 1972, © Edinburgh City LibrariesThe effects of post-war decline in church attendance and the depopulation of the Grassmarket and West Port (which had been taking place since 1920s) meant that there were just too many churches in this part of town – particularly now that nearly all of them were together in the Church of Scotland. And so in 1958 the Territorial merged with Lauriston Church just 150m away. From 1959, both church premises were used on alternate Sundays. In 1965 the Territorial building was sold to the Art School and Lauriston became the sole home. This combined Lauriston-Chalmers congregation would merge with, and moved to, Barclay Church at Bruntsfield in 1980, leaving not one, not two, but three vacant churches in the district.
Lauriston Place – south side, United Free Church at north west corner of Lauriston Gardens a photograph by a member of the Edinburgh Photographic Society, 1914 © Edinburgh City LibrariesNeither of these churches fared well. The Lauriston was sold to the YWCA in 1980 and on to the Arab Social League in 1981, who were never able to fund any work to convert it into a cultural centre and it slowly fell into disrepair. After almost 30 years of neglect, fire damage, vandalism and the toll of the elements and owner absenteeism, it was sold to new owners and slowly has come back to life as the Darul Arqam Masjid and Muslim Community Centre. The original Territorial church, later the mission hall, lay abandoned for decades. It was finally demolished in 1987 and a six-storey block of flats was built in its place in a mock-vernacular style. The Art School had the second Territorial pulled down and used it as little more than a car park. The site of the Territorial and adjacent derelict former Post Office tower block, eventually got the glass and synthetic stone office box redevelopment treatment so prevalent of noughties Edinburgh. The bombastically named Evolution House lay embarrassingly empty for a number of years however as occupants fell through, until the College of Art took it over and moved in. Which was an ironic end to things considering they had singularly failed to do anything meaningful with the plot or the predecessor building for the previous 40-odd years!
“Evolition House” (left).Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.
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#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret -
Oh boy, here's my attempt at my top 10 books for the 21st century.
This was HARD to do. I ended up dividing it into genres and then choosing my favourites of each. So it may not be my very top 10, but close enough.
Even though I have 15 years of book reviews to work from, that only helped so much. It was interesting to see which books I rated highly at the time, but no longer stood out for me, and even vice versa. Also, books I read longer ago have lost their emotional immediacy, or perhaps feel less relevant, which may put them at a disadvantage to more recent reads.
Books listed after a * were shortlisted.
1. Fantasy #1: The Ship of Magic (Liveship Traders) by Robin Hobb - this is really just a stand-in for all the Fitz & Fool books (also it's published in 2000, which technically isn't the 21st century ...)
2. Fantasy #2_ The Name of the Wind (Kingkiller Chronicle) by Patrick Rothfuss
* A Storm of Swords (Game of Thrones) by George RR Martin
* A Little Hatred (The Age of Madness) by Joe Abercrombie
3. Scifi: The Deluge by Stephen Markley
* Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
* Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
* Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
* Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
* The City We Became by NK Jemisin
* The City & The City by China Mieville
4. Cozy: A Psalm For The Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
5. Historic: The Good People by Hannah Kent
* The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish
* A Gentleman In Moscow by Amor Towles
6. Fiction (mostly Youth Trauma): Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
* Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
* The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
* Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
* Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
* Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
7. Nonfiction #1: An Immense World by Ed Yong
8. Nonfiction #2: The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
9. Nonfiction #3: Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth
* Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
* The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
* Return of a King by William Dalrymple
10. Biography: Educated by Tara Westover
* Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Alihttps://www.abc.net.au/listen/radionational/countdown/top100books
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Started playing with an idea where I have #claude replace the business logic layer of a web app and pass back #htmx views on the fly. Wrote a post describing how it works https://anoliphantneverforgets.com/notes/2026-03-18-hexagonal-agents
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TIL: truncating note bodies to 300 characters and front-loading #embeddings with structured metadata (title, tags, wiki-links) pushed my #obsidian vault recommender’s recall up significantly. The frontmatter I was already including in each note turned out to be the highest-signal input for the embedding model.
https://anoliphantneverforgets.com/til/2026-03-24-shorter-embedding-body-improves-recall