What is ArrCay?
A federated social network platform server software.
What is the federated social network?
Also known as the Fediverse, it's a network of de-centralized interconnected social interaction software.
But what does that mean? ...
Practically every social media platform (most any online service for that matter) which you're familiar with is a centralized or monolithic system with no significant connection to any other. You need to create an account on that system to fully participate in the 'services' of that system (or even to access anything there in some cases).
On the other hand, Email would be an example of a decentralized network. There is no central email system everyone has to use for email. Almost every company has their own email system and your email address can be at any email provider. You only need one. You don't need an email account/address at 7t4.us to send an email to me and I don't need one at whatever.com to send one to you. [Though my email may end up in your spam folder automatically just because large email providers do that with mail from smaller and independent email servers, even if they are properly/securely setup and haven't been blacklisted as a "spam server".] In any case, an email to/from any one gets to the other because of the underlying communication protocols that all email servers use to 'talk' to each other.
Now, imagine if X (formerly Twitter), Fecesbook, Tiktok, Youtube, Truth, Gettr, etc. all agreed to use a common protocol to talk to each together, kinda like email. Just having an account on one platform you could see content/posts/comments from any other, and any posting to your account could be seen by anybody (or just who you choose can see it) on the other platforms. That is the basic idea behind a federated social network.
Great idea, sounds like the future of social media, eh?
So when will this be possible?
It has been for over a decade! The origins of what is now called the Fediverse go back to about 2010 (or so). But bigtech platforms aren't part of it; and don't expect them to be. Well there is Threads, but I'll come back to that later. Right now there are thousands of instances and millions of users already using Fediverse software.
If you really want to know why "instance", click here.
"Instance" is a computer science term that refers to a particular fediverse platform setup/system run by an individual (or group) as a single unit. Or, very roughly, "one copy of the software, running on one computer system". It could be on a single server or running on many servers, but to any user it appears to be a single cohesive interface.
Because programmers are as easy to herd as cats, a Fediverse instance is also sometimes called a node, site, server, hub, pod, host, etc.
An example: There is only one instance of Fecesbook, even though technically it's running on a whole lot of computers. But they all function as a unit, as seen by someone using Fecesbook's app or website.
In contrast, there are over 10,000 instances of the popular Fediverse software Mastodon. Each is operated independently, but with the capability to share posts and comments and photos, not just with the other Mastodon instances, but also with thousands of other instances running dozens of other sorts of Fediverse software.
There is no single corporate overlord controlling the entire thing, or:
- owning all the data/content you willingly hand over (it's in the bigtech platforms' Terms Of Service agreements that nobody reads and just clicks "yes"/"I agree" to)
- analyzing, repackaging, and/or otherwise selling your data
- force-feeding ads tailored to your personal data
- censoring and otherwise manipulating posts or feed/stream exposure/ordering based on social/political/corporate agendas or bias, etc.
The algorithms used by Fecesbook, X, LinkedIn, Truth, Gettr, etc. for the stream/feed/wall/timeline/whateveryouwannacallit I find very annoying. Besides all the ads, spam/scam posts, and other junk they dump in there; I might see some of the same posts over and over for a week or more which I've had no interaction with at all, while posts I have commented on (and has since had other comments) don't show up anymore; or something I scroll past and decide to go back to just disappear completely, never to be found again; etc., etc.
The other big thing I like — well, I'll call it a "DIY algorithm". I can tune my inbox to show me the material I care about, and filter out what I don't want. This, of course, is highly dependent on which software my instance is using, and what tools and settings are offered by this software. - @billstatler@forum.statler.ws
Anyone with a fairly basic knowledge of running a website can run/admin their own instance of a federated platform software which can provide social media communications with thousands of others. As such, the majority of the Fediverse is run by individuals like myself with their own server(s) and small to large organizations that provide services to their community of users.
Freedom of Association
You're free to choose one (or several) instances that offer the features and rules that are important to you. Yet still interact with people from thousands of other instances that may have different features and rules. I'd liken it more to how natural/organic social interaction occurs "offline" than to how it works at Fakebook (see what I did there? ;) ) and the other bigtechs.
Freedom of Speech (really)
I've said for years that the only real free speech social media platform (or really any service where personal data privacy/security is a priority) is the one that you control. Not everyone can setup/admin their own server networks though, so the next best option would be the local tech/computer expert that you trust to securely handle your personal data.
Of course, with freedom comes responsibility. On bigtech platforms like Fecesbook and X, violating "community standards", ending up in "Fecesbook Jail" and/or otherwise being censored, even for bogus reasons and via automated algorithms "accidentally/by mistake", is fairly common. There's also a risk of losing access to your account and any of your own data along with it. In the Fediverse there is no such corporate "community standards" department or central censoring authority/algorithm.
Every server admin has their own rules on blocking, filtering, etc. Most aren't very tolerant of spam/scam content (stuff that seems common and even appears to be promoted on Fecesbook last I checked [partly the reason for my calling it that]) and typically anything widely considered illegal or morally reprehensible is right out. Politics and religion are always a can of worms. I think part of that problem is the societal conditioning that says "the two things to never talk about are politics and religion"; instead of how to have a civil discourse on topics which people tend to have strong beliefs, particularly when often those beliefs are based more on emotion and other subjective factors than things like pure logic or empirical objectivity. Usually a few little concepts like "reaching mutual understanding of opposing views", "determining a mutually beneficial solution" or just "agree to disagree" and move onto "finding common ground" tend to go out the window.... But I digress.
Additionally, users may have their own such controls to varying degrees depending on the software used and how it's configured. In one respect, true freedom of speech on social media means bearing responsibility for blocking/filtering the content/users that you don't like or don't want to see because nobody else will do it for you.
I can't speak for all admins, but as the benevolent dictator in charge of my instances/servers I am unlikely to take specific action to block someone/something on my system just because you're offended or whatnot. Here's your guide.
If you want to take on full admin responsibilities of your own instance I can get you set up and handle all the more technical backend server management stuff, help you clone/migrate your identity and you can have full control of your very own social media platform. For reasonable setup and managed hosting fees, of course. ;)
Another aspect of responsibility is what I'd consider just being a decent human, participating in a civil society. Anything I post will not be censored [of course not on my own server where I'm the admin]. However, if I exercise my freedom to engage in crude, obnoxious assholery or anything considered universally unacceptable/intolerable, I shouldn't be surprised by thousands of admins and millions of users exercising their freedom to block/censor me. Or by the very real possibility of my entire instance being blocked (involuntarily defederated).
Defederation | Walled Gardens
Defederation is a site being disconnected from communication/sharing with other instances in the fediverse. A defederated instance may also be known as a "walled-garden". As mentioned above this may happen 'involuntarily.' Also, an admin can choose to turn off the federation feature (or only connect with a specific server or group of servers). In either case, effectively they operate like the traditional bigtech monolithic model and don't share any connection with the rest of the public global network. TruthSocial and Gab are rather well-known walled-gardens. There are likely others, but both of them are built on Mastodon as the core platform software. Some may recall hearing of Mastodon around the time Elon Musk acquired Twitter. Many Twitter users around then moved to Mastodon. I can only guess it's because they liked that form of biased censorship and were losing the "safe space" special* kind of leftist liberal echo chamber they had cultivated.* Anyway, Mastodon is probably the most popular or well-known of the many Fediverse platforms. It may also happen to be the platform where the most ignorant, intolerant users can be found at the highest percentage. But that's a topic I'll go further into elsewhere -> <>.
We now return to our talk about defederation... Technically from my own channel/account on any of my ArrCay(streams) or Hubzilla instances I should be able to connect to anyone on Truth or Gab and post, comment, etc. without having to create separate accounts on Truth and Gab. However, for reasons good, bad or indifferent (being corporate entity run, financial, legalities, admin/moderation nightmare, etc.) they are defederated and don't connect with each other or the rest of the network.
On a related note, Threads (new project from Meta - the fecesbook/instawhoregram company) uses the ActivityPub protocol. Here on ArrCay, the aptly named addon, fckmeta, is enabled which prevents Meta's data harvesting. I expect Threads to be defederated (instance/server-level blocked by fediverse admins) to a significant degree with the only reason to connect being to provide users a way of transferring off of Meta servers.
In addition to the federation/de-federation issues, another problem with the Fediverse is that not all of the softwares use the same exact protocol to communicate. As typical with programmers, over a number of years (often independently, sometimes collaboratively) they developed several ways of doing basically the same things. In this case, how to let Bob on the [xyz] platform/instance and Jane on the [abc] platform/instance communicate with each other as if they were on the same system. Agreeing on which protocol amongst several to be "the standard" is, well... let's just say there's still a number of protocols being used among the software platforms considered "The Fediverse" though the majority have agreed to "speak" ActivityPub. This is still kinda like saying the majority of US/UK/Australia speak English. There's still some considerable differences in the implementations of ActivityPub and certain things don't always quite match up. So while the primary communication methods generally work fine, certain features on one platform may not be understood/translated by another.
So it's not perfect, but it still has more positives, and I believe in general it is a considerably better system than the bigtech alternatives.
For several years I had this saying - "What is this book of faces you speak of?" At some point I finally broke down and created an account there and was somewhat active for a few years. Now I very rarely, if ever bother logging on to what I now call Fecesbook because IMO it really is a more appropriate name. In the early 20-teens, I discovered a little known software called the diaspora project, which seemed to be a much better software for this whole social media concept (even though I never seriously got into using it). Diaspora is now one of just many Fediverse platforms/softwares available. I haven't looked at it since I spent many frustrating nights setting it up on a server back then, so I'm not sure if I'd recommend it now. Over the past several years I've setup (and taken down or lost in one case where my VPN provider just disappeared from the internet without warning) several of my own Hubzilla (and more recently streams) servers because I believe this is the type of "social media" software of the future.
So which of the dozen or so Fediverse softwares would I recommend?
Well, ArrCay of course.
But one of the great things about the Fediverse is there are dozens of software platforms to choose from. However, there is the drawback of not being able to do everything from one software - though Hubzilla is pretty close, see below. While you may be able to follow/connect from one to any other platform, your identity/account still isn't completely portable to all platforms. So multiple accounts for certain creators may still be a thing - but y'all are used to creating/managing a dozen accounts to cover all the bigtech platforms anyway, right? ;)
For example, if making videos for youtube/rumble/etc. is your thing, you might want to have a PeerTube account. Or Owncast for video streaming, FunkWhale for audio streaming.
Maybe look at Pixelfed if you're an
Go here for a big list and comparison chart
Want to have webpages(CMS), blog/articles, a wiki, syncable/sharable addressbook/calendar/files (CardDav,CalDav,WebDav), online sales/shopping cart, and almost anything else you can think of, with a do-anything kind of system?
Hubzilla is the one app to rule them all.
Or maybe to overwhelm you to death, ;) because you really can do just about everything with it.
Ready for a car analogy? Instead of here's your shiny new SUV with the options you ordered - just read the manual and off you go; it is a bit more like here's your "some assembly required" make-any-custom-vehicle-you-want kit with all the major parts assembled for you - pick your vehicle type/body, engine, transmission, interior, wheels, etc. and put it all together. Oh, and if you want to build some rocket launchers and add those, go for it!
Maybe it's not quite that extreme. Using the basic social media functionality is not much different than anything else... But just all the options being available in the interface can be too much for some, while others may love being able to customize every part of their entire online presence home. It is a more suitable platform for an organization or community to have more than just the basic social media options though, and with customization the UI (User Interface) can be simplified to be not so overwhelming.
The best features though are;
* OpenWebAuth - a Hubzilla user on one instance can 'auto-magically' login to another Hubzilla instance and have access to content available only to authenticated visitors of that instance, as well as content/privileges there which the user has been given specific permissions for.
* Nomadic Identity - You don't have an account on only one instance and have to migrate to a different account on another; you have a cryptographically signed identity that can go with you and live on either (or both). Say you setup an account on a Hubzilla instance and decide you would rather be on another instance (differing admin rules, the server is going down next week, whatever) or just want a backup of your channel/account/content because the best time to have a backup is before the server crashed this morning, the admin determined that the only recoverable database backup is a week old, and it'll be two-three days before the system can be back online. Ideally an instance is setup so that type of scenario doesn't happen, but just in case... you register on another instance and clone your identity/account. Voila! All your content and connections are now on the new server.
...Or download your identity(data) at anytime to upload later, etc.
Further explanation and details from the Hubzilla documentation
Accounts in Hubzilla are referred to as nomadic identities, because a member's identity is not bound to the hub where the identity was originally created. For example, when you create a Facebook or Gmail account, it is tied to those services. They cannot function without Facebook.com or Gmail.com.By contrast, say you've created a Hubzilla identity called tina@Hubzillahub.com. You can clone it to another Hubzilla hub by choosing the same, or a different name: liveForever@SomeHubzillaHub.info
Both channels are now synchronized, which means all your contacts and preferences will be duplicated on your clone. It doesn't matter whether you send a post from your original hub, or the new hub. Posts will be mirrored on both accounts.
This is a rather revolutionary feature, if we consider some scenarios:
- What happens if the hub where an identity is based suddenly goes offline? Without cloning, a member will not be able to communicate until that hub comes back online (no doubt many of you have seen and cursed the Twitter "Fail Whale"). With cloning, you just log into your cloned account, and life goes on happily ever after.
- The administrator of your hub can no longer afford to pay for his free and public Hubzilla hub. He announces that the hub will be shutting down in two weeks. This gives you ample time to clone your identity(ies) and preserve your Hubzilla relationships, friends and content.
- What if your identity is subject to government censorship? Your hub provider may be compelled to delete your account, along with any identities and associated data. With cloning, Hubzilla offers censorship resistance. You can have hundreds of clones, if you wanted to, all named different, and existing on many different hubs, strewn around the internet.
Hubzilla offers interesting new possibilities for privacy. You can read more at the <
Some caveats apply. For a full explanation of identity cloning, read the
These particular options are currently only available in the Hubzilla, streams, Friendica family of software. At some point, other projects 'speaking' ActivityPub are likely to include these features.
But wait, there's more...
Hubzilla About page in the docs at Hub7t4
The official Hubzilla website
OK, what is ArrCay, again?
ArrCay (OurCay, Arki) is my variant of the software known as (streams). Which is basically a social-media centric Hubzilla, stripped down to just the essentials for federated content. Compatible with Hubzilla and still able to be customized to the same extent by the server admin (if the admin is also a programmer), just without the extras (like web publishing) that most people don't care about or need by default.
Streams technically has no name (or product brand) - it is open source (public domain) software maintained and 'owned' by "the community". As such, streams instances may identify as the default (streams) or any name the admin decides to call their instance. Here it's called ArrCay.
Why ArrCay? What does the name mean?
It's a double[triple?] entendre, short for Archipelago: a group of many scattered islands in a body of water.
An Island or Cay [ki/kee] with (streams) connecting (or between) them, if you will. And since users can retain ownership of their own data, control the level of privacy (or publicity) with permissions for interactions/connections, or even be an admin running their own instance if so inclined; it's our cay. Or group of private islands with underwater telephone lines.
Besides it's shorter and easier to say than archipelago. Or "Aarrr it's me island" in an accent that starts Pirate and ends Irish... [or just in a pirate accent for those that don't get the Irish reference] :)
What is this "permissions" thing?
The concept of privacy control, particularly permissions, for items/connections in ArrCay (and related platforms at least) is a bit different than most bigtech socials' way of doing things. Generally the default on most platforms is all public/open posting, profile access, availablity to follow/connect, etc. And you have to block/hide/mute/etc. after the fact. Such privacy options are often afterthought addon features because the software wasn't originally designed with individual data privacy in mind.
Here's a description from Mike MacGirvin, the original creator/developer behind the Friendica/Hubzilla/Streams family of software:
I often use the "girl in a bar" analogy when describing this. You don't walk up to a girl in a bar and tell her you plan to follow her home and watch everything she does. You give her your phone number or email. (e.g. "I am willing to share stuff with you and I'm giving you consent to communicate with and share with me.").
She gets the right of response and can reciprocate by calling you or emailing you back — once again signalling "I am willing to share stuff with you and I'm giving you consent to communicate with and share with me" from her point of view. And the game is on.
This is how relationships work in the real world. Everything is consent based. In the real world stalkers get restraining orders and go to jail. That is not the best or most suitable model for social interaction on the web. In Streams we do not call this a 'Follow request'. It is a 'Connection request'. ...
In Streams software, we encourage you to detach from the "Followers/Following" mindset and focus on permissions or what your boundaries are and how you allow this person to interact with you. This may be quite different between different people based on who it is. It is not a black and white decision like the followers/following model. There are a thousand shades of grey.
Just like real life.
ArrCay, similar to Hubzilla and some other Fediverse softwares, takes almost an opposite approach and defaults to practically everything in your channel (account) being only visible to you, unless you change settings to allow others access to it - this can depend on how the admin has configured the instance defaults. If you visit many (streams) sites (and even Hubzilla and some others), you will find that many have little or no content that is accessible without having a Nomdic Identity (or other Fediverse account) and connection to a channel at that site.
What is a channel?
A channel is a unique network identity. It can represent a person (social network profile), a forum (group), a business or celebrity page, a newsfeed, and many other things.
Also there is more granularity in privacy options. It's even possible via "Roles" settings to grant administrative (delegation) permissions to another user. Useful for sharing administration privileges among certain users for a "group" channel or for a couple to have a shared channel separate from their individual channels. This feature could also be used as a sort-of "parental control" for a parent to have full access to a child's channel. Though for a more proper "parental control" usage some modifications to the software would be required. I may consider implementing parental control features in ArrCay at some point, but speaking of features...
Features
If you took a detour to browse the hubzilla.org site earlier you may have noticed some of the features already, as almost all core features are the same.
Click/tap here to reveal the list
Conversations: Communicate directly with the people in the conversation, not have completely isolated conversations with your followers and their followers shouting at each other — and neither audience seeing the responses of the others.
Audience: Your choices go far beyond public and not public. Yes, we have groups. We also have circles. You can also just select a dozen people right now and have a conversation only with them.
Algorithms: You can install them if you want. You can remove them. You control them and can tweak them.
Federated Single Sign-on : Makes private/protected resources on external sites as accessible as on local sites.
Federated Access Control : Works with Federated Single Sign-on to provide private/protected media and web resources to anybody, including those visiting from different sites.
Groups : Public, private, and moderated. These work across nearly all fediverse platforms.
Events : Calendar and attendance; automatic timezone adjusted birthday notifications for friends using this feature.
Permissions : Because not everybody wishes to converse with and share intimate facets of their life with random strangers. If you haven't been given permission to speak, you aren't part of the conversation. If you have not been granted permission to view a photo or video, you won't see it.
Cloud storage : Built-in network file storage integrated with federated access control and social networking access/permissions. Available over WebDAV. Storage limits may be restricted by admin based on account service class.
Editor : Supports markdown, html, and bbcode. Use any or all of these in any post to create a media rich experience. Post editing and preview are supported. It is somewhat unlikely that in normal use you will exceed the federated post length limits (roughly 100 printed pages of text). There are no arbitrary limits placed on the number of attached photos, files, or poll responses.
Share : Drag-and-drop a number of different things such as files, photos, videos, webpages, maps, fediverse articles, and phone numbers to share them.
Lists : Sometimes referred to as circles or aspects, this lets you define your own groups of related friends and communicate with them as a private group.
Extend : Change or upgrade your software functionality as desired by installing additional features from addons and the free app collection.
Guest Pass : Provide special guest access to private resources and media - on your terms.
Friend Zoom : Set your degree of closeness to any connection and then interactively zoom in to filter your stream to close friends; or zoom out to see posts by casual acquaintances.
Location Services : Check-in, check-out, and search by distance
Delivery Reports : In a decentralised multi-platform world, stuff happens. Sites and networks sometimes go down. Project developers sometimes introduce bugs and incompatibilities. This allows you to determine what happened to your post or comment and where it actually went once you published it.
Failsafe : Because the best time to have a current backup of your data is 10 seconds ago. Clone your online identity and content to multiple sites using the Nomad protocol and mirror any changes in near realtime. Then, if your chosen site goes down (either temporarily or permanently) or you get booted off of it for some reason, your online life doesn't have to come to an end or force you to start over. All your friends and all your content are available on any of your cloned instances - at any time.
Timed Posting : Create content now with a future scheduled time for it to be posted/distributed to contact/audience. Set an expiration time to remove content; if set, at the specified time (give or take approximately ten minutes based on the remote system's checking frequency) the post is removed.
Even More Encryption : Private messages are encrypted during transport and storage. In this day and age, this encryption may not be enough if your communications are extremely sensitive. This options lets you provide optional encryption of content "end-to-end" with a shared secret key. How the recipient learns the secret key is completely up to you. You can provide a hint such as "the name of aunt Claire's first dog".
Multiple Identities : Create different channels for specific purposes or audiences (e.g. friends & family, colleagues, hobbies, etc.) under one account. The admin of an instance can limit the number of channels allowed per account based on an account's "service class".
Provides the ActivityPub "Client to Server" API for use with external apps.
Where do I sign up?
This instance of ArrCay is currently not "open to the public" for registering an account. Mostly because this is kind of a "beta" site, and partly because server resources (and my time involved in managing them) aren't free; and the general public is used to accounts on social media platforms being "free". Since I have no intention of selling user's data or otherwise violating users with corporate advertising plastered everywhere, a suitable option to financially support a "public instance" has to be determined first. That said, if you personally know me, or someone else already registered here, you can head over to the ArrCay register page and fill in the form.
Those in the same category that are interested in using the additional features only available in Hubzilla (various web publishing options, having an online cart for sales, etc.) can go to the Hub7t4 register page
If you would like to have your own instance of ArrCay, contact me [uhh, I really need to get around to creating a contact form - til then email "admin" at the 7t4.us domain]. Custom hosting and server management can be provided for your ArrCay (or Hubzilla) instance.
At this point the ArrCay code is not considerably different from the streams repository if you want to install on your own server. In the future the ArrCay code will be available at it's own repo - unless I decide to write proprietary modifications and charge a software licensing fee of um.. uh... 1 miilllionn dowlarrss... bwuhahahaha.
Installation instructions are here. If you prefer, you can use Docker or YunoHost. My Docker setup can be found at codeberg here. [well not yet... If you're interested get in touch]. The Dockerfile as of this writing builds an php8.3-fpm-alpine image (approx. 225M). The compose file is for a "stack" that includes; postgres database, redis (for session caching), a cron container, nginx/fastcgi behind traefik which handles the SSL, and offen/docker-volume-backup for automated offsite backup of db&app volumes.
What sites are open to the public?
You could browse the list of compatible "open registration" sites known to ArrCay or a potentially larger list can be found at fediversity.site (that link is filtered to just (streams) instances, click on "All community types" once there or remove "type=streams_repository&" from the url to see all types). You will find that only a handful of the dozens of (streams) instances are open for public registration. There are more Hubzilla and Friendica sites to be found in the list of open registration sites. For other Fediverse platforms you may want to start at joinfediverse.wiki and browse the "Instances" page there.
The following is excerpted from the "Federated Social Networks" doc by @billstatler@forum.statler.ws There may be a couple small sections of text above that I copy/pasted from there and failed to cite
Does this planet's atmosphere support human life?
They didn't call it the Fediverse because it's all the same everywhere. I think of it as thousands of planets (the independent instances). Many are in alliances based on common technology, culture, or politics. The atmosphere can be similar or very different from one planet to the next, and some may seem utterly alien compared to each other.
So if someone asks me "What does the Fediverse feel like? Is it polite, is it hate-filled, is it right-wing or left-wing? Is it full of creativity or full of assclowns? Is it better for short posts, long essays, photos, music, or videos?" — all I can say is, yes, it's all of the above, and more.
Like any group, most of the people using federated social networking are basically good folks. The good folks don't always have the loudest voices, though. So your experience will be a lot different depending on who you choose to interact with, and how you choose to interact.
Those are your personal decisions. But your ability to implement your choices depends a lot on the tools available to you, as provided by the software that your instance is using. Here is a gigantic list of instance software (and even this list is incomplete, because it omits systems that don't use the ActivityPub protocol to federate).
But, how to choose? Some people say: Just pick the most popular software, which is Mastodon. In fact, just pick the largest instance of Mastodon. Here are today's most popular posts, here are the people with the most followers, we'll protect you from "bad" stuff — and we'll explain federation to you later, when you're old enough to understand.
Well, I guess some people prefer that, but to me it's not useful. I don't need the most popular anything. I need the software, and the instance, that best provides the experience that I want. A Streams-based instance works for me, and it's irrelevant that it's way down towards the bottom of the popularity list. If your needs are different from mine, check out some of the other options. But I think that a Streams-based instance is a good "home planet" for starting your explorations.
To explore strange new worlds...
So you've got a new account on some federated instance, and you don't know anybody. How do you find people and connect to them? There isn't a universal directory or search function for the entire Fediverse — that would require massive resources that don't exist in a non-commercial space (and many people would refuse to be listed anyway).
For starters, you probably know somebody. The one who's been nudging you to get an account for the last year? If you can tolerate them, connect to them first, and see who they're talking to.
Your instance may have a directory of users. It will only cover users known by your instance, but that can be thousands of people. Search their profiles for topics and keywords that interest you. (Some instance software will do this automatically, based on topics and keywords you've put into your own profile.)
Some instances offer a feed of public posts. For example, mastodon.social (a very large Mastodon instance) offers "posts from across the social web that are gaining traction today" (an inaccurate description, because it's actually 99% from liberal-leaning Mastodon instances, not the whole Fediverse). Check a variety of instances, and you'll probably find a few people you'd like to connect with (and many others who are so disgusting that you'd like to launch them directly into the nearest star!).
And there are public directories such as Fedi.Directory and fediverse.info that can be searched by topic for some suggested connections.
Talking with aliens — How do I do that?
You can get more out of the Fediverse if you understand the concept of federation. Here's an example.
Suppose you have an account on one Fediverse instance, but you're browsing public posts on a different instance. Maybe you're looking at a beautiful photo gallery on pixelfed.de, and you want to say "Wow!", but without making a permanent connection to the photographer. Or maybe you just connected to someone today, you want to comment on a post they made last month, but that post is only visible on their instance and not yours. How can you comment, when you don't have an account on the alien instance?
There are currently two options:
- Your home instance needs to fetch a copy of the message from the alien instance, so that you can reply from home, OR
- The alien instance needs to recognize who you are, and give you permission to write a reply directly on their site.
Got that? (It took me 4 years of Fediverse use before I did!)
Your home instance and the alien instance are totally independent entities. Neither one contains all the posts in the Fediverse, and neither one knows all the users in the Fediverse. But federation allows them to exchange the information they need, so that your reply will be accepted and will go to the right place.
How you make that happen
So, option 1 — fetching the alien post — is a little bit nerdy:
- Go to the alien instance, and copy the URL of the post you want.
- On your home instance, there will be somewhere to paste this URL. (For my Streams-based instance, it's simply the Search box at the top of every page.)
- Your instance should find the alien post, and display it for you. Then you can write your comment.
- You should only need to do this once. Your instance now knows that you're involved with that post, and any replies to your comment ought to be delivered to you automatically.
Option 2 — getting permission to reply on the alien instance — is easier, but isn't universally supported, and the details vary. For example, an alien Pixelfed instance will let you "Sign-in with Mastodon" (if your home instance runs Mastodon). Once you're signed in, you should be able to comment just as if you had an account on that Pixelfed instance. (And as with Option 1, you should start receiving any future replies via your home instance.)
It's even easier if both instances are based on the Streams repository or its close relative Hubzilla. You don't have to do anything at all! If you are logged in on your home instance, when you visit any compatible alien instance, you will be automatically logged in there. (We're hoping that this "Magic Sign-On" feature will become widely adopted, but right now it's still rare.)
But why should I go to all this trouble?
We're used to commercial social media, where almost everything is done for us — but without giving us everything we want. It's free, but our experience is finely tuned to maximize someone else's profit.
Non-commercial federated social networking is different. It's run by thousands of volunteers, it's funded by donations of time and money, and your role can be much more active if you choose. You are handed the tools for controlling your own experience. You aren't just a user, you're an active part of the network. This requires some effort, but the result can be much more satisfying than what any commercial social media can provide.