Seeking Community Insights on a Federated Communication Model with Friendica
!Friendica Support
Subject: Seeking Community Insights on a Federated Communication Model with Friendica
Hello Friendica Community,
I’m working on a federated communication model involving a Friendica group and several accounts across other platforms like Mastodon, PeerTube, and Pixelfed.
Here’s the setup:
Mothership (Group):
@Classical Music and Beyond (parent account @PARLA)
Test Users:
@Via Artis Konsort – Mastodon
@Poul Udbye Pock-Steen – Mastodon
@Ballhaus – PeerTube
@Via Artis Konsort – Pixelfed
@Marko Petersen – Pixelfed
@PARLA – Friendica
The idea is simple:
1. Fediverse users following the group @Classical Music and Beyond should be able to post to it from accounts on other platforms.
2. Followers of the group should receive re-shared posts (text, graphics, and links to videos) from other group participants on their platform of choice.
3. Basic interactions like posting, receiving, and commenting should work seamlessly, respecting the nuances of each platform's format.
In theory, this aligns with the core concept of the Fediverse. However, achieving this seemingly straightforward goal has proven challenging.
After rigorous testing with the latest stable versions of Friendica, Mastodon, Pixelfed, and PeerTube, I’ve found that federation doesn’t work as smoothly as one might expect. While some issues may stem from configuration errors, I suspect others arise from varying interpretations of the ActivityPub protocol. It feels like platform-specific user experience is prioritized over seamless cross-platform federation.
In upcoming posts, I’ll detail the issues I’ve encountered, hoping to collaborate with the community to identify solutions and share insights. This particular group is about classical music. But my ultimate goal is to make this model functional—not only for classical music enthusiasts but for any community that benefits from rich, multimedia conversations in the Fediverse.
I’d greatly appreciate your feedback and any experiences you can share about similar federation challenges.
Please feel free to follow the group @Classical Music and Beyond and participate directly.
Best regards,
Poul Pock-Steen
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Poul Udbye Pock-Steen
in reply to PARLA • • •@gardiner_bryant
Please read the message on Friendica if you like and let me know if you have any valuable experience to share regarding federation between different platfoms in the Fediverse. The theory is beautiful, the reality seems to be more challenging :)
Thank you
Poul
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hoergen
in reply to PARLA • • •@PARLA please don't use the Friendica support group for your further blog and advertisement posts, like you stated in your current post. There is a dedicated Friendica developer group
@developers@forum.friendi.ca. And I think the best place for discussing such developments and experiments is github github.com/friendica/friendica . Thank you.Because you mentioned other projects like Mastodon, Pixelfed, and PeerTube, you should contact those projects as well, because they are responsible to integrate such forums Friendica is offering. And don't forget Hubzilla. And above all as well the Acitivty Pub Commetee.
The Friendica support group is like a helpdesk for people that encounter problems with current Friendica versions or search help in using Friendica.
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PARLA
in reply to PARLA • •Hello @hoergen and other @Friendica Support ,
I want to clarify that I’m not advertising a blog—I’m genuinely seeking help because Friendica doesn’t seem to be federating properly with Mastodon, Pixelfed, and PeerTube as expected.
I’ve encountered issues with the current Friendica version while trying to use its group functionality. I can’t say definitively whether the federation issues I’m facing are caused by Friendica, the other platforms, or both. However, since my idea involves using a Friendica group as a hub for federated communication across platforms, I naturally started here.
If federation with Mastodon and other platforms is considered more of an experimental or developmental feature, perhaps Friendica isn’t the best platform for this use case. I’m not a programmer, so I re
... show moreHello @hoergen and other @Friendica Support ,
I want to clarify that I’m not advertising a blog—I’m genuinely seeking help because Friendica doesn’t seem to be federating properly with Mastodon, Pixelfed, and PeerTube as expected.
I’ve encountered issues with the current Friendica version while trying to use its group functionality. I can’t say definitively whether the federation issues I’m facing are caused by Friendica, the other platforms, or both. However, since my idea involves using a Friendica group as a hub for federated communication across platforms, I naturally started here.
If federation with Mastodon and other platforms is considered more of an experimental or developmental feature, perhaps Friendica isn’t the best platform for this use case. I’m not a programmer, so I rely on existing functionalities working as intended and a guidance for proper configuration to make the group funtion work.
It’s unfortunate if seamless federation isn’t a priority, as that’s one of the key advantages of federated platforms over centralized ones like Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram, specially in the context of groups.
For the sake of clarity: Is this help group exclusively for addressing issues within the Friendica platform (e.g., problems posting between Friendica instances), or does it also cover federation issues with other platforms?
Thank you for your time
Kind regards
Poul Pock-Steen
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hoergen
in reply to PARLA • • •@PARLA you are using a friendica feature "Forum" that does not exist in Mastodon or the other projects, that's why I suggested you talk to the other projects, if you like this feature. Friendica supports this wonderful and it works perfect between friendica servers .. and maybe hubzilla, i dont know.
It would be wonderful if other projects would support that feature.
PARLA
in reply to PARLA • •@Friendica Support
So, to clarify:
1) Is the forum (now group) feature, where a post in the group gets automatically reshared to other group members, designed exclusively for use within Friendica?
2) If so, does this mean that the functionality does not depend on the ActivityPub protocol and is therefore not expected to work across other federated platforms?
Understanding this distinction would help me determine whether my goal of using a Friendica group as a hub for cross-platform communication is feasible with the current implementation or if it requires additional workarounds or features.
Thank you for your clarification.
Best regards,
Poul Pock-Steen
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hoergen
in reply to PARLA • • •@PARLA to clarify
1. A forum or group account can be followed from every other account in the fediverse
2. The functionality sending with the Bang notation "!" does only work in Friendica - sending as different account to the group account without sending it to the contacts of the "different account" and the group sending it then to its contacts on all platforms.
3. Maybe it could work as "different platform account" to use the @ notation to send it to the Friendica group. But I don't know. On the other platform it would look like a standard mention. You need to check.
This feature is working inside the ActivityPub protocol. But as I wrote, other platforms didn't implement this suggestion.