The Surprising Origins and Alternatives to Tomato Ketchup
Ketchup is more of a category than a singular sauce.Anne Ewbank (Atlas Obscura)
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
Ketchup is more of a category than a singular sauce.Anne Ewbank (Atlas Obscura)
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
Experts say vomit, probably from a fish, is made up of sea lilies and is an important contribution to reconstructing past ecosystemsGuardian staff reporter (The Guardian)
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
DeepSeek's R1 LLM: A New Challenger in the AI Landscape with Censorship Concerns
The launch of DeepSeek's R1 LLM has set the AI community abuzz with its impressive benchmarks and open-source capabilities. However, the model's erratic self-identification and potential censorship ra...
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
"See-worthy" teableau for 01/27/25
Given the natural state of its world, it's a wonder that any sea turtle ever survived to adulthood. Given the unnatural pressures upon it now, a sea turtle's existence is practically a miracle.
#Tea #Teableau #TeaCozy #TeaCosy #PeppermintTea #SeaTurtles #Ocean #DepressionGlass #FentonGlass #HobnailGlass #VintageChina #Handmade #Quilting #Sewing #Crochet
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
“I remember holding a baby dying of complications of pneumococcal meningitis.”…Beth Mole (Ars Technica)
reshared this
Georgiana Brummell, aprilfollies, Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈, Debbie Goldsmith 🏳️⚧️♾️🇺🇦, Dan Gillmor, BadWoof and Stuart D Neilson reshared this.
I tried to post this to the Friendica support forum, but it kept timing out when I entered my information. I am now attempting to subscribe to their e-mail list. However, I thought I would write this here so that those who know coding, etc. might be able to offer a solution, or at least, to pass this on to the developers.
I joined Friendica in October of 2024, when Facebook decided to shut down their Basic Mobile site (not app). I am totally blind, and their main page is a nightmare to use with a screen readre (NVDA in my case). I chose Friendica because of the huge character limit, the ability to edit and delete posts, local posting, extensive profiles with keywords, and the ability to connect with all sorts of accounts in the Fediverse. For the most part, I am enjoying my time here. However, I am noticing a lot of inaccessibility on the Friendica page. I am not a programmer, but I'm guessing this is at the core of the software and is not due to the instance I'm using (friendica.world). I am also guessing that the page is not written in HTML5 and does not follow WCAG guidelines, though I may be wrong about that. If not, I strongly urge the developers to review them and implement them if possible. If so, perhaps, some changes can still be made that would make this a more screen reader-friendly site. Note that I tried this with Firefox and Supermium (a direct fork of Chrome).
Mostly, I use TweeseCake to access the site, but there are some things I can't do with that client. All of the following refer to the site itself.
1A. I can't stress how frustrating editing posts is. It sometimes takes over ten minutes. The "edit" option is a link/menu, and it can only be found via another menu. Once I finally find and activate it, I hear the sound indicating that I have entered focus Mode. Usually, this means that I am in an edit box and can type. However, in this case, I am taken back to the main page, as if I never entered the option to edit my post. Using e to try to find an edit box doesn't help, as it just sends me to the replies to different comments. So I am forced to find the post, and start all over again. The only way I can do this successfully is to try to tab through the links/menu at the top of the page (when it works), then through other posts, until, finally, I am placed in an edit box where I can type.
1B. When I go to the Notifications" link, I have to tab to "Mark all System Notifications as Seen". This isn't even a regular link, as I can't copy and paste the text from it. Once I tab to and out of that, I can then read my notifications. But here is what I have to do if I want to see follow requests.
1. Try to get the notifications link to work, then click on it.
2. Tab to marking notifications.
3. Perform a search for the word follow.
4. Click on the link of the notification that someone wants to follow me. I open this in a new window, to try to keep the original one available.
5. Make my choice as to whether to approve that notification, then close that window.
6. Return to the main window. Only now, I am not where I left off. Instead, I am placed back at the beginning of the page and the Notifications menu is not open.
7. Repeat steps 1 through 3.
Ideally, I should be able to go to a normal notifications link, perform steps 3 through 5, then return back to the link, and perform steps 3 through 5 again, as many times as necessary, without having to repeat 1 through 3.
If you want to see a truly accessible site, try this link. I don't work for them, though I do have an account there.
Please, if any changes can be made, I urge you to do so. The site is otherwise a pleasure to use, but my frustration at not being able to easily perform such basic tasks is increasing.
#accessibility #blind #coding #Chrome #Developers #Dreamwidth #Facebook #fediverse #Firefox #Friendica #HTML #HTML5 #NVDA #ScreenReaders #TweeseCake #WCAG #Windows
like this
pataphysician, Patrik Hirvinen and Tofm2 🇫🇷 🇺🇦 🇪🇺 like this.
reshared this
pataphysician, slowmart, Laurel Jean Walden, Jupiter Rowland, Eugenio Monforte, the esoteric programmer, Svenja, The Evil Chocolate Cookie, Jules she/her, Walter Vermeir, Kaveinthran and Krzysztof Sakrejda reshared this.
@Georgiana Brummell First of all, I've just noticed that you seem to not have joined the Friendica support forum yet. As far as I know, you can't post to a Friendica group/forum without fully connecting to it first.
As for the accessibility issues: To most people, it appears like Friendica has only just been made since they haven't heard of it before mid-January. But actually, Friendica is from 2010. And its frontend is largely stuck in the early 2010s, including technologically.
Friendica has always been a spare-time hobbyist project. It was mostly developed by one single man for almost two years. That guy is a protocol designer and not a frontend developer. Also, I think Friendica never had more than two regular developers, and it definitely never had any developer who really knows how to make a modern and appealing user interface. I mean, you've obviously never seen Friendica's user interface, but let me tell you that it's quite old-fashioned. It's just meant to do its job.
Hobbyist, spare-time developers of such an extremely niche piece of software who are not trained in Web UI design normally don't know a thing about accessibility. And truly, they don't care. If the UI covers all features, and the users don't have to SSH or telnet onto the Web server to use it, it's often good enough.
Friendica's regularly active user community has never been more than maybe a few thousand at a time, maybe even only a few hundred, as opposed to the over two million at which Mastodon has topped out. Thus, Friendica has never encountered blind or visually-impaired users yet.
You can see it all over the place. Alt-text is not part of Friendica's culture. Some Friendica veterans staunchly refuse to describe their media because they think alt-text is another Mastodon fad that Mastodon fundamentalists want to force upon the whole rest of the Fediverse with Mastodon's entire culture. Alt-text, to them, is like limiting your posts to 500 characters.
All this is why nobody has noticed yet that Friendica is not accessible at all.
I've got a suspicion that Friendica can only be made fully accessible by throwing the entire Web frontend away, developing an entirely new one from scratch and then also making all-new themes for it.
Also, it's only natural that TweeseCake doesn't support many of Friendica's features. As it looks to me, TweeseCake's Fediverse side is built against Mastodon and only Mastodon. If Mastodon doesn't have a feature, TweeseCake doesn't cover it either. Thus, TweeseCake probably only covers about 20% of Friendica's features because Mastodon doesn't have the other 80%.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Friendica #TweeseCake #A11y #Accessibility
Droppie [infosec] 🐨 reshared this.
@Jupiter Rowland Again, thank you for the wonderful explanation. I am not doubting you at all, by the way, just explaining something. Dreamwidth looks very much like LiveJournal, which has been around for longer than twenty years. I've been using computers for over two decades, and I've definitely seen many good older sites, including from the 2010's. As a matter of fact, many older sites are far better than modern ones, because they are mostly text, don't have hamburger menus, strange buttons, etc. The old Basic HTML version of GMail and even Facebooks Basic Mobile site are two more excellent examples of good sites, though sadly, both of them are gone now. To me, Friendica actually feels a lot more modern, and in a bad way.
Thank you for explaining a bit about Friendica culture and membership. I joined for the reasons I said, so I wasn't really thinking about that. Most of my friends in the Fediverse are on Mastodon, though a few do come from other places. I initially avoided Mastodon because of the 500 character limit, no local posting, and the inability to edit/delete posts. I later learned that some instances have very long posting limits, and that posts can be edited and deleted. I was considering Hometown or possibly Glitchsoc. I forgot why I chose Friendica over those. Now, I heard that many instances on Mastodon are very strict with what they allow. I don't post obscenities, graphic images, anything illegal, etc. but I also don't want to be thrown out simply for expressing an opinion that is different from those of the moderators. I'm perfectly fine with acting a certain way within groups, but on my own timeline, I want the ability to post as I choose without my work being deleted or being banned. I heard that Pleroma is good in that regard. If I did switch, though, I would need to choose an accessible platform and, I hope, to be able to take this account with me.
As for TweeseCake, it workss with almost everything. I can see and reply to posts, create, edit, and delete my own (it respect the long ones and allows me to use carriage return instead of posting when I press that), follow and unfollow people, block and unblock them, etc. But I can't edit my profile, pin posts, follow tags, go to a list of blocked users so that I can ublock them, filter out certain words and/or phrases so that I don't see them in my timeline (I'm not even sure if I can do that on Friendica), etc. I can sort read timelines such as Home, Notifications, Mentions, and Federated, and add specific conversations, favourites (that one doesn't work well here though it does on TwBlue), etc. But I can't create, edit, or delete circles.
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
@Robert Kingett Hubzilla started out as a Friendica fork by Friendica's own creator. He maintained it for twice as long as Friendica, until 2016. Since then, there are only two developers for much, much more code than Friendica has, and they're spare-time hobbyists, too, who only work on Hubzilla when they happen to find some time.
Thus, due to Hubzilla's massive backend, UI maintenance has largely fallen to the wayside. Hubzilla used to have a whole bunch of themes, but only one survived to this day because the two devs had to keep one theme alive. Its name "Redbasic" comes from Hubzilla's original name, Red. Apart from getting more settings with Hubzilla 9, it didn't change that much over time. Hubzilla kind of still looks like Friendica more than a dozen years ago.
It's mostly the backend that keeps the devs busy, too busy to take care of anything else. Example: The built-in help is half-useless because it's totally outdated and therefore partially incomplete and partially plain wrong. Features that have been available for several years aren't covered, but things that have been removed in the last decade are. Parts of it actually still refer to a "Red Matrix" which ceased to exist in 2015 when the Red Matrix became Hubzilla. The German and English help is currently being re-written by a user.
Alt-text has to be manually grafted into the BBcode that embeds an image in a post. There is no official documentation on that yet, and I'll have to check if the rewrite covers it. How it's done is only known because, I think, one of the devs looked it up in the code, then told us, and it's being passed on from user to user every once in a while.
In fact, I've once been told by a blind or visually-impaired user that at least Hubzilla's Articles app for non-federating long-form articles did not work in her screen reader at all.
Hubzilla's frontend must largely run on code from 2012 when it was matched with the completely re-written backend. Afterwards, new or changed features were only patched in. Hubzilla's UI is convoluted and confusing even for sighted users.
Also, Hubzilla has never had a run-in with blind users either because it's even more obscure than Friendica, and its community is even smaller than Friendica's.
Lastly, Hubzilla can only be used via the Web interface. There is no other way. It doesn't support Mastodon apps, and it never will.
CC: @Georgiana Brummell
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Hubzilla #A11y #Accessibility
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
the esoteric programmer reshared this.
@Jupiter Rowland @Robert Kingett I just saw this.
"Getting back to the cluttered user interface I was talking about. Friendica allows the user to make changes to the user interface. There are a couple of themes to choose from and the themes can be customized in color. Also the layout and the content of the stream can be adjusted. This way I was able to create a style that is easier to digest making Friendica a much better experience than it was for me in the past."
homehack.nl/when-to-use-friend…
Could this possibly help with my problems? By the way, this is a fairly good article that explains some of the differences between Friendica and Mastodon.
Here is an explanation of another site that I just found, called Akkoma. It sounds interesting, but also a bit complicated.
Between Friendica, Mastodon, Pleroma, Akkoma, Hometown, glitchsoc, and the others, I am very confused. I didn't think I would have to be considering this again. It was bad enough when I lost all of my friends on Facebook (only one or two even talk with me outside of it) and had to find a new place to go to, because Facebook decided that accessibility didn't matter. Now, I may have to do it all over again! I really am trying to avoid this headache. At the same time, I need to know what my options are and if anything truly meets my needs.
the esoteric programmer reshared this.
Just last week I got in touch with an accessibility expert. We had a two-hour session where she registered an account and went through the whole system. She was using an iPad with VoiceOver. There were three main problems:
There were also some other things that needed to be fixed, see here for a summary: github.com/friendica/friendica…
I will try to work on this. I recently got hold of an iPhone, so I can now check with VoiceOver.
like this
caos, Georgiana Brummell and Jupiter Rowland like this.
I don't own any Windows devices, I use Linux. I now have an iPhone (just for testing), an Android device and a Chromebook. So I want to try to make it accessible for those devices. And I hope it will work with other screenreaders too.
After I've made most of the changes, I'd like to get some feedback, just to make sure I'm on the right track. So I may get back to you about this.
I can't say how much time I'll need, though. Working on Friendica is like trying to juggle a dozen things at once while solving a Rubik's Cube and reciting Shakespeare. I try to code new things, to maintain the system, search and fix bugs, provide support and update and maintain three Friendica installations (while also having a daytime job and some other spare time activities).
like this
Krone Randegg machts und miradlo erzählt and Georgiana Brummell like this.
@Matthias It is true that it is the culture of (many) Friendica users to use alt tags. But it would be good if it became even easier to create them. Unfortunately, it is not yet self-explanatory how it can be created and it is not integrated into the GUI everywhere.
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
I need to correct some things. I have spent a lot of time trying to make Friendica accessible. Many years ago I got in touch with a blind person who was working in this area. I made a lot of changes, but due to a lack of equipment to check them, I was never able to see if the changes were really good.
Last Thursday I had a two-hour session with an accessibility expert. She found a number of problems and said that, apart from three, the software as a whole was quite good from an accessibility point of view. In particular, she said that post creation was quite good compared to Mastodon.
However, there are some problems, such as the fact that some menu items aren't spoken. We also use the wrong aria roles for a lot of links. And we don't always use buttons and navigation elements where we should.
As for alt text: Of course we support the creation of this. As I have blind contacts, I'm very interested in this. However (as already mentioned) the interface can be improved a lot.
Also regarding the technology: Friendica has undergone some major overhauls of its internal structure. Just recently there was another refactoring wave that improved the whole class structure. This means that the core - although started 15 years ago - is quite modern (including a bunch of automated tests).
like this
yelling jackal and Georgiana Brummell like this.
Ruud reshared this.
@Georgiana Brummell Quote:
Could this possibly help with my problems? By the way, this is a fairly good article that explains some of the differences between Friendica and Mastodon.
End quote.
It depends on where exactly your issues are rooted. If the UI is too cluttered for you, it may help, but I'm afraid that the editor itself may not be accessible. But if the UI elements themselves aren't accessible, it makes no difference if you rearrange them or remove elements that you don't need.
As I've probably already mentioned, Friendica has changed a great lot since the last time I've used it, and my more recent experience is from Hubzilla and (streams). But while they let you rearrange all pages, they don't let you modify the UI elements themselves in detail and add accessibility features.
Also, I don't know if Friendica lets you change the layouts of the pages by editing the raw Comanche code that describes them. While this means getting used to Comanche, I can imagine this actually being more accessible than a purely WYSIWYG drag-and-drop editor.
In this regard, it's interesting that (streams) doesn't offer drag-and-drop anymore. Either that, or Hubzilla introduced it after Osada and Zap were forked off.
Quote:
Here is an explanation of another site that I just found, called Akkoma. It sounds interesting, but also a bit complicated.
End quote.
Akkoma is a fork of Pleroma with a default UI that, I guess, isn't dramatically different plus compatibility with the same third-party UIs. One downside in comparison with Friendica, Hubzilla etc. is that you, as a user, can't choose a UI for your account individually because the UI is pre-defined for the whole instance. Also, both Pleroma and Akkoma are microblogging projects and closer to Twitter than to Facebook.
CC: @Robert Kingett
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Friendica #Akkoma
@Georgiana Brummell @Robert Kingett You could try and ask the developers of both TweeseCake and TWBlue to implement full support for Friendica, not via the Mastodon client API, but by also implementing Friendica's own client API.
I wouldn't hold my breath for it, though. They may not even have heard of Friendica yet. And if you tell them what it is, they may still decide that if they haven't heard of it yet because it hasn't been the talk of the town for long enough, it's too obscure to bother.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Friendica #TweeseCake #TWBlue
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
@Georgiana Brummell @Robert Kingett Well, GoToSocial is quite different from Mastodon and Friendica in one regard: It's mainly made for hosting your own personal instance. It isn't really for more or less big public, open-registration instances. As far as I know, it doesn't even come with its own built-in UI, so if you want a Web UI on your own instance, you have to choose one and add it yourself.
Still, there are some public, open-registration GoToSocial instances. And if you're going to use it with TWBlue, the Web UI shouldn't even matter beyond registering an account because you won't touch it anymore afterwards.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #GoToSocial #TWBlue
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
@caos Wasn't there something in discussion or even in the making in this regard?
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
@Jupiter Rowland @Robert Kingett Since I use TweeseCake 99% of the time, I am going to try to tag the developers here, and only use the tag for this part of the thread, so as not to annoy them. I also just read some absolutely wonderful news about the app being redesigned, so perhaps, some of the suggestions mentioned below are already part of that plan. As it is, it's a great client, so I can't wait to see what the future holds!
@TweeseCake The main post here describes problems with the Friendica site itself so can be ignored in your case. However, TweeseCake makes almost everything accessible, except the following.
I realise that some of these features are specific to Friendica, and since TweeseCake was designed to work with Mastodon, it makes sense that some of them have not been implemented. But 1, 2, and 5 are essential.
Jupiter Rowland likes this.
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
Hope for our rarest UK bat...
bats.org.uk/news/2025/01/hope-…
Two exciting discoveries have been reported in the last week about our rarest bat species, the greater mouse-eared bat.Bat Conservation Trust
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
reshared this
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
Windows 11 24H2 Preview: A Leap in Taskbar Functionality and User Experience
Microsoft's latest Windows 11 24H2 preview introduces innovative taskbar features that enhance user awareness of battery status. This update not only improves usability but also raises questions about...
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
Ozzy Man provided voices for a pair of perplexed golden retrievers who wanted to retrieve a yellow tennis ball at the bottom of the pool.Lori Dorn (Laughing Squid)
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
Di app popularity don grow since dem launch am for January, e dey challenge di world system belief wey say America na di untouchable leader of di AI industry.BBC News Pidgin
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
Swiss photographer Jennifer Esseiva devoted a 10-day trip across southern Iceland entirely to the region’s vast surroundings.
thisiscolossal.com/2025/01/jen…
#photography #nature #northernlights #iceland
Black sand beaches, impressive waterfalls, and striking displays of the Northern Lights are among the various landscapes captured by Jennifer Esseiva.Jackie Andres (Colossal)
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
reshared this
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦, LAUREN, Georgiana Brummell, leChris, Christy Marx Rambling Writer, why-not @Heike, ghostdancer, Rita ⁂, Tanya Karoli 4 a better world, Kim Possible, aprilfollies, Lord Caramac the Clueless, KSC and Sinchen Müller reshared this.
Do you want help with using Mastodon or the rest of the Fediverse? Do you have any particular questions you want answered?
Feel free to ask in the replies and I'll try to find an answer (or send a DM or mention if you prefer).
It doesn't matter how simple the question seems, am especially keen to help new people and non-technical people 🙂
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
reshared this
nosyCarlaClearname, Geoff Berner, Dustin, LAUREN, Georgiana Brummell, Shannon Prickett, Cainmark Does Not Comply 🚲, K2, NextGen Cookbook, Pam C, UkeleleEric, Dilman Dila, miyo, Loren, James 🦉 #FBPE 🇪🇺, Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦, Electroduende21 and Martin Vuillème (he/him) reshared this.
There is a language filter built into Mastodon, you can find out more at:
fedi.tips/setting-your-languag…
An unofficial guide to using Mastodon and the Fediversefedi.tips
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Your account is on Friendica, so you would have to use Friendica's language filter.
I think it's at Settings > Additional Components > Language filter
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
I don't think so? There are a lot of interesting accounts listed at fedi.directory
Interesting accounts to follow on Mastodon and the Fediversefedi.directory
James 🦉 #FBPE 🇪🇺 reshared this.
The language filter on Mastodon depends on people labelling their posting language correctly.
There used to be an automated filter, but it tended to label posts incorrectly because of the very short nature of most posts.
If people on Mastodon label their posts with the wrong language, it will show up when it shouldn't or be hidden when it shouldn't.
All I can suggest is muting accounts that have incorrectly labelled their posting language.
Anything in particular you want help with?
There is lots of help for new people on the website at fedi.tips (especially Quick Start at the top of the screen).
An unofficial guide to using Mastodon and the Fediversefedi.tips
You could try Mbin which is another Reddit-style platform on the Fediverse. It's at an earlier stage of development, but you can find out more at joinmbin.org
(By the way, Mbin is a continuation of an earlier project called Kbin. Kbin stopped development but its code formed the basis of Mbin.)
Another option is the forum software NodeBB which is now part of the Fediverse. You can follow NodeBB members directly. More info at social.growyourown.services/@F…
The free open source forum software NodeBB is now part of the Fediverse. You can now follow and interact with members of NodeBB-powered forums from other Fediverse servers.For example, their co-founder's account on NodeBB is @julian and you can interact with them from Mastodon etc.
You can follow the latest news about NodeBB at:
➡️ @nodebb
Their official website is at:
➡️ nodebb.org
If you want technical details see the documentation at:
➡️ docs.nodebb.org/activitypub
Home | NodeBB | Your Community Forum Platform
NodeBB is the next generation community forum platform. Built on open source software, we've helped hundreds of companies engage their customers.admin@krftwrk.ca (nodebb)
Maybe the developer @ihabunek could help?
It's slightly complicated compared to other share buttons, as it doesn't know which server the person doing the sharing is on.
Some share buttons handle this by asking which server the person wants to share to:
bentasker.co.uk/posts/document…
palant.info/2023/10/19/impleme…
Easy, free and 100% private solution to allow your users to share content on their Mastodon.MastodonShare
Some types of Fediverse software have implemented this, but it comes at a cost. Calckey/Firefish (which is no longer maintained) allowed imports of Mastodon post archives, but I think the upload process used a lot of server resources and slowed the server down. It also broke any replies to the old posts as they were technically new posts.
The existing migration process on Mastodon doesn't delete your old posts, it effectively puts a redirect to your new account on them.
That's a fair point, yes!
But to be honest even the most high profile well-funded online services will disappear at some point:
theguardian.com/technology/201…
Relying on other people's instances is going to lead to this sooner or later.
The only way to guarantee all your posts stay online forever is to run your own instance and take regular multiple backups.
Faulty server migration blamed for mass deletion of songs, photos and videoAlex Hern (The Guardian)
If you really, really need to have full control of your posts, you can create your own server.
This isn't as expensive or difficult as people think, it starts from a few euros a month through managed hosting services (which do all the technical stuff for you), e.g. masto.host/pricing
This also lets you move your posts to a different hosting provider by copying the database, and doesn't break threads either.
But obviously this isn't going to be for everyone.
Pricing for Masto.host fully managed Mastodon hosting plans. Starting at $6/month.Masto.host
Your server decides what the character limit is for posts. On your server, mastodon.social, the limit is 500 characters.
There are other servers with much higher limits, or practically no limit at all. For example many of the "Glitch Mastodon"-powered servers have much higher limits, you can find some nice ones listed at fedi.garden/tag/glitch-mastodo…
There is lots more info about this topic at:
I'm really sorry, I'm not providing support for BlueSky due to the nature of the people who own and run it (social.growyourown.services/@F…).
However, if you're just wanting one-directional following on here of a wide range of different accounts and websites, there's rss-parrot.net
Home of RSS Parrot, a free Fediverse service that lets you turn Mastodon into an RSS or Atom feed reader.rss-parrot.net
This is why I have been trying to warn about #BlueSky.BlueSky has just been partially bought by a cryptocurrency company "Blockchain Capital" and appointed a blockchain / cryptocurrency expert to their board:
bsky.social/about/blog/10-24-2…
The board member is a bitcoin researcher involved with NFT analytics.
BlueSky describe the tie-up with Blockchain Capital as a "natural partnership" and says the blockchain company has "a uniquely deep understanding of our decentralized foundation".
(via @jwz)
Bluesky Announces Series A to Grow Network of 13M+ Users - Bluesky
Bluesky now exceeds 13 million users, the AT Protocol developer ecosystem continues to grow, and we’ve shipped highly requested features like direct messages and video.Bluesky
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
I don't know of any Pinterest equivalent, sorry!
To keep running costs low, servers only "notice" posts and accounts in certain circumstances (there's a list at fedi.tips/which-posts-and-acco…).
If it only notices some replies from a thread but not others, you may see incomplete threads and profiles. There is more on this topic at fedi.tips/why-arent-all-mastod…
On a slightly different topic, in some cases servers may block other servers, which would also prevent replies from that server being seen.
An unofficial guide to using Mastodon and the Fediversefedi.tips
You can follow people from other servers, but you cannot use your account to log in on other servers.
If you want to publish photos you can do so on your existing Mastodon account and they will be visible on Pixelfed.
(There is technically a "log in with Mastodon" button on Pixelfed servers, but this is a highly misleading name. It doesn't actually log people in, it just creates a brand new unconnected Pixelfed account using info from the Mastodon account.)
You can post video clips on Mastodon, but it is not designed for long videos. It may not play reliably for everyone and it uses a lot of bandwidth from your server.
PeerTube is much better for long videos because it was designed for them, and because it has a "peer to peer" system for sharing bandwidth between the people watching a video.
Basically: short clips are fine on Mastodon, long videos are much better on PeerTube.
More info about PeerTube at fedi.tips/peertube-video-hosti…
An unofficial guide to using Mastodon and the Fediversefedi.tips
The one account can be followed and interacted with from other servers.
It's like if you have email on Yahoo, you can send and receive email from people on other providers. But you cannot log in on those other providers with your Yahoo account.
If you're just wanting to watch videos, you can follow and interact with PeerTube accounts from Mastodon. But if you want to publish long videos, you should create a PeerTube account as well.
There's no advantage? If in a regular social network, I also register everywhere to follow an interesting person, and the same here.
I register everywhere and post links to my accounts. I just need to choose a server.
What is the advantage of this technology then? I'm just studying fediverse for 3 days and I don't understand what the advantage is.
I was able to follow the author on regular social media anyway, at the expense of reposts. 🤔
If someone posts a video on youtube they repost it on other social networks, it's human nature.
One advantage is you only need one account to follow people from many different servers and many different platforms.
There are many other advantages too: fedi.tips/why-is-the-fediverse…
An unofficial guide to using Mastodon and the Fediversefedi.tips
like this
Georgiana Brummell and Marcelo like this.
Really good question!
The server lists at fedi.garden and joinmastodon.org/servers require all listed servers to give three months warning if they ever shut down, which gives members time to transfer their accounts elserwhere.
You can also browse Fedi.Garden by the year a server was founded, if you are more comfortable on servers that have been around a long while: fedi.garden/servers-sorted-by-…
Generally you can go to the server's website and click on the Admin account. The admin's profile says when it joined Mastodon, and this is usually the same as the date when the server started.
This isn't 100% guaranteed though, sometimes servers change their admin account, but it's a quick easy rule of thumb.
"While cool it seems like a relatively small list of servers in the grand scale of the fediverse."
There are much longer lists available, but they are much less safe.
Two separate things going on:
-Some people choose to hide their follows/followers as Danny said. More info on this at fedi.tips/how-to-hide-your-fol…
-All servers hide follows/followers from other servers when viewing profiles of accounts from other servers.
This second thing is probably what you're seeing. Apparently this happens due to privacy concerns, but they perhaps aren't justified (some very technical discussion of this at github.com/mastodon/mastodon/i…).
An unofficial guide to using Mastodon and the Fediversefedi.tips
@valen1 @dandylover1 @Beltzebub
Oooh... that's a really clever idea! Is it okay if I put that on the fedi.tips website?
@FediTips@social.growyourown.services
can i still call them tweets if twitter doesnt exist?
You can call them whatever you want 🙂
Traditionally they're called toots on Mastodon, but as a lot of people on the Fediverse aren't on Mastodon (there are lots of different types of platform here) it's usually safest to call them posts.
James 🦉 #FBPE 🇪🇺 likes this.
@James 🦉 #FBPE 🇪🇺 @Fedi.Tips it does appear to have been disabled. As you mentioned, likely due to the load.
You can still download them from Instagram and wait until imports are opened again, I suppose.
As a possible consolation, the Instagram pics are imported as private and there seems no way to make them public at the moment.
James 🦉 #FBPE 🇪🇺 likes this.
Pixelfed.social is really really overwhelmed at the moment, it's getting too big. You might want to sign up on a different server? People will still be able to follow you whichever server you choose.
pixey.org has been pretty good for example (and it currently has IG imports switched on).
Bear in mind though IG imports use resources, so any server may switch them off temporarily if they're busy with lots of new users.
skribe likes this.
1. Log in on your server's website
2. Go to your profile page (click on your profile image to do this)
3. Click ⋯ and select "Muted users"
Ah, Thanks! I would never have realized that "..." was a menu.
All of the other UI elements have text labels, I never noticed there was an unlabeled menu.
And hey, Followed Hashtags is in there too! Nice. That's something else I've been hunting for.
There is an easier way to mute threads, yes!
1. Go to Notifications
2. On the notification from the thread you want to mute, click ⋯
3. Select "Mute Conversation"
This should work in advanced web and ordinary web.
AI scrapers will generally scrape anything visible (many of them are apparently scraping pirated material for example).
The mitigation would probably be to post in non-public visibilities such as followers-only or mentions-only.
I'm not sure about the share of server traffic as I use managed hosting, you would need to ask someone with direct access to server logs.
The right place is the "🔔 Notifications" column. I've attached a screenshot highlighting the "mute conversation" option.
This should be visible for all your mention notifications?
"Filter this post" isn't muting the thread, that's something different.
The option sometimes appears in the Home column, but for some weird reason it's not as reliably visible there. It's much more reliably an option in the Notifications column.
Hi!
There is no direct tool for importing things from Facebook. You would have to manually repost anything you want to move.
I don't know of any servers on that particular topic, but topics are usually discussed across many servers. So, you might want to try following hashtags and groups related to that topic.
What are you using to access Pixelfed?
If you're using a Mastodon app, that may limit you to four images.
You should be able to post more than four images if you log in on your Pixelfed server's website, or if you use a dedicated Pixelfed app.
It is, in fact there's an automatic system that is already stopping you seeing boosts more than once.
BUT... unfortunately this system is currently hard-coded to allow it to repeat after 40 other posts have passed through your timeline. 😞
I think it was written many years ago when timelines on here were very quiet, but obviously nowadays it's allowing repeats too often.
More info about this and possible workarounds here:
fedi.tips/how-do-i-stop-seeing…
An unofficial guide to using Mastodon and the Fediversefedi.tips
King Charles Joins Holocaust Survivors In "Sacred Moment"
#KingCharles #MonarchMeetsSurvivors #HistoricalAwareness #HolocaustMemorialDay #Auschwitz
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
Hi! I'm Lamuya, my pronouns are she/her and I like to draw comics and paint. I like tea, electronic music, walking in the woods, peacefulness, dark chocolate, typography and daydreaming. I'm 39, transgender and speak English and French. Nice to meet you!
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
reshared this
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
@detondev Thank you! Yes I have a bunch:
Surveying for #desertthrashers is pretty all-consuming, but sometimes the GBBO crew just has to stop and scan for gulls and shorebirds....
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
👢 Sustainable cement: An electrochemical process to help neutralize cement industry CO₂ emissions
techxplore.com/news/2025-01-su…
#cement #materials #construction #climatechange #sustainability
Cement production is the second-largest industrial contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, but its carbon footprint could be dramatically reduced with a new low-cost, scalable approach demonstrated at the University of Michigan.Patricia DeLacey (Tech Xplore)
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
#PuzzleOfTheDay: If,
p + q + r = pqr = 1/p + 1/q + 1/r = 1,
What is the value of p^3 + q^3 + r^3?
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
reshared this
Georgiana Brummell and the esoteric programmer reshared this.
@dandylover1 You are welcome.
We will add alt text wherever required and possible.
Please note that, in most of our posts, the text explains the corresponding image. We will do our best to make it as accessible as possible.
Thanks again for reading.
Two hundred UK companies sign up for permanent four-day working weekhttps://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/jan/27/two-hundred-uk-companies-sign-up-for-permanent-four-day-working-weekPosted by zeros3ssBYTESEU (Bytes Europe)
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
reshared this
Georgiana Brummell and Anu Lahtinen reshared this.
like this
Sunshine likes this.
This absolutely jaw-dropping mosaic of doves drinking from a bronze bowl is so detailed that it almost seems like an oil painting. Found in Hadrian’s villa, the piece is thought to be a copy of the famous C2nd BCE mosaicist from Pergamum, Sosos.
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
reshared this
Georgiana Brummell, Liam Proven, Philip C James, UkeleleEric and Bill Minarik reshared this.
Sensitive content
Sensitive content
Power cuts and flood warnings as Storm Herminia hits
About 700 homes are without power and the Met Office is warning of heavy rain across Wales.
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
reshared this
Georgiana Brummell, Abie, Lord Caramac the Clueless, KSC, UkeleleEric, reindeerphoto, Jean Sans Peur and Bugspriet reshared this.
Willkommen in Deutschland, Sabrina! 🥰
Embracing Nature with Futoshi Tachino: Practical Ways to Reduce Your Environmental Footprint
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
reshared this
Georgiana Brummell and the esoteric programmer reshared this.
#China Amping Up #Space Race With #US : Medium
The #Genetic basis of #Fertility, #Family and #Longevity : Oxford
#Lakes on #Mars had #Ripples! They must have been ice-free : EarthSky
Check our latest #KnowledgeLinks
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
reshared this
Georgiana Brummell and the esoteric programmer reshared this.
People turn to community for support as 74,000 still without power
Three days after Storm Éowyn caused significant damage to the electricity network, 74,000 properties are still without power.
reshared this
Georgiana Brummell and the esoteric programmer reshared this.
Puff-throated Babbler
Personable medium-sized babbler, often encountered foraging in noisy, lively flocks on or around the forest floor. Clay-colored with brown-streaked pale underparts. White brow and throat contrast with buffy cheeks and a rusty-orange crown. Occurs from lowlands up into hilly and mountainous forests. Song can be a distinctive series of two to three notes (“two-chee-deer!”), a more extended melodic warble, or a descending chattering trill. Gives rasping, rattling calls, often while flipping leaves on the ground in foraging flocks.
Link: ebird.org/species/putbab1
Photo Location: Malaysia
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
Things that hurt my pride but help me succeed:
👉🏻 asking questions that make me look foolish (instead of acting like I understand)
👉🏻 sharing incomplete work to get feedback (instead of waiting until it's "perfect" before sharing it)
👉🏻 for bugs, following the investigation wherever it leads, even if the results make me look bad (instead of avoiding data that shows I made a mistake)
👉🏻 teach junior team members to question my advice (instead of doing nothing when they believe everything I say)
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
reshared this
Georgiana Brummell, Shannon Prickett, UkeleleEric and Martin Vuillème (he/him) reshared this.
Whales accumulate layers of earwax over their lifetimes, forming “earwax plugs.” These plugs reveal their age and even details about their diet, stress levels, and exposure to pollutants.
#sciencefacts #science #whales #earwax #earwaxplugs #age #diet #stresslevels #pollutants
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
reshared this
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
Bird feathers found in engines of crashed Jeju Air jet
Feathers and blood stains belonging to the Baikal teal were found on both engines of plane.
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
King to visit Auschwitz on Holocaust Memorial Day
He will be the first British monarch to visit the former camp when he joins survivors for a service.
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
I have talked about accessibility a lot here. But now, it's my turn to ask some questions! I fully admit to being guilty of not capitalising the first letter of each word when writing tags, unless said words are usually capitalised. As a screen reader user, I do realise this can lead to confusion. But are searches on Friendica and elsewhere in the Fediverse case sensitive? If I write goodwriting will it show up in the same listings as GoodWriting? If not, which should I follow, and what about single words, such as writing, which screen readers say correctly? Should I capitalise those (or not) for consistancy?
#accessibility #blind #Fediverse #Friendica #hashtags #screenreaders
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
As a grammar prescriptivist, I take writing and proper use of words very seriously. I recently saw a post about ending text messages with full stops. Apparently, some think this is a bad idea. No. It's called using punctuation correctly! Perhaps, they should read a few grammars instead of playing their silly video games! The same is true of netspeak, textspeak, corporate spaek, and abbreviating everything. Likewise, I have no use for political correctness. I refuse to use words such as visually-challenged, vertically-challenged, etc. I will say blind (or visually impaired if the person has some vision), short, fat, etc. Unless I'm writing poetry and am seeking flowery words for things, I call them what they are. Neither do I see any difference between saying "a blind person" and "a person who is blind", for example. I also have no time for so-called gender-neutral words, unless they honestly make sense and are actually descriptive, such as firefighter or police officer. But I'm just as likely to say fireman, policeman, waiter, steward, actor, chairman, etc. and change the gender when necessary. I refuse to use the singular they. There are two sexes (gender is for grammar). You're either one or the other. This absolutely doesn't mean that you can't change your sex. If, for example, I meet you as a woman and you change to a man or are a drag king/queen, I will certainly change my use of pronouns when discussing you or talking about you, either permenantly or temporarily, as the case requires. But unless you literally have multiple personalities or are a machine or an inanimate object, you are neither a they nor an it, and you're certainly not some made-up pronoun such as xe. I would never cause harm to those who use such words. I would just consider them to be silly or confused. If the sex is unknown, or if a sentence can apply to both sexes, I use the masculine, simply because it's grammatically correct to do so.
#English #gender #grammar #language #prescriptivism #properEnglish #sex #texting #writing
Linda Duval doesn't like this.
I am the chairperson of an organisation and I'm not a chairman. You are more obsessed by your gramnar obsession than for the respect of the individuals. I am very certain that this should be the other way round.
At the end of the day, only humans use grammar. The use of grammar should focus on the respect of people.
I am the chaiperson of my organisation literally. Why do I want to pigeonhole myself? The chairperson terminology is valid and inclusive. Why should the focus be gender centric and exclusive?
I certainly rebel to the patriarchal society and will identity myself as a person, not a gender.
When people write to me, they simply use Dear Ms Duval or Dear Linda. Nobody has ever reported to me that they have struggled in finding an appropriate term.
Dear Sir or Madam are also acceptable when someone does not know the name of the person they are writing to. I would expect this to be rare since most people would make an effort to find out to whom they are writing to these days.
I sign my correspondence as Chair of (name of my organisation)
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Mrs is also an unacceptable term. There is no need for women to have to advertise whether they are married. There is only one term for men and it is Mr. Women should use Ms. Women really need to move on from the old Victorian patriarchal society that entrapped women into submission.
Again, if someone needs to write to the chaiperson of an organisation, the most respecful thing to do, would simply to find out to whom they are writing to.
English is my 2nd language, so I stand corrected!
What is important is to recognise when language is used, or has been used to entrap women into 2nd class citizenship.
Being feminist is not the same as being man-haters. Being feminist is the force that empowers women to achieve equality.
Grammar and language, when used appropriately, is an additional tool that can help women ascend to equality.
By the way, I am enjoying this conversation very much!
Your preferences are yours and you choose what you prefer. However, we live in a society where it is important to be aware where language can be detrimental to women.
The difference can be simply felt in how much you get paid compared to a man in the same role. Please search "gender pay gap" and you will find that in the legal industry, for example, men can earn as much as 59% more than a woman in the same role.
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
#OnThisDay Birth Anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus #Mozart (1756) - prolific and influential composer of the classical era.
Birth Anniversary of English #Writer Lewis Carroll (1832) - possibly most famous for "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland".
Today is International #Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Georgiana Brummell reshared this.
This lovely woman just requested my friendship. She posts about rescuing cats! I simply must share her profile because it's wholesome and she does wonderful work.
like this
SocialSpirit likes this.
An #introduction seems in order, as a long-time lurker and more recent proprietor of a minimally active profile.
I'm a slow migrator from Facebook. I passed on the Site Formerly Known as Twitter so have no experience with hashtags, bear with me on that.
I live in a backwater college town in the southern US, and look forward to being able to move back to the Rocky Mountains. I enjoy #art and #photography, #baking, fostering rescue #cats, among other activities. Peace, y'all, talk soon.
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
reshared this
Pollinators, Dianora (Diane Bruce), Georgiana Brummell and the esoteric programmer reshared this.
Sérgio Machado
Unknown parent • • •I Thought I Saw A 2
in reply to Ars Technica • • •There is really no discussion in the pediatric community about whether childhood vaccines work or not.
cameronbosch
Unknown parent • • •Actually, most of America does care. Trump doesn't, so most of the Gross Old Putins don't.
Even 20 years ago, it was bipartisan to mandate childhood vaccines like the MMR.
Oh and BTW, this isn't getting a CW because it's common sense. Vaccines save lives, is a duty to those who legitimately cannot get them (such as those allergic to them, those who had horrible reactions to previous doses, or those who do but dont responsd well to them), and DO NOT CAUSE AUTISM.
cameronbosch
Unknown parent • • •