site upgrade

Durham, NC, Sun, 18 Nov 2018 11:08:50 -0500

Woozle Hypertwin wrote the following post Sun, 18 Nov 2018 10:57:28 -0500

HubCat (https://hub.toot.cat) has been upgraded to 3.8.4, thanks to @kity 🎉 :scipio: :battery_full: :blobcatheart:

#tootcat #hubcat #hubzilla

(I would have posted this here first, but ash doesn't have a Hubzilla account for me to highlight.)

hubcat

show all 11 comments

Isaac Ji Kuo

Sun, 18 Nov 2018 16:27:30 -0500

diaspora add-on is no longer available. Is this because the version no longer supports diaspora? If so, then I'm going to have to figure out something else.

phani (Hubzilla)

Sun, 18 Nov 2018 16:32:42 -0500

diaspora protocol is available on HZ 3.8.4. if it's not on hub.toot.cat @Woozle Hypertwin must have forgotten to enable it in the 'admin' settings, or decided to not use it.

Isaac Ji Kuo

Sun, 18 Nov 2018 16:43:06 -0500

I'm getting less confident about Hubzilla. I may have to simply give up on its features and go all in on diaspora (and maybe also Mastodon, but it seems pretty crummy when it comes to even seeing comment threads, much less participating in them...meh, I think I may just give up on Mastodon altogether).

phani (Hubzilla)

Sun, 18 Nov 2018 16:49:53 -0500

doesn't have to be a permanent decision. just keep your HZ account but use D* for the time being. i'm probably considered a traitor by some of my fellow HZians, but i've suggested the same to others. just do what works best for the time being but keep an eye open for future changes. there are some major changes coming to the HZ universe in a couple of months or so.

phani (Hubzilla)

Sun, 18 Nov 2018 16:51:30 -0500

and re. mastodon, i never like twitter and haven't even bothered to create an acct on mastodon. i don't see the point in using another messenger for shorter messages. most messages on D* and HZ are short anyway.

Isaac Ji Kuo

Sun, 18 Nov 2018 18:00:57 -0500

It's a big deal for me to go through the trouble of reposting everything I've posted on Hubzilla to diaspora or vice versa. And there's not going to be a way for me to migrate comment threads. Going from one to the other means destroying the comment threads.

Frankly, it's looking better and better for me to bite the bullet and create my own social media site from scratch. It sucks that I'd have to learn how to program Federation with diaspora and (maybe) ActivityPub on my own, but really what choice do I have? No existing project seems to prioritize interoperability and migration capability.

phani (Hubzilla)

Sun, 18 Nov 2018 18:11:31 -0500

well, good luck with that. if you're that good a programmer you might just re-invent a better wheel, but in my opinion things aren't as hopeless as you see them. and re. moving between platforms, is it really that big of a deal if a few comments are lost and can't be discovered by future generations?

Isaac Ji Kuo

Sun, 18 Nov 2018 20:59:43 -0500

With G+, the comment threads were more interesting and engaging than the original posts which prompted them (which were often just an article share, with some brief commentary if anything). Also, with my game design notes the comments are where I have developed a lot of better ideas.

I don't think I'm up for creating an actual social media site (and even if I did, good luck with attracting other users). I'm thinking maybe something more along the lines of a multi-protocol client. I've got my main blog that's basically just a web site - but the comments are handled by diaspora/Mastodon/tumblr/etc. Instead of true federation, comments are cross posted to the other sites.

For example, I post to my blog; it automatically posts to my diaspora and Mastodon accounts. If someone comments on diaspora, it automatically posts an equivalent comment on Mastodon (with a link to the original comment). If someone comments on Mastodon, it automatically posts an equivalent comment on diaspora. If someone comments directly on my blog site, it posts equivalent comment to both.

That way, I fundamentally have a blog site which I can edit and such offline. But "users" can follow any of my social media accounts and they will see all of the comments posted. It's a kludge, but that way I'll have a working copy of everything at all times. And I'll have the benefits of everyone seeing the same comments and being able to participate in the same discussion.

Or something like that...

phani (Hubzilla)

Sun, 18 Nov 2018 21:12:01 -0500

i have a similar setup, using ghost as blog and discourse for comments. i'm planning to move all that to hubzilla. but i can see that's not an option for you, not at this time. and i'll wait for the next big step, the upgrade to zot6, with doing anything serious. (not that there IS anything serious on my blog as of now.)

Mario Vavti

Mon, 19 Nov 2018 07:59:01 -0500

You should probably upgrade to 3.8.5 which was released today

Isaac Ji Kuo

Mon, 19 Nov 2018 10:24:32 -0500

The more I think about a universal blog+comment crossposter, the more I'm liking the idea. I wouldn't have to get deep into the protocols of any site - just scraping web data and automatic the entry of posts and comments. Local storage could be a simple SQLite3 database, which could then be independently accessed by the post/comment editor as well as the automation modules (one module for each site). Hmm...