Three things occur when a Mastodon fanboy, who believes Mastodon is the Fediverse, encounters my Akkoma account:
Most of the time, it doesn’t matter that someone’s account isn’t a Mastodon account because on Mastodon, it looks like Mastodon.
Sometimes people see my use of Markdown and long posts and discover why ActivityPub is a big deal, and become more curious about the wider Fediverse.
But there’s the occasional person who gets incredibly pissed off that not everything on the Fediverse is done in the same uniform Mastodon way because their entire paradigm of how the Internet works is apps! apps! apps! – not protocols.
And thus, everyone who uses the Fediverse needs to understand what a protocol is, and why what often looks like Mastodon isn’t Mastodon.
RE: https://fosstodon.org/users/thomasapowell/statuses/113847387714968491
@atomicpoet What are the advantages of Akkoma over Mastodon?
@ajsadauskas Glad you asked! Here’s the features it has out of the box:
If you want to try the software out for yourself, I’m running a server that’s open for everyone to join (akkomane.social).
However, you should be mindful that akkomane.social is using a custom front-end called Mangane which gives it a Twitter and Bluesky-like appearance.
@atomicpoet How well does it support Lemmy groups? And lists?
How many images per post?
Sorry for all the questions. Basically, I'm looking at potentially consolidating the number of Fedi accounts I have.
I'm looking at other platforms, including Friendica, to see if there's anything that fits...
@ajsadauskas It supports Lemmy groups about as well as Mastodon does. Which is to say that it perceives group actors, and you can follow or reply to them, but you can’t run a group on Akkoma.
It definitely supports lists. You can also follow hashtags.
Default, I think you can attach up to 16 images to a post, though I think that can be changed in server settings.
Oh, and I should mention that you can upload stuff like PDF, docs, powerpoint slides, etc.
Friendica definitely does more than Akkoma but someone needs to build a better UI for it.
It’s a bit of a pain isn’t it!?
Pretty sure there’s huge value in a “does most of the things well “ platform that lets you have one home on the Fedi without feeling locked out of the platforms and ecosystems. But I don’t think it really exists (could be wrong), and AFAICT it brings into question, somewhat, the whole protocols not apps thing … It’s a bit of both in the end I think.
@maegul @atomicpoet I tried using Toot with Friendica, and it seemed to work well as a front end.
I'm now wondering if there are Pixelfed or Lemmy apps that play nice with Friendica, and how well Tokodon does on the desktop? Or something like OpenVibe?
Are there 3rd party web UIs that work with a Friendica backend?
@maegul @atomicpoet Perhaps use something like @phanpy as a web UI, with a Friendica account?
@ajsadauskas @atomicpoet @phanpy
You are much more industrious than I am! I personally got kinda burnt out trying different platforms and setups (especially once I heard self hosting can often not be worth it, which seemed to me the final point).
Friendica (and maybe hubzilla too) definitely feels like the platform the Fedi forgot. Pretty sure, from what I saw, that project could go places in the Fedi if it had a few front end or app devs give breath some new life into it.
So you’re probably on to something!
@maegul @ajsadauskas @atomicpoet "protocols not apps" is so wrong
Of course you need apps to use the protocols. It's more like, "protocols should support many apps, and apps can use many protocols." But that's too nuanced?
The main result is, "breaking down the walls between protocols and apps at systemic level." Got a short quip for that?
@travisfw @maegul @ajsadauskas @atomicpoet I got "Let's end centralisation" (and you can add "bring back custom home feeds")
@mehdi_benadel @maegul @ajsadauskas @atomicpoet how about "nobody's database"