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It's great to see all the work that's been put into the stub I started since I last looked at this. A couple of things:
people who have no idea what the fediverse is will need a very simple explanation that describes it from an end user POV, and doesn't depend on any detailed technical knowledge (implementation details are covered in the sections on protocols and participating apps). The intro text needs tidying up to better accomplish this (it's harder to get right than you'd think).
if you read the Wikipedia page GNU social/ StatusNet, and the primary sources linked on that page, you'll quickly realize that some of the stuff about the origins of GNU social in the history section on the fediverse page is a bit misleading. AFAIK the term "fediverse" emerged after StatusNet, Free Social, and GNU social all merged as GNU social, and IMHO the history section ought to begin with the way the term was first coined to describe the OStatus meta-network made up by GNU social, Pleroma, PostActiv, and Mastodon. Distinguishing it from "the Federation", made up of the apps that were federating with Diaspora using their incompatible variation of the OStatus standard. Even when Friendica and Hubzilla added OStatus support as well, and the two meta-networks began to overlap a bit, the two separate terms were still used, and this continued at least up until the publication of the ActivityPub (AP) spec by W3C.
the first reference I'm aware of to the possibility of the "fediverse" incorporation all the federated social apps is in a Sept 2017 piece by Sean Tilley (former Community Manager of Diaspora and Hubzilla contributor) on We Distribute [1], not long after the publication of the AP spec. There are three diagrams in that article that show the relationships between the various apps. The first shows the situation at the time, clearly describing "The Federation" (Diaspora standard) and "The Fediverse" (OStatus standard) in the form described above. The second diagram shows the expected outcome once all the apps that had announced plans at the time to implement AP had done so, which Sean saw as consisting of three meta-networks; "The Federation (Diaspora protocols), "The Fediverse" (OStatus protocols), and "The Activity Web" (AP protocols). The third diagram was an ambitious bit of speculation on Sean's part, showing all the apps in one circle under the name "The Fediverse", and assuming they would all be federating using AP It was only sometime after this point that the use of the term started shifting to describe the combination of all federated social networks. Danylstrype (talk) 15:29, 16 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
WebFinger was one of the protocols in the OStatus standard that preceded ActivityPub, so it is only relevant in that it is part of the history of the first network that went by the name 'fediverse' (see my comments above). It certainly doesn't need to be in the table of federation standards on this page. --Danylstrype (talk) 12:29, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Correction to my own comment, WebFinger is used in Mastodon, and therefore most other AP implementations, to support searches on @name@host.domain.foo style addresses. But it's not a federation protocol in the sense ActivityPub is or OStatus was. Danylstrype (talk) 16:56, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
All the projects that support XMPP in the table support none of the other protocols, they are disjoint from the rest of the "Fediverse" and thus do not belong in the table. - Tantek (talk) 22:12, 31 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Wikipedia has other pages and tables that cover the XMPP-verse. The only overlap between the fediverse and the XMPP-verse is a Diaspora plug-in that allows podmins to provide XMPP chat to the users of their Diaspora pod. --Danylstrype (talk) 12:29, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi I'm a XMPP dev, just writing to correct you because XMPP is used for web publishing: at least 2 blogging platforms using XMPP are actively developed: Movim and Salut à Toi (I'm working on the later)
Diaspora is in the table and only support Diaspora protocol, GNU Social is OStatus only, why are they in the table and not XMPP? That doesn't make any sense. In addition XMPP can talk to other protocol using gateways Goffi (talk) 10:10, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed matrix and XMPP from this article, because as discussed elsewhere on this talk page, the common usage of the term "fediverse" describes the ActivityPub network, including apps that can federate with parts of it. Diaspora is connected to the rest of the fediverse via the Diaspora protocol support in software like SocialHome, Hubzilla, and Friendica, which connect to the rest of the fediverse via ActivityPub. GNU Social has a WIP ActivityPub implementation that some instances already use, and besides, the term "fediverse" was originally coined to describe the OStatus network. If and when Movim and Salut à Toi implement any of the established fediverse protocols, OR some of the AP apps implement XMPP to federate with them, only then will it be appropriate to include them on this page. Until then, please stop trying to shoehorn them in. Somebody will just correct this by removing them again. --Danylstrype (talk) 03:43, 18 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Libervia (previously Salut à Toi) is currently adding support for ActivityPub (still WIP, but close to release), which would mean that both reasons ("not used for web publishing" and "disjoint from the rest") are no longer true. AlpacaWiki (talk) 19:34, 9 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@AlpacaWiki "Libervia (previously Salut à Toi) is currently adding support for ActivityPub (still WIP, but close to release" If and when this AP support goes live in a production-ready state, then it can be added as an AP project. But if this remains the sole exception, it would still be misleading to say that XMPP is a fediverse protocol. Perhaps if Movim added it too, and Sup messenger added XMPP support, there might be enough overlap to start including XMPP as a fediverse protocol. Danylstrype (talk) 16:52, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Specific to ActivityPub and OStatus or generic to any federation
It's not clear from the introduction to the article whether the term "Fediverse" is specific to ActivityPub and OStatus (I have heard it used as such), or whether "fediverse" is just a noun describing any set of "federated" systems, in which case, there are TONS more protocols and software to add, which I suspect would dilute the intended (and in-the-wild-use) definition of this term. Capturing here as an issue to be resolved on the page by folks more in the known. - Tantek (talk) 10:39, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
AFAIK there's no real 'official' definition of the name and what it applies to. I think we can say that it doesn't apply to any and all federated communication systems, and we already have articles like Comparison of software and protocols for distributed social networking for a broader scope. But given the discussion and messy edit history of this article, we could use a more firm list of protocols, at least.
I don't think it's any sort of 'official' source, but Fediverse.party lists diaspora, Zot, ActivityPub, OStatus, and DFRN as Fediverse protocols. That would at least give us a citation we can use for the protocol list, which we currently don't have. Does anyone have any objections to paring the list back to just those five and keeping it there? - Erp Erpington (talk) 08:24, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I will go ahead and limit it to ActivityPub, Diaspora Network, DFRN, OStatus, and Zot/Zot6, since these five are the original and/or major ones and were made with the idea to be a "social network" and "microblog network". From there, any new column should be proposed and discussed since there isn't a generally accepted definition of what constitute a "Fediverse" (for one, it was first coined during the Diaspora-DFRN-OStatus era). —Yuki (雪亮) (talk | Contribs) —Preceding undated comment added 03:37, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I mentioned a bit of the history at the top of this talk page. For the purposes of a Wikipedia article, the text needs to be based on the way the topic is treated by "sources with reputations for fact-checking and reliability, not hobbyist blogs" [1], not our own personal knowledge or primary research. We urgently need to find some articles in publications that have editors/ fact-checkers, and insert them into this article as references, or there's a risk it will be proposed for deletion as "non-notable" by Wikipedia standards. I'm so concerned about this I will make sure there is a copy of the existing article, and especially the table, on the P2P Foundation wiki. --Danylstrype (talk) 13:17, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I know, ‘Fediverse’ is a term for OStatus instances and — after Mastodon started using ActivityPub — ActivityPub instances and ‘The Federation’ is used to refer to instances supporting Diaspora protocol. M4sk1n (talk) 10:20, 25 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
This article by Sean Tilley seems like a useful source to clarify things, although I don't understand "reverse engineering" of the Diaspora protocol, for which the software is apparently licensed under AGPLv3. Maybe it means that the protocol didn't have any formal definition - it was defined implicitly by the AGPLv3'd code. Boud (talk) 15:15, 29 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Boud "Maybe it means that the protocol didn't have any formal definition - it was defined implicitly by the AGPLv3'd code" Yes, that was exactly what Sean meant. Danylstrype (talk) 16:46, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Diaspora started with the OStatus protocol set and added stuff to it to allow for private posting and their "circles" concept. This bespoke protocol standard wasn't formally documented anywhere when it was implemented by SocialHub, Friendica, and Hubzilla, which is what Sean means by "reverse engineering" it. A more formal spec for the Disapora standard was created later.
I'm not sure how useful it is to list these here, but it would be really useful to have such a list maintained on the internal wiki of fediverse.party [1]. Please feel free to join the project! --Danylstrype (talk) 12:36, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I added a note about third party plugins for Wordpress and Drupal to the last sentence of the Software section. Will add one about bridges (for RSS and Matrix etc) as well. Wesleyac (talk) 18:32, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
All this talk of identities is very clumsy, and I don't understand what the payoff for it is. Is it meant to imply that a user can have several identities? Or that identities can be pseudonymous? Or that identities don't necessarily represent a person (organizations, bots, etc)? Those are fairly common things for online services. I'd like to get rid of the word identities in the lead, if no-one objects, and only talk about users. codl (talk) 16:51, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that "identities" makes the lead confusing. I've never heard fediverse accounts described as "identities", and although Wizzwizz4 may be right about OStatus, in ActivityPub I believe they're called "actors". "Account" is a somewhat unfortunate term, since it also describes an accounting relationship with a business, but for better or for worse, it is the common term for the way a non-admin uses a server. So much so that trying to describe a server account without using the word "account" is quite tricky ;) --Danylstrype (talk) 03:43, 18 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
DFRN was the original federation protocol for Friendica. AFAIK no other software has ever implemented it and there's no reason to think they will. Including it in this page adds complexity for no real advantage, so I've removed it. --Danylstrype (talk) 04:10, 18 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I have renamed "Actual Spreading" to "User statistics" and put in a description of how instance monitoring sites work. I also removed the list of stats. They they change constantly, so I really can't see how they're useful in an encyclopedia article. It might be worth including some milestones in the history section, such as when the network hit a million users, but the surviving monitoring sites would probably give different dates for that, so ... --Danylstrype (talk) 05:22, 18 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That kind of primary data content can go into Wikidata if anyone wants it. If there were secondary sources presenting milestones then we could find a place for such content, but that is not the info in consideration here. Blue Rasberry (talk)13:35, 18 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to remove any discontinued software projects from the table on this page, and make sure they are included in the "dead or stalled" category on Comparison of software and protocols for distributed social networking. If anyone wants to check my work, the software watchlists on the fediverse.party wiki include sections for projects that are definitely discontinued, either because that's been publicly announced, or there's been no sign of life in any of the project's publicly-facing services for more than a year. We're very careful about this to avoid demoralizing developers, moving projects to a holding category before we declare them dead, and reaching out via any contact information we can find to see if we can make contact with devs. If anyone has any objections to this, please speak up. --Danylstrype (talk) 08:04, 18 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Danylstrype: You seem to have a well considered process for this. Yes, remove those dead projects. I like that you have a holding area for them elsewhere.
Lists like this have always been difficult to maintain manually in Wikipedia. I wish that someday Wikidata could automatically manage tables and give users enough data in an easy way. Thanks, please proceed. Blue Rasberry (talk)13:33, 18 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Removed Numa, Osada, and postActive. I've also added Prismo as a stalled project on the other table. Next time I review the AP watchlist it will probably be moved to the dead projects list and if that happens, I will come here and remove it too. Yes, it would be great if there was an easier way to populate and edit tables. The current process can be quite time consuming. --Danylstrype (talk) 15:10, 18 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't Gab the biggest node on the Fediverse? I don't see any mention of it in the article or on the talk page. What am I missing? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deetdeet (talk • contribs)
It looks like the text in the History section has been shortened and summarized so many times it has become misleading. The software that Evan Prodromou published when he founded Identi.ca was called StatusNet. GNU social was originally a fork, which only became the successor of StatusNet after Evan switched identi.ca to pump.io and officially abandoned StatusNet support. --Danylstrype (talk) 06:09, 22 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
I can't find information about it, where the source code is, or if it's a fork of an existing platform/software. Anyone else can dig and perhaps add in the list?
It looks to me like list of fedi software platforms is mostly non-notable projects. I propose we should adopt the common criterion that any entry either have a wikipedia article or provide enough sources to pass WP:GNG. Thoughts? ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me;21:37, 8 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I am going to edit the list to only include software that has either:
Has a Wikipedia article or enough sources for WP:GNG
True. But there were plenty of interconnected networks before the internet; post, telephone, telgraph, and cable TV, yet we wouldn't include any of these as examples of the internet in an encyclopedia article. Terms have common usages, which are documented by reliable secondary sources, and that's what we need to work off here. The Wiktionary article on the term fediverse is a useful reference for the specific history of this term. Danylstrype (talk) 08:35, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
We often face the same discussion over at Bitcoin and it has gone back and forth over the years. At least with bitcoin we have some sources that have gone into the subject in detail (if it is big b or small b). I myself dont know the answer. But as for this article, we would want to find WP:RS that evaluate the issue. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 01:22, 26 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There is no company or organisation or protocol or anything else named "Fediverse". So I have always formatted it without a capital "fediverse", for the same reason I don't capitalise "email"; it's a general noun, not a proper noun. BitCoin is the name of a piece of software and a protocol, so I definitely capitalise it, but I don't capitalise "blockchain" (unless I'm on the fediverse and camel-casing it "BlockChain" to help people using screenreaders). --Danylstrype (talk) 12:19, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Bonfire (https://bonfirenetworks.org) seems to be an Elixir/Phoenix-based Fediverse platform. More generally, it might be useful for the table to indicate something about the underlying technology (such as Phoenix) for each listed platform. -- RichMorin (talk) 08:22, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've uploaded it to commons. To me it feels maybe a bit more promotional than explanatory, but I wouldn't object to including it either if people want to. ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me;20:46, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's under a suitable license, and it illustrates the concept for a general audience, so I think it would add value to the page. It's not promoting any particular company, organisation, or product, so I think it's fine to include it.--Danylstrype (talk) 12:22, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I seem to notice a pretty big contradiction in your article and I'm wondering how you're going to fix it. Given that I work with open source and have been in this world of open source social networks for more than a dozen years, and that we, who have been in this story since the beginning, consider fediverse just foss software. But the point is that there is precisely a contradiction: in one paragraph you write that the fediverse is made of foss type software, but in the paragraph below, in the table actually, you put Threads in the list. Mmmm.. We're not really there. Either one or the other, right? It certainly doesn't look good. 2804:7F7:A58C:5438:B57C:E0D3:DEBE:F7C8 (talk) 18:14, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
One could argue that anything that federates over ActivityPub is part of the fediverse, whether its Free Code or not. But this is really a debate to hash out in the fediverse itself, or in community spaces like the SocialHub web forum or the Fediverse City matrix room. Whether "Threads" (or Chains as I prefer to call it) belongs on this WP page depends on what reliable, secondary sources say, and since a lot of news articles about Chains mentions the fediverse, it's probably fair to say it does belong on this page.--Danylstrype (talk) 12:56, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Is the term "fediverse" used to describe the Diaspora network? I can't find any reputable source saying it is, and everything I can find on the topic (not reputable, but just anecdotally) says it isn't (for instance, https://mstdn.social/@feditips/105363100507902240, https://axbom.com/fediverse/, https://gofoss.net/fediverse/). The few media uses of the term "fediverse" seem to be using it to talk about the ActiviyPub-based network.
I think it makes sense to talk about OStatus here, since the network (that is, the servers and users) that was the OStatus network largely (although not entirely) transitioned to using ActivityPub. Diaspora, on the other hand, has always been pretty much separate from the OStatus/ActivityPub-based network. Same with Zot, which I already removed since I could find barely any references to it or evidence of its use.
Unless someone wants to make a case for why Diaspora is considered to be part of the fediverse, I'll probably remove it. Wesleyac (talk) 20:56, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This article should be about the term as it's used, and that seems to be coalescing on the ActivityPub network (which previously relied on OStatus). This is how media articles and academic papers use the term — for instance:
If you have good sources for the term "fediverse" being widely used to describe other networks before it described the ActivtiyPub one, I think they should be used to make a "History" section that talks about the changes in how the term has been used. Wesleyac (talk) 18:38, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The first drawings and graphics on the fediverse had been published even before the birth of activitypub. Many of us can tell you this, many who still use friendica, diaspora, hubzilla etc... Do you want proof? Is it a process where we have to bring the evidence? Our words are evidently not enough in such an important process (irony). The thing is, you and a few others make decisions about what is or isn't fediverse, while others have been there since the birth, and know far more than you. At this point I wonder: what is wikipedia today? Who makes decisions about who is right or not? Is it based on specific references? Ok but, if you can't find specific references then you can decide what a thing is or isn't even if thousands of us know exactly what happened and we know that what you write is wrong? The fact is that we will continue to use our networks, our software, our protocols, and to consider the fediverse in our way, the original way (to be clear). And you, and wikipedia, will continue to inform people but with incorrect information. And we will continue to let everyone know, in the fediverse, that you are writing wrong things.
ps: "Same with Zot, which I already removed since I could find barely any references to it or evidence of its use." :-O
there are currently thousands of people using zot, sites using hubzilla, zap, osada, streams, there are currently thousands of people using the diaspora protocol between sites built with friendica, diaspora and hubzilla.
Are you joking? Or maybe you're part of the new group of people that I and others call the activitypub-Taliban, most using mastodon, and who think they know life, death, and miracles about the fediverse, but don't know half the story?
I just end by saying: be careful what you write on wikipedia and how you inform people about certain topics. Those who seek will find, but many things and references have just disappeared because many sites no longer exist today and many of these things were found precisely in these networks built with our software, therefore relying just on what you can find just today is not always the solution and often leads to great deceptions. 2804:7F7:A6B9:34A:1459:C84F:9D64:B33C (talk) 19:54, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The first drawings and graphics on the fediverse had been published even before the birth of activitypub.
Yes, I agree with this. The first network that I'm aware of that was widely referred to as "the fediverse" was the OStatus-based Identi.ca/StatusNet/GNU Social network. That same network (many of the same servers) is now largely running on ActivityPub. Hopefully someday it will run on something better.
Are you claiming that there is some other network that was widely referred to as "the fediverse" that predates that? If so, care to enlighten me on what that was?
Do you want proof? Is it a process where we have to bring the evidence?
Yes, this is generally how Wikipedia works. You can see WP:RS for a explanation of what sorts of sources are allowed. But if you have sources that don't meet that guideline, that's still useful for pointing in the right direction, and helping find better sources for the same things.
ps: "Same with Zot, which I already removed since I could find barely any references to it or evidence of its use." :-O
there are currently thousands of people using zot, sites using hubzilla, zap, osada, streams, there are currently thousands of people using the diaspora protocol between sites built with friendica, diaspora and hubzilla.
https://the-federation.info/protocol/2 reports less than a thousand monthly active users for Zot. That's not insignificant, but it's four orders of magnitude less than are using ActivityPub, and most of that seems to be from Hubzilla, so those people are *also* using ActivityPub. I also could barely find any references to it aside from a few blog posts initially describing it.
As already said many documents and references have been lost with the "death" of many of these sites that used these protocols, because, as you know, or maybe not, it is not always easy to keep sites active. The drawings have changed over the months and years, and other networks have been included, while on the one hand it may be true that a single person has made the first little drawing, this absolutely does not mean that now we need to refer to the fediverse just for the reason overwritten by you, as if you were the master of reality, the god who decides. Networks like hubzilla and diaspora, and friendica and diaspora just use the diaspora protocol, between them of course. Networks like hubzilla , zap, streams etc... use zot to communicate with each other. So I don't understand, in these networks, where many people communicate with each other, what the fuck activitypub has to do with it. I'm talking about various networks that do not use activitypub at all to communicate with each other, so much so that they can turn off the acitvitypub protocol and continue talking to each other, different networks, so without any use of activitypub. But there is another issue: for example we are using a different protocol than activitypub and at the same time we can create multiple fediverse(s). So, obviously you understand, based on my last sentence, that we have a completely different take on what it means: FEDIVERSE. You assume that fediverse for example is just ONE, and this is based on your belief about the origin and use of the word. But you, writing in wikipedia, just want to convey your distorted vision to the whole world. I repeat, you continue to write here, that we will continue to write inside the fediverse itself that what is written here is bullshit. 2804:7F7:A6B9:34A:1459:C84F:9D64:B33C (talk) 22:12, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Anon 2804:7F7:A6B9:..., your attitude here is quite unhelpful and unwelcome. You accuse Wesleyac of styling himself the God who decide what fediverse is, when, in fact, what Wesley has done is bring the topic here for open discussion. Your complaints and arguments would have more weight if you could point to even a single source as Wesley requested, but you haven't, yet; you've simply posited (twice) that there are currently thousands of people using [stuff], without any support for your claims. You've more or less refused to help and decided that what's written here will be bullshit. A more constructive approach is welcome, but if you won't help, please don't complain about what gets written. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits)10:33, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
since 26. of July Wesleyac is rewiring this page in a not acceptable way - can someone please stop him from doing so. He obviously does not know anything about what he doing when the fist thing he does is to remove ZOT
20:01, 24 July 2023 - -Remove Zot from list of protocols, as it does not seem to be widely used and the term "fediverse" does not typically refer to it.
His way of looking at things get clear if he adds few minus later the MAU column
21:46, 24 July 2023 - Add MAU estimates to software list
Question: How do this MAU Number come about anyway? and.. Can you think of a network where NO Statistic is being collected? Can you even imagine that? If you try and can - now how do you fit this in the article
FEDIVERSE is just a word - but it became a vision and a more general idea which is more than just one protocol... That all is difficult to understand... So Wesleyac please try to understand things first before you make so many edits here.
e.g. if are looking for sources to ZOT and Hubzilla have a look here:
Which specific sources in that draft article do you think support your point? https://the-federation.info/ and https://fediverse.party/en/fediverse/ talk about multiple protocols, but that's it, and the source that says "The Digitalcourage association, in an article introducing the Fediverse, recommends Hubzilla as a "social-media-cockpit" given its versatility" explicitly equates the fediverse and ActivityPub: "Das Fediverse ist ein riesiges Netzwerk, dessen Knotenpunkte Server sind, auch „Instanzen“ genannt. Instanzen deshalb, weil auf ihnen eine bestimmte Software läuft. Das muss nicht immer dieselbe Software sein – Hauptsache, sie spricht ein Protokoll namens ActivityPub."
In general, it's those two websites (and a couple other similar ones) and a handful of blog posts / forum posts / etc that I see on the "fediverse refers to any federated protocol" side of things, while media and academic sources (which are what Wikipedia generally operates on, for better or for worse) exclusively use fediverse to refer to the network of servers currently using ActivityPub. I understand that you might not like that academic and media sources use the word in that way, or that Wikipedia operates on those sources rather than blogs and websites, but that is the situation.
I felt conflicted about putting MAU numbers in the table — there are obviously a lot of problems with them, but it is useful to be able to see what the most widely used software is. I think it might also be reasonable to just remove the table and relegate it to Comparison of software and protocols for distributed social networking, and just mention some of the more widespread and influential software in the article text. If you want to remove the MAU numbers, go ahead. Wesleyac (talk) 11:02, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Wesleyac Short answer; yes. The anonymous user's attitude is unhelpful, but they are technically correct. If you had read the full contents of this talk page before starting to arbitrarily remove things, you would have seen that this topic has come up before. The contents of fediverse.party indicate that Diaspora (and Zot) came to be considered part of the fediverse once every Diaspora and Zot app implemented AP (except Diaspora itself), as foreshadowed in the Medium article by Sean Tilley, linked above (which posits an "Activity-verse" that took on the name "fediverse").
Now I'm aware these are primary sources, but they establish the facts. As do a number of other "internal" sources that are (or at least were) linked on this page. Now it's on us to find Wikipedia-acceptable sources that are informed on this. Following the majority opinion of journalists (who for a long time just talked about the Mastodon platform and didn't know that Mastodon was part of the fediverse), or the academics who base their scope on that misreporting, does a disservice to those who rely on this page for an accurate definition and history (BTW sad to see most of the history content that used to be here has disappeared).--Danylstrype (talk) 13:25, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My impression is that fediverse.party is in the minority in using the term in the way they do. I assume the Sean Tilley article you're referring to is this one? If so, I don't see the term "Activity-verse" in there. My read of that article is as follows:
There are two different networks "The Fediverse" and "The Federation"
"The Fediverse" consists of (at the time of writing) OStatus-based software
"The Federation" consists of projects using the Diaspora protocol
The OStatus based projects are looking to transition to ActivityPub (this indeed came to pass)
The Diaspora projects are also likely to transition to ActivityPub (this has not come to pass)
Once that all happens, "The Fediverse" will be the name to refer to the entire network
Do you agree with that summary?
If you agree with that summary, it seems pretty clear that it's saying specifically that Diaspora is not part of "The Fediverse" but is instead part of "The Federation", at least until the point that it implements ActivityPub. (And it's worth noting that Tilley was the Community Manager for Diaspora, so that's someone **from the Diaspora** project fairly explicitly saying it's not part of "The Fediverse" (until it implements AP).
I guess what you're saying is because the implementations of Diaspora and Zot implement ActivityPub as well, they're part of the Fediverse? But that's not true, since Diaspora doesn't implement ActivityPub.
My overall stance is: "Fediverse" is a term that has shifted in meaning over time. As a neologism, it started with a very nebulous meaning, that has coalesced over time into a more concrete meaning (referring to the network that currently uses ActivityPub), as can be seen in multiple reputable media and academic sources. If reputable sources for earlier meanings can be found, that should absolutely be a part of the "History" section.
I do agree that some detail should be added back to the History section, I was meaning to do more reworking of it but didn't get around to it immediately. Wesleyac (talk) 14:10, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
True. But it's the only software in what was "The Federation" that didn't implement AP, and the term "The Federation" is no longer in active use (except in the URL of the-federation.info), since it no longer refers to anything meaningful. It remains the case that a post on Diaspora can be boosted by someone using one of the apps that implement both AP *and* Diaspora protocols, and thereby be seen and replied to by people using AP-only apps. So from a practical POV, Diaspora remains part of the fediverse, which is why fediverse.party (and most of the fediverse developer community) still present it that way. It's also true to say that Zot and OStatus are protocols actively in use within the fediverse, even if only by a small subset of the older apps.
So I think it's important that the Diaspora, OStatus, and Zot protocols are discussed in the article, but I would be satisfied with a mention in the history section, as long as it acknowledges the ongoing practical realities mentioned above. Danylstrype (talk) 23:34, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Weskeyac - official sources with correct in information's about the Fediverse are quid rare... and YES: "Fediverse" is a term that has shifted in meaning over time. So right now we are at the point where someone like you wants to know what it is all about and looking for official sources - but their are not there...
The past was characterizes by a lot of ignorance .... and now, also by your editing, we can see that the present is characterized by the will to normalize something which is still in the state of growing and finding ways.
In the topic above about Diaspora, Wesleyac wrote:
I felt conflicted about putting MAU numbers in the table — there are obviously a lot of problems with them, but it is useful to be able to see what the most widely used software is. I think it might also be reasonable to just remove the table and relegate it to Comparison of software and protocols for distributed social networking, and just mention some of the more widespread and influential software in the article text. If you want to remove the MAU numbers, go ahead. Wesleyac (talk) 11:02, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
The problem with putting MAU numbers in an encyclopedia page is that they start going out-of-date as soon as they're published. There were stats pulled from monitoring sites like the-federation.info in a very early version of the page, and they were removed for this reason. See the comments on this towards the top of this talk page. I'm going to remove the MAU column. If you want to provide readers with a way to find out current MAU, it would be better to provide a section on the monitoring sites, with links. Danylstrype (talk) 13:10, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I just started to edit and realized you're pulling live numbers from a monitoring site. My apologies :) I still think it's worth adding a section on monitoring sites, clarifying where these MAU are being drawn from, and pointing out that there's no way to know how complete or representative they are.--Danylstrype (talk) 13:14, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I vote for the removal of MAU, it is not needed. This is about the network. If one wants to add MAU data, better left it in your blog or website. This page is not meant to make comparions or advertise or imply that one ActivityPub compatible software is better and/or popular than another.
Having been on fedi for a while, I find this page notably absent of any description of "what its like" to be "on fedi". I think that, if any newspaper describes the atmosphere (and could contrast it against the likes of instagram/twitter), it should be added here, as that's a good primary distinction between the kinds of social networks. Shadowjonathan (talk) 16:03, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Shadowjonathan This is a rabbithole. The experience varies wildly, depending on which server(s) you join and what software is used; who you follow, boost and @mention; what you post and how you handle replies, and so on. It's not a monolithic culture like on centralised platforms. Danylstrype (talk) 16:39, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I got here by following a link to Misskey. That apparently redirects here. Is that intended? Is the article about Misskey somewhere, but inaccessible because of the redirect? 172.103.222.67 (talk) 21:28, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Kbin hasn't received an update in months and there are only a few servers available that use it. Even with its higher level of notability, mbin is the only choice for an actively updated project. LemurianPatriot (talk) 15:43, 12 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to suggest removing the software section in favour of a new "participating protocols" section and ActivityPub's software section.
The definition of the fediverse is somewhat subjective, that is, some people consider other protocols - e.g. AT Protocol to be a part of it, and others don't. It is both a duplication of efforts already happening on another page, and somewhat inaccurate. RatherQueerDebator (talk) 09:39, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's better to add the other protocols (Bluesky, Nostr, Farcaster maybe?) instead of removing the entire section, as some of the sources I've seen (TechCrunch, The Verge) have included them as part of the fediverse (as well as software like Bridgy Fed and mostr making it possible to communicate with each other). The ActivityPub part should also be shortened to only contain notable software with news coverage (Mastodon, Misskey, Lemmy) or an active user base, and everything else should be moved into the ActivityPub page. Even then, I think that page's software section should be trimmed down a bit. LemurianPatriot (talk) 22:41, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"It's better to add the other protocols (Bluesky, Nostr, Farcaster maybe?)"
Please, don't do that : /
Yes, some tech business reporters have started misusing "fediverse" to mean 'all federated social web networks'. Just like they were misusing "Mastodon" to mean the fediverse right up to about a year or two ago (and some still do). They were wrong then and they are wrong now.
I'm still removing all mention of other federated social web networks (email, XMPP, Matrix, ATProto, Nostr, etc) for now. Perhaps we could add a section discussing them, and why they're not part of the fediverse.
One day ATProto and Nostr networks may start federating natively with the fediverse, ie via direct server-server connections. Then they'd be in the fediverse. Just like Friendica and Hubzilla when they implemented Ostatus to join in.
For now they only connect to the fediverse at arm's length via a couple of third-party bridges (BridgyFed, Mostr), like Titter used to be connected to some fediverse accounts via cross-posters. But Titter was never part of the fediverse, so they're not either, at least not yet. Danylstrype (talk) 16:11, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
An "Alternatives" section would be a better idea. ATProto and Nostr have listed their reasons of why they didn't use ActivityPub as their protocol and their relevant bridges have been reported about on reliable sources, so there should be enough to fill in. LemurianPatriot (talk) 12:00, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I just corrected a couple of mistakes, such as ATProto and Nostr being part of the fediverse, identi.ca being a GNU social instance, and legacy software projects removing OStatus support before 2019. Danylstrype (talk) 16:59, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I saw the 'citation needed' notice at the end of the lede, so I've added two references for the statement that Diaspora is the only legacy fediverse software not using AP now. One lays out the software projects that were considered part of the fediverse when the ActivityPub standard was published by W3C. The other is by a core developer of Diaspora*, talking about why he refuses to even consider implementing AP. I know that blogs are not normally considered robust sources for Wikipedia articles. But it's also the case that sources are only required to back up contestable claims, not easily verifiable facts. Like Diaspora still federating over its own protocol, and not AP.
Which software was considered part of the fediverse when the term was coined is arguably more contestable, but the history is given elsewhere on the page (or should be). The WeDistribute piece on this is considered canonical, and widely linked in articles about fediverse history. It was already used as a reference elsewhere in the page. The fediverse is still a fairly new discovery by most journalists, academics, etc, so finding articles about it in edited publications is still a challenge, and many of those that do exist, eg in the tech business press, are highly inaccurate. For example calling the fediverse the "Mastodon network", or claiming that Mastodon created the protocol (and thus the fediverse) and other implementations copied it from them. Neither of which is remotely true. Danylstrype (talk) 08:19, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
