@Cătă @Mark Darbyshire The only Hubzilla forums I'm aware of that are more or less active are Hubzilla-centric themselves. The Hubzilla support forum which is pretty much useless if you aren't on Hubzilla yourself. Or a kind of planning forum for the advancement of the Hubzilla ecosystem which I'd even expect to have ActivityPub off.
The problem is simply that even only very very few people take the step from one of the ActivityPub-based microblogging projects to Friendica, just to have a forum. My estimation is that every other Mastodon user still "knows" that the Fediverse is only Mastodon. Of the rest, some have never heard of Friendica, and even more don't know that Friendica has forums that Mastodon users can join.
I guess not few of those who try their luck quickly discover that Friendica is, in fact, not a pure group/forum platform, not "Guppe, but it's moderated", and too confusing and difficult to wrap their minds around. The step from Mastodon to Friendica is much bigger than the step from Twitter to Mastodon.
And that's Friendica. It's even worse with Hubzilla.
There has been a poll which showed that 75% of those who took it had never heard of Hubzilla before this poll. And I guess the audience was actually biased, also because it wasn't on Mastodon AFAIR, so the real number has to be even higher. Amongst those who have heard of Hubzilla, its capabilities are even murkier than Friendica's.
Hubzilla's Web UI is basically what Friendica's UI was a dozen years ago, and it capitulates before Hubzilla's sheer amount of features. Its documentation is both incomplete and hopelessly outdated in many parts, and it's written like a tech spec rather than a user manual.
Lastly, most Mastodon-to-Hubzilla direct converts throw in the towel the same day they took the jump. That's because they fail to connect to anyone on Mastodon. That, in turn, is because it takes another, experienced Hubzilla user to tell them that a) Hubzilla is not based on ActivityPub, b) ActivityPub is optional on Hubzilla, and c) ActivityPub is off by default, not to mention d) how to turn it on which is anything but straight-forward.
That's why hardly anyone runs a forum on Hubzilla.
I guess not few of those who try their luck quickly discover that Friendica is, in fact, not a pure group/forum platform, not "Guppe, but it's moderated", and too confusing and difficult to wrap their minds around. The step from Mastodon to Friendica is much bigger than the step from Twitter to Mastodon.
That is correct, many people are just unaware of our platforms, and everytime there is someone on r/Mastodon saying that they would like a Mastodon instance with longer character limit or a Mastodon instance with forums/groups thingie or that they want to move to Mastodon from Facebook and are looking for advice. However, there are still some interesting Friendica groups out there, albeit less active. I even created one for !postrock. I was wondering if there are some interesting communities in Hubzilla as well, despite the small user base.
c) ActivityPub is off by default, not to mention d) how to turn it on which is anything but straight-forward.
Holly cow. I guess I'll stay on Friendica for the foreseeable future 😁
c) ActivityPub is off by default, not to mention d) how to turn it on which is anything but straight-forward.
Holly cow. I guess I'll stay on Friendica for the foreseeable future :D
To be fair, ActivityPub is off by default because it makes nomadic identity more difficult on the level that Zot6 offers. And it's off by default at channel level only whereas it's on by default at hub level.
With "anything but straight-foward", I mean it isn't like on (streams) where you have an ActivityPub on/off switch in the settings which is usually even on when you first discover it.
Instead, ActivityPub is an add-on, an "app" that has to be "installed". But newbies don't expect Hubzilla to have add-ons at all because Twitter has none, and Mastodon has none. And they certainly wouldn't expect ActivityPub, of all things, to be an add-on and off by default. In fact, most probably join Hubzilla in the belief that it is based on ActivityPub like "everything else" in the Fediverse.
jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu 3 months ago
The problem is simply that even only very very few people take the step from one of the ActivityPub-based microblogging projects to Friendica, just to have a forum. My estimation is that every other Mastodon user still "knows" that the Fediverse is only Mastodon. Of the rest, some have never heard of Friendica, and even more don't know that Friendica has forums that Mastodon users can join.
I guess not few of those who try their luck quickly discover that Friendica is, in fact, not a pure group/forum platform, not "Guppe, but it's moderated", and too confusing and difficult to wrap their minds around. The step from Mastodon to Friendica is much bigger than the step from Twitter to Mastodon.
And that's Friendica. It's even worse with Hubzilla.
There has been a poll which showed that 75% of those who took it had never heard of Hubzilla before this poll. And I guess the audience was actually biased, also because it wasn't on Mastodon AFAIR, so the real number has to be even higher. Amongst those who have heard of Hubzilla, its capabilities are even murkier than Friendica's.
Hubzilla's Web UI is basically what Friendica's UI was a dozen years ago, and it capitulates before Hubzilla's sheer amount of features. Its documentation is both incomplete and hopelessly outdated in many parts, and it's written like a tech spec rather than a user manual.
Lastly, most Mastodon-to-Hubzilla direct converts throw in the towel the same day they took the jump. That's because they fail to connect to anyone on Mastodon. That, in turn, is because it takes another, experienced Hubzilla user to tell them that a) Hubzilla is not based on ActivityPub, b) ActivityPub is optional on Hubzilla, and c) ActivityPub is off by default, not to mention d) how to turn it on which is anything but straight-forward.
That's why hardly anyone runs a forum on Hubzilla.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Groups #Forums #Friendica #Hubzilla
petrescatraian@libranet.de 3 months ago
@jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu wrote:
That is correct, many people are just unaware of our platforms, and everytime there is someone on r/Mastodon saying that they would like a Mastodon instance with longer character limit or a Mastodon instance with forums/groups thingie or that they want to move to Mastodon from Facebook and are looking for advice. However, there are still some interesting Friendica groups out there, albeit less active. I even created one for !postrock. I was wondering if there are some interesting communities in Hubzilla as well, despite the small user base.
Holly cow. I guess I'll stay on Friendica for the foreseeable future 😁
@markdarb
jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu 3 months ago
To be fair, ActivityPub is off by default because it makes nomadic identity more difficult on the level that Zot6 offers. And it's off by default at channel level only whereas it's on by default at hub level.
With "anything but straight-foward", I mean it isn't like on (streams) where you have an ActivityPub on/off switch in the settings which is usually even on when you first discover it.
Instead, ActivityPub is an add-on, an "app" that has to be "installed". But newbies don't expect Hubzilla to have add-ons at all because Twitter has none, and Mastodon has none. And they certainly wouldn't expect ActivityPub, of all things, to be an add-on and off by default. In fact, most probably join Hubzilla in the belief that it is based on ActivityPub like "everything else" in the Fediverse.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #ActivityPub #NomadicIdentity
petrescatraian@libranet.de 3 months ago