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This magazine is dedicated to discussions on the federated social networking ecosystem, which includes decentralized and open-source social media platforms. Whether you are a user, developer, or simply interested in the concept of decentralized social media, this is the place for you. Here you can share your knowledge, ask questions, and engage in discussions on topics such as the benefits and challenges of decentralized social media, new and existing federated platforms, and more. From the latest developments and trends to ethical considerations and the future of federated social media, this category covers a wide range of topics related to the Fediverse.

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Has anyone here tried Hubzilla? (kbin.social)

submitted 1 year ago by Alter_Id@kbin.social to c/fediverse@kbin.social

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Another fediverse newbie mucking about. Since joining I've been digging in and learning as I go, trying to determine what best suits how I'd like to interface everything. I am not, however, super well versed in all the ins and outs of this system yet. I'm not the most tech savvy person to be honest.

I've enjoyed this kbin instance so far. No complaints considering how new it is and how strained it got under the new user load. Grateful for the work that's been put in to keep things whirring. If everything keeps going the way it has I'll be sticking around. Though I have considered signing up to a different platform as well to use for more personal blogging, or interaction with closer friends and associates. I think I'm leaning toward Hubzilla for this.

The sorting tools used to filter your incoming feed as well as group contact sorting to control who sees what from what I'd be posting seems like it'd get me a long way toward how I envision wanting to use a macroblogger. There's a whole host of features I'd probably never use besides. The account mirror and syncing feature seems pretty clutch.

If this ability to compartmentalize everything works the way I think I'm understanding it, there's less a reason to even create multiple profiles across different platforms even if the intended usage between a link aggregate/subforum platform like kbin and a macroblogging platform are different. I guess you'd need a profile to moderate a magazine/community on a certain instance, but I'm not seeing much beyond that.

I know it doesn't operate entirely (primarily even?) on the ActivityPub protocol, but it sounds like it's integrated with with all the platforms operating on ActivityPub./?

Has anybody here tried it out? Are there inherent downsides? Anything I'm not considering that I ought to be? Any type of critical failure or a specific reason Hubzilla hasn't taken off despite offering what looks to be a pretty elaborate feature set?

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[–] 0x1C3B00DA@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I tried it a few years ago. It's a much more Facebook-like experience. Your posts don't have a character limit, and if your instance has ActivityPub support turned on, are viewable by followers on the fediverse. It has Group support, both natively hosted on hubzilla and those on other AP software. It also has support for Events, though I don't know if those are specific to hubzilla or federate over AP.

Also, the nomadic identity and permission system are really cool and way better than any solution on other AP software. You can use your hubzilla identity to login to other hubzilla instances, but each user has granular control over permissions so they can determine who is allowed to see various parts of their profile.

It also has a plugin system so there are a ton of other features not available on any other AP software.

[–] Alter_Id@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Your post bolsters what I've taken away from the looking I've done so far. The feature set seems robust, to the point it's recognizably intended to be the place to set up shop for a central experience amongst different platforms; hence the name I guess. That's probably according to taste though as well. I never had a problem with the type of UX Facebook offered, but I got far away from all that long ago for all the obvious reasons.

I didn't know that creating an account allows for login access onto different instances, but I guess that makes sense and is probably required in order to setup your mirrored/synced account. I may be twisting that around into a way it doesn't actually work, but I'll figure it out. I think I'm going to set up an account between tonight and tomorrow.

I saw that plugins were available. Curious to see how broad and varied the options are for these. I have to imagine there's some good stuff developed that I'll be pleasantly surprised to find.

Thanks for the input!

[–] retronautickz@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I haven't tried any of the macroblogging platforms, but I plan to. For what I've read Hubzilla has a feature call Nomadic Identity that, while it makes server migration easier, creates problems with federation, but nothing too severe as to render it unusable.

It just that, because it's a Zot feature, when you go from a clone to another, your contacts from platforms other than Hubzilla (or anything based on Zot are lost), but If you don't care much about that, it's a great feature because it means that you can keep using the platform even if your home server is offline

[–] Alter_Id@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is good to know. As long as the use of the second server profile was temporary due to something like server downtime my understanding is that any activity taking place on the second profile would sync to the primary profile once it comes back online. So it may mean delayed receipt of any of this activity to anyone not connected through Hubzilla, but it'd get there eventually upon syncing? Is this correct?

If the primary profile were to go down permanently though it sounds like it'd be a good idea to have a list of existing contacts backed up somewhere else to be able to duplicate on the secondary server profile if necessary.

[–] retronautickz@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For what I understand, it's just like you are saying. The biggest problem/annoyance is when the home server goes down permanently. So yeah, having some kind of backup would be a great idea

[–] Alter_Id@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

RIght on. Thanks for the input!

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