I just entered several #Guppe groups (e.g. @mathematics @physics
) but the groups just keep silent from my point of the view.
I wonder if it is just because nobody posts for the past 12 hours or some other technical issues (or I just misunderstand the mechanism of it)?
If you haven't heard, sadly, #ChirpSocial, one of the popular #ActivityPub “groups” platform, is shutting down “probably” on February 29th.
In an email they sent to admins, the owner and developer can no longer support https://chirp.social financially as they failed to find a new job after they were laid off by #Google last year.
This reminds us the importance of having a built-in groups feature, and one where the groups feature actually federates.
Back in 2008, when the #Fediverse was born, we did have a built-in federated groups in #Laconica / #StatusNet (today known as #GNUsocial). We used bang (!) instead of at (@). A built-in groups feature is more stable as established instances can host them.
Today, we have #Friendica and #Hubzilla (as well as #Streams-based instances) to fill in that, as groups is a built-in feature in those software products. It's just a matter of finding an instance that's open to hosting groups for any topic for the ActivityPub protocol.
That said, any Friendica, Hubzilla, Streams-based instances you suggest for groups?
Unfortunately, the developers of this platform seem to have abandoned it. The ridiculous server lag is a fact of life rather than a temporary issue.
I'm not going to maintain this group if reasonable functionality is impossible. Thanks to everyone for your interest, but I guess we'll have to use our existing channels.
I guess now we know the small reach of #Guppe groups is indeed a Guppe #bug or #WAI (working-as-intended).
I've noticed this since last year, after Guppe went down for almost a month(?); but I thought it was just me, or a temporary scaling issue with Guppe. But there's no denying it anymore, Guppe's reach is now very limited.
If similar software / platforms work fine (like #Friendica forums, #Chirp groups, #Kbin magazine, and #Lemmy communities) then the logical conclusion is this issue is on the side of Guppe groups.
Major communities still using Guppe groups should consider moving to Chirp, Friendica, Kbin, or Lemmy, if they want to reach #Fediverse network, until this is fixed.
@007 Ahh, really? During the early days of #Guppe it was working fine for any #Fediverse platform. I'm not sure when it stopped.
It wouldn't be a stretched that it stopped working for the entire Fediverse, except Mastodon, after it went online for almost a month(?). So, that means they intentionally blocked everyone else?
I guess #Chirp, #Kbin, and #Lemmy are the best options now. What's the point of using Guppe groups if it cannot reach the entire Fediverse.
@retrobeetism I have a similar experience. #Guppe groups (at least after it went offline for almost a month(?)) rarely works all other #Fediverse platforms (those I've tried). But #Chirp groups, #Friendica forums, #Kbin magazine, and #Lemmy communities, there are rarely any problems.
My brain tells me that the issue is with Guppe platform, since all other similar software works fine. They did something to break interoperability with the rest of the Fediverse, and created its own bubble with Mastodon.
You can follow the Kbin Magazine ‘test’ by searching and following: @test. You can also post into it by tagging it.
If you are already familiar with #Chirp and #Guppe groups, it works similarly. Follow it to get content, tag it to post content and share with everyone following the “group”/“community”/“magazine”.
Calling the situation as fragmented or duplicate is unfair for these existing groups/communities/magazines (whichever word you want to use), because they were here first and already well-established.
Putting all your eggs in one basket is a recipe for disaster. We already experienced that when Guppe went offline for almost a week, and almost permanently shutdown if the financial goal was not met. And that's just one example, for years we've witnessed instances disappearing or shutting down completely, just like that, communities were destroyed.
The lesson we should've learned by now is this: redundancy of communities/groups/magazines spread through out the fediverse through different instances is vital for the continuation of discussions. If one instance goes down, there are other existing communities/groups already in other instances. We can minimise the disruption that such a situation can cause. This is important for those users who rely on groups for content, instead of following every single user.
Instead of looking at it as fragmentation, which is very negative in this context, look at it as redundancy and continuation. There are a lot of ways for the free instance you are using, or hosting yourself, to suddenly disappear.
Created a new Kbin “Thread” in a #Guppe group (or Kbin “Magazine”)
The new Kbin Thread was received by Guppe and pushed to its members.
Using a Kbin account, I replied to that Kbin Thread.
The reply was not seen by Guppe and thus no post/reply was pushed.
Using a non-Kbin account, I replied to that Kbin Thread.
Kbin itself received the reply and displays it as a Thread comment.
Using a Kbin account, I replied to the non-Kbin reply (see #3).
Guppe received it and the reply was pushed to Guppe members.
So… it seems that a Kbin account replying to a Kbin Thread is not being received by Guppe (or Kbin is not pushing it).
Note: I have not tested if the Kbin “Magazine” is not from another instance. The steps would be slightly different as the non-Kbin account first have to subscribe/follo that “Magazine“.
The “Ooh, I'm starting to” and “So, this is probably a” replies were from my Kbin account and were not seen by Guppe (thus can only be seen from Kbin itself).
Testing how it works when a #Guppe group becomes a “magazine” in #Kbin.
For this post, the test is to see if this will appear as a reddit/stackexchange/quora “question”, or is this post going to appear in Kbin's “microblog” tab?
Bonus: If it appears as a question-type (not microblog), then is it going to federate in other fediverse software that are not reddit/stackexchange/quora types through the Guppe group? Or, should we subscribe to this Kbin “magazine” first?
Follow Mastodon Guppe Groups on Fedia/Kbin
So this is cool - you can follow Mastodon Guppe Groups (eg. @bookstodon) on Fedia and it correctly recognises them as magazines with a Microblog!