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How to add your Hubzilla channel to Fediverse.info

How to add your Hubzilla channel to Fediverse.info

If you want to add your Hubzilla channel to the project-independent Fediverse People Directory at Fediverse.info, but you’re struggling to get it submitted, here is a how-to which worked at least for me.

Step 0: Obviously, you have to have PubCrawl activated. Being on Fediverse.info is kind of senseless without PubCrawl because it’s mostly for a Mastodon audience. If you don’t want to have PubCrawl on, stop right here and rely on Hubzilla’s own directories instead.

Step 1: Prepare your profile. If you’ve got multiple profiles, prepare your default profile. Edit it. Open the « Miscellaneous » tab.

There you have to edit the « About me » field. It’s the equivalent of the self-description on Mastodon, so it’ll be your Fediverse.info profile text. Describe yourself there.

At the bottom, add hashtags. Fediverse.info reads hashtags, but since it’s built against Mastodon, it can’t read Hubzilla’s keyword field. It can only read hashtags from the « About me » field.

Most importantly: Add the hashtag #fedi22. Fediverse.info won’t add your channel without it.

Step 2: Let the changes settle. Don’t advance to the next step until at least 15 minutes later. Maybe do something else in the meantime. But don’t forget what you were doing here.

Step 3: Go to the Fediverse.info directory page (see the link at the top).. Click on « Add Account ». Go on and confirm that you’ve added #fedi22 to your profile. If you haven’t, go back to step 1 and 2 and come back to step 3 later.

Step 4: Add your full channel URL. Only this works. Your Webfinger ID (kris@hub.libranet.de) does not, neither does your profile URL.

Step 5: Click Proceed.

You should get a message that includes the hashtags discovered in the « About me » field except for #fedi22. This means your channel has been added.

This method might also work with (streams), only that Fediverse.info doesn’t know (streams), and most (streams) instances don’t identify as « Streams » anyway.

Nomadic identity

Nomadic identity

Hubzilla introduced the nomatic identity. That means that your identity is not linked with the address of the server. You can move from server to server or have clone. You can use a server or an other one easily.

Streams has the nomadic identity but I tryed to import my hubzilla channel and it does not work. It is like Streams and Hubzilla is not compatible concerning nomadic identity. Of course hubzilla account can talk with streams account.

Hubzilla
Hubzilla 7 is released

Hubzilla 7 is released

Hubzilla is a powerful platform for creating interconnected websites featuring a decentralized identity, communications, and permissions framework built using common webserver technology.

The version number 7 is out with new features and many bugs fixed

Hubzilla 7.0 is addressing one of the most important features of Hubzilla – permissions. By refactoring the way we set permissions we managed to simplify the workflow to do so and at the same time provide more flexibility while making it easier to organize.

Channel roles have been simplified. There are now 4 possible selections: public, personal, community forum and custom. Personal is the default.

Individual contact permissions have been deprecated in favor of contact roles which are now a requirement for every contact.

Contact roles have one default preset which is defined by the channel role. Custom contact roles can be created as desired. Any contact role can be set to be the default for new connections in the contact roles app.

Privacy settings have been moved to a separate settings sub module. Settings for the online status visibility and entries in the directory and suggestions pages have been moved to the profile.

Advanced configurations are available in the privacy settings if the custom channel role is selected. They have received an initial warning and some entries which are likely to be misunderstood have got advising help texts.

Privacy groups can be managed from the Privacy group app if installed. The settings for the default privacy group for new content and the default privacy group for new contacts have been moved there.

Guest access has been refactored to allow new guests to be added to privacy groups. Quick access links to private resources have been added to the lock icon dropdown for convenience.

Other notable changes
– Improved UI for changing the profile photo
– Improved rendering of polls
– Fixed polls for forum channels
– Improved performance when deleting a contact
– Remove deprecated legacy mail addon
– Scope support and improvements for the socialauth addon
– Various bug fixes

Breaking changes
– The legacy mail addon has been removed. This means that the data will not be accessible anymore from the UI. The data will be removed from the database in the next release (7.2). At this point the legacy mail data will be lost.
– Forum channels must be assigned the « community forum » channel role in the channel settings. Otherwise the channel will not act as a forum anymore. If you require the custom channel role, this setting can be found in the advanced configuration of the privacy settings.
– Profile vcard was dysfunctional and has been removed from the UI. It might be revived at a later point.

A big THANK YOU! to all contributors and everybody who is supporting Hubzilla. Special thanks to @NGI Zero open source funding for supporting this work.

How to Upgrade

1. create a backup
2. execute util/udall from the terminal
3. select a new channel role for your channel (optional*)
4. review your privacy settings (optional*)
5. assign your contacts a contact role (optional*)

* Optional because your old privacy settings will be still in tact until you decide to change them.

Get the Code

Source code: https://framagit.org/hubzilla/core/
Install instructions: https://framagit.org/hubzilla/core/-/blob/master/install/INSTALL.txt

Hubzilla is a powerful platform for creating interconnected websites featuring a decentralized identity, communications, and permissions framework built using common webserver technology.

https://hubzilla.org

 

Nomad-ActivityPub
ActivityPub will include nomadic identity

ActivityPub will include nomadic identity

I was reading a comment from Mike Macgirvin…

Zot is gone and Zot6 along with it. Their successor, the Nomad protocol (which was derived originally from Zot10), is considered experimental and transient (hence the name) and is not intended to be implemented by other projects. Most of the functionality once provided by Zot has moved or is moving to ActivityPub. Nomad will remain until this migration is complete and ActivityPub has evolved to a point that Nomad is made redundant. Then it will wander off in the desert and die.

How do you understand this?

First of all I must explain what is nomadic identity. Mike Macgirvin the creator of the protocol ZOT had a vision long long time ago. He realised that all our identity was catched by a domaine name. On the Fediverse your identity is similar than email. It looks like user@domain. It is a weakness.

  • The server can be down
  • Your account can be censored or deleted
  • The administrator can stop maintaining the instance.

Nomadic identity let you move your account to an other instance or clone it. Your identity is not your user@domain but is hidden in a unique key. Then if you move user@domain2 would be ok and all your contacts would be still yours.

He apply this idea on Hubzilla then on zap, Mistpark and other clones.

But today if you have an account on Mastodon for example. You loose all your contacts. You can follow them but they have to accept you again,

As far as I understand this remark, he is planing to include the nomadic concept in ActivityPub. That means that all plateformes of ActivityPub could be nomadic.

Just imagine you create an account on Mastodon then you clone it on Pleroma and you can use both the same way you use mail from your phone or your desktop or webmail.

This concept is not easy to understand untill we try it. Today you can try it on Hubzilla or Zap.

How to contact me

How to contact me

2019 is almost finished and it is time to think. Think about the past year, think about the new year that is coming. I will write an article about how was 2019 but now I wanted to explain how to contact me.

Probably you didn’t notice it but I am a GAFAM resistant. I explain. I try to organised my digital life without GAFAM if possible. It is a process. I am still using Google for translation or for reseaurch. I even have a gmail account. But I am not using Facebook. I still have whatsapp. But if possible I am using Telegram or other alternative tools.

I will explain the reason and then I will explain you how to contact me.

Reason : GAFAM (Google Amazon Facebook Apple and Microsof) are oligopole that leads the world. They know all about you. They know where you are and what you think. So today internet is getting dangerous. The next dictator will have no difficulty to have all power. Even if I have nothing to hide, I try to resist again robots and unjustice in this world. It is a little drop in the ocean but if I can inspire you. I will be very happy. Facebook is not a social media it use to be. Today it is a strong marketing plateform. They show you what they want.. If you want to be free. Do not use Facebook, Whatapp and Instagram even if all your friends use them. Now I will give you alternatives.

First you can contact me on Mastodon. My main account is https://theres.life/@kris or kris@theres.file. Mastodon is a federated social network, Like email you don’t need to have an account on each plateform to communicate but only one email. With mastodon you only need an account compatible with ActivityPub. If you have already a mastodon account or any other Activtypub account just add me. You will be able to comment or send me private message.

If you like to share pictures. You can add my pixelfed account https://pixfed.com/kris if it an Instagram alternative but free and federated. You even can follow my account on Mastodon or theoreticaly on any other ActivityPub instance.

Lastly I want to give you my Hubzilla account ( https://hub.libranet.de/channel/kris ). Hubzilla is more than a social plateform. Of course you can share messages, pictures or video and comment them but it is very secure and private if you want. You data belong to you. And the best is that you have a nomadic identity. That means that your identity is not attached to only one site. But you can move from site to site. I know this concept is strange for you maybe. But it is real. If my main account have problem I can clone it and use an other site and continue to talk as usual. If you want to talk with me in Hubzilla you need to open an account on Hubzilla or zap. Not all site are open for registration.

Conclusion the best way to communicate for me on social plateform is mastodon, pixelfed and hubzilla. Of course if you know me better email still exists and you still can use telegram or viber. But my article was focused on social plateform. I will be happy to read you.

Hubzilla my experience

Hubzilla my experience

Hubzilla is a powerful platform for creating interconnected websites featuring a decentralized identity, communications, and permissions framework built using common webserver technology. It could be an alternative as facebook, twitter or other services taken by big companies.

Finding a hub

That is not as easy. You have many hubs but many are outdated or don’t accept open registration

What the hub can do ?

As soon you find a hub where you can registrare an account you discover what the hub can do and what the hub cannot do. But the list of feature (activated plugin and feature) is not listed in a human reading. Exemple is the ostatus plugin activated or not. I cannot activated why ? Haaa that hub does not allow it. —> grrr I have to find an other hub and start at the begining.

Social ?

Hubzilla is a powerfull tool but it is a social tool. You expect communities or at least a community. But untill now the community is only hubzilla community. Where are people ? The community is small and not growing…. That dimension is missing. Hubzilla is only a tool not a community.

New users are not comfortable

I just notice that new user don’t stay. They try, open an account a channel and don’t use it. Why ? That would be interesting to try to answer that question. We could respond. Hubzilla is powerfull, it is a revolutionary tools, you are anomyme and privacy is really in the core etc. etc.. but the fast is new user are not able to dive into it and use it for a real use.

 Slow

My user experience in hubzilla is that it is often slow. I am waiting often after clicking somewhere.

Double configuration

Often the admin should activate or parameter a plugin and the member should do the same. We need double configuration. If either the member or the admin don’t do it. It will not work. Even admin is not able to configurate plugin for member. That level of complexity is something like a weekness of course we also can see that like a strongness.

Simplicity should be the target.

How to make something complicated simple ? I hope the level of simplicity sill be the target for hubzilla.

 

Hubzilla is changing quicky and improvements are frequent. That is my hope. I am sure improvement will lead into the right direction. (simplicity)