This post is written on https://normals.me/ and delivered to !fediverse@lemmy.world over #ActivityPub, so if you are reading it the basic plumbing works. Now let me explain what is this.
Normals is a forum with communities, threads, and questions with an accepted answer. It is a single instance, not software you can host, and the core is closed for anti-abuse reasons. The federation module will be published separately with implementation notes (FEP-67ff).
What federates today Every community is a Group actor following the Lemmy model (FEP-1b12). Follow @selfhosted@normals.me or any other community from Lemmy, PieFed, Mbin or Mastodon.
Posts and comments go both ways. Replies from your instance appear in the thread on Normals, replies from Normals go back to the origin.
Remote content is labelled with its origin, links back to it, and is never copied. Media loads from the source.
Signed fetches, so it works with instances that require authorized fetch. NodeInfo 2.1 is up.
Policies, in case they matter to you, it has no ads, and no paid reach, and of course no AI training on posts. AI crawlers blocked by default, public mod log with reasons, and no automated removals. Numbers at https://normals.me/transparency so please take a look.
If something from your instance shows up wrong here, or something from here shows up wrong on yours, reply with the URL and I’ll fix it. Andy Piper mentioned NodeBB uses the same group model, if anyone runs a NodeBB instance I’d like to test against it, if possible.
I hope we all have fun. Cheers!
closed source and symmetric blocking. two strikes.
Symmetric blocking?
when you are blocked, you can’t respond. it’s how twitter, Facebook, and new reddit blocking works. it’s a great way to stop people from correcting misinformation, since they can’t see it when logged in, and couldn’t respond even if they could see it.
Blocking seems kinda pointless, its just muting if itsnt symmetric
symmetric blocking is too powerful. it lets non-admins/non-mods decide who can comment. straight blocking removes specific users from your experience without giving you a veto on whether they see and can interact with content downstream of you.
they may not even be responding to you, but a comment of a comment on a post you happen to have made. why should your block be able to stifle that??
Ah yeah I’m aware of that anti-feature, though I hadn’t heard it called that before. Did OP mention that, though? I don’t see it in their post.
https://normals.me/why
Ah yeah. One of the reasons I’m not on piefed, that nonsense.