Reflecting on the firefish/calckey "moment"
which was about a year ago now, I can't help but suspect it was a small event with wider implications on the dominance of #mastodon in the #fediverse
I think it was the last chance to direct the twitter migration energy into discovering new/different fedi platforms.
And it was blown, with alt-social in a weird steady/waiting state that's smaller I suspect, than what many hoped for.
cntd: https://hachyderm.io/@maegul/112358202238795371
1/
So the basic story would be that mastodon's dominance is pretty entrenched and the "migration" event is mostly "over" (whatever other "events" are on their way)But I wonder about the details of the firefish moment
I think it revealed that there are/were plenty interested in novel & different platforms. We're novelty seekers after all right. Generally, I'd wager any new platform needs some degree of novelty to "make it".
Further, its collapse showed how hard creating a new platform is.
2/
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maegul
in reply to maegul • • •So the basic story would be that mastodon's dominance is pretty entrenched and the "migration" event is mostly "over" (whatever other "events" are on their way)
But I wonder about the details of the firefish moment
I think it revealed that there are/were plenty interested in novel & different platforms. We're novelty seekers after all right. Generally, I'd wager any new platform needs some degree of novelty to "make it".
Further, its collapse showed how hard creating a new platform is.
2/
maegul
in reply to maegul • • •Firefish did well at presenting itself as "professional", capable and rich. But these were over-promises, and despite a number of people being involved or contributing, a good deal of user enthusiasm, the whole thing fell into a heap.
And that's the bit that concerns me. How many people/teams are there both *capable* and *willing* to put up a good, successful and sustainable platform?
The #firefish lesson may be that the fediverse just hasn't attracted a healthy building culture/personnel.
3/3
julian
in reply to maegul • • •@maegul@hachyderm.io at the end of the day Firefish burned brightly but quickly. It might be worth doing a post-mortem of it purely as a technical exercise because building a fediverse application has some unique constraints... though I imagine when you get down to it the failures may end up being the same social and/or technical failings you see anywhere else.
Sometimes I wonder how much their name choice (Calckey, specifically) set them back on their fedi speedrun.
After all, NodeBB isn't exactly a "hip" and marketable brand name 😬
maegul
in reply to julian • • •Lol re "nodeBB".
AFAICT (where some rumours likely to have truth to them are behind this) the essential failure was a flawed lead dev and an excessive tolerance of their BDFL approach by fellow contributors and "backers".
When those flaws become critical there was no governance/org to compensate. That dev was making weird decisions on the fly that were ruining the platform. Then they walked and nothing was left. And so all the promise of being big/serious was facade/hype.
julian
in reply to maegul • • •@maegul@hachyderm.io said in Reflecting on the firefish/calckey "moment" ...:
But being honest here, who hasn't thrown out a few "company we's" in order to sound bigger or more established?
I did not see firsthand what happened (I guess I didn't follow the right people!), so I'm probably off. How much of it was bluster and when does it become problematic? Bluster is rewarded in the capitalist Americas, blech...
BeAware :veriweed:
in reply to julian • • •hate to interrupt, but why are you discussing FireFish like it's dead?🤔 https://firefish.dev/firefish/firefish
It's very much not.🤷♂️
firefish / firefish · GitLab
GitLabpedrocx486
in reply to BeAware :veriweed: • • •maegul
in reply to BeAware :veriweed: • • •BeAware :veriweed: reshared this.
BeAware :veriweed:
in reply to maegul • • •AJ Sadauskas
in reply to maegul • • •maegul
in reply to AJ Sadauskas • • •@ajsadauskas
Another platform that some people got excited for about 1yr ago. It was obviously not a direct clone of twitter in the same way mastodon is, but based on a japanese platform (misskey) and so just came from a different place with a whole bunch of features quite separate from the "mere microblogging" of mastodon.
It had flaws, sure, but there was genuine hope it'd become "the other platform".
But it was run like crap and fell apart and its flagship server is dead.
m@thias.hellqui.st :verified-skull:
in reply to maegul • • •“…with a whole bunch of features quite separate from the “mere microblogging” of mastodon.”
Those of us who were already using Mastodon alternatives that already have all those “extra” features weren’t so easily impressed though. For me, based on Akkoma to start with, Calckey/Firefish drove me mad with its million spinning loading bars that kept me from my content, when I knew that content “should be there…it is normally [on my main platform]…”.
I figured there was something wrong in the Calckey implementation to start with, and as I have test accounts on both Misskey and Sharkey, my view on Calckey/Firefish overcomplicating something somewhere is if anything stronger; even if I wouldn’t describe Sharkey as “snappy” it is definitely not holding me back from content.
I also found it ironic/sad that the “meteoric growth” of Calckey/Firefish was often loudly applauded…but no one mentioned the even faster rise of Akkoma over the (at the time) previ
... Show more...“…with a whole bunch of features quite separate from the “mere microblogging” of mastodon.”
Those of us who were already using Mastodon alternatives that already have all those “extra” features weren’t so easily impressed though. For me, based on Akkoma to start with, Calckey/Firefish drove me mad with its million spinning loading bars that kept me from my content, when I knew that content “should be there…it is normally [on my main platform]…”.
I figured there was something wrong in the Calckey implementation to start with, and as I have test accounts on both Misskey and Sharkey, my view on Calckey/Firefish overcomplicating something somewhere is if anything stronger; even if I wouldn’t describe Sharkey as “snappy” it is definitely not holding me back from content.
I also found it ironic/sad that the “meteoric growth” of Calckey/Firefish was often loudly applauded…but no one mentioned the even faster rise of Akkoma over the (at the time) previous 12 months, and at no point did the amount of Calckey/Firefish users surpass Akkoma users. The power of getting an “influencer” to push your message.
@ajsadauskas
maegul
in reply to m@thias.hellqui.st :verified-skull: • • •@m @ajsadauskas
All fair. And akkoma should get more love. Though there were a few aspects of calckey different from what akkoma has. Channels, galleries, clips, pages and scriptable plugins. Also not sure if akkoma went all in on animatable MFM?
m@thias.hellqui.st :verified-skull:
in reply to maegul • • •True enough. Akkoma was made from the extremely efficient core of Pleroma, which means it scales well and using very little in server resources, whilst having all the expected SoMe features of for example Xitter and then some (at the time Mastodon didn’t even have search) such as search, quote posts, threaded conversation views, custom front-ends etc, all with the added flair/fun of Misskeys MFM (which it also has).
The rest of the “bling”, such as galleries, plugins etc Akkoma indeed doesn’t have. What it does have works though! 😆
Sean Tilley
in reply to maegul • • •There were a lot of different factors that went into what happened with Firefish. Some of it was bad optics (the whole “he said” vs “she said” ordeal that may have involved forged screenshots), some of it was community disagreements that went south, some of it was the project lead dealing with school. The database problems didn’t help, nor did switching DB technologies mid-stream.
It’s easy to chalk the situation of Firefish to one or two causes, but there was a lot going on. It’s an amazing project, and showing signs of new life. It just went through hell for a while.
maegul
in reply to Sean Tilley • • •@deadsuperhero
I'm not trying to blame anyone or anything. I'm implicitly asking what, if any lessons could be taken away from it.
But really, apart from causes, I'm wondering why the "team"/project couldn't handle the issues.
And more broadly, I'm wondering if there's something telling about the fedi that it was such a team that inherited such a moment.
The backdrop for me is all the talk on the need for alternatives to mastodon and seemingly little progress on that.
Sean Tilley
in reply to maegul • • •I’m not saying that you were blaming anyone. It’s just a shitty situation, one that I lament often.
I loved Firefish. I really thought the project had a moment where it was going to go big, but there were too many problems. It’s upsetting.
But yeah, I think we’re all hoping to see something get big like Mastodon, maybe even eclipse it. Why that hasn’t happened remains something of a mystery, with potentially depressing tells: most projects and developers in the space are barely making any income, are spread way too thin, and effectively doing hard work for years and years.
I want Fediverse projects to succeed. I think a few are in really good places. But, I worry that many are running themselves into the ground.
maegul
in reply to Sean Tilley • • •@deadsuperhero
Yes this.
Which implies, AFAICT, a winner-take-all dynamic regarding platform dominance.
Which then means, if true, that all of those aiming for getting another platform up there with mastodon may not realise the hill they’re trying to climb (thus my take that if you care about competing with masto you should be working together with everyone else that also cares).
For microblogging, I think it’s now too late. Mastodon is the fediverse (for microblogging at least).
Sean Tilley
in reply to maegul • • •I think the only way around this problem is to not play that game.
The biggest, most promising thing that I’m seeing is the collaboration between SocialHub (FEPs), FediDevs (Testing Suite), and SocialCG (documenting behaviors of common approaches, like Webfinger usage).
This kind of collaboration is already bearing lots of fruit, and may take us to a place where projects aren’t so centered around Mastodon as a platform.
https://wedistribute.org/2024/03/extending-activitypub/
The Efforts to Extend ActivityPub
Sean Tilley (We Distribute)0xtero
in reply to maegul • • •Congrats and/or condolences for this "moment".
I guess I'd have to check mastodon to find the rest of this thread and the context of what it actually references.
Posting into Lemmy/Kbin groups from long mastodon threads is quite janky experience, I find.
1/
maegul
in reply to maegul • • •Copying the linked thread here (cuz I stuffed it up):
So the basic story would be that mastodon's dominance is pretty entrenched and the "migration" event is mostly "over" (whatever other "events" are on their way)
But I wonder about the details of the firefish moment
I think it revealed that there are/were plenty interested in novel & different platforms. We're novelty seekers after all right. Generally, I'd wager any new platform needs some degree of novelty to "make it".
Further, its collapse showed how hard creating a new platform is.
2/
Firefish did well at presenting itself as "professional", capable and rich. But these were over-promises, and despite a number of people being involved or contributing, a good deal of user enthusiasm, the whole thing fell into a heap.
And that's the bit that concerns me. How many people/teams are there both capable and willing to put up a good, successful and sustainable platform?
The #firefish lesson may be that the fediverse just hasn't attracted a healthy building culture/personnel.
3/3
0xtero
in reply to maegul • • •Thanks for the context.
And yeah - a lot of fedi is built on spur of the moment inspiration without much planning on the long term. Sometimes it works out (like pixelfeed and the other related projects) and sometimes the passion of one (or small group) of devs just isn't enough.
Lemmy is pretty good example (from the other side of the scale) as well - we're at version 0.18.4 - and the devs are pretty hostile.
maegul
in reply to 0xtero • • •Don't know exactly what you mean ... but AFAICT, this is a relatively
beehawsituation, for better or worse.0xtero
in reply to maegul • • •Skull giver
in reply to 0xtero • • •0xtero
in reply to Skull giver • • •Yeah, as a beehaw user, I'm pretty familiar with the situation. I'm not going to re-hash the whole thing here (and I don't represent the instance), but let's just say PR's for features were offered, but not accepted. Discussion was attempted but it resulted in Lemmy devs asking beehaw to fuck off - so that's the end of that.
There's an alternative being tested. I believe we're going to Sublinks, but there's still active development going and sizeable migration. So we're still here. For the time being.
maegul
in reply to 0xtero • • •0xtero
in reply to maegul • • •Beehaw, Lemmy, and A Vision of the Fediverse | Beehaw Docs
docs.beehaw.orgmaegul
in reply to 0xtero • • •Blaze
in reply to maegul • • •maegul
in reply to Blaze • • •Blaze
in reply to maegul • • •IIRC, Catodon development is currently halted (https://catodon.social/notes/9rl77swzw25jjq7x).
Sharkey I don't know
There really is a whole *keys forks lore ha ha
Panos Damelos :catodon: (@panos)
Catodon SocialSubversivo
in reply to Blaze • • •Iceshrimp is rewriting from scratch in C# and it's my main hope for the *keys.
maegul
in reply to Subversivo • • •ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝
in reply to maegul • • •