Ubuntu 15 LTS

#15

Study finds brain may remember best when tired, suggesting fatigue can boost learning

Turns out, your brain might actually remember things better when its running low on energy. Researchers at Japans
-termpotentiation

No, I haven't, and it doesn't really look interesting to me.
Resonite uses . This is pretty common amongst new virtual worlds because it saves the world developers both the effort of building an engine for modular avatars, the effort of creating at least some basic avatar content and the effort of making it all work together smoothly.
For one, I myself vastly prefer building my avatars by piecing them together from content already available in-world and reshaping them with in-world parameters. One advantage is that I don't have to go through the entire hassle of importing yet another avatar just to change something about my outfit.
Besides, in order to have long hair and/or skirts as described, Resonite would require glTF avatar objects with extra skeleton parts in the hair/the skirt and with physics for only the hair/the skirt. And it would require collision detection within the same 3-D object, i.e. checking whether one "floppy" physical region of the object collides with a non-physical region of the very same object.
Sansar and High Fidelity were designed for modular avatars like their common predecessor, Second Life. The body is one object attached to the avatar. The long hair is another object attached to the avatar. The skirt is yet another object attached to the avatar.
I guess the long-term goal was to establish avatars that are at least as highly modular and configurable in-world as Second Life/OpenSim avatars.
# # # # # # # # # # # # No, I haven't, and it doesn't really look interesting to me.
Resonite uses . This is pretty common amongst new virtual worlds because it saves the world developers both the effort of building an engine for modular avatars, the effort of creating at least some basic avatar content and the effort of making it all work together smoothly.
For one, I myself vastly prefer building my avatars by piecing them together from content already available in-world and reshaping them with in-world parameters. One advantage is that I don't have to go through the entire hassle of importing yet another avatar just to change something about my outfit.
Besides, in order to have long hair and/or skirts as described, Resonite would require glTF avatar objects with extra skeleton parts in the hair/the skirt and with physics for only the hair/the skirt. And it would require collision detection within the same 3-D object, i.e. checking whether one "floppy" physical region of the object collides with a non-physical region of the very same object.
Sansar and High Fidelity were designed for modular avatars like their common predecessor, Second Life. The body is one object attached to the avatar. The long hair is another object attached to the avatar. The skirt is yet another object attached to the avatar.
I guess the long-term goal was to establish avatars that are at least as highly modular and configurable in-world as Second Life/OpenSim avatars.
# # # # # # # # # # # #

The Flop says we must go now. I need my morning walk lol.

There's a lot of talk about male-defaultism these days. You know what else is totally male-default Avatars in 3-D virtual worlds. At least if they can be modified in-world instead of being monoliths like from places like Ready Player Me.
Almost everytime an avatar system is being designed for virtual worlds, it's designed with only adult males in mind. Eventually, someone will ask the question, "Well, and how do we make female avatars" It'll probably be those who design either the avatar parts if the avatars are sufficiently modular or the complete avatars if they're monolithic. But this won't occur before the avatar system is finalised to the point at which it can't be substantially reworked anymore.
If you're lucky, female avatars get a somewhat slimmer waist. Or a pair of boobs, maybe only one that's being hinted at by a single bulge. If you're very lucky, they get both. If you're unlucky, there's only one hard-coded body shape, and all they get is more feminine clothing for the upper body, maybe even painted onto the one body shape that's available. In fact, you'll probably have as many "clothing items" for women as for men, all of which were designed by guys. All of whom are software developers with next to no sense of fashion.
Oh, and you get female-looking hairstyles, none of which are even shoulder-long. Well, except maybe for one ponytail that stands off so far that it has no chance of clipping into the body because the head motion is too limited.
Seriously, though: Even if your virtual world system is only planned for purely professional purposes, i.e. business, industrial, governmental, organisational otherwise, and extra care is taken that it will never be used by anyone in their spare time, even then this won't nearly be sufficient. If you plan to hold formal (not necessarily as in business formal) events, it'll be even less sufficient. If it's supposed to be an all-purpose virtual world system, a "metaverse for everybody" that people will use in their spare time, it'll suck completely.
I dare say that I've been using 3-D virtual worlds for longer than most of those who design them from the ground up nowadays. I've been in for five and a half years now. I've built both male and female avatars. So I know first-hand what it's like.
OpenSim's default avatar, which also used to be the default avatar in Second Life long long ago, is female. She is named Ruth. But she's based on an avatar system that's mostly geared towards male avatars, and her hairstyle is more of a mullet because this avatar system can't even grow hair over the ears, because guys don't normally wear their hair over their ears. She isn't even really pretty. She can easily be switched to her male pendant, Roth: A bit less shapely, no boobs, therefore abs and pecs, the hair is shorter, and the face changes a little.
Now, if you want to see what kinds of avatars people actually make in Second Life nowadays, just look around (content warnings: eye contact, mild female nudity) , the Flickr alternative created exclusively for Second Life users. These pictures were actually rendered in-world and not by an AI. They show actual Second Life avatars, often even daily-driver avatars, in actual Second Life environments.
Short hair Long pants Almost only on male avatars, if at all. And today's male avatars have even more chiseled abs than 22 years ago. And chiseled faces and chiseled everything.
Female avatars, on the other hand, are shapely like you wouldn't believe from a virtual world unless you've been there yourself. Big butts. Big boobs and actual boobs. Dresses. Skirts. Bikinis. Lingerie. High heels, almost never under 15cm or 6 inches, sometimes even higher with platform soles. And: long hair. And with "long hair" I mean lush long locks, not just longer than male hair.
By the way: Nothing of what you see in the images was supplied by Linden Lab. Everything that the avatars and the landscapes consist of was made by users. It has basically always been the users who drove Linden Lab to refining Second Life's avatar system, often by working around its limitations and repurposing features.
Sooner or later, users with female avatars will demand three things for them. Male-centric avatar systems will be unfit to deliver either.

Long hair

The challenge with long hair is to not only make it look natural and, especially, keep it from clipping into the body. Extra challenge: If the clothes aren't simply painted on, keep it from clipping into the clothes when the head moves.
Of course, this point is moot if avatars can't move their heads. Which Second Life and OpenSim avatars can.

Skirts and dresses

This point is moot if avatars don't have legs. You know, like in Meta Horizon or (formerly Mozilla) Hubs.
But if they do, then even in a strictly business environment, I wouldn't too firmly count on all women being content with putting trousers on their avatars. They will wish for pencil skirts.
Skirts and dresses will pose a whole bunch of challenges. None of them is to keep people from upskirting, especially if the camera can move independently from the avatar which it should be able to do in good virtual worlds. In fact, depending on how a skirt or dress is shaped, preventing upskirting can be quite trivial. So that isn't one of the challenges.
No, the first challenge is to rig skirts in such a way that the legs don't clip through them, no matter how the legs move. If you manage to get that done with one kind of skirt, try again with another nine kinds of skirts. Including a pencil skirt.
Think you got that pat down Well, here's the next challenge: Rig them in such a way that they look good when the avatar is sitting. This is rather trivial with pencil skirts. Now try it with a circle skirt in such a way that the skirt doesn't stand off as if it's made of wood. Extra challenge: Try it with a 1950s poodle skirt. These are just about as unthinkable in virtual worlds as 50s-style corrugated stainless steel diners. Trust me, someone will build the latter.
If you think it's smart to simply hide the legs from the skirt hem upwards so they won't clip, this will come back to bite you once the avatar sits down.
By the way: Even Second Life has never managed the former, and neither has OpenSim. And the latter is hit-and-miss with more miss than hit, and it works best with the old "painted-on" system skirt.
The cherry on top would be if skirts still flowed halfway naturally, and if skirts with a looser fit swayed with the motion of the avatar. This requires not only at least a basic physics model, but also a collision system.

High heels

Again, this point is moot if avatars don't have legs. But if avatars don't have legs, they'll be ridiculed. Yes, they will.
It doesn't matter how high the heels have to be. They don't have to be 15cm spike heels. Or 30cm spike heels with 15cm platforms.
So you want a virtual business environment first and foremost. Then your female users will wish for footwear that isn't men's leather shoes. And not ballet flats or Mary Janes either. Something with at least slightly raised heels. Just like they'll wish for pencil skirts see above.
Okay, so you may manage to put high-heeled shoes on your avatar. Now, the first challenge will be to get the avatar's feet into the shoes. You know, the same feet that are firmly rigged into a flat position because that's all you need for male avatars (until someone comes and wants to cosplay Dr Frank N. Furter).
So you've reworked large parts of your avatar system to allow for other foot positions than flat Good luck. Now adjust the avatar's Z position accordingly because the feet and the shoes are clipping into the floor. Ready to pump another few thousand man-hours into something else that you didn't take into consideration when designing your avatar system
In Second Life and OpenSim, the former could only be solved in a satisfactory way by attaching different feet. Or, in the case of mesh bodies from Second Life, by giving it a whole bunch of feet in various positions and using a HUD to make the appropriate pair visible and the other ones invisible. The latter requires manual adjustment or some long forgotten trickery from almost two decades ago.

Finally...

I've read about four worlds and world systems that have tackled at least the former two points, namely by implementing a basic skeleton-based physics system that's a big upgrade in comparison to flexi prims in Second Life and OpenSim. Its big advantage is a basic collision model that makes hair and skirts (and anything else that needs it that you want to attach to your avatar) nicely flowy with little to no risk of clipping.
The thing is: Sansar was launched by Linden Lab as a kind of Second Life successor. That was at a point at which Second Life already had user-made, highly detailed fitted mesh bodies from various vendors.
High Fidelity was launched by Philip Rosedale. Also known as Philip Linden. The guy who invented Second Life in the first place and who led it for many years.
Well, and Vircadia is a High Fidelity fork, and Overte is a Vircadia fork.
This goes to show how virtual worlds are developed by people who have years upon years of experience with already existing virtual worlds and their users and creations.
And it goes to show that even reading Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (which, by the way, introduced the word "metaverse" as early as 1991) doesn't give you the knowledge that personal experience with and in virtual worlds does. For Philip Rosedale has read it, and it has inspired him to make Second Life in the first place. But it has not inspired him to add certain elements for building female avatars right off the bat.
Unfortunately, however, even being prepared for that won't necessarily save a virtual world: Both Sansar and High Fidelity are no more. But that wasn't due to their avatar systems.
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #There's a lot of talk about male-defaultism these days. You know what else is totally male-default Avatars in 3-D virtual worlds. At least if they can be modified in-world instead of being monoliths like from places like Ready Player Me.
Almost everytime an avatar system is being designed for virtual worlds, it's designed with only adult males in mind. Eventually, someone will ask the question, "Well, and how do we make female avatars" It'll probably be those who design either the avatar parts if the avatars are sufficiently modular or the complete avatars if they're monolithic. But this won't occur before the avatar system is finalised to the point at which it can't be substantially reworked anymore.
If you're lucky, female avatars get a somewhat slimmer waist. Or a pair of boobs, maybe only one that's being hinted at by a single bulge. If you're very lucky, they get both. If you're unlucky, there's only one hard-coded body shape, and all they get is more feminine clothing for the upper body, maybe even painted onto the one body shape that's available. In fact, you'll probably have as many "clothing items" for women as for men, all of which were designed by guys. All of whom are software developers with next to no sense of fashion.
Oh, and you get female-looking hairstyles, none of which are even shoulder-long. Well, except maybe for one ponytail that stands off so far that it has no chance of clipping into the body because the head motion is too limited.
Seriously, though: Even if your virtual world system is only planned for purely professional purposes, i.e. business, industrial, governmental, organisational otherwise, and extra care is taken that it will never be used by anyone in their spare time, even then this won't nearly be sufficient. If you plan to hold formal (not necessarily as in business formal) events, it'll be even less sufficient. If it's supposed to be an all-purpose virtual world system, a "metaverse for everybody" that people will use in their spare time, it'll suck completely.
I dare say that I've been using 3-D virtual worlds for longer than most of those who design them from the ground up nowadays. I've been in for five and a half years now. I've built both male and female avatars. So I know first-hand what it's like.
OpenSim's default avatar, which also used to be the default avatar in Second Life long long ago, is female. She is named Ruth. But she's based on an avatar system that's mostly geared towards male avatars, and her hairstyle is more of a mullet because this avatar system can't even grow hair over the ears, because guys don't normally wear their hair over their ears. She isn't even really pretty. She can easily be switched to her male pendant, Roth: A bit less shapely, no boobs, therefore abs and pecs, the hair is shorter, and the face changes a little.
Now, if you want to see what kinds of avatars people actually make in Second Life nowadays, just look around (content warnings: eye contact, mild female nudity) , the Flickr alternative created exclusively for Second Life users. These pictures were actually rendered in-world and not by an AI. They show actual Second Life avatars, often even daily-driver avatars, in actual Second Life environments.
Short hair Long pants Almost only on male avatars, if at all. And today's male avatars have even more chiseled abs than 22 years ago. And chiseled faces and chiseled everything.
Female avatars, on the other hand, are shapely like you wouldn't believe from a virtual world unless you've been there yourself. Big butts. Big boobs and actual boobs. Dresses. Skirts. Bikinis. Lingerie. High heels, almost never under 15cm or 6 inches, sometimes even higher with platform soles. And: long hair. And with "long hair" I mean lush long locks, not just longer than male hair.
By the way: Nothing of what you see in the images was supplied by Linden Lab. Everything that the avatars and the landscapes consist of was made by users. It has basically always been the users who drove Linden Lab to refining Second Life's avatar system, often by working around its limitations and repurposing features.
Sooner or later, users with female avatars will demand three things for them. Male-centric avatar systems will be unfit to deliver either.

Long hair

Skirts and dresses

High heels

Finally...

Chinese goddess of wealth faces jail after huge UK crypto seizure

However, his case may be adjourned because of a potential misunderstanding over his previous guilty plea, the court

Long Term ONLINE FITTED Takomo Iron Review BRUTALLY HONEST!

Alt-text must never include explanations or other additional information that is not available in the post text or the image!
Why
Because not everyone can access alt-text. Sighted people need a mouse/trackball/touchpad/trackpoint to access alt-text or a touch screen if the UI allows for that.
And in order to operate that, they need at least one working hand. But not everyone has working hands. Just like not everyone has working eyes, which is why you describe your images in the first place, right
For those who can't access alt-text, any information only available in alt-text and neither in the post text nor in the image itself is inaccessible and permanently lost. They can't open it, they can't read it. Ever.
This means: Explanations and additional information must always go into the post itself where everyone can access them!
Here are three relevant pages in my (very early WIP) wiki about image descriptions and alt-text:

# # # # # # # # # # Have you ever heard about Hubzilla

Things that Hubzilla can offer you:

semi-modular design with a core and dozens of official and third-party add-ons, so-called "apps", that are optional both at server level and at channel level
new apps can be developed and added by means of uploading them to a git repository and then adding the git repository to the server one git-based script updates the whole server including third-party apps
support for third-party themes by and by are already available
Facebook-like social networking
full-blown long-form blogging with
- over 16.7 million characters per post
- practically all text formatting options available on any good blogging platform
- an unlimited number of images embedded in the post images are stored in the built-in cloud file storage with WebDAV access
- Twitter-style quote-posts as well as forum-style quotes
- title, summary, optional categories, tag cloud
full support for threaded conversations (one post, many comments) has implemented
public and private moderated groups/forums (they're actually channels of their own)
the second-most-advanced permissions system in the whole Fediverse, second only to its own more lightweight offspring and even that only slightly works on three levels: whole channel, per contact, per post/conversation
basic reply control
federating event calendar
optional additional non-federating long-form articles
optional wiki engine with multiple wikis per channel
optional static webpages
optional planning cards
optional OpenStreetMap support
optional QR code generator
built-in CalDAV calendar server per channel (independent from the event calendar, but it can use the same UI)
optional built-in CardDAV addressbook server per channel
based on its own protocol, Zot6
optional ActivityPub connectivity which allows Hubzilla to federate with the whole Fediverse, including but not limited to Mastodon (I'm literally commenting from Hubzilla myself right now)
optional diaspora* connectivity
can subscribe to RSS and Atom feeds
channels can simultaneously exist on multiple independent servers as live, hot, real-time, bidirectional backups of each other
MIT-licensed and
written in PHP doesn't need more than a LAMP stack

Whatever a Fediverse server application announces to introduce, or whatever you wish "the Fediverse" should have, Hubzilla probably has it.
Better yet: I'm not talking about a WIP or a concept or something new and untested.
Hubzilla is from 2015. It's over ten years old now, literally older than Mastodon.
It emerged from the Red Matrix, a fork of a now-defunct fork of the Facebook alternative by Friendica's own creator, . Mike is a professional developer of almost half a century who has created three Fediverse protocols and a whole family tree of more than a dozen Fediverse server applications, four of which still exist. And Friendica is from 2010, the oldest still existing Fediverse software.
Even though its developers have changed, today's Hubzilla is the result of 15 years of development. And it's still in development: Hubzilla 10.6 was released only a few days ago.
CC:
# # # # # # # # # First of all, Lemmy would need OpenWebAuth server support because all that stuff would happen on a Lemmy server.
Mastodon would need OpenWebAuth client support because you as the Mastodon user would be the visitor, and Mastodon would basically act as a client.
Even then, you wouldn't actually log onto that Lemmy instance. In order to do that, you'd need a local account on that Lemmy instance that you could log onto, and Lemmy would have to use your Mastodon login via OpenWebAuth to recognise you and automatically log you onto your Lemmy account.
Even that wouldn't work because the Lemmy instance wouldn't have any way of knowing that your Mastodon login as a guest belongs to the same person as your local Lemmy account. You'd still only have guest permissions.
So OpenWebAuth won't fix your very problem.
And Mastodon didn't just reject an OpenWebAuth proposal. It rejected an actually coded, tested, ready-to-be-merged-into-dev pull request. Existing code that could have been built into Mastodon immediately.
# # # # # # # # # # # Well, there is OpenWebAuth magic sign-on. It works by one Fediverse server recognising your login on another Fediverse server and then granting you permissions.
However, it cannot replace a local account. If you don't have a local account on a server that has server-side OpenWebAuth support, it does not give you all the power that you'd have with a local account on that server. It only gives you guest permissions.
This also means that server-side OpenWebAuth support is completely useless on Fediverse software that doesn't have a permission system such as Mastodon or Lemmy. This is why not much more than Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte has both client-side and server-side OpenWebAuth support.
In fact, the Mastodon developers have silenty rejected an already submitted merge request that would have added client-side OpenWebAuth support. What chances are there that Mastodon will introduce server-side OpenWebAuth support, seeing as that'd be completely useless on something as deliberately simple as Mastodon
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # Have I introduced you to yet
It's still far from finished. Not even half of the currently over 40 planned pages are written. But some important ones are. It also contains , many of which I reference in my wiki.
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # Tja, da trifft ein Problem von Mastodon auf ein anderes Problem von Mastodon.
Einmal ist da das hartgecodete 500-Zeichen-Limit, das auszuhebeln von den Entwicklern immer schwerer gemacht wird. Und dann ist da Mastodons Unfhigkeit bzw. Unwillen, in den Timelines von vornherein ganze Konversationen anzuzeigen statt immer nur Stckwerk aus einzelnen Posts. Das heit, selbst wenn jemand einen langen Post notgedrungen in einen Thread zerschnippelt, ist es auf Mastodon ein Riesenaufwand, den ganzen Thread auf einmal im Zusammenhang zu sehen.
Woanders im Fediverse geht beides sehr viel besser, und zwar gleichzeitig und schon einige Jahre lnger, als es Mastodon berhaupt gibt. Ich sehe hier auf Hubzilla in meinem Stream immer komplette Konversationen (auch wenn ich Kommentare nachladen mu) bis zurck zum Startpost (oder was auch immer Mastodon als Startpost verkauft), und meine Postlnge ist nur durch die Datenbank begrenzt. Und Hubzilla gibt es so schon zehn Monate lnger als Mastodon.
Aber alle Welt klammert sich ja aus den verschiedensten Grnden, Unkenntnis inklusive, an Mastodon fest. Schlimmer noch: Mastodon wird als der Goldstandard im Fediverse angesehen mit all seinen Beschrnkungen.
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # Da sich niemand bei Mikes Werken bedient, hat einen ganz einfachen Grund: Die kennt keiner.
Es gab mal eine Umfrage: "Habt ihr schon mal von Hubzilla gehrt" Drei von vier Leuten whlten "nein". Und das war meines Wissens sogar noch in einer eher hubzillaaffinen Bubble. Das heit, die realen Verhltnisse sehen noch einmal extremer aus.
Flashback nach Anfang 2025. Kleine Fluchtbewegung von Facebook ins Fediverse. Da gab es genau drei Attitden:

Mastodon ist auch die Alternative zu Facebook. (Friendica Hr ich jetzt zum ersten Mal, was ist das)
Friendica ist wohl die Alternative zu Facebook.
Friendica soll wohl eine Alternative sein, und dann gibt's da wohl noch sowas wie Diaspora. (Ironischerweise kam das kurz vor dem Ende dreier sehr groer diaspora*-Pods, die diaspora* in seiner Gesamtgre ganz gewaltig hat einschrumpfen lassen.)

Zum einen war das also alles nur Hrensagen von Leuten, die selbst nur Mastodon und, wenn man Glck hat, noch Pixelfed kannten.
Zum anderen: Friendica, "die" Alternative zu Facebook Wo Hubzilla Wo (streams) Wo Forte
Also noch einmal: Locker 80% oder mehr aller Fediverse-Nutzer haben noch nie von Hubzilla auch nur gehrt. Wissen, was Hubzilla ist und was Hubzilla alles kann, tun noch sehr viel weniger Leute.
(streams) ist fast nur unter Hubzilla-Veteranen bekannt. Und Forte kennen beinahe nur diejenigen, die entweder auf (streams) sind oder mal auf (streams) waren. Selbst in der Hubzilla-Community drften viele noch nie von Forte gehrt haben.
Kennt ihr Solid Vom WWW-Erfinder Tim Berners-Lee Noch so ein Fall von "Hubzilla/(streams)/Forte auf Wish bestellt", der gebaut wurde von jemandem, der zu dem Zeitpunkt nicht mal wute, da es Hubzilla gibt. Wohlgemerkt, Tim Berners-Lee ist selbst im Fediverse. Und er will das knallhart durchziehen und in direkten Konkurrenzkampf gegen Mikes Werke gehen, wahrscheinlich, weil in Solid schon eine Menge Geld geflossen ist.
Genauso sieht's mit Bluesky und dem AT-Protokoll aus: entwickelt von Leuten, fr die das Fediverse zu dem Zeitpunkt kaum oder gar nicht ber Mastodon hinausging.
CC:
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #

New Study Reveals Mediterranean Diets Powerful Impact on Long-Term Brain Health

A m
-termstudy )

New Study Reveals Mediterranean Diets Powerful Impact on Long-Term Brain Health

A major new study shows the Mediterra
-termstudy )

Just because it works under your very limited and controlled lab conditions, doesn't mean it will work just as well under real-life conditions.
A few may remember the summer of 2024 when (streams) rolled out FEP-171b. It broke federation in every imaginable way because, as it turned out later, (streams) suddenly confused the many different IDs it had to juggle. Granted, the byproduct of trying to fix this was Forte, the first Fediverse server software to provide nomadic identity via nothing but ActivityPub.
Now Hubzilla rolled out FEP-e232. And there's breakage again. Not quite as badly, but in places that really hurt.
So the talk of the town in the Fediverse is Mastodon 4.5 introducing quote-posts. (Mastodon 4.5 allegedly introducing quote-posts to the Fediverse, and how that's wrong, is another story.)
Interestingly, almost at the same time, . Money quote from the announcement:

Implement FEP-e232 (object links) for quote posts

in practice usually = "quote-posts like Misskey" = linking to the original with "RE:" before the link.
Apparently, rather than what Hubzilla had been doing since 2012 when it was still Red. What Friendica has been doing since its own inception in 2010. Namely insert a dumb copy of the quoted post into the quoting post.
While (streams) and Forte have been supporting FEP-e232 under the bonnet for quite a while while still quote-posting with dumb copies, Hubzilla has decided to go all the way and replace the old-fashioned Friendica way of quote-posting entirely with the Misskey way that's all the rage in the Fediverse now.
Yes, this has its advantages. If the original is edited, then the edit (in theory) is reflected in all posts that quote-post it.
But here on Hubzilla, this switch causes trouble.
Mastodon rolled out rendering support for Misskey-style quote-posts before rolling out quote-posts themselves, so those Mastodon servers that can't render these quote-posts are hopelessly outdated.
Hubzilla, on the other hand, rolled out Misskey-style quote-posts with version 10.6 while 10.4 and older can't even render Misskey-style quote-posts, not even when they come straight from a *key. In this regard, it would have been smarter to first make sure that Hubzilla renders this kind of quote-posts, then wait for a few minor releases and then change the way Hubzilla quote-posts.
You may see this as just a minor nuisance. But on top of that, it breaks Hubzilla's forums.
See, Hubzilla's forums are based on quote-posts. You start a new thread by DM'ing to a forum, and the forum will automatically share (quote-post) your start post to all forum members. If it's a private, limited-access forum, only the forum members are permitted to see the post with your quoted post in it.
I guess it's kind of obvious that this can only work by quote-posting a dumb copy of the start post unless a few more stops are being pulled.
Now, however, forums on Hubzilla 10.6 quote-post start posts by linking to the original. Remember that the original is a DM to the forum. As in only the forum is permitted to see it. You can click the link to the original all you want. But unless you run the forum, Hubzilla will not let you see it, not even with all the OpenWebAuth magic sign-on that you have on yourself as a Hubzilla user. In fact, I'd be very worried if I could see it now.
If there was even only one active forum on one of the two public hubs that run development versions, this critical bug would have popped up earlier and been fixed before it would have hit a release. But apparently, nobody is crazy enough to run a forum on a dev-grade hub, not to mention how few active Hubzilla forums there are in the first place. Seriously, I wonder if there's any feedback coming from the two dev hubs because I never see any hit the Support Forum. Does it all go straight to Framagit
Good thing hubzilla.org is still running Hubzilla 10.4. hubzilla.org is not only the official Hubzilla website, it's actually a Hubzilla hub itself. And hubzilla.org is home of the Hubzilla Support Forum. It would have been a disaster, had this forum been broken, too.
I guess there's a hotfix due now, even if it means reverting FEP-e232 support (although changing the permissions of a DM to a forum channel would do the trick, and looking at how (streams) and Forte do it would be even smarter). And I hope it'll come before hubzilla.org is upgraded to 10.6.
By the way, while it's at it, maybe Hubzilla could also permanently set that GoToSocial/Mastodon flag that allows being quote-posted. I mean, if you come to a place that has been able to quote-post for a whopping 13 years, that can quote-post any public content from anywhere in the Fediverse with zero resistance, and that has no control over whether or not your stuff can be quote-posted (other than not posting in public), it's safe to assume that you're okay with your stuff being quote-posted anyway.
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # However, alt-texts and the content warning field aren't a Fediverse thing. They're a Mastodon thing.
Yes, that's actually a big difference. And I can say this because, for one, I've been in the Fediverse since before there was Mastodon, and besides, I'm on something that not only isn't Mastodon, it's very much not Mastodon.
Outside of Mastodon and the usual Mastodon satellites like Pixelfed, alt-texts are only catching up very slowly. Even then, most people don't do more than the required minimum while some Mastodon users go out of their way and write very detailed descriptions.
Especially on Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte, a software family that started as early as 2010, alt-texts are largely seen as just another Mastodon fad in the same vein as cutting long posts up into threads. And the communities on these four are quite opposed to Mastodon fads and, in fact, to everything Mastodon-related.
You will never see anyone on any of these ostracise or sanction or even block someone who doesn't add alt-texts to images.
The difference in behaviour when it comes to content warnings is even more extreme.
On Mastodon, it's part of the culture and an only partially written rule to add content warnings to the content warning field whenever you post sensitive content. It's "only partially written" because not all servers have made it a steadfast rule, and because it is not being enforced beyond the boundaries of servers. Still, the Mastodon community is trying hard to force that rule upon the whole Fediverse.
What next to nobody on Mastodon knows: The CW field was not invented by Gargron, and especially, it was not invented from scratch.
The CW field is actually a repurposed summary field from StatusNet from 2008. It was added to Mastodon by a user in 2017. And Mastodon started as an alternative frontend for the StatusNet successor GNU social on which that field still is a summary field.
On Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte (as well as all dedicated blogging server applications in the Fediverse like WriteFreely, Plume, Ghost and WordPress), the summary field still is a summary field. And that makes a whole lot of sense to have if you have an eight-digit "character limit" (Friendica, Hubzilla: over 16.7 million (streams), Forte: over 24 million).
Both technologically and culturally, these four have a different way of handling content warnings, namely by having them automatically generated for you as a reader and only for you, i.e. without forcing the same CW upon everyone else.
Let's say you don't want to read about US politics. On Mastodon, you "shout into the ether", asking everyone to add "USpol" as a CW. And then you have to deal with those who want the CW field to be limited to what it's actually for, namely porn and gore.
On these four, you open your NSFW. You add "uspol" to the filter list. Done. From then on, all posts that have "uspol" (case-insensitive and even as a substring) anywhere in them will be hidden by a button that reads, "uspol". But they'll only be hidden for you individually.
Friendica has had this technology since its inception in 2010, five and a half years before Mastodon's launch. Hubzilla has inherited it from Friendica, and Hubzilla predates Mastodon by ten months (and at its core by almost four years). (streams) has inherited it from Hubzilla, Forte has inherited it from (streams).
On all four, it's part of their culture. And it's considered good manners to add something to your posts and comments that has these content warnings generated.
Ironically, Mastodon itself has introduced this very principle with version 4.0 in October, 2022, just before the first huge Twitter migration wave. But Mastodon's entire culture, which it tries so hard to force upon the whole Fediverse (also because Mastodon users cannot see whether a post is from Mastodon or Akkoma or Misskey or Friendica or Hubzilla, so they tend to assume it's all Mastodon), is based on version 3.x as of mid-2022.
CC:
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # Genau das ist der springende Punkt: Das, was Bonfire macht, gibt's seit etwas ber 10 Jahren in sehr viel besser in Form von Hubzilla. Nicht nur in sehr viel besser, sondern auch in noch mchtiger, in noch flexibler und in "luft seit einem Jahrzehnt bombenstabil mit ber 15 Jahren Entwicklungshistorie" statt in "fngt gerade erst an und hat noch Schwierigkeiten".
Was Bonfire macht (oder zu machen versucht), war im wesentlichen schon 2015 verfgbar, wenn man wollte. Das in sehr viel stabiler und noch mehr Zeugs oben drauf. In einer Zeit, als es noch nicht mal Mastodon gab.
Ich, der ich Hubzilla schon bald dreimal so lange kenne wie die meisten Leute Mastodon, der ich Hubzilla auch featuremig ziemlich ausreize, frage mich wie einige andere in dieser Konversation: Was genau ist jetzt das Killerfeature, was ist der Unique Selling Point, was ist das Ding, das Bonfire hat, das Hubzilla nicht hat, das die Leute aber unbedingt haben mssen
Also, mal von besserer Propaganda abgesehen Wobei die aber auch nur bei denen zieht, die kaum mehr als Mastodon kennen.
# # # # # # # # # # # # A few points maybe, although I didn't see them occur often.
Stay objective and neutral. Avoid assuming people's gender. Don't put any information (e.g. about the location) into the alt-text that is neither mentioned in the post nor clearly recognisable in the image itself even with little to no prior knowledge. Write acronyms with blank spaces between the characters to always make screen readers spell them if they aren't to be read like a word. And don't use the quotation marks on your keyboard in alt-text.
As for the length and detail level, while it's probably perfect for websites and blogs, I guess some people on Mastodon would prefer you to write your alt-texts much longer and with many more details. But Bluesky doesn't support overly long alt-text, and Mastodon will not succeed in forcing its culture, including long and detailed alt-text, upon the ATmosphere.
While I'm already commenting: It's interesting to see two Mastodon users announce to add alt-texts to their entire image backlog within only a few days. It really makes me wonder if this is a hard requirement as per Mastodon's culture, no matter how far back you'd have to go.
I'm not on Mastodon myself, so one could argue that I'm not bound to Mastodon's culture. However, my posts and comments do generally end up on Mastodon, so one could argue that this makes fully abiding by Mastodon's culture and unwritten rules an absolute necessity.
My last undescribed image is from over three years ago. However, if I were to go back and describe my undescribed images in my current image description style, this would cause a sharp decrease in image description quality from the newest image that got a new description to the oldest image that still has its original description. Theoretically, I'd have to go through my entire backlog of image posts and re-describe all my images.
Why that'd be a problem Because it probably takes me longer to describe one image than it will have taken you to describe all your images once you're done. That's why I haven't posted a new original image in well over a year: Describing it would require a whole lot of time and effort.
Going back and writing new image descriptions for all my images would require even much more time and effort.
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # Bonfire ist Hubzilla bei Wish bestellt.
Entweder ist Bonfire der schlechte Versuch, das Hubzilla-Rad neu zu erfinden, und zwar von Leuten, die gar nicht wuten, da so etwas schon existiert, und zwar in gut. Guck dir die ganzen Leute an, die ber Bonfire jubeln. Soweit ich das gesehen habe, sind das alles nur Mastodon-Nutzer. Und mindestens 75% aller Mastodon-Nutzer haben von Hubzillas Existenz noch nie gehrt, geschweige denn davon, was Hubzilla kann.
Oder Bonfire ist der schlechte Versuch, in direkte Konkurrenz zu Friendica, Hubzilla und den Rest der Familie zu gehen, mit viel Blabla statt vernnftig funktionierender Software und mit den vielen Mastodon-Nutzern als Zielgruppe, die noch nie von Hubzilla gehrt haben und auch Friendica nicht aus der Nhe kennen.
Praktisch alles, was Bonfire vollmundig verspricht und nach s Erfahrungen immer noch nicht geliefert hat, hat Hubzilla schon vor gut zehn Jahren tatschlich geliefert. Und wenn nicht vor gut zehn Jahren, dann im Laufe dieser zehn Jahre.
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # #

I'd use: "A cat sitting on a chair looking cute" as an intro to my alt text some people just want the summary and be done but then I'd describe the type of cat, the chair, any other context I thought was useful to build a picture, and I'd try and explain what is was that was so cute in the first place.

I'd go even further than that. But then again, I only post two kinds of pictures: memes based on established templates and renderings from super-obscure 3-D virtual worlds. The cat picture would most likely be the latter and therefore justify an extremely detailed description, the kind of which you probably don't even think is possible in the Fediverse. Plus a boiled down description that's short enough to fit into the alt-text.
Most people in the Fediverse call a 1,000-character description long. I call a 1,400-character description short.
But I simply don't want people to have to ask for explanations or details. Ever. And I guess many Mastodon users don't want to have to ask either they want all information they need delivered with the image post right away.

what does "rose red" mean to somebody who's never seen it

That's why I sometimes use more characters to describe one colour than many other people use to describe an entire image.

and do I know I need to make the effort to use more touch-sensory words.

If I were to include this as well, my descriptions would grow even longer, and it'd take me even more time to describe one image.
Right now, one afternoon isn't nearly enough for one image. I've once taken two full days to research for and write the description for one measly image. The result was a long image description that takes some three hours to read.

It's a useful discipline and learning curve to explore but it's ironic that it's generally learning in the dark: the two default Fedi responses to pictures are vilification for no alt text or silence if there is. On the rare occasions I've had feedback it's been very much appreciated.

Exactly my problem.
I can invest hours or days into one image post. But I don't get any reaction, much less feedback. No thumb up (fave), no repeat (boost), especially no feedback. As if nobody has even seen the post.
Is it because my reach is so abysmally small in spite of probably over 700 users following me Just because I'm on something else than Mastodon
Is it because I always post when none of them is about to check their timelines, so they'll never notice I've posted something in the first place
Is it because people aren't interested in virtual world images
Is it because the summary scares them away with the included content warning about a post that's way longer than 50 or 100 standard Mastodon toots (Sorry, but that long description had to go somewhere.)
Then again, I rarely give feedback myself. I think I'll first have to complete so I have something to back my feedback with. But that'd also mean that I'd end up roasting a lot of alt-texts that had a lot of time and spoons poured into them by criticising the breaking of rules of which hardly anyone but me even knows they exist.
CC:
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # That's why I'm constantly trying to up my own image-description game, even though what I've done two years ago already may be considered complete and utter overkill by some.
That's why I've been describing all my original images twice for more than two years now. One description is (comparably) short and goes into the alt-text. One description is highly detailed and contains all necessary explanations and transcripts of all text within the borders of the image this one goes into the post text.
That's why it takes me more and more time and energy to describe one image. Not time as in two minutes. It can just as well be time as in two days. And I'm not kidding. My personal record is two days for over 60,000 characters of long image description for one image plus another morning for a 1,400-character short description for the alt-text.
That's why I've declared all descriptions of all images I've ever posted in the Fediverse various degrees of outdated, no matter the effort I've put into them. Some are actually embarrassingly outdated.
That's why I've always declared all my image descriptions outdated whenever I've learned something new about image descriptions.
That's why I'm working on with over 40 pages planned, backed by as well as .
That's why I'm constantly trying to find a way to discuss image descriptions and alt-text with Mastodon users who are really into that topic, who live and breathe Mastodon's culture, but who still can understand that there are Fediverse users outside of Mastodon with practically no character limit who can put tens of thousands of characters of image description into one post (in addition to another shorter image description in the alt-text). I still have a number of unanswered questions which I have to cover by .
Unfortunately, .
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # #So I've picked up an image description project again that I've started about a year ago. I wanted to publish a series of avatar portrait pictures, each with three or four portraits of my OpenSim avatar on them, always in the same pose, always in front of a neutral background that won't take me days to describe, but in slightly different outfits.
The current status:
As for the short description that shall go into the alt-text, a first experimental draft was written for a picture with three portraits. But it exceeds 1,500 characters, and I don't know what to cut from it. In fact, I'll probably have to add even more characters to explain some fashion jargon.
For the set of long descriptions that shall go into the post text itself, the preamble with explanations and common descriptions was written. But I'll have to re-write it partially. It's ripe with jargon, and jargon must be avoided in image descriptions. If that isn't possible, jargon must be explained all the way down to the very basics until absolutely everyone understands it with no prior knowledge.
The preamble starts with a very short introduction that says what the image roughly shows. It is followed by a description of the visual style, again followed by an explanation what OpenSim is which includes an explanation what Second Life is. I'm currently rewriting this part I guess it'll end up over 2,500 characters long.
It is followed by a bit over 600 characters that describe and explain the background, including that the neutral, bright white background makes it impossible to discern where exactly the images were made.
The next part is the biggest part of the preamble. It explains how avatars are built in Second Life and OpenSim. It's an info dump with currently almost 10,000 characters that goes all the way down to the basic building blocks in Second Life and OpenSim, and that's likely to grow even longer. This is extremely complex niche knowledge, so I have a whole lot to explain, especially if I want to avoid using unexplained jargon. But it's critical for understanding the following sections, including the visual descriptions. Also, if my readers had to ask me things or look stuff up themselves in order to understand the post, that wouldn't really be accessible.
This part is followed by a general visual description of my avatar, i.e. what all portraits within one post have in common. It includes things from all clothing to the camera position. Right now, it is over 5,000 characters long. It may grow even longer if the terms for certain parts of clothes or shoes count as jargon and need to be explained (shank buttons, Berlebeck-style shank buttons in particular, or the various parts of a men's leather shoe).
One big problem is caused by the shoes. The kind of shoes my avatar is wearing in the images I've started with probably don't exist in real life, so I have to give a fully detailed description of all details, even though (or actually because) these details are actually hardly visible in the images. Right now, the description of the shoes is one paragraph with almost 2,000 characters. Since it contains jargon, it will probably grow even longer, but I'll have to split it into multiple paragraphs.
There are portraits in which my avatar is wearing full brogue shoes. I'm still not sure whether it's common knowledge among blind and visually-impaired people what full brogue shoes are, and what they generally look like.
Also, the first image with three portraits has its individual description. Right now, this part alone has almost 2,500 characters, and it's likely to grow even longer if I have more things to explain. All in all, I plan to have three or four images in each post. I actually have dozens of images of this kind, but I can't shove them all into one post. For one, I don't want too different outfits in one post. Besides, Mastodon can't show more than four images, no matter how many I put into one post, so nobody on Mastodon will even know that there are more than four images. Alternatively, I could write a non-federating article instead of a post and then send a post with a link to the article. But nobody on Mastodon will ever read that.
The other individual descriptions are still unwritten, but they may be shorter since they can rely on not only the preamble, but also the first description.
All in all, I still don't know when I'll be done with describing the images for one post, much less all of them. But what I know is that when I'm done, all image descriptions combined will be as long as a novel.
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #So I've picked up an image description project again that I've started about a year ago. I wanted to publish a series of avatar portrait pictures, each with three or four portraits of my OpenSim avatar on them, always in the same pose, always in front of a neutral background that won't take me days to describe, but in slightly different outfits.
The current status:
As for the short description that shall go into the alt-text, a first experimental draft was written for a picture with three portraits. But it exceeds 1,500 characters, and I don't know what to cut from it. In fact, I'll probably have to add even more characters to explain some fashion jargon.
For the set of long descriptions that shall go into the post text itself, the preamble with explanations and common descriptions was written. But I'll have to re-write it partially. It's ripe with jargon, and jargon must be avoided in image descriptions. If that isn't possible, jargon must be explained all the way down to the very basics until absolutely everyone understands it with no prior knowledge.
The preamble starts with a very short introduction that says what the image roughly shows. It is followed by a description of the visual style, again followed by an explanation what OpenSim is which includes an explanation what Second Life is. I'm currently rewriting this part I guess it'll end up over 2,500 characters long.
It is followed by a bit over 600 characters that describe and explain the background, including that the neutral, bright white background makes it impossible to discern where exactly the images were made.
The next part is the biggest part of the preamble. It explains how avatars are built in Second Life and OpenSim. It's an info dump with currently almost 10,000 characters that goes all the way down to the basic building blocks in Second Life and OpenSim, and that's likely to grow even longer. This is extremely complex niche knowledge, so I have a whole lot to explain, especially if I want to avoid using unexplained jargon. But it's critical for understanding the following sections, including the visual descriptions. Also, if my readers had to ask me things or look stuff up themselves in order to understand the post, that wouldn't really be accessible.
This part is followed by a general visual description of my avatar, i.e. what all portraits within one post have in common. It includes things from all clothing to the camera position. Right now, it is over 5,000 characters long. It may grow even longer if the terms for certain parts of clothes or shoes count as jargon and need to be explained (shank buttons, Berlebeck-style shank buttons in particular, or the various parts of a men's leather shoe).
One big problem is caused by the shoes. The kind of shoes my avatar is wearing in the images I've started with probably don't exist in real life, so I have to give a fully detailed description of all details, even though (or actually because) these details are actually hardly visible in the images. Right now, the description of the shoes is one paragraph with almost 2,000 characters. Since it contains jargon, it will probably grow even longer, but I'll have to split it into multiple paragraphs.
There are portraits in which my avatar is wearing full brogue shoes. I'm still not sure whether it's common knowledge among blind and visually-impaired people what full brogue shoes are, and what they generally look like.
Also, the first image with three portraits has its individual description. Right now, this part alone has almost 2,500 characters, and it's likely to grow even longer if I have more things to explain. All in all, I plan to have three or four images in each post. I actually have dozens of images of this kind, but I can't shove them all into one post. For one, I don't want too different outfits in one post. Besides, Mastodon can't show more than four images, no matter how many I put into one post, so nobody on Mastodon will even know that there are more than four images. Alternatively, I could write a non-federating article instead of a post and then send a post with a link to the article. But nobody on Mastodon will ever read that.
The other individual descriptions are still unwritten, but they may be shorter since they can rely on not only the preamble, but also the first description.
All in all, I still don't know when I'll be done with describing the images for one post, much less all of them. But what I know is that when I'm done, all image descriptions combined will be as long as a novel.
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # That's quite a bit simplified. For one, four server applications and one protocol were lumped together. Besides, Zap is dead, and Forte isn't even mentioned.
So here's an attempt at telling the whole story (server applications are in bold type, protocols are in bold type and italics):
tldr:
2010:

DFRN
Mistpark/Friendika/Friendica
(DFRN)

2011:

Zot
Free-Friendika
(DFRN)
(forked from Friendika)
several other Friendika forks
(DFRN)
(forked from Friendika)
(discontinued 2011)
Red/Red Matrix
(DFRN, from 2012 Zot)
(forked from Free-Friendika)
(rebuilt into Hubzilla 2015)

2015:

Hubzilla
(Zot, later Zot6)
(rebuilt from the Red Matrix)

2018:

Zot6

Osada
(Zot6)
(forked from Hubzilla)
(discontinued in 2018)
Zap
(Zot6)
(forked most likely from Osada, maybe from Hubzilla)
(discontinued in 2022)
Osada
(Zot6)
(forked from Zap)
(discontinued in 2019)

2020:

Zot8

Redmatrix 2020
(Zot8)
(forked from either Zap or Mistpark 2020 or (the third) Osada)
(discontinued in 2022)
Mistpark 2020 a.k.a. Misty
(Zot8)
(forked from either Zap or Redmatrix 2020 or (the third) Osada)
(discontinued in 2022)
Osada
(Zot8)
(forked from either Zap or Redmatrix 2020 or Mistpark 2020)
(discontinued in 2022)

2022:

Nomad
(originally Zot11)
Roadhouse
(Nomad)
(forked from either Redmatrix 2020 or Mistpark 2020 or (the third) Osada)
(discontinued in 2022)
(streams)
(Nomad)
(forked from Roadhouse)

2024:
Forte
(ActivityPub)
(forked from (streams))/list
So as far as Fediverse server applications go, he created Friendica, Free-Friendika, a few more Friendika forks, the Red Matrix, Hubzilla, three Osadas, Zap, Redmatrix 2020, Mistpark 2020, Roadhouse, (streams) and Forte. Depending on how you want to count them, that's at least 13 or 14 server applications. Four of these are still being maintained (Friendica by a new team, Hubzilla by another new team, (streams) and Forte by himself).
The long version:
In 2010, he created

the DFRN protocol
Mistpark (renamed first into Friendika later in 2010 and then into Friendica in 2011)

In 2011, he made several forks of Friendika. The reason was licensing: Friendika was getting quite some attention. As it was under the MIT license, chances were that it was tempting to fork it and turn the fork into a commercial, proprietary, closed-source monolith or something. On the other hand, the GPL in any shape or form would have hindered further development.
So Mike made a number of forks and relicensed all but one: Free-Friendika kept the MIT license and became the main development platform for Friendika. Friendika itself was relicensed under the AGPLv3.
Shortly afterwards, Mike discontinued all forks except Free-Friendika.
The same year, Mike needed something to keep people from losing everything whenever their Friendika home node was shut down. So he invented nomadic identity and created the Zot protocol.
Also the same year, Mike forked Free-Friendika into Red (spanish la red = the network). It would be renamed Red Matrix in late 2012 because "Red" is hard to Google.
In 2012, Mike rewrote Red almost completely. The whole backend was rebuilt against Zot.
However, the Red Matrix didn't take off. Most Friendica users were hosting their own private nodes. Nomadic identity made no sense for them. Besides, it seemed like many Friendica users didn't understand nomadic identity anyway, so they saw no advantage in the Red Matrix over Friendica, seeing as the features were almost identical otherwise. The Red Matrix had to be made more popular for hosting public servers.
So in 2015, the Red Matrix was rebuilt and greatly expanded into Hubzilla.
In 2018, Mike wanted to develop the Zot protocol further into Zot6. But this would have meant compatibility-breaking changes, also because what he wanted to do with nomadic identity over Zot6 was likely to not work with non-nomadic protocols anymore. So he couldn't do that on Hubzilla.
Instead, he made two new forks:

first Osada, forked from Hubzilla, which was the original Zot6 development platform and then evolved into a non-nomadic "gateway" between Zot6 and everything else
then Zap, forked most likely from Osada or maybe from Hubzilla, which got the whole Zot6 feature set, including nomadic identity, but which lost support for any and all non-nomadic protocols

A bit later, Zot6 became compatible enough with non-nomadic protocols. Forwarding content from Zap via Osada to the rest of the Fediverse was clunky anyway, forwarding content from the rest of the Fediverse via Osada to Zap even more so. So Osada was discontinued.
Instead, a new Osada was forked from Zap and got ActivityPub support. This and the branding were the only differences between Osada and Zap.
In 2019, when both Osada and Zap had become stable, Zap got ActivityPub support itself. The only difference between the two was now that Osada servers had ActivityPub turned on by default, and Zap servers had it turned off by default. It simply didn't make much sense to keep both alive, so Osada was discontinued again.
I think it was also in 2019 that Hubzilla was upgraded to Zot6.
In 2020, Mike made three more forks to develop Zot8, at least one of which was forked from Zap, and those that weren't were forked from one another: Redmatrix 2020, Mistpark 2020 a.k.a. Misty and Osada.
There was a rumour that Zap was the stable one, Misty was a bit more up-to-date, but potentially less stable, Osada was experimental with ActivityPub support on by default, and Redmatrix 2020 was experimental with ActivityPub support off by default. In fact, however, Misty, Osada and Redmatrix 2020 were absolutely identical in all but branding. Mike kept four server applications around to mess with brand fetishists.
In 2022, Mike forked one of the three into Roadhouse to develop Zot11. But Zot11 was no longer compatible with Zot6 as implemented on Hubzilla and Zap, so he declared it a new protocol named Nomad. Roadhouse got additional support for Zot6.
Now Mike had five server applications, still in order to mess with brand fetishists.
Later the same year, Mike forked Roadhouse into something intentionally nameless and brandless. Again, this was done to troll brand fetishists, this time also to facilitate forking and make people think up their own individual names for the fork rather than keeping the existing one. However, the code repository absolutely required a name, so Mike called it streams.
The community needed something to name this nameless thing by, so they took the name of the repository and wrapped it in parentheses to make sure that this is not actually the name. Ever since, it is colloquially being called (streams). By the way, (streams) is running on what would be Zot12 if it wasn't Nomad now.
On New Year's Eve 2022, Mike discontinued Zap, Redmatrix 2020, Misty, Osada and Roadhouse. (streams) was stable enough, and the other five could be upgraded not only to each other by rebasing the server code, but also to (streams). He asked all admins of Zap, Redmatrix 2020, Misty, Osada and Roadhouse servers to upgrade to (streams).
In 2024, (streams) got bogged down by some identity confusion after the stable release branch introduced decentralised IDs as per FEP-ef61, a part of the development of nomadic identity via ActivityPub. Partially in order to be able to sort this out, partially because the time seemed to have come for this to actually work, Mike forked the streams repository into Forte and removed all support for any protocols other than ActivityPub while still keeping it nomadic. And so Forte became the very first Fediverse server application that establishes nomadic identity via ActivityPub.
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # It should.
But if you're looking for a Friendica node, you're completely wrong there. hub.netzgemeinde.eu is not a Friendica node, it's a Hubzilla hub. Something quite different.
In case you're among the many who don't know : It's similar to Friendica at first glance, but it's actually a whole lot different. It's much more powerful than Friendica, but it's also much more different from Mastodon than Friendica. It has an even steeper learning curve, and getting started is an even bigger effort because you have to do more after making an account before you can get going.
You have to get used to your identity not being tied to your account/login, but containerised in a so-called "channel". You have to deal with a very powerful and very fine-grained permissions system. You have to turn on ActivityPub support yourself because it's off by default. You have to deal with something that generally does not cosy up to Mastodon. And you won't be able to use it with a dedicated mobile app because there is no such thing for Hubzilla, and Hubzilla does not and most likely will never have the Mastodon client API implemented.
If you need a direct comparison between Mastodon, Friendica and Hubzilla: that also cover (streams) (a fork of a fork of three forks of a fork (of a fork) of Hubzilla by Friendica's and Hubzilla's creator) and Forte (a fork of (streams) by still the same creator).
# # # # # # # # # # # # #

C gi tn Thng cc kh tr n h ngi dng v sau hn 10 nm ch i, cui cng nhn c ci kt cc xc ng m chnh c cng khng ng ti.
Cu chuyn v lng nhn i v s hy sinh thm lng ca Thng chm n tri tim ca v s ngi.

nhn i ni ca tnh ngi 10 nm

Nia Long

Wohlgemerkt, der Hintergrund ist nicht Bildanalyse oder Bildinterpretation.
Der Hintergrund ist vielmehr Barrierefreiheit, wie sie auf Mastodon gefordert wird. Ich bin selbst nicht auf Mastodon, wie du sicherlich schon erkannt haben drftest. Aber wenn meine Bildposts nach Mastodon kommen, und das tun sie, dann mssen sie schon deshalb barrierefrei sein, weil mich das ansonsten noch mehr Reichweite kosten wrde als sowieso schon.
Nun bin ich allerdings niemand, der einfach nur das absolut ntige Minimum anstrebt. Statt dessen habe ich mich eingehend mit dem Thema Bildbeschreibungen und Alt-Text befat. Es gibt dazu ja sehr viele Publikationen online etliche in meinem im Aufbau befindlichen Wiki zum Thema auf meinem Hubzilla-Kanal.
Allerdings gehen die nicht auf die tatschlichen Verhltnisse im Fediverse ein, weder auf Mastodons ganz spezielle Kultur, die es versucht, dem ganzen brigen Fediverse aufzuzwingen, noch auf die besonderen Wnsche zumindest einiger Mastodon-Nutzer noch auf die technischen Mglichkeiten im Fediverse auerhalb von Mastodon, z. B. Posts quasi ohne Zeichenlimit.
So mute ich zustzlich wachsamen Auges beobachten, was insbesondere auf Mastodon passiert in puncto Alt-Texte und Bildbeschreibungen. Ich wrde gern im greren Rahmen mit mglichst vielen Angehrigen verschiedener Nutzergruppen gleichzeitig ber das Thema diskutieren. Aber alle Personen, mit denen darber zu diskutieren sinnvoll wren, sind nur auf Mastodon. Mastodon ist technisch fr diese Art von Diskussion vllig ungeeignet. Und im Fediverse auerhalb von Mastodon, wo es die technischen Voraussetzungen fr solche Diskussionen gbe (Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams), Forte, Lemmy, Mbin, PieFed, NodeBB etc.), ist das Thema praktisch unbekannt.
Selbst wenn ich einfach so "in den ther" rufe, wie es auf Mastodon blich ist, weil es da gar nicht anders geht, kommt nichts dabei heraus. Als Nicht-Mastodon-Nutzer habe ich kurioserweise mit ca. ber 700 Folgeverbindungen weitaus weniger Reichweite als so manch ein Mastodon-Nutzer mit 300 Folgenden. Abstimmungen bringen auch nichts hufig stimmen bei mir weniger Leute ab, als ich Optionen angegeben habe.
Also mu ich beim Beschreiben meiner Bilder von sechs Annahmen ausgehen, die ich schon dargelegt habe:

Mein Publikum besteht nicht nur aus denen, die mir folgen, sondern das sind alle, die theoretisch meine Posts sehen knnen.
Wenn ich erwhne, da es auf einem meiner Bilder etwas gibt, dann mu ich auch beschreiben, wie es aussieht.
Bildbeschreibungen mssen sofort alle Informationen liefern, die vielleicht irgendjemand da drauen brauchen knnte. Nach einem Detail in einem Bild oder einer Erklrung fr ein Bild zu fragen, ist genauso schlimm, wie berhaupt erst nach einem Alt-Text zu fragen.
Irgendjemand da drauen ist mglicherweise auch an kleinsten Details auf meinen Bildern interessiert. Und der- oder diejenige ist mglicherweise blind oder sehbehindert.
Alles, was es an Text innerhalb der Grenzen eines Bildes gibt, mu immer 100% wortwrtlich transkribiert werden. Auch wenn der Text unlesbar ist oder so klein ist, da er unsichtbar ist. Wenn ich wei, was da geschrieben steht, dann mu ich es transkribieren.
Alle Bilder brauchen einen akkuraten und hinreichend detaillierten tatschlichen Alt-Text. Auch wenn ich ein Bild in 60.000 Zeichen im Post selbst beschreibe, kann ich dafr sanktioniert werden, da das Bild selbst keinen akkuraten und hinreichend detaillierten Alt-Text hat. Also brauche ich den zustzlich. Ich mu meine eigenen Bilder jeweils zweimal beschreiben.

Im brigen kann ein LLM nicht annhernd das, was ich tue. Und das wei ich aus eigener praktischer Erfahrung: Ich habe zwei mal LLaVA damit beauftragt, ein Bild zu beschreiben, das ich schon beschrieben habe.
Das fngt schon damit an, da keine KI auf dem Bild selbst Details sehen kann, die ich sehen kann, wenn ich vor Ort bin. Die KI wrde ja das Bild beschreiben, indem sie sich das Bild von diesem Ort ansieht. Ich beschreibe meine Bilder, indem ich mir den Ort selbst vor Ort ansehe, also eben gerade nicht das Bild mit seiner stark reduzierten Auflsung. Eine KI kann das nicht.
Dann gehrt zum akkuraten Beschreiben und vor allem Erklren dieser Bilder extrem obskures Nischenwissen. Keine KI knnte bei der visuellen Analyse eines meiner Bilder erkennen und erklren, was das fr ein Ort ist, wie die Sim heit, in welchem Grid sie sich befindet, da das Ganze auf OpenSim basiert usw. usf. Schon gar nicht knnen das alle KIs. Diese Informationen sind ganz einfach zu obskur, und sie verndern sich auch schnell.
Ein extremer Fall ist wahrscheinlich die Beschreibung in : Die Sim war zu dem Zeitpunkt erst wenige Tage oder vielleicht ein paar Wochen alt. Ich habe innerhalb der Bildbeschreibung eine sehr detaillierte Beschreibung eines Bildes auf diesem Bild, das nur wenige hundert Pixel gro ist. Ich habe die Sim nicht nur korrekt identifiziert, sondern auch den populrkulturellen Bogen von dieser Sim ber Edgar Wallace bis hin zum Frhstyxradio auf ffn und daraus abgeleiteten Kinofilmen geschlagen. Das Objekt zur rechten Seite hin habe ich alleine in etwa 1.000 Zeichen beschrieben und in noch einmal 4.000 Zeichen eingehend erlutert.
Dasselbe Bild habe ich und anschlieend die Beschreibung von LLaVA eingehend analysiert. Sie ist weit von meiner Beschreibung entfernt und davon, akkurat und detailliert zu sein. Dieses besagte Objekt, dem ich ber 5.000 Zeichen gewidmet habe, hat LLaVA gnzlich ignoriert.
Mir kann niemand erzhlen, ein anderes LLM knnte es wesentlich besser oder sogar noch besser, noch detaillierter, noch informativer, noch kompetenter und noch akkurater als ich.
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# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # Da kannst du lange scrollen, also noch weitaus lnger. Mein letzter Bildpost aus virtuellen Welten ist zum einen schon mehr als ein Jahr her, also von Juli 2024.
Zum anderen poste ich keine Bilder mehr hier auf diesem Hubzilla-Kanal. Das liegt daran, da beinahe alle meine Bilder irgendeinen Trigger enthalten, im allgemeinen Augenkontakt. Hubzilla kann Mastodon aber nicht dazu bringen, Bilder auszublenden. (streams) kann das, also habe ich im Juli 2024 beschlossen, zum Posten von Bildern zwei (streams)-Kanle einzurichten.
Seitdem habe ich einen einzigen Post mit In-World-Bildern abgesetzt und eine Handvoll Memes ber das Fediverse. Dieses Kalenderjahr habe ich nur einen einzigen neuen Bildpost verschickt, einen Memepost ber OpenSim, der auf einem Standard-Template basiert.
Hier ist also besagter letzter Bildpost von Juli 2024:

Sollte dieser Link nicht gehen, weil Mastodon mit DIDs nach FEP-ef61 nicht klarkommt:

Achtung: Du wirst erst die Zusammenfassung des Posts ffnen mssen, um den Post zu sehen. Dann wirst du den Spoiler ffnen mssen, um die Bilder zu sehen. Jedes Bild hat fr sich einen Alt-Text, und direkt darunter (wenn du den Post an der Quelle siehst) befinden sich die langen Bildbeschreibungen mit zusammen ber 20.000 Zeichen, bestehend aus einer gemeinsamen Prambel und zwei individuellen Beschreibungen.
Mein letzter Bildpost auf diesem Hubzilla-Kanal war im Mai 2024, und er drfte die lngste Beschreibung eines einzelnen Bildes im ganzen Fediverse enthalten:

Hier hast du nur die Zusammenfassung zu ffnen. Unter dem eigentlichen Post-Text kommt das einzelne Bild mit genau 1.500 Zeichen an Alt-Text, davon etwas mehr als 1.400 an Bildbeschreibung. Darunter kommt die lange Bildbeschreibung mit ber 60.000 Zeichen. Allerdings ist diese Bildbeschreibung schon etwas mehr veraltet ich habe inzwischen einiges dazugelernt, und heutzutage wre die Beschreibung noch ein ganzes Stck lnger.
Jedenfalls habe ich seit Juli 2024 nur noch Memes gepostet falls du sehen willst, wie ich a) die Bilder im Alt-Text beschreibe und b) die Posts nebst Bild im Post selbst erklre, frag einfach. Bis auf den einen Post von diesem Jahr sind meine neueren Meme-Posts allesamt ber das Fediverse, und dafr habe ich einen separaten (streams)-Kanal.
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# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # Zum einen ist mein Eindruck von Mastodon (von auen) anders.
Klar gibt's die die sagen: "Mach einfach, pat schon." Aber einige sind es von Mastodon so gewohnt, komplett verhtschelt zu werden, da sie sehr hohe Ansprche stellen. Mein Eindruck schliet auch ein, da ein Bildpost eigentlich keine Fragen offen lassen sollte.
Nach einer Erklrung frs Bild zu fragen oder nach einer Erklrung fr eine Erklrung frs Bild oder nach einer Beschreibung irgendeines Details, ist beinahe genauso schlimm, wie berhaupt nach einer Bildbeschreibung zu fragen.
Bei mir kommt ja noch hinzu, da ich mitunter gewisse visuelle Details nur sofort beschreiben kann, wenn ich sowieso die Bildbeschreibungen schreibe. Wenn ich sie nicht sofort beschreibe, und irgendjemand will ein Detail beschrieben haben, kann es sein, da ich es nicht mehr beschreiben kann, weil ich es nicht mehr recherchieren kann, weil der im Bild gezeigte Ort umgebaut worden ist oder gar nicht mehr existiert.
Ich beschreibe meine Bilder ja nicht, indem ich mir mein Bild vom gezeigten Ort ansehe, sondern, indem ich mir den Ort selbst direkt vor Ort ansehe. Im Real Life schwierig, in virtuellen Welten meistens einfach. Nur neigen virtuelle Welten zu schnellen Vernderungen. Deswegen gibt's von mir auch keine Partybilder mehr, seit ich Bildbeschreibungen wirklich ernstnehme.
Zum anderen gibt's die, die sagen: "Nein, fr alle mu es nicht perfekt passen. Aber fr mich mu es perfekt passen." Oder: "Aber fr diese spezifische Randgruppe mu es perfekt passen." Wenn das aber alle sagen, dann mu es eben wieder fr alle perfekt passen. Das, oder ich werde irgendjemanden absichtlich diskriminieren mssen, um irgendwen anders untersttzen zu knnen.
Das Bedrfnis nach einer hochdetaillierten Beschreibung mit allen zum Verstndnis ntigen Erklrungen kann ich beim besten Willen nicht unter einen Hut bringen mit dem Bedrfnis nach einer mglichst kurzen Beschreibung. Das schliet sich gegenseitig aus. Erst recht, wenn die hochdetaillierte Beschreibung sowohl visuell als auch taktil sein mu.
Auerdem drfte wohl fast jeder da drauen darauf bestehen, da ich meine Bilder akkurat und wahrheitsgem beschreibe. Aber zu beschreiben, wie sich eine Oberflche anfhlt, die sich eigentlich gar nicht anfhlt, wre nicht wahrheitsgem.
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Auf und werden Bilder erstmal hochgeladen in den eingebauten Cloud-Datenspeicher. Den haben auch und , aber das Killerfeature bei den ersteren zwei ist ein eigenes Datenfeld, in dem man vor oder nach dem Upload einen Alt-Text eintragen kann. Wenn das Bild dann in einen Post oder Kommentar eingebettet wird, wird automatisch auch der Alt-Text in den Einbettungscode eingebaut.
Das ist aber gefhrlich, denn eigentlich sollte man jedes Mal, wenn man ein Bild postet, es je nach Kontext passend zum Kontext neu beschreiben und nicht immer dieselbe Bildbeschreibung nehmen.
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Du musst nicht jedes einzelne Bildelement beschreiben

Das kommt ganz drauf an.
Bei einfachen Real-Life-Fotos braucht man das tatschlich nicht. Bei Memes mache ich das auch nicht.

Allerdings geht dann eine lange, detaillierte Beschreibung mit allen ntigen Erklrungen und allen Text-Transkripten in den Post selbst (Zeichenlimit: ber 16,7 Millionen) und eine eingedampfte Kurzbeschreibung zustzlich in den Alt-Text.
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# # # # # # # # # # # # # Zumindest einige von ihnen haben kein Interesse an visuellen Informationen ich habe ja zu dem Thema etwas verlinkt (hier noch einmal: Stichwort "Protactile", falls dir das etwas sagt).
Wenn ich aber auch vollstndig auf deren Bedrfnisse eingehen mu, dann bedeutet das viererlei.
Erstens: ein noch grerer Aufwand als sowieso schon. Aus zwei Tagen, um ein Bild zu beschreiben, werden drei oder vier oder noch mehr, weil ich mir bei hunderten oder tausenden Oberflchen jeweils einzeln berlegen mu, wie die sich anfhlen wrden, wenn sie denn real wren.
Ich mte mir ja alleine schon bei Bildern, die einfach nur als Texturen auf Oberflchen vorliegen, den Kopf zerbrechen, ob ich mir darber den Kopf zerbrechen soll, wie sich das Bild anfhlen wrde, wenn es real wre (obwohl es keinerlei reales Material emuliert), ob ich auch das, was das Bild zeigt, visuell und "taktil" beschreiben mu, oder beides.
Zweitens: Meine Langbeschreibungen werden noch sehr viel lnger als jetzt schon. Wenn meine Posts 100.000 Zeichen berschreiten, und das werden einige davon, dann wird Mastodon sie ablehnen. Dann werden sie nur noch auf Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams) und Forte zu sehen sein. Und dann kann ich mir die Frage stellen, ob der Aufwand noch gerechtfertigt ist.
Drittens: Meine Kurzbeschreibungen, die in den Alt-Text gehen, knnen noch weniger einzelne Elemente beschreiben, weil einerseits jedes Element fr sich sowohl eine visuelle als auch eine taktile Beschreibung braucht, ich aber andererseits nicht mehr als 1.500 Zeichen zur Verfgung habe.
Viertens: Ich mte alle anlgen. Ich mte im Alt-Text und in der Langbeschreibung die Unwahrheit schreiben. Ich mte beschreiben, wie sich etwas anfhlt, wenn man es berhrt, obwohl es sich in Wahrheit gar nicht anfhlt, weil man es nicht berhren kann, weil es keine reale physikalische Existenz hat.
Alternativ mte ich jedes einzelne Mal, das ich irgendein Element beschreibe, dazuschreiben, da man es nicht berhren kann, weil das Bild nicht aus der realen Welt ist. Oder ich mte gleich ganz am Anfang schreiben, da nichts auf dem Bild berhrt werden kann und sich auch nicht irgendwie anfhlt. Und das wrde so wirken, als wre ich zu faul zu beschreiben, wie sich etwas anfhlt.
Ich glaube, kein Taubblindenverein und keine Taubblindenassistenz da drauen ist vertraut mit dem Fediverse und mit den auf Mastodon verbreiteten qualitativen Mindestanforderungen an Bildbeschreibungen, geschweige denn mit virtuellen 3-D-Welten. Die knnen mir da nicht helfen. Wenn ich denen komme mit "Mastodon" und "Alt-Text-Polizei" und "Texturen" und "Physically-Based Rendering" und so weiter, dann verstehen die nur Bahnhof.
Und wenn ich denen mit so spezifischen Fragen komme, halten die mich fr komplett balla-balla. Wenn sie meine Fragen berhaupt verstehen.
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # Es gibt sehr viel, was nicht in Bildbeschreibungen allgemein und in Alt-Texte ganz spezifisch gehrt. Das wei blo keine Sau, also wird das laufend falsch gemacht.
Wenn man das den Leuten erklrt, wird man mitunter angepampt, da nur z. B. die Frontend-Entwickler schuld sind, wenn etwas nicht so funktioniert, wie es soll, und sie selbst alles richtig machen. Eigentlich sollte man in so einer Situation immer sofort eine Fediblockanfrage wegen Arroganz und Ableismus stellen.
Weil ich keinen Bock habe, solche Sachen immer und immer wieder neu zu erklren, schreibe ich schon seit einiger Zeit an . Da kann ich auch endlich alles, was ich so an Informationen und Regeln ber Bildbeschreibungen und Alt-Texte zusammengesammelt habe, an einem Ort zusammenstellen. Und das wird wohl der einzige Guide zum Thema Bildbeschreibungen und Alt-Texte in Fediverse-Anwendungen, die nicht Mastodon sind.
Allerdings ist das Wiki noch lange nicht fertig, weil gefhlt mit jeder Seite, die ich schreibe, eine neue Idee fr eine Seite kommt. Und erschwerend kommt hinzu, da meine sich gegenseitig widersprechen und gengend Fragen, die ich eigenlich noch habe, immer noch unbeantwortet sind.
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Last updated: 2025-11-16

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