Oh, you want to know how the fediverse/activitypub works? Let me explain it to you!!! 🧵
ActivityPub: It's like email!
I hear ActivityPub is like a bar with a lot of people doing different things
When two servers love each other very much, they have a baby, and the baby is named "federation"
ActivityPub?! Isn't that the spec with all the holes in it? I bet people can't even get two servers to talk to each other
ActivityPub uses ActivityStreams, which uses JSON-LD, which combines the best of both worlds
And by that I mean it makes json people angry and it makes linked data people angry
ActivityPub, which is abbreviated AT ("ATProto")
ActivityPub, which is abbreviated AP (AtProto)
ActivityPub is just decentralized Bluesky
ActivityPub is decentralized, but wouldn't it be better if it were distributed
ActivityPub is whatever the queen of the fediverse says, but royalty isn't real, and now we're facing a constitutional crisis
ActivityPub is that spec which @cwebber put all the emacs and lisp jokes in and nobody even noticed
ActivityPub? You mean the Mastodon network?!
Email: it's like ActivityPub
ActivityPub is that protocol where you can send anything you want over it, as long as the thing you send is a Note (so Mastodon can read it)
ActivityPub? Don't you mean OStatus TNG
ActivityPub? Don't you mean the Pump API
ActivityPub? Don't you mean ActivityPump?
ActivityPub? Don't you mean XMPP XEP-0060
ActivityPub is just social networks but for gays
ActivityPub is the "transgender yapping protocol"
ActivityPub is just centralized Bluesky
ActivityPub is when you have a hard drive, and you want to fill it up, but not fill it up as much as a full atproto relay, so you fill it up just most of the way
ActivityPub is you. It was you all along. It was all of us
ActivityPub is when you send HTTP requests to actors' inboxes, but then you get confused letters back from the actors because they don't want to read computer things they just want to star in shakespeares
ActivityPub, it's like Spritely
ActivityPub, it's a protocol best understood when explained to you. Which is why I am doing this, and why you must do it to me. We have to know to keep this place running
ActivityPub was born fully formed from the head of @evan when he had a huge headache and he threw it into the sea and it walked out and there it was, ActivityPub
ActivityPub was when @tsyesika decided we needed the MediaGoblin Network. Later on Mastodon decided to also become a member of the MediaGoblin Network. And that's how we got ActivityPub
ActivityPub was when @erincandescent transcribed ancient scrolls onto loose leaf paper, scanned the paper into a scanner, ran it through OCR, and then said "the W3C should learn about this"
And that's how we got ActivityPub
ActivityPub was formed when @rhiaro emerged from the forest and held scribblings written upon a giant leaf and said "these are pretty good scribblings, but it would be even better if..." and then TORE the leaf in two, and then that's how we got the Client-to-Server and Server-to-Server protocols as two separate things
ActivityPub is a dating network for people who like open source, and also the gays who make animal noises
ActivityPub is a selfie machine for eggs
ActivityPub is a selfie machine for no-longer-eggs who have realized on shit, they like selfies now, what happened
ActivityPub, also known as "ActivityStreams", is just like a spoken language. Subject Predicate Object. It's pretty simple! Except we have Actor Activity Object, which are the same thing. And they're modeled in RDF, which is Subject Predicate Object.
So it's like language squared
ActivityPub is whatever you tell me it is
ActivityPub is where the AI enthusiasts are
Everyone here loves AI, highest ratio of AI enthusiasts you'll ever meet
All the content is AI and people will thank you for posting it
ActivityPub is where Gargamel finally eats the Smurfs. That'll teach them. That'll show them
Don't tell anyone but ActivityPub is alive I think? A being made of pure information
The fediverse: a never ending source of jokes about star trek. Join the fediverse. The federation. The fediverseration. Lol! It was made for this joke
ActivityPub was when we said FUCK there are TOO MANY PROTOCOLS, let's make one more protocol, and that'll be the last one
And then we did, and it was
ActivityPub is the protocol they make you go on in order to be eligible for HRT or SRS
You post on ActivityPub enough and they say, "okay, I guess you really do have gender dysphoria. you can do whatever you want"
ActivityPub: it's just like YOUR MOM
ActivityPub: now best understood through my new pseudonotation: {Activity from:actor to:addressees object:{Object}}
ActivityPub is where you air your kinks out in the open. It's fine just put it out there. Be free
ActivityPub is a protocol for "tankies" to get mad at "anti-tankies", and vice versa. But they both get mad at the "fash"
ActivityPub is a protocol for fueling @cwebber's Cassanda Complex
Here's one to explain things to the KIDS:
ActivityPub is Usenet Done Right
ActivityPub is the Tumblr Protocol. It's been adopted by Tumblr, and it basically is Tumblr. Always was
ActivityPub is a site for Facebooks to talk to each other
ActivityPub has inReplyTo, and it's used to make threads. Which is why we wrote it, we hoped Facebook would adopt it, and then they made Threads, and we were like ha ha we did it, we got 'em
ActivityPub is the protocol that powers the Defediverse, a protocol for defederating from other instances
ActivityPub is the network for posting questionable things, but you put them under a "content warning" (an ActivityPub invention, check the spec), and you can do anything you want in there. Anything at all
ActivityPub is based on JSON-LD so that it can be extensible. And that means you can do anything you want. Anything at all. The only limit is yourself #xombocom
ActivityPub is the protocol for Christine to fail to host the test suite and everyone to be mad at her for a decade, and kind of put up sort of replacements, but still get mad at her
ActivityPub is a protocol where the Official Test Suite is a rewrite of MUD (Multi User Dungeon) technology for testing for federation
(this one is TRUE, cursed knowledge if you investigate)
ActivityPub: it's a protocol for "keepin' it normal in here"
Have a normal time!
ActivityPub is the most secure protocol you'll ever use. This is true because it has a Security Considerations section. This means we considered all the security
ActivityPub is written by trans people, for trans people. And also that one guy, he was also involved
The fediverse is a network Christine wrote all by herself so she could be too distracted to do any other work later in the future when she needed to get it done
ActivityPub is an anti-fascist protocol. There are no fascists on here. Not even one.
PROOF: They aren't allowed, we put it in the spec, so if someone is being fascist on here, technically they're not implementing ActivityPub they're doing something else. NOT OUR PROBLEM
ActivityPub uses JSON-LD, which is basically just "lexical scope, but for JSON", so now you understand it
ActivityPub is when you go on a date with a girl and at the end of it she's like oh shit no way you're THAT CHRISTINE why didn't you tell me this earlier let me get you my fedi handle
ActivityPub is a protocol for me personally to say "Ha yeah, I'm the QUEEN OF THE FEDIVERSE" and look cool and then the moment someone starts to bristle I can say "don't worry no I'm anti-royalty no I didn't choose this name for myself it was the fediverse hold on"
ActivityPub is a series of tubes
But not those kinds of tubes. It's actually just a big node graph in Blender. A geometry nodes thing
ActivityPub is a protocol for people to run servers for their friends and and community and then wonder why they are so tired all the time
ActivityPub? Don't you mean OcapPub?!
ActivityPub is the network with the highest percentage of Firefox users, and also the highest percentage of people mad at Mozilla all the time
ActivityPub? It's like decentralized Twitter. But before that guy bought it. And nothing like that at all. So forget I said anything
ActivityPub is a protocol for when you're supposed to be writing your keynote for Fediforum about the future of ActivityPub and instead you post messages over ActivityPub joking about ActivityPub to procrastinate (me RN)
"The fediverse", aka the Mastodon Protocol, aka the network everyone pointed to when social media corporations did bad things until Bluesky came along and decentralized everything
AP: the Autism Protocol, for autism-havers by autism-havers
ActivityPub: a great protocol to implement halfway and then work on something else and say "oh yeah, I should get back to my ActivityPub protocol written in <foo>"
ActivityPub: a good "hello world" for your favorite esolang. Try writing an "ActivityPub" in brainfuck for a fun weeknight challenge!
ActivityPub, the engagement network.
REMEMBER TO LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE
okay I've been doing this for over an hour thanks everyone for coming by, hope you had a good activitypub, hope you learned a thing or two, good night!!!!