3w ago

Pixelfed - I'm Confused About Some Details ...

A while ago joined Pixelfed, and some things really confuse me ...

1.) Licenses ... on my older posts, the Image shows a content license (like, CC BY-NC-SA), but not on newer ones ... there doesn't seem to be a way to specify a license, or is there?

2.) Followers ... some friends joined on other instances, and we followed each other ... when I click their profile from MY instance, then I see only myself (seems like they don't have any other followers on that instance).

If I visit their profile on THEIR instance, I can see they have more followers, but I can't see the details without logging in (and the account from my instance doesn't work).

Is that by design?

I can't even see their profile picture from my instance ... my posts seem to show up in their feed though ...

3.) I'm using the official app, but I can only see my most recent posts ... I made a few posts about a year ago and they don't show up ...

Can someone enlighten me here?

11 comments

Don't know
That is a flaw in activitypub. The federation makes it look like you are the only one following that account because that's the only information your home instance can gather from the network. As they post new stuff you will see them. Give it some time for your server to federate with their server and you will probably see more details like their profile picture
That sound like a bug in the app
- Hmm ok ... the servers are both pretty large so I assume they should be well-federated (if that's the right term).
  But that flaw kinda means that effectively, information trickles through unpredictably and what you see is quite dependent on which instance you're on ... is that understanding correct?
  
  Yes, that is correct. Although, calling it a flaw was a bit wrong on my part. It us by design. Paraphrasing someone on the internet: activitypub federation is pull rather than push. The downside of this is, some info will never reach you. The upside is: self hosting activitypub software is possible even with limited resources.

So, the thing to keep in mind is that "PixelFed" is not a place where you can go to see things. It's the name of the software that powers a bunch of websites. You're using a website. That website knows about what is hosted locally. Your friend? They're using a different website. When you look up their account/ you're looking up a copy of that account that's been sent to your website. If things are happening on other websites, your website doesn't know about any of that, any more than Reddit knows what your friend posted on Facebook.
The whole fediverse works by requesting remote accounts to send your website a copy of whatever they post. This works like a magazine subscription. Your dentist (the website you're using) says "please end me Kichae Quarterly" and the publisher sends them a copy every time a new edition is publisbed. When you go for a cleaning, they have a copy of every edition starting at the time their subscription started. They do not have the back catalogue, and they certainly don't have copies of everyrhing the publisher has received in the mail (comments, favourites, etc.)
Are you using the same server? Which website are you using? If you create an account on a different website, it's a different website. If it's the same website, well, storage costs money, and your account was inactive. Maybe they just removed the old posts?
- Hmm in theory I get that, but in practice it's not always easy to grasp.
  When Fediverse stuff comes up as an "alternative" it's often depicted as "leave Instagram, join Pixelfed" ... not "join pixelfed.social" or "join pixelfed.de" ... it's often presented as if the instance you choose doesn't matter that much. Which, is now pretty clear to me, is not true at all. It also seems a bit at odds with the idea of decentralization because if you want your content to be seen there's a big incentive to join an already-large instance.
  Apart from that, as a practical consequence, it's hard to understand why, when and where you see something ... like, a common point of criticism about corporate social media is that algorithms boost content in often hard-to-understand ways ... but in the Fediverse, it just seems a different kind of intransparency, as long as you don't just stick to your local instance.
  
  It's easy, you'll get it in time. You're just a little confused because of how different it is.
  And its gotta be said: understanding it better wont fix all the problems you have with it. This style of social media may not be for everyone and that's okay.
  But just know that there are a lot of people that are glad non-enthusiasts like yourself are at least giving these kinds of social media alternatives a chance. :)
  
  Yes, discovering is easier on bigger instances. That's why some smaller instances subscribe to relays, where the "magazine" gets copied to every other instance on that relay.
  As soon as you follow accounts, you'll get every magazine in chronological order though.

License settings are available on the website settings
Probably the app. I've actually switched to a third party App (Pixilex on android) because I was experiencing a lot of buggy behavior with the official one. It's definitely not ready yet and seems to be buggier on android.

i experienced similar difficulties. what worked was to reshare my own old posts using the "double arrow"-icon, i think the servers see them as new content and sync it again (you can remove your repost afterwards, once it's synced it stays visible.
setting the license type is only implemented on new posts, there isn't any way to set them on existing posts, it's probably on the roadmap with a low priority: https://github.com/pixelfed/pixelfed/issues/4525
When you start following and interacting with people on other instances, the federation kicks in and their content is slowly retrieved, but it can take a while depending on the load

11 comments