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To the uninitiated, Firefish is to Mastodon what Kbin is to Lemmy
Does it still support activitypub?
So Firefish is just a Kbin alternative?
No, not really. Firefish is a microblogging platform. Kbin is a link aggregation and topic discussion platform, with a wonky attempt at microblogging.
I wouldn’t call it an alternative to Mastodon or Twitter either, because Firefish has features that neither of them have. The only Microblogging platform it could be seen as an alternative to, now that it has gone beyond being just a fork, is Misskey.
People tend to compare Firefish and Misskey more to Tumblr, but they still have things that either were inspired by other microblogging platforms (twitter, included), or that are unique to them. So they aren’t fully “Tumblr alternatives” either.
It is a Mastadon alternative where Mastadon is a Twitter ( X ) alternative.
Kbin is a Lemmy alternative where Lemmy is a Reddit alternative.
This is potentially confusing to Kbin users as Kbin also does microblogging.
I understood this comment chain but im so sorry for everyone that is new to the fediverse and has absolutely no clue what is going on lmao
I have a friend who is even less initiated than that. Can you explain for his sake what that means?
Firefish and Mastodon are both microblogging platforms (like Twitter) on the fediverse. Kbin and Lemmy are both forum style platforms (like Reddit).
Where Lemmy and Mastodon are for people who prefer a more basic just the necessities experience, kbin and Firefish provide a more stylish experience with more options and customization.
I’d be more interested in why than how
The interface is more customizable, and there are more features (quote posts, for instance)
mastodon didn’t have quote posts because:
it inevitably adds toxicity to people’s behaviours. You are tempted to quote when you should be replying, and so you speak at your audience instead of with the person you are talking to. It becomes performative. Even when doing it for “good” like ridiculing awful comments, you are giving awful comments more eyeballs that way
Some mastodon apps do support quotes though, by loading any linked toots in the posts themselves
That just sounds like them deciding how I can communicate. Quoting is not inherently toxic, they’re just used to how Twitter users utilize it. I’ve also seen plenty of people use quoting of posts for boosting someone’s post without copying it, since copying it breaks the link back to the original post. I used to quote-tweet Patreon, GoFundMe, or donation link posts sometimes.
I’m with you. If we keep migrating to something else we’ll never actually settle to create a real community. I’m sticking with Mastadon. It’s grown into something pretty stable and decent at this point.
FWIW migrating from Mastodon migrates all your followers automatically and you can interact with them just as you did on Mastodon.
You do need to manually recreate your list of people you follow though, from what I could tell.
Once that’s done you haven’t really lost anything unless you were or were intended to be heavily active with the feed on your local mastodon instance. (Vs federation etc)
Why stick to the worse one, though?
The point of federation is that you can create community with people all over it, no matter what software the server they joined is running.
Mastodon being too big to the point that 90% of it users things it’s the whole fediverse is not positive nor contributes to create an stable community. Many people coming from twitter run from the fediverse, because they’re told there’s nothing other than mastodon, which they find hard to use, lacking and extremely toxic.
Misskey, Firefish, Akkoma, GoToSocial, Microblogpub, etc give people other options that may fit their need for/usage of a microblogging platform better than mastodon does, as each (including Mastodon and each of its forks) has it’s own “profile”
Why stick to the worse one, though?
Why is mastodon the worse one?
Many people coming from twitter run from the fediverse, because they’re told there’s nothing other than mastodon, which they find hard to use, lacking and extremely toxic.
Why is everyone so adamant that Mastodon should accommodate to users leaving Twitter by being a Twitter clone? It was meant to be federated, privacy friendly, self-hosted, less toxic twitter alternative for small communities , not a clone of Twitter. People act like everyone becomes seasoned to using Twitter or other mainstream social media websites by default and it’s mastodon’s fault they leave because its not exactly like Twitter. It’s pretty straightforward to forget all about the fediverse and rant all day, just like Twitter.
It’s one thing to improve UX for users and another thing entirely to specifically chaperone users leaving Twitter, which is not Mastodon’s goals.
Why is mastodon the worse one?
Lack of essential features and the toxicity within it servers.
It was meant to be federated, privacy friendly, self-hosted, less toxic twitter alternative for small communities
1- I didn’t say it had to be a twitter clone. What I said is that some people coming from Twitter that weren’t convinced by Mastodon, may be could have find other microblogging more adequate for their needs and usage. Each microblogging platform has its personality and usability, and Mastodon wasn’t for them.
The problem is when people are told that there’s nothing beyond Mastodon (regarding microblogging) on the fediverse, so they end up running away from the fediverse, after not finding a home on Mastodon.
2- It failed at being less toxic.
Witch hunts over petty arguments, negative reaction to newcomers not knowing how things work, racism that gets minimalised as “not as bad” by big part of the user base.
The fact that it doesn’t have quote posting because it “allows for toxic behaviour”, when other platforms have it and say toxicity is almost non-existant in using that feature, it’s in itself a red flag.
You are not really migrating anywhere, as Mastodon is compatible with Firefish.
You can react with cute sticker-like things to a toot and that’s all it took to really convince me. Also I feel like there’s a lot more artists there
I feel that way about stickers on Telegram, they’re just so awesome. Wish I could get more of my friends to use it instead of Messenger, and would really miss them if I stopped using Telegram.
Firefish just has a different ✨vibe ✨ going on, although it’s not for everyone, here’s the guide I’d use:
Twitter -> Mastodon Reddit -> Lemmy Tumblr -> Firefish YouTube -> PeerTube
They all work the same, and are (to some extent interoperable), but it’s just what layout you’re used to the most.
thanks! As somebody who never used tumblr, what’s the vibe?
Tumblr is focused more on microblogging, so there are longer form posts, fandoms, and artists. I still have my Tumblr account (for some reason, I never use it) so here’s a screenshot of what it looks like compare to Firefish.
Cc @deadsuperhero@firefish.social
Everything is moving so quickly these days, and the exodus from other failing sites along with the expectations of those transitioning from them is creating a crescendo that is just unrealistic.
So many people have been working very hard to keep up with all of these new and increasing demands (and they ought to be credited for that), but what is lacking is patience for those working behind the scenes.
They’re doing a great job, but, for God’s sake, give them some slack!
It does everything Mastodon does but more, honestly. I use both, and definitely prefer Firefish. But I’m a developer so a lot of things about Mastodon really bothered me. The core difference is Firefish fka Calckey is being developed much faster and with a more modern stack. The click to play MFM feature was developed in a few days when the community was concerned about potential seizures due to unasked for auto playing or animated text.
A few key features: QT & Full text search (search I don’t use except for specific posts so can’t speak to that) MFM & cat mode (these are just fun, Misskey flavored markdown has things like tada and sparkle and rainbow. People make art with it)
Probably more important are features such as channels and pages which are more like Facebook or MySpace. People have compared it to Tumblr because you can completely customize the interface. I hope it intros some more people to programming
I think I’ll stay on Mastodon. I don’t like the Firefish UI. I haven’t tried Akkoma yet.
First time user of firefish. Kind of like the UI. “Global” section is kind of chaotic. Guess that’s just the fediverse for ya
I like Firefish, I am on a Firefish instance myself, and I feel really good about it. It’s fun to use and it federates with Mastodon most of the time, and with Misskey some of the time. Unfortunately, microblogging on the fediverse is not as straightforward as forums on the fediverse, as they’re a lot more fragmented and there are 5 or 6 different platforms instead of 2 like we have here.
ok but how about you tell me why to move from mastodon to firefish?
ok but how about you tell me why to move from mastodon to firefish?
I like the UI better (by a lot), I like the “antennas” feature, I like that I can do a traditional blog post if I choose (“pages” they call it), it’s very custom-configurable, and in the 3 days since I’ve joined I’ve already seen bugfixes and improvements deployed.
Why move? If Mastodon is 100% great for you and nothing about the look/feel/functionality of Firefish jumps out at you then there is really no reason.
It has the better feature set and UX. Some things I like:
- Threaded comment replies (though they display differently from Lemmy’s).
- Antennae for discoverability.
- Can use hashtags AND keywords.
- Can filter results by instance.
- Can create multiple timelines to display content in.
- Customizable UI via widgets.
- I think the theming options are better.
- Full-text search.
- Quote posts.
- Cat mode.
Here’s a page with some features https://firefish.social/@youronlyone/pages/calckey-faq
Maybe I’m blind but I’m not seeing a way to follow tags on Firefish (I joined the main instance because the UI convinced me).
You can’t follow tags (something that should be added), but you can add them to Antennas
The one-column layout of Firefish is good, it has tons more features than Mastodon
But the multi-column deck layout that I always use, it’s kinda borked thus infuriating to use. Probably needs more time for the deck layout.
Firefish is a Fediverse-compatible social networking software forked from Misskey
And it’s from Japan. So it’s great ;)
Misskey is from Japan. Firefish is from some English speaker, I don’t know if they’re USian or English or what
Ya I was talking about Misskey. Firefish is just a rip-off ;P
Harsh!
I must admit Firefish have Mastodon API impl, post edits feature. And improved search, migration and threads.
I just tried it out and the UI and additional functionality is a massive upgrade over the current stock Mastodon experience. And it federates seamlessly with Mastodon accounts. The Antenna feature is something that I’ve been looking for in Mastodon since day one. The fediverse rules. Use it if you like it!
Related: https://beehaw.org/post/6853561
mastodon.art has decided to suspend firefish.social from their instance due to issues with its administrator
There are other Firefish instances, though, in case one wants to use Firefish and also federate with mastodon.art.
Been waiting for the main instance to start up! Thanks for this guide.
What is the advantage of Firefish over Mastodon?
Cool things on Firefish/clackey, that Mastodon and most of it forks don’t have:
• Quote notes (Misskey and Akkoma, a fork of Pleroma, also have them)
• Antennas. They allow you to add words, tags and accounts to lists and create parallel timelines that you can see whenever you want, without having to follow this accounts
• You can create personalized timelines for certain accounts to appear in.
• It has a drive section where you can upload files.
• Channels. This are public local group that the members of a server can create, join and interact within.
• Private chat groups. Local only.
• Emoji reactions
• Clips. These are collections of notes (“note” is the name post receive in Misskey and Firefish)
You can create multiple clips and manage them by giving a name and description to each. You can also choose to make your clips public to make them available to other users.
• You can create custom web pages. For now they don’t federate.
• Customisable (by admin) character limit.
A drive section to upload files sounds like hell as an admin
Here a better explanation from the Misskey (from where Firefish took this feature) official page
I haven’t seen any Misskey or Firefish admin commenting negatively about the existence of the drive feature itself
That is a little different than I imagined. Still not sure how I feel about it though lol
