matt @matt@writing.exchange

Some neat things about our #WritingExchange Mastodon instance:

We have a public directory, where you can discover writers here:

https://writing.exchange/explore

(Anyone on our instance can add themselves from their profile settings.)

You can also browse our local timeline without being a registered user:

https://writing.exchange/public

@NylaWoethief I'm not actually sure how it picks who shows up there, but I'm glad you were listed there 😊

@wion No problem 👍

#WritingExchange is now on Mastodon v2.8.0! Check out that new landing page (while logged out) 😍

This brings support for polls, the ability to feature hashtags on your profile, and a way for new people to directly request an account here -- among other new features.

Read more about it on the latest #Mastodon blog post: https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2019/04/mastodon-2.8/

@jonah That's only on Write.as -- it was left out of WF since it would complicate setup, requires more knowledge to be able to support users, and our current certificate generation process for custom domains isn't generalizable for everyone yet.

But you'd be the second person I've heard ask about this. If you want to create a feature request on our forum so everyone can discuss this (https://discuss.write.as/c/writefreely), it'd be very welcome!

@BurungHantu @jonah @opennic Nice -- done!

@BurungHantu Thank you very much, that's awesome to hear! It's been great seeing how privacytools.io has evolved over time -- and getting into hosted services seems like a great move.

I'd also love to list your instance on our site (https://writefreely.org/instances) whenever it's launched, if you're all interested.

@jonah @opennic

@BurungHantu Hi! Yes I am

@wion Yep, the "letters" are posts on their own blogs, that link to each other. And since the posts are also going to the same public space on @readwriteas, the conversation forms there.

I have to say, it's delightful watching people essentially become pen pals in a digital space that was never designed for commentary or much social interaction at all (though, we never designed against it, either).

Happening now, without blog comments, @-mentions, or notifications on https://read.write.as / @readwriteas

@mrb Yep, great idea 👍

@Gargron Quick question: any thoughts on having Mastodon respect the custom "commentsEnabled" property that PeerTube, PixelFed, and (soon) WriteFreely send out?

It's discussed here: https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/issues/8565#issuecomment-480079512, but I'm just wondering your interest as far as hiding / disabling the reply button in Masto when this property is set to `false`.

@trwnh I think the scope of this property, as it's implemented today, is limited to describing whether or not the authoring platform does anything with replies, since ActivityPub doesn't provide another mechanism to communicate this.

I'd personally imagine a more granular policy might be added on top of this, or eventually supersede it. But it seems people are thinking about these other controls (e.g. https://github.com/w3c/activitypub/issues/319).

@dansup @Chocobozzz @tom79 @mxb @BaptisteGelez @yabirgb @kaniini

@dansup Right, there's nothing wrong with implementing something that works today and iterating only when needed, instead of over-engineering every single thing.

I think this is the right solution for what we're all doing on our respective platforms right now.

@dansup Nice! Thanks for getting this all moving today -- hopefully it'll help other platforms get on board with it too.

@Chocobozzz @mxb @BaptisteGelez @yabirgb

@dansup Great, we'll officially have this in the next version of #WriteFreely! (https://writefreely.org/pull/89)

So how can we move support forward on Pleroma and Mastodon? Seems like the next step would be to at least respect this property in the UI by e.g. disabling the "reply" button.

@Chocobozzz @mxb @BaptisteGelez @yabirgb @kaniini

@kaniini Right, this is a usability feature more than a security one.

@BaptisteGelez @dansup @yabirgb @mxb