Comment on Thoughts on HumHub?
sxan@midwest.social 3 days ago
Argh! I’ve posted a similar question; basically, I want a private alternative to Facebook, with wall-like functionality. The second minimum requirement is that there be an iOS app that makes posting easy – including initiating a picture or video capture. So:
- #1: private, b/c it’s family sharing toddler pictures
- Also #1: super user friendly, because (100% - 1 person) involved are non-technical
- Also #1: has to have a better user tool than an SPA. No web interface can ever be anywhere as good as a native app can be, and I will die on that hill.
- #2: emoji reactions, and threaded comments
I’m not interested in installing and evaluating a dozen different servers, so like you I’ve been hoping that people with similar goals would narrow down the field a bit. There’s no way I’d convince enough of the family to go along with evaluating all of the options anyway, and IME what works fine for me can often fall apart when other people come onboard.
I’d convinced myself that Friendica – venerable, proven, reasonably popular – would fit the bill, especially because the design doesn’t assume public-by-default, like Mastodon or Lemmy, and the potential damage of exposed content, either through my misconfiguring the server, or some upgrade assuming users want everything public by default, is high. I’d prefer a project where the developers assume private-by-default, and invite-first. Lemmy isn’t really right, because we’re following people, not communities; Mastodon has a better model, following users, but then its conversation threading is kind of shit for this purpose, and its reaction feature set is anemic. Circles was perfect, and beloved by the key parent involved, until it first made half of her posts invisible to her (and only to her and her husband), and then locked her out. This doesn’t surprise me much, as Circles is based on Matrix, which frankly has the worst cryptography management I’ve even encountered. But if you’re saying Friendica is that painful to post media on, then it won’t work.
I’m leery of Humhub because of the quasi-commercial nature, and its youth. I’ve had too many experiences with initially semi-commercial platforms shifting, either suddenly or slowly, to increasingly commercial positions – moving features from the “free” to the “paid” column. Vendor lock-in is a real issue with a dozen users.
So if Friendica is out, maybe Pixelfed? It seemed to me to be mostly indistinguishable from Mastodon, but if they have better comment threading, reactions, and I need to re-evaluate the AP clients to see if any would be user-friendly enough for the parents. I’ve used mostly Fedilab, and I’m not sure it’s ideal. For one thing, it doesn’t have support more than basic reactions: you can boost or favorite, but I am – and I think you are probably – looking for something with more variety, like emoji responses, right?
I’m watching the other reactions here, and my post on this topic is here. I may post a summary – there are comparison charts, but they all tend to focus on feature set and fall short on the overall use case. On my thread,
- Misskey was recommended as Facebook-like, and in particular, some of its forks have features the core project is missing. I always got the impression Misskey was a Mastodon-analog, which would make it not a good fit, so I’ve skipped over it. With Friendica out, I’m going to put Misskey back on the “possible” list.
- Diaspora has also been recommended and is near the top of my list.
- Smithereen was recommended, but the sparsity of the documentation – not even a list of features – put it down low on my list.
- Hubzilla has a lot of documentation; it focuses a lot on content management – assets, calendars, document sharing, etc. – which will be fine if “easily post content to a feed” and “follow a user and view a stream of their posts” is a first-class interaction model.
- Pixelfed is still an option. I just need to confirm/refute my “Mastodon, with pictures” perception. If my perception has been skewed by the fact that I’m interacting with Pixelfed through a (mainly) Mastodon app, then maybe it’ll work. However, there isn’t AFAICT a Pixelfed app, so if the only way to get to a more wall-like view is through a web interface, it’s not going to work.
@acockworkorange@mander.xyz is also looking for this feature set / use case. I kind of feel as if it’s more useful to think about this as a use case, because almost all of these projects can claim some or all of the requested features, and yet not satisfy what we’re looking for in terms of user experience. This would be a great opportunity for another tool: a wiki with a list of applications & features, but with a discussion section and focused on winnowing projects by consensus about suitability. Again, lots of software that have the necessary functionality and which could be wrangled to do this, but still fail to be a good tool for the objective.
Dave@lemmy.nz 3 days ago
Wow, good effort on that!
Honestly, this is low down on my list. Yes, it would be great, but I have had enough trouble finding something that handles uploading videos ok. Emoji responses are not a mandatory thing for me.
Pixelfed is an interesting suggestion. It always feels like it’s intended to be public. Were you thinking each user would have to configure default privacy settings? I can see how to restrict to followers but haven’t yet found how to stop anyone being able to follow you. I think for me, if a new user has to set up the privacy settings to stop them posting everything public, that’s probably not the right platform.
BTW there is PixelDroid as a dedicated Pixelfed app, but it’s only on Fdroid.
sxan@midwest.social 3 days ago
Thanks!
Agreed: some items are basic functionality that should reliably and easily work. Image & video uploading are among them. I’ll add some verbiage on the CryptoPad page about options which have been rejected simply because they don’t support the most basic features.
It’s funny: I’ve been similarly searching for a good chat platform, and there are two things which I personally don’t care much about, but which a couple of my family members are insistent about: typing notifications; and gifs - as in, a widget where you can search for short gifs from e.g. Gfycat and have them inserted. My wife absolutely requires the latter.
Emoji responses are almost a core feature for a social media platform IMO. They’re fast, easy, non-cluttering feedback, eliminating the need to type out some inane, two-word response. It’s infuriating (to me) that Lemmy doesn’t support them; it leads to such illuminating responses as “So much this!”, “Yes!”, but worst of all the lack subverts up/downvotes, which should be a tool for designating interest, not agreement. Not having emoji reactions muddies and dilutes any value voting has.
Dave@lemmy.nz 2 days ago
I agree with you on how core emoji reactions are. They solve many problems and I at times I’ve also wished Lemmy had them, but given that I can’t even find a platform that is private by default and supports a good video user experience. It’s clear I’m going to have to settle in some respect.
Is federation or similar mandatory for you? As in, do you want something that allows your users to interact with users that are not part of your family and not on your platform, eventually able to completely replace the mainstream social media? Or is a completely closed platform ok, in terms of it’s only your family and friends, and people have to go elsewhere (e.g. back to facebook) to interact with others?
Personally I’m not as wary of HumHub just because of it’s commercial nature. Maybe a little, because some features are paywalled. But for example, I use Nextcloud, developed by a company, and trust it more for this task because of that. I use Photoprism, which the base edition is FOSS but they have proprietary extras that you pay for (like HumHub). I use Home Assistant, though I think they recently transitioned to a non-profit so maybe that’s a little different, but they charge for a cloud connected component. I use ente, who are FOSS but are a company that charge if you don’t want to selfhost.
HumHub have been around 10 years, so they aren’t exactly new. Plus as it’s extendable, perhaps one day a gfycat or emoji reaction plugin will be added (or if you have the skills, maybe you could make one).
sxan@midwest.social 1 day ago
So, in thinking about this in more concrete terms (as opposed to vague dissatisfaction), I suspect what we really want is a blogging platform with robust authenticated reader interaction tools.
The issue with AP, and therefore most of these servers, is that (a) it’s expected to be public by default (the privacy point you mention), but almost more fundamentally (b) they’re aggregators. People either to a bunch of people and get a feed of a bunch of posts by different people (Mastodon/X); or they join a community and see a bunch of posts by different people (Lemmy/Reddit).
I think what we want is blogging software, with an endless stream of content posted by a single user, but with reactions and threaded conversations per post. I’ve been thinking how this could be achieved on various AP platforms, but while you can almost get there with groups/channels/communities, the sticking point is that they are all ultimately designed around any member being able to post top-level content. I haven’t seen any system yet that (easily) allows restricting posting by individual accounts.
I need to look at pump.io clients, because I think pump.io started as more of a blogging protocol. And the more I think about it, the more I believe a private blogo is a better foundational model.
No. In fact, I suspect it may work against the privacy requirement. I expect that, even if one of the federated servers met all of the requirements, federation would have to be disabled to prevent leakage. Although, at least one server supports authenticated pull (one of the Misskey forks), I’m guessing it’s not likely that federation will be needed.
For me, no. I want my SIL to be able to easily post pictures and videos of my toddler niece, and all the family members to be able to oooh and aaaah, and react with little heart and exploding brain emojis, and comment on how the fact that she climbed a jungle gym is a sign she’s sure to be an Olympic athlete. The parents absolutely do not want those videos showing up in TikTok.
Ideally, it’d support ActivityPub. I’m not sure how; perhaps through the user creating channels and setting a federation flag, or marking it as public. I think the expectation that people will understand that inviting someone from another platform effectively makes all of that content public, might be bit much to assume. So I think having private and public channels, where public channels are federate-able would be fine. But I’d rather not have federation than have a system where people are prone to make privacy mistakes. Is there an option I’m missing?
Yeessss; I think that’s a little different, because NextCloud was forked off of the completely open source OwnCloud, which was well-established and license protected long before NextCloud came along. If NextCloud tried any shenanigans, they’d be eviscerated. HumHub is a bespoke solution, right? So they can’t be accused of stealing an OpenSource project’s s code.
Yeah, this is a good example. I use it, too, although I admit I’ve considered, and regularly revisit, alternatives purely because of this quasi-free nature. So much of PhotoPrism is built on free libraries; the project uses something like 120 OSS libraries. How much of their income do you think they contribute to those projects who’s work their taking advantage of?
I’ve been using it for two or three years myself; it’s always been OSS & free software, AFAIK.
That’s a service. I have no issue with charging for a service, because it’s an ongoing cost to the hoster.
Actually, I don’t have any issue with anyone charging for their software, either; it’s just that I won’t use it, and I don’t trust quasi-free projects. That’s just from experience. Most end badly, either by being bought out and going totally commercial, or just slow enshittification for the non-paying customers.
I write software for myself, and give it away free because it costs me nothing to do so. And I’ve written software libraries that I know, for a fact, are being used as backbone code for a not insignificant chunk of the internet. I’ve never been paid by any commercial company taking advantage of my work, and have little sympathy for people charging for software that’s 90% other people’s freely given code. Which is most software today. You write the entire stack from scratch, including the compiler, like Excel once was? Hell yeah, you deserve to charge for it. Otherwise, you’re just profiting off other people’s work.
Huh. Never heard of them before a week or so ago. I wouldn’t completely discount them because of the semi-free model; I just am putting them down on the list.