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2023-04-20 11:25:52

adminsforum@hubzilla.org

_jayrope :hubzilla: wrote the following post Thu, 20 Apr 2023 11:25:50 +0200

Coming from Mastodon, what means a "connection" here exactly?

I'm used to having separate control to either

follow/request following someone, or
being followed/receiving a follow request, or
both.

So when i confirm an initial connection attempt on Hubzilla, does that mean, that i automatically follow back?

I'd prefer to _not_ follow back automatically.

Please advise :)

Thank you.

connections follow followers

show all 7 comments

2023-04-20 12:45:20

amal

amal@hort.fan

@_jayrope :hubzilla:  You can see this
#^https://zotadel.net/help/en/member/member_guide#Connecting_To_Channels

"Connections in Hubzilla can take on a great many different meanings. A connection is more accurately defined as a set of permissions that you have granted to somebody else. In traditional social network applications, all connections are granted the same permissions; or at most there two levels (friends and 'followers'). In Hubzilla, a range of separate permissions may be set/adjusted depending on the siutation and relationship you have with the other channel. You can allow somebody to view your posts but not your photos. You can also deny them permission to comment on your posts or send private mail to you. " It is a long, long non-pictorial text you can read for yourself.There is a lot to it I guess and from your own account - permcats/xxxxxx you can set contact roles as you want (high granularity)

I am not saying that I have understood everything clearly but I think our understandings can be improved by sharing.

on the basis that mutual acceptance is done on receiving notification or mutual acceptance happens automatically, what happens ??

Connections

- when I connect to someone in Mastdon,
by default
I become his Follower in Mastodon | he is in my "Connections" (default) in Hubzilla
- when someone in Mastodon connects to me in Hubzilla, by default
I become his  (what...?)  in Mastodon ? |  he is in my "Connections" (default) in Hubzilla

- when I connect to someone in Hubzilla/Streams,
by default
I become his (what...?) in Hubzilla/Streams  | he is in my "Connections" (default) in Hubzilla
- when someone in another instance of Hubzilla/Streams connects to me in this Hubzilla,
by default
I become his (what...?) in another instance of Hubzilla/Streams ? |  he is in my "Connections" (default) in Hubzilla

- when I connect to someone in Diaspora,
by default
I become his (what...?) in Diaspora | he is in my "Connections" (default) in Hubzilla
- when someone in Diaspora connects to me in Hubzilla, by default
I become his  (what...?)  in Diaspora ? |  he is in my "Connections" (default) in Hubzilla

Actions by user/member needed to establish the connection

mutual acceptance is done actively on receiving notification or mutual acceptance happens automatically, for example : from Hubzilla if I add a Mastodon connection, that Mastodon account possibly do not have to "accept" me actively ?? Thus, what action is needed as default
Hubzilla to Mastodon |  Mastodon to Hubzilla
Hubzilla x  to Hubzilla y |  Hubzilla y to Hubzilla x
Hubzilla to Diaspora | Diaspora to Hubzilla

Default name (and meaning) of default connections in various systems : Masto, Hubzilla, Diaspora

By "(what...?)" I mean what default term they use - Contacts / Connection / Friend / Follower
for example in Elgg initially Friend and Follower were same
and thus comes the next question
what  "(what...?)" - that default term means in default way : permission wise or w.r.t the most accepted or popular meanings of Freinds/Followers

If these are added to the help file (and also pictorially) it can imho help even the next-door granny :-)

2023-04-20 12:57:34

amal

amal@hort.fan

I think I left out Friendika in the above and,

Also another section is needed

How to establish the above connections - help instructions, for example establishing Activitypub is a bit roundabout in Hubzilla and relatively straightforward in Streams (if the admin has kept the Activitypub toggle ON or by default it is ON I cannot remember)

For example in Hubzilla
- the admin has to install extra addons and the activitypub addon
- if the member-user of a hub cannot connect Activitypubwise he has to ask the admin to install that specific add-on (if he can contact the admin easily)
- once the admin has installed, the user/member has to come to his App area and again install it

What happens in Mastdon instances or Diaspora pods I do not know, but if our Help file covers the basic I can ask a friend in Masto or Diaspora to ask his admin to install something if such install is needed, just like we need it in Hubzilla.

In Streams, Activitypub is straightway a simple toggle button but Diaspora seems to be abandoned for which the Dev must be having his justifications but it hurts as an ordinary user to miss out Diaspora friends but I maybe wrong - so a Helpfile can help :-)

2023-04-21 00:42:10

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

If you set your channel up in such a way that you have to confirm all new connections, then yes, new incoming connections are always followed back.

I haven't tried automatic connections without manual confirmations, and I'm not going to do so on this daily production channel because I need to have some control over the settings of each new connection. But at least forum or soapbox channels should also allow for inbound-only connections, so the same should apply to all other channels.

In other words, if you don't want to follow people back, you have to let them follow you automatically without your confirmation.

2023-04-21 18:17:31

_jayrope

jrp@hub.kliklak.net

@Jupiter Rowland That was what i was looking for, thank you.

Pity, that the two things are interconnected,

if to not follow and
- not or - if to autoconfirm.

This makes no sense to me from a usability standpoint.

Thre is other secret feature connections with Hubzilla.

For example one can't establish blocking of boosts/reshares, all or of a single user
1. in an obvious way with an on/off button on top of a particular stream or user,
2. and while zot informs in the issue thread on the git, that blocking all boosts in all streams would result in "groups.not.working."

For most users these two things are different features, which ar expected to work independently from each other.

After 14 days of Hubzilla experience i feel that there is great features and potential to get even better.
But a basic UI concept is urgently needed to have Hubzilla ready for users without any coding experience. That'll be almost all possible new Hubzilla users of the future.

2023-04-21 18:20:32

_jayrope

jrp@hub.kliklak.net

I am so used to be able to edit a thread, but here i can't: I hope i didn't sound too complaning (again).

If there existed a UI team I'd be very willing to join with a little technical expertise and a lot of ideas about simple stringent UI.

2023-04-22 08:45:08

_jayrope

jrp@hub.kliklak.net

@Jupiter Rowland I don't know, if my answer arrived,

but i do think, that manual confirmations and follows should work independently from each other in #Hubzilla.

It's very confusing for (almost) a mere user like me, when seemingly independent foreground functions secretly depend on each other in the background.

2023-04-24 00:31:12

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@_jayrope :hubzilla: I guess you've sent three messages, but one did arrive.