Pothole: A Tumblr-like federated microblogging server.

ActivityPub is a way for websites to send messages even when they run vastly different software. Think of it like email, you can send messages from youraccount@your-instance.com to anyone on the network (as long as you do not block them or they are not blocked by you.)

This ability to talk to each other irregardless of website or provider is called “Federation”, when we say a software can federate via X, then it means that software can talk to other software that supports X.

ActivityPub’s most practical and used application is in social media software, you might have heard of Mastodon, Pleroma or even Calckey, all those servers have the ability to talk to each other via ActivityPub.

Now, there are other servers that do not use ActivityPub but that can still federate, Diaspora is one example. But one of the most common forms of federation is ActivityPub

The beauty of federation is that not one person controls the entire network, you can take refuge in someone else’s server and if you do not like their rules then you can make your own. There are also people hosting their own servers just because they are worried about their own privacy, this is all good for the network! The more servers there are, the less points-of-failures exist.

So whats the issue?

The problem with Mastodon, Pleroma and other mainstream server softwares is that they are not very efficient, a lot of their features are pure shiny bling for migrants from Twitter and other platforms.

Misskey

Jack of all trades, master of none.

(Yes, I really dedicated an entire section to just hating on this one software.)

There is also a widely popular server software out there called “Misskey”, many forks of misskey include calckey, foundkey and so on.

I believe Misskey (and its forks) take inefficiency to the next level. It’s written in TypeScript, it has too many useless features and honestly when will you EVER use any of them? I cannot think of a single reason to use half of the features it provides.

The webpages are so slow, that even on a powerful, beefy machine, the web browser will visibly lag and slow down. I have experienced a bug where Calckey often breaks my browser’s tabs, yes, this is a bug with my browser but the fact that Calckey, out of all the webpages out there, trigger it is somehow astounding!

I am not the only one who thinks or has experienced these issues, When it comes to bloat, inefficiency and just plain slowness, Misskey and its forks are on a next level compared to Mastodon and Pleroma.

Clearly if the Fediverse wants to grow, it needs efficient and scalable servers. Not whatever the hell this is.

So, to help spawn a new generation of efficient instances, I have started the Pothole project which aims to create a lightweight ActivityPub-capable microblogging server.

Also no ActivityPub software has introduced custom user-profiles which I am a huge fan of. I like the idea of being able to customize your own profile, I believe this will encourage people to be creative with their profiles.

Ultimately, Pothole is designed to serve a very niche case, it’s for people who either want the most efficiency or who want the most customizability (or both!)

How long till its mature?

Its hard to say, but its definitely not now. Actually, breaking changes in Pothole’s internal structure are at its highest since the project began, so it probably won’t be stable until another year or so?

I am hoping to get a somewhat stable microblogging backend by 1696969420 (Unix epoch time) or October 10th 8:23:40 PM (Normal time, UTC) even if it does not have ActivityPub support. Developing a social media server, especially one similar to Pothole takes a while and I am human, so I have to dedicate time to do other tasks.

For the time being, use GoToSocial if you want the most lightweight server possible or Akkoma if you are looking for a somewhat light, yet capable server.

I will be here digging this hole deeper and deeper until I create something amazing. Meanwhile come check out my progress!

You might think it’s a bit erroneous to link to a Tilambda-hosted project from a Vern-hosted website but I unfortunately have not setup user sites on Tilambda yet.