Mike Macgirvin

Wed, 12 Aug 2026 06:31:37 +1000 from zap

Unicode handles that work with every fediverse platform today? I mean like right now...
IDN-encode (punycode) them. Been doing this since May 2018. They work with anything, even Mastodon. Any project should be able to implement properly displaying unicode handles in about 20 minutes.

The only hard part is implementing nicknames for your contacts/connections so you can auto-complete mentions of these folks using a US-ASCII keyboard.

Please share this and don't let Mastodon come up with a way to make this any harder or something that only works with their implementation.

man looking at screen projection of slide describing a topic called fediverse handles in every language

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Mike Macgirvin

Wed, 12 Aug 2026 07:15:27 +1000 from zap

Machines that are restricted to 7-bit US-ASCII or EBCDIC are no longer in the majority of the ARPAnet.
The world uses Unicode now. I don't find them easy to use, but this isn't for me. This is for people who simply can't read 7-bit US-ASCII - just as you probably can't read Chinese or Korean. Why shouldn't their social software be able to recognise and address them using their preferredUsername?

Bill Statler

Wed, 12 Aug 2026 07:26:04 +1000

Link for convenience:
https://jdlh.com/temp_doc/pres/DeLaHunt_Globally-Inclusive-Handles_COSCUP2026_2026-08-09.pdf

I like his comment in Slide 22:

Identify Fediverse apps which can change to make globally inclusive handles usable
● Not likely the big, leading software applications
● They have too many other demands
● Smaller applications. They are more likely to respond to requests from small numbers of pioneers.

Mike Macgirvin

Wed, 12 Aug 2026 07:42:07 +1000 from zap

Looks like he isn't making any specific recommendations, and does mention punycode as a possibility. I'm just raising my hand and saying "this works right now" and as far as I know is the only thing that works with Mastodon and all the other big players right now. Most will crash if handed a >= 8bit UTF-8 character. Mastodon can't deal with it at all.

Let's not overthink it. It's a solved problem with a solution that is widely used on the web today and it's all based on mature open standards. Unlike everything else in ActivityPub -- except perhaps JSON.

Announce: forte v26.8.11

Mike Macgirvin

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 07:24:14 +1000 last edited: Tue, 11 Aug 2026 08:49:25 +1000 from zap

Forte v26.8.11 is perhaps the most significant release of this pioneering decentralised communications system since my retirement a year or two ago. Where to start? Let's see...

Symfony integration was abandoned. It introduces far too many new dependencies and toolchain supply issues and complexities that folks just don't need.
We have brought in doctrine as the default database driver, which will provide significant database performance improvements and code structural improvements over the aging PDO driver going forward.
The 'Communities' app is now called 'Instances'. The 'Communities app' has subsequently been removed from your channel profile. If you desire to retain this functionality, have a look in 'Available Apps' for 'Instances' and install it as a replacement.
Forte now provides two independent protocols (much like its predecessors), but this time around we are offering you the choice of creating "conversations" (like Facebook) or "posts" (like Twitter/Mastodon). The conversational web has officially split from the ActivityPub fediverse as these differences apparently cannot be reconciled. It's all legal ActivityStreams, but without Twitter's crufty baggage that ActivityPub and fediverse/threadiverse FEPs brought to the party to ensure that ActivityPub only supports unsafe and fragmented conversations forever.
Forte now fully supports Mastodon's 'unlisted' delivery mode, and you may set this as a default audience or set it per-post. This is essentially a public message, but we don't spread it everywhere. We only send it to your followers. Since it is a public message, they are free to quote it and boost it, unlike the various 'restricted' or private options; which are access protected.
A number of improvements in C2S and OAuth functionality to support some of the newer C2S clients (including the nomadic clients). Still missing is support for code challenges - which is not available in the OAuth library we are using; so Evan's client doesn't work well with it. We'll probably have to rip out that OAuth server eventually and replace it with something else. This is no small task and carries huge security risks. Stay tuned.
Forte has introduced 'conversations 2', which is a successor to Conversation Containers; with none of its flaws. Compatibility patches are being prepared for streams and hubzilla - the only other projects which support the conversational fediverse. Once these patches are approved, we'll turn this on by default.
Introduced your photo albums as a stream that is now available to ActivityPub/ActivityStreams services. In progress: the ability to "upload" photos/videos/files to other channels through client container operations.
We'll be doing the same with your event calendars.
Private groups should be available to and work with lemmy and Mastodon folks that are running bleeding edge code. Note: You MUST use a DM (@!group) or bang tag (!group) or the ACL tool to address a private group. Sending a public post or even an @group to a private group and including any other recipients will result in it being rejected.
Finally worked around a Pixelfed bug that was closed by them 7-8 years ago without resolution, so now folks should be able to fully connect with users of that software. Caveat: Pixelfed is still dropping our comments. If anybody reading this has the ability to debug and/or affect Pixelfed code, some assistance would be appreciated. The worst part is that the messages are just silently dropped, but with a successful (2xx) response code; so the receiver sender has no way of knowing it failed.
The ACL popup has been re-worked to provide the delivery mode choices; as well as the new unlisted option. A stream filter was also added so you can view 'just conversations' OR 'just microblog posts'.
It seems that I never pushed the DDEV (container based localhost development environment) configuration for forte. I corrected this and also have one for Hubzilla using the same recipe, so that these can be installed side-by-side. Ask if you want it. There's one available from snake66's framagit pages that uses a wrapper directory; but this one is side-by-side identical to the forte and streams packages using the base fully supported LAMP configuration.
Added a 'geotag' stream filter to quickly display all conversations that provide a post location or Arrive/Leave/Travel activities and even events that provide basic location info. Any of these can be used to "find nearby" conversations/activities.
'Add event to calendar' was re-factored to allow pulling in events from the public stream - not just your own stream.
Facebook-like "wall-to-wall" posts may now be sent from other sites using tilde-mentions (~name); provided you have the relevant permissions and your post is approved by any internal or external moderators that you provided on your channel.

Cheers.