Kristi H.

Web & Graphic Designer, Computer Nerd, and Sci-Fi/Fantasy fan.

Last Notes

2025-03-17 03:37:14 UTC

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@nprofile…rgpg So it's rate-limited and totally hit or miss whether it works based on how many other people on your instance have shared YouTube videos? That's not good.

2025-03-16 22:16:12 UTC

,
How do we post YouTube video on Friendica? Either a thumbnail with the title and description (like when I link to a news article somewhere) or an embed of the video? I've tried [url], [video], and [youtube] BBcodes and the "Link or Media" button in the post editor and nothing worked. They either just render as a text-only link or this empty box with "Enter a title" and "Enter a description"
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2025-03-11 18:01:24 UTC

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@nprofile…dzkq
Mutuals should include followers, followers shouldn't include (all) mutuals.
Not according to my testing with multiple accounts, some of which were "Mutual Friends" and others only "Subscribers/Followers." All Mutuals are, by definition, also Followers. But Followers you are not following back are not Mutuals.
"Friends of Friends" on Facebook are people you are not Friended to but they are connected to someone you are connected to. So you have a mutual person in between you and them. Under the general idea that the people friended to someone you're friended to are probably okay too, and potentially people you might want to friend directly yourself. But if they can't see anything you post or anything your mutual contact comments on or likes, neither you nor they would never know each other exists if the posts aren't public.
I really wish Friendica had that because 99% of everything I ever posted on Facebook was to "Friends of Friends" (which includes the mutual contact in between you, so it's actually "Friends" + "Friends of Friends").

2025-03-11 05:19:33 UTC

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So I guess I'll answer my own post. I played around with an offline Dev Server install of Friendica and think I figured it out. But it is confusing because some of the "Permissions > Limited/Private" options refer to Relationships and others refer to Circles.
Mutuals refers to the Relationship "Mutual friends" where you are both following one another.
Followers refers to the Relationship "Followers" which is anyone who if following you, including "Mutuals."
Friends refers to the Circle named "Friends" which includes anyone you put in that Circle. When you add a Contact this is the default Circle they are put in, so it also includes your "Followers" and "Mutuals."
I also moved one Follower from "Friends" to a custom Circle named "Acquaintances" and made a post to "Followers" but excluded "Acquaintances" and that worked as intended. That one Follower could not see the post but the rest could. So it appears that Circles take precedence over Relationships.
Groups refers to the Circle named "Groups" not the Account Type called "Groups." But as far as I could tell no group in your Contacts can see anything posted with only this scope, even if you @ mention them specifically. You're better off scoping the post to the specific group account.
I also created an "Organization" sub-account. In another test account I created a custom "Pages" Circle. Then I made a post scoped to "Pages" and, yes, the Organization account could see that post.
So what, then, is a "Subscriber"?
The connection request is, so far as I can tell, the ONLY place you ever see "Subscriber." It is not a Circle, Relationship, nor Account Type. If you select "Subscriber" and hit "Approve" the person is added to your Friends Circle and your Followers Relationship. So "Subscriber" = "Follower." Same thing.
There does not appear to be anything similar to Facebook's "Friends of Friends." It looks like the ONLY way to scope a post to accounts that are not in your Contacts is to make the post "Public."
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2025-03-10 22:58:48 UTC

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I'm going to try to answer some of my own questions after playing around with my Dev Server install of Friendica, trying to figure this out.
"Mutuals" apparently refers to the Relationship named "Mutual friends" where you both following each other.
"Followers" refers to the Relationship named "Followers" which is anyone who is following you, including "Mutuals."
"Friends" refers to the Circle named "Friends" which includes anyone you've put in "Friends" and is also the Circle in which "Followers" automatically go.
So who are "Subscribers" when you Approve a Contact?
This appears to be the ONLY place you ever see the word "Subscriber." There IS neither a Circle nor a Relationship called "Subscriber."
If you select that and hit "Approve" the person is added to your "Friends" Circle and placed under the "Follower" Relationship. So "Subscriber" = "Follower." Same thing.
"Groups" appears to refer to the Circle named "Groups" and NOT the Account Type named "Groups." However, when I tried to scope a post's "Permissions" to just "Groups" the Group I was following could not see the post. Not even if I @ mentioned them in it. So I guess "Groups" as a scope does not work.
I also set up a test "Organization" account. After following it I created a custom Circle named "Pages" and put that Organization in that Circle. When I posted something scoped to "Pages" the Organization account did see the post. So that appears to work, if for some reason you wanted to post something every Organization you were following should see. Though in the case of both an Organization or Group it's probably far more useful to just scope the post to their account name.
I also moved one "Follower" account from "Friends" into a custom Circle named "Acquaintances" and then made a post to all Followers but excluded Acquaintances and that worked as expected. That one Contact could not see the post but the rest of the "Followers" could see that post. So I gather from that your Circles take precedence over Relationships.
And that's one of the points of confusion with this. Some of the terms are referring to Relationships, some to Account Types, and some to Circles.
Notably, NONE of them appear equal to Facebook's "Friends of Friends." It seems the ONLY way to scope a post's reach to anyone you are NOT connected to is to make the post "Public."
If I'm wrong about any of this someone please let me know.
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2025-03-09 23:12:26 UTC

Friendica has a LOT of feeds. Too many really. It's confusing. Overwhelming. Oh, and they're apparently called TIMELINES here. I've been trying to figure out which ones I should be using that are similar to the ones I used on Facebook.
Over on Facebook most people probably never go beyond the very awful "News Feed" which is full of algorithm-driven, AI-generated, and advertising garbage. And the only people, groups, or pages you see there are the ones you regularly interact with. Which is why for years I've been using the other feeds on Facebook, and they're the only thing that actually makes that platform usable IMO. But it's hard to try and figure out what Friendica "Timelines" are the closest corollary to the Facebook ones?My best guesses are:
What's Hot = News Feed: It's a fire hose of posts from accounts you don't follow that are getting a lot of engagement. However, I have no clue what kinds of interactions or how many get something into this feed. There is also a "Discover" feed that says it's supposed to show "Posts from accounts that you don't follow but might like" and I have no clue how, without an algorithm, it would determine what I might like. Apparently it doesn't or can't because that feed is empty for me.
Latest Activity = All Feed: because it's based on people you're connected to and shows all their latest interactions (Posts, Likes, Shares, and Comments) including on posts by accounts you don't follow.
For You = Friends Feed: which I think is just posts from people listed as "Mutual Friendship" in your Contacts, meaning you are following them, they are following you.
Latest Activity + Circles/Account Types > Groups = Groups Feed: there doesn't appear to a separate Groups feed in Friendica.
Latest Activity + Circles > Interests = Pages Feed: at least I think "Interests" is referring to "Pages" but I'm not sure, and there doesn't appear to be a separate "Interests" feed.
It would be nice if you could filter the "Network" feeds by more than one thing at a time. There is no way to "stack" filters or save that view. Which is too bad because that would be a killer feature akin to Bluesky's custom algorithms!
As for the other "Timelines" in Friendica:
"Latest posts" and "Latest Creation" are obviously because stuff doesn't necessarily arrive on your server at the same time it was sent from another one. Though I'm not sure anything posted to social media is so time-sensitive you'd need these feeds since I assume the same stuff will show up under "Latest Activity.""Personal" only shows posts that @ mention you. "Sharers of Sharers" sounds like a feed of what you would call "Friends of Friends" on Facebook. It's unclear what puts someone in "Quiet Sharers" though. It sounds like "Mutual Friendships" that just don't post much, but how often is often?
I'm guessing "Starred" means posts I've LIKED? Or does it only mean posts I've actually gone to the "More..." drop-down and selected "Add Star"? Or BOTH?
"Images," "Audio," and "Video" are pretty self-explanatory, I guess if you're here for the photos, podcasts, and TikTokish content. I've also seen on servers that have a lot of add-ons enabled people might have additional feeds for other platforms they are connected to, which are self-explanatory.
"Local Community" and "Global Community" appear to be the same feeds as under the "Community" button in the main navigation. Which is redundant, but okay.
Then I've also seen instructions for new users to go into Settings > Social Networks > General Social Media Settings and change the drop-down to "Any conversation my follows interact with, including likes" or your feeds will be pretty bare.
It's little wonder this confuses people coming from other platforms. It's...a lot.
#friendica
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2025-03-09 19:53:20 UTC

I'm still trying to wrap my head around Friendica's terminology. Can someone explain what these actually mean in the post "Permissions"?
Friends: Does this mean EVERYONE in your “Contacts” list or “Mutual Friendships” (people I'm following who are following me back)?
Mutuals: Does this mean “Mutual Friendships” or is it like “Friends of Friends” on Facebook? Meaning you and someone else are both connected to a mutual person between you, but you are not connected to each other?
What is the difference between a Follower and a Subscriber?
Do you have to join a "Group" to follow it or can you just follow one? If you can just follow it what does including "Groups" in the post "Privacy" scope do?
Is "Interests" like "Pages" on Facebook? Because following tags is a separate thing, but again, what happens if you include "Interests" in your post Privacy scope? Who can see your posts if you include it?
On Facebook - not that many people apparently do this - you can "Star" people as "Close Friends/Favorites" or as "Acquaintances" or "Restricted" (and they used to have a "Family" option). I get that in Friendica you can create custom "Circles" to organize your contacts like this and those categories become available as post "Privacy" scopes. But I'm still confused as to what the meaning of some of the default ones are.
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