Who is this?

Alan writes about the trick with identity on the Fediverse, when you are using multiple tools/platforms:

One of the oddest wraps is that as you take on more fediverse tools, you actually end up fragmenting your identity. It’s all connected and interminable, but on every service/instance, you are a new identity.

The idea/problem here is that you can use one identity on the Fediverse, say your Mastodon account for microblogging, and that identity can be viewed/followed from other places. But once you want to use another tool or platform, say Pixelfed for an Instagram-like experience, you are met with a somewhat confusing choice. Any of these fediverse-enabled things can talk to or follow each other, but which one is me? Which one is the one.

Yet my ActivityPub enabled WordPress blog posts as @topdog Anything I post there goes to a different and smaller number of followers (not that I look or count much) (okay I looked, 12). I am fragmented.

Really the only sensible approach I have found is to repost stuff from my WordPress identity under my main. It probably looks like vanity self tooting. Shrug

Note that I still have running an IFTTT thing that listens to my RSS feed and posts to my main Mastodon account. I’ve not figure out which I prefer so they are both in play.

I’m sure that the intention from folks who designed ActivityPub is that no one tool/platform is the one, and that's not really how the web ever worked anyway, especially not on non-federated sites. It’s an interesting case where integration can actually make things feel fragmented.

Right now, my main Fediverse thing is Mastodon (Ok and actually PeerTube a bit too), so I mostly haven’t grappled with this yet, but it’s something I’m thinking about while I eagerly wait for Ghost (and therefore this blog) to get ActivityPub support.

I share similar concerns about Bluesky, but I do post there a little bit, for now. The funding behind it smells bad, and it’s not meaningfully decentralized yet, not until there are multiple Bluesky hosts/servers/instances whatever you call them. If/when that happens, will it still have its simple appeal? I hope so, but the jury is out!

If you seek push button simpleness and algorithmic drip feeds, there are plenty of options. Actually what I relish about the fediverse is the non simplicity— that gets internet fled with confusion but if you discount the possibility to learn nuance, non obvious paths, than you are discounting your own human ability to learn, adapt.

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Amen!