Thread

Mostr is one-way.

if it's in the bridge

Really? By design?

FWIW that's clearly not how Alex Gleason describes the functionality

nostr:nprofile1qqsqgc0uhmxycvm5gwvn944c7yfxnnxm0nyh8tt62zhrvtd3xkj8fhgpzamhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuurjd9kkzmpwdejhgtcpzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerfw36x7tnsw43z7qgkwaehxw309aex2mrp0yhx6mmnw3ezuur4vghs0klf00

No it's not. It's 2-way.

Yes. Both protocols are open and permissionless. ActivityPub accounts are generated for all Nostr users, and Nostr accounts are generated for all ActivityPub users, on the fly as messages come through.

It works pretty well when it works. The bridge goes down sometimes so i wouldnt rely on it too much and its best to keep Mastodon stuff on Mastodon and Nostr on Nostr to be safe but its does work.

OK, some questions about this. (A) Some instances do or don't federate with Mostr, as described in their "peers" API. For instance, mastodon.social doesn't, but several other npubs I follow are on servers that do. (B) For instances that DON'T federate with Nostr, aren't they effectively one-way channels? Should there be some kind of profile badge or warning tacked onto their NIP-05 info that "they won't hear what you say" or something like that? And (C), even for instances that do federate with Mostr, I frequently find that my comment replies just don't show up. In fact, this seems to be the "default" behavior. An example is nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzptujz495l5qzjfqrzwr0wyenkzhajaq6qah4cuutcfsr5k6e6eclqyt8wumn8ghj7etyv4hzumn0wd68ytnvv9hxgtcpzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43z7qgmwaehxw309a68yetwv35kueewwfjkcctewvhxcctwvshsqgqqxywug0jlpeehfy77r4wy7av6ldmx0gkhd57m8hdm42xs46tqk5frq0ly , which doesn't seem to show up on fosstodon.org, despite the fact that that server federates with Mostr

If the server doesn't federate with Mostr, isn't it effectively one-way? Could there, and/or should there be a badge or indication for Nostr users that "your reply won't show up"? I'm not surprised this user thinks this, because 99% of my experience is that it is indeed a one-way communication channel....

Yes, Mastodon servers can block Nostr content from their server (their users would not see it). They can also prevent their content from being fetched by Mostr, preventing Nostr users from seeing it (although this is less common). This is the same as Mastodon to Mastodon federation. From ​their perspective, Mostr is just another Mastodon server. So this doesn't change whether it's a 2-way bridge. That would be like saying that any individual Mastodon server is only a 1-way bridge to other Mastodon servers that block receiving content from it.

Right, but is there some way of knowing whether those blocks are in place, and presenting that information to the Nostr users (at least)? Does the Federation (peers) State have anything to do with it? I mean, I'm sure when it's Mastodon-to-Mastodon instance communication, the user knows whether they or their server are blocked by the other one, right?

I guess what I'm getting at is, perhaps a separate (sub?)-bridge that filters only the places where we are "allowed" from the ones where we're blocked

I have yet to see a reply from Mostr, but I guess it's possible.

So why would they do That? Blocked nostr content

I mean could be a number of different reasons... Too much Spam, too much Bitcoin content, general disdain of anything outside of the Fediverse....

You can go to every individual Mastodon server and see if they publish a blocklist. It's the same as Mastodon to Mastodon federation. We can't break out of that.

Titty tooth.

Right, yeah, I get that we can't change the policies of these individual servers... But is there a way to at least programmatically report back to Nostr users whether their comments will even be heard, given a particular user they're interacting with?

Also this, but also only works if they publish the block list https://fba.ryona.agency/?domain=mostr.pub

lol at 80% of block reasons, and beeg ups (piemp) to the one instance explicitly accepting the bridge

"Soapbox 🤮"

Hadn't seen that before, thanks! But I'm guessing those servers wouldn't show up on the bridge in the first place, if they've explicitly blocked Mostr...

There are ways to prevent transmission of notes, but it's mostly about blocking your notes from reaching them

Right, yeah the thing is (a) there are servers that federate with Mostr/Momostr, (b) there are servers that *don't*, but both of their notes show up on the Mostr bridge. Now within the set of servers that federate with Mostr, *sometimes* I can actually get a reply (actually the only time in recent memory is with retro-gaiden.com, kudos to nostr:nprofile1qyt8wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyd968gmewwp6kytcqypekqratdqzu83u6tyjacawyg7n8hag7rhwvn3mjaw8jeumr7qkgj3ncn7q ), but sometimes the reply just seems to disappear. I have to imagine that there is some error message or something being pinged back from the Mastodon instance saying "nope you can't post here for XYZ" reasons... it would be great to have that be relayed back to Nostr, right?

Whether or not you see a note depends on whether the relay(s) that carry the note are up and you are connected to them. So if the only relay carrying the note that you connect to is the mostr bridge and it's down you won't see it. Notes do get propagated through to other relays but it's not perfect.

No I'm talking about on the Mastodon side. Notes should show up there if this is working as it's supposed to, but 99% of the time they don't.

If you see a note on the fedi server and then it disappears then it may be related to moderation/ defederation on their part. WRT Activitypub I think (though Alex may advise otherwise) it is push/ pull. When you push an event to activitypub, every server that has a subscriber (follower) to your notes will pull that event. I think, depending on the sw it may pull per follower as well. You could get overwhelmed with failure messages if they're sent back (I'm not sure if they are tbh, would have assumed they would just drop stuff).

S*apbox is my favorite

This is actually not a bad idea, like a little red exclamation mark or no-wifi symbol or some other clear visual indicator next to a non-federating ActivityPub user's handle. And/or the symbol could show up on one's own replies if there are any issues present, maybe with a hover-over pop-up that lists who in the thread can and can't see your reply. I'm not sure how difficult this would be to implement technically, but something in the UI to help the user understand federation / bridging issues would definitely be helpful, be it for issues caused by defederation, or for issues on our end with sending out the posts.

I think this is crucial, IMHO. As far as I can tell, most Nostr users just block Mostr and Momostr as their "starting pack" instructions. And I don't necessarily blame them. Look at my past several comments to Mastodon users. I haven't heard back from a single one. And when I go to those Mastodon instances, I never see my comment replies on the post that got "bridged." Did my post ever make it back to the original instance? Was it rejected for "reasons"? Was it ever seen by the user I replied to?

I will say that, as someone with more experience on Fedi than Nostr, that it isn't uncommon at all to run into reply threads where you can't see half of the participants because of your instance's defed list, so us being able to see these users at all is a step up in that regard, but I do agree that some kind of visual indicator to differentiate ActivityPub users that can interact with us from ones who can't would be a really good idea.

So let me get this straight... Is it the case that IF an instance federates with Mostr, then we SHOULD expect the bridge to be 2-way? Or are there other aspects of the interaction (user preferences etc) that dictate this?

I believe other aspects are at play, but my understanding is that if the Fedi instance is federating with Mostr, the interactions should be 2-way, yes. I think there are some technicalities in how federation works / populates that may make connectivity <100% reliable, but these are nuances that Alex would know better than me. I'm basically just here to give a tech-illiterate end user perspective lol