NodeBB v4.0.0 — Federate good times, come on!
Today's the day! :tada:
After nearly a full year in development, NodeBB v4.0.0 has landed, bringing federation between NodeBB instances (and a connection to the wider fediverse of social media) to forum software.
Fedi-what?
Fediverse! Here's a TechCrunch primer about it, but at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. All you need to know is that NodeBB plugs in to a wider social network so that you don't have to cultivate an audience, they're already there.
The genesis
It was back in mid-2023 when I had the initial idea of interconnecting NodeBB forums. Back then, I had far smaller ambitions... I wanted a singular NodeBB to be able to communicate with other forums running NodeBB. To do that, we'd need to build out a centralized service to act as a bridge between instances, and corresponding slim clients on individual installs to consume the relayed data. At the time, concept like decentralization were not even part of my thought process.
It was during this period when I was doing my research that I stumbled on Mastodon, and later, ActivityPub, the protocol that powers it all. Since then, it's been one wild ride getting NodeBB to speak the same language.
Funding
Soon after dipping my toes into all that Mastodon had to offer, I discovered the NLNet Foundation, and their corresponding fund — NGI Zero Core. With the promise of funding, NodeBB could fully commit to implementing the protocol in short order, instead of piece by piece over time. We sent in an application and were delighted to be approved for the August 2023 call.
Their funding was instrumental in providing the financial stability to experiment with ActivityPub and to participate in developer circles, such as the SWICG, FediForum, and much more.
The fund continues to operate, perhaps you could benefit, or donate to the cause. It has certainly made a difference to NodeBB.
Federate, or not, it's your choice
NodeBB v4 comes shipped with the capability to interact with other NodeBB forums and any other ActivityPub-speaking software, right out of the box. We opted to make this a core feature instead of a plugin, since there were many changes made to core to support even the concept of accepting content from outside itself.
To that end, any users upgrading from v3.x will automatically have federation disabled, in order to reduce surprise. Any new forums will federate automatically.
You can turn federation on and off (and adjust some other fun toggles) directly from ACP > Settings > Federation (ActivityPub).
Even after turning federation on, how you use it shapes how well connected you will be. There is no centralized authority artificially boosting your content, so the name of the game is establishing two-way follow relationships to other sites.
The ActivityPub Equalizer
We're not alone in this journey to interoperate with other decentralized services. We're not even the only forum software to attempt to do so.
- Discourse has a working plugin.
- Ghost is building out in the open.
I specifically highlight these two because they both started in the early 2010s, same as NodeBB. It's always been a bit of an informal competition between us, and we always checked in on what the others were doing (growth-wise, pricing-wise, etc.) Truth be told, I don't think the ghost team ever really noticed NodeBB, but I digress...
The funny thing about ActivityPub is that at the end of the day, the overarching goal of seamless communication breaks down any barriers between competing organizations.
NodeBB and Discourse have been vying for the exact same market share (forums, community-building, self-started or enterprise) for over 10 years, and it was only after ActivityPub came around that the dev teams even started talking to one another.
Funny how that works.
So how does it all work?
Our documentation portal has been updated with the latest information about the ActivityPub functionality in v4.
If you have any questions about how it works or how to configure some aspect of it, please don't hesitate to reach out in the corresponding v4 support thread.
If you run NodeBB, the quickest way to see this in action is to upgrade to v4, and then paste this post's URL into your search bar. It should show up automatically, and you should be able to read and reply to it, directly from your own forum. Neat!
Welcome to the fediverse: Your guide to Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky and more | TechCrunch
What is the fediverse? Here's everything you need to know about Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky and others.Haje Jan Kamps (TechCrunch)
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Tim Chambers
in reply to julian • • •Fitik likes this.
wakest ⁂
in reply to julian • • •Stefan Bohacek
in reply to julian • • •Chris Trottier
Unknown parent • • •Fitik likes this.
Chris Trottier
Unknown parent • • •@jorgecandeias Really? You don’t know anyone who uses Reddit? Or Facebook Groups? Or Steam Discussions? Or Tom’s Hardware forums?
Not one of them uses a forum anymore?
Jorge Candeias
in reply to Chris Trottier • • •Hope you're right. I just don't see anyone in my circle using forums anymore. All of those I hang around in back in the day died pretty much as social media took off.
@nodebb
Chris Trottier
Unknown parent • • •@jorgecandeias Oh, they’re dead? Let me check on that.
Here’s one: forums.tomshardware.com
Here’s another one: linustechtips.com/
Here’s another one: forums.atariage.com
Man, if forums are dead, how come I keep finding them?!
Tom's Hardware Forum
Tom's Hardware ForumJorge Candeias
in reply to Chris Trottier • • •I'm talking about independent forums. Facebook groups is precisely what killed them (reddit not so much, among the people I know). That and orkut.
As far as I know, those use their own software.
Chris Trottier
Unknown parent • • •@jorgecandeias All right, you made a big claim: that Facebook Groups “killed” bulletin boards and they’re all dead.
I had to verify if what you were saying was true. And it seems they’re still alive and kicking.
Go ahead and move goal posts by saying they’re less “relevant”—but that’s a whole lot different from saying they’re dead.
Jorge, you made an extraordinary claim, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Chris Trottier
Unknown parent • • •Jorge Candeias
in reply to Chris Trottier • • •dude, that attitude is totally uncalled for, you know?
You know full well they're WAY less relevant than they were in their hayday, you're just arguing for the sake of it. I got much better things to do with my time than arguing with you on this.
Again, I HOPE your're right and this is really a major plus to the fediverse. I'm skeptical, but we'll see, won't we? The future will tell, so arguing about this is just daft.
Chris Trottier
Unknown parent • • •@jorgecandeias Okay, Jorge, something you got to understand about me is that I tend to take things very literally. So when someone says, “Facebook killed forums,” I take them at face value.
In other words, I do not read between the lines. I don’t see whatever is not unsaid. If you make a catch-all statement, I’m going to assume you’re being literal about it.
Have yourself a wonderful day, and take care. 🌼
ex_06
in reply to julian • • •- is @luceos flarum coming soon also?
- the nodebb yunohost package has something weird going on cause i cannot find where is my admin account and if i have one at all lol
- congratulations @julian !
Daniël Klabbers
in reply to ex_06 • • •ex_06
in reply to Daniël Klabbers • • •Chris Trottier
Unknown parent • • •julian
Unknown parent • • •Re: NodeBB v4.0.0 — Federate good times, come on!
@thomasjwebb@mastodon.social definitely do it, it's a force multiplier in getting your content out, especially if you've built up an audience.
Discourse's AP integration is currently partially two-way. New topics and posts are federated outward to the fediverse, and replies federate in. There's currently no facility to discover new content from the fediverse and interact with it from Discourse.
From the start I've wanted NodeBB to be the fediverse client I use, so it supports full two-way communication with content discovery (via the dedicated
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Jorge Candeias
in reply to Chris Trottier • • •no, I never claimed no such thing. I said they killed all the forums *I* used to hang around. It's a massively different statement.
And this is why I'm not interested in continuing to talk with you. Next time try to reply to what's actually being said.
Ciao.
Jorge Candeias
in reply to Chris Trottier • • •There's nothing "between the lines" in what I wrote:
"I just don't see anyone in MY circle using forums anymore. All of those I HANG AROUND IN back in the day died pretty much as social media took off."
Verbatim quotes, caps added now for clarity.
It's very much all in the lines. All over the lines.
Chris Trottier
Unknown parent • • •Matthias Pfefferle
in reply to julian • • •Poliverso - notizie dal Fediverso ⁂ likes this.
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Hacker
in reply to julian • • •It's great. I saw first a link to your website and I could not reply from my Mastodon account. I had to find the post through Mastodon itself.
Maybe in the future you could add the possibility to reply from mastodon account.
julian
in reply to Hacker • • •Re: NodeBB v4.0.0 — Federate good times, come on!
@fedihacker@masto.es if you copy the topic url directly, it won't show up yet.
You'll have to use the directly post link (in the timestamp), e.g. community.nodebb.org/post/1027…
I'll look into making this a bit more seamless 🙂
julian
2025-01-20 19:29:55
Andy Piper
in reply to julian • • •skariko
in reply to julian • • •darkpollo
in reply to julian • • •Re: NodeBB v4.0.0 — Federate good times, come on!
@julian Amazing stuff.
Congratulations!!
I have some questions, probably because I am still trying to understand this activitypub thing.
1- If I write this reply here, that means is now public and can be read on other mastodon/activitypub servers/locations?
2- I saw people replying to you on another mastodon servers and their comments appear on the forum as replies, which is amazing, but, can they delete their messages on their mastodon server? And if they can, will that deletion be sent across and be removed from the database of this forum?
3- I also see that the people that replied, got an user and a profile on this forum, will they know about it? can they login and do something about that user? How do you identify "created social users" from "standard registered users" on your nodebb install?
Thanks!
phenomlab
in reply to julian • • •Re: NodeBB v4.0.0 — Federate good times, come on!
phenomlab
in reply to julian • • •Re: NodeBB v4.0.0 — Federate good times, come on!
projectmoon
in reply to julian • • •Re: NodeBB v4.0.0 — Federate good times, come on!
I've just installed a new instance of NodeBB and it works beautifully. Some questions:
Edit: the URLs stuck on pending are giving "invalid-id" errors in the log. As in invalid activitypub ids. I pasted the URLs of some Lemmy communities and NodeBB categories.
Edit 2: Found the topic about this. community.nodebb.org/post/1028…
Fitik likes this.
julian
in reply to projectmoon • • •Re: NodeBB v4.0.0 — Federate good times, come on!
@projectmoon@forum.agnos.is
Allow `Group` type to subscribe to communities · Issue #5354 · LemmyNet/lemmy
GitHubjulian
in reply to julian • • •Re: NodeBB v4.0.0 — Federate good times, come on!
projectmoon
in reply to julian • • •Re: NodeBB v4.0.0 — Federate good times, come on!
@julian@community.nodebb.org said in NodeBB v4.0.0 — Federate good times, come on!:
Do we need need to refollow?
julian
2025-02-02 09:01:16
Jakub Urbanowicz
in reply to julian • • •Re: Federation issues
Forum Obywatelskie
Forum ObywatelskieJakub Urbanowicz
in reply to Jakub Urbanowicz • • •Re: Federation issues
I am unaware of server tweaks to facilitate AP following/sharing.
reynir
in reply to Jakub Urbanowicz • • •Re: Re: Federation issues
Hi! I am also having federation issues on a fresh install of 4.0.3. For example, I can not see the content of all the posts here including the original post. I think I see the content of around half of the posts. I tried to reply on another post on community.nodebb.org, but after ten minutes it is still not visible at community.nodebb.org.
Ironically, I am not sure this reply will reach community.nodebb.org either.
NodeBB Community
NodeBB Community