Good day all! Upcoming episode of Fireside Fedi! TODAY!

The #livestream will be on: stream.firesidefedi.live

Special Guest: @ellyxir@humanwords.cc

bio.site/ellyxir Programming languages enthusiast, choir, classical singing, video game creation, retro computers, languages

So don't miss it!

It will happen on 21 January 2026 at 10:00 US Eastern Time ( UTC-5 )

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@mk@bsd.network ​I agree with your points. But this would be similar to something like Better Business Bureau in the US. I believe it's an independent company that just has traction. While not all businesses are a part of it, they have become a go to for reports.

Something like this would at first just be email. This can be automated. Create an account every like 6 months. If that email address shows up on a mailing list, you know it's been sold and because it's an identifiable email address to the website, we know who sold it.

Because the badges would be handled by something like BadgeFed, we could remove their badge.

I agree though, an actual governmental body doing this, would be ideal and I'd be totally fine using this as an example. Nothing I'm advocating for I plan on being the sole owner of it forever. Even my show. I do it to see if it can work, to learn, and hopefully someday, hand off to someone to do better.

@mk@bsd.network ​Yes. That was my original though, the whole label, but I've evolved the idea a bit. I'm kicking around an idea that uses like a seal of quality. Just bought internetprivacylabel top level domains, org, net, com. And creating a FediBadge badge where someone can put it next to a sign up and see it has a quality label saying they don't sell any of your data. And then you can click the label and it shows verification on FediBadge. And then maybe even more information about that specific vendor/badge. So you can known with a seal whether it's instantly trustworthy, vs all of the garbage we have now.

IDK if this would pan out, it would require us to do independent verification, it would require large sites to join and do this, it requires building trust. All things I've never done. But I'm trying to figure out ANYTHING I can attempt to help make this worker better than today.

@JustinMac84@mastodon.social ​oh yes. I've seen though. I am in the US, but I've seen them yes. I think that's way too difficult. I'm thinking not only just something like that, but also a quality seal of approval kind of thing. Like Nintendo used to do. You see the seal, you know you don't have to worry. IDK if it'll work, but I think a seal like that, once people can recognize it, could be helpful. It'd also take people putting that on their site next to signups as well though.

@adriano@lile.cl ​Yeah. They need to be forced to show it. And folks need to know there's often a choice. That's why I'm thinking of a badge just to show. Kind of like the "Organic" label means nothing really except their self defined standards. But this would be backed by my Non-Profit and we'd do testing to verify. IDK if any of this is technically possible or would work, but I think it's worth a shot. Just a quality seal of approval kind of thing.

This week on Fireside Fedi!

21/01/2026 10:00 UTC-5

Special Guest: @ellyxir@humanwords.cc

bio.site/ellyxir Programming languages enthusiast, choir, classical singing, video game creation, retro computers, languages

23/01/2026 10:00 UTC-5

Special Guest: @limebar@mastodon.social

Making electronic music:https://mastodon.social/tags/limebar He/Him/His and 100% OK with you being you. Hello new users best advice:write a short intro post, pin it to your profile and update your profile follow every interesting account you see you can and should follow interesting hashtags and use hashtags when posting home shows what you follow and what they boost follow @FediFollows & @FediTips

#Owncast ( #Livestream ): stream.firesidefedi.live

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Or, even on #YouTube: youtube.com/@btfree_org

#firesidefedi #fediverse #fedi #interview #freesoftware #opensource #userfreedom #freedom #resistance

@elettrona@poliversity.it ​ yeah the "blah blah blah" is what I'm hoping to help solve. Just like a holden seal of quality on a signup page that is given by a body that says you don't sell anything and we can test for that. Independent and nonprofit based. As I told my wife, like a seal of quality on things. And then click on that for verification and maybe even then have a "privacy nutrition label". So it becomes as thoughtless as "blah blah balh". Idk if it'll work, but I'm going to try. With FediBadge.

Just realized something. Nutrition labels were put on food to help educate folks as yo what they're eating. It helped normal people understand basic nutrition values in their food. This was one step to educating the public.

I just realized I want an Internet Privacy Label. When I go to sign up for a service you have to list out in detail every single way you sell my data and who to. I don't want legalese. I want a LIST.

Maybe once people see the long list they'll start taking this more seriously?

Anyone know if anything like this exists or is in the works?

@lorenzosmusic@mastodon.social ​Masive amounts of fun. Thank you so much for joining me and sharing so much. And thank you so much for all you do as well. Keep up the amazing work.

@phillycodehound@indieweb.social ​YUP! Moved everything over to bonfire. Lovihg it! I absolutely see what they're going for and it's a strong base so far. Buggy at points, but Ivan and Mayel are releasing code incredibly fast.

@phillycodehound@indieweb.social ​Looking very clean! I like the layout. Great job sir. I don't have a G2S or Masto account to use, but I really like the demo by default.

@phillycodehound@indieweb.social ​WAIT! You BUILT it? DUDE! 😁 That's awesome! I'll check it out ASAP then!

@annewalk@tootsweet.social @Bonfire@bonfire.cafe great question. It is like Mastodon as you can create messages, like this. And it can connect to other servers. That's where the similarity ends.

Bonfire is being designed in flavors and extensions. So you can tack on what you want. They want you to build your community with it and they offer TONS of out of the box controls.

There's an open science version that yes has toots, but also allows you to search through research papers.

They're adding a calendar so you can create and track events.

I've talked with them about a RSS reader that I can easily toot out articles I enjoy.

They're actually looking for feedback on what extensions folks would like to see on their git.

They're implementing end to end encryption in their direct messages.

They're going to work on. a community flavour that ties communities closer.

When I go to my instance and log in I don't see a wall of toots. I see my dashboard. At the moment my dashboard has news articles shown. And tending topics. It'll ha e more in the future. These are created from the sources I follow.

So it's basically a one stop shop for information I desire, under my control, and oh yeah you can do like Mastodon.

But again, as it's modular you can strip out all of it as well.

It's definitely not for everyone, and it's buggy, but Ivan and Mayel are amazing dudes that are very receptive to the rough edges and bugs.

I did a video installing and showing it off if you'd like to watch it:

tubefree.org/w/3pATRDsqiBu99...

I'm on Matrix, Signal or Discord as well if you want questions. And the Bonfire folks are on Matrix as well.

@ikklegemzuniverseplus@ohai.social ​Are you running it on a VPS? I know Hetzner, for instance, blocks outgoing email as they don't want to be an email spam farm. You have to request they open it. There are commands to try to connect to email servers from the CLI that you might be able to make sure you have connectivity out.

@phillycodehound@indieweb.social ​Thank you sir. 😄 Tom's an amazing guest.

@marcusxms@friendica.dk Oh, absolutely ​agree. And thanks for suggesting. 😄

@ikklegemzuniverseplus@ohai.social ​Are you sure your mail is set right? When I do an invite link, click it, and email is working there for me.

Or are you referring to a different email process?

The initial invite email works though. Email is a frustrating thing to set up though, I had many issues. Not Bonfire related.

@berkel614@mastodon.social ​Well they have a space in Matrix if you're on there.

@marcusxms@friendica.dk totally understand this. I begrudginly made a Github acct a while ago to interact with projects. It solves problems though for a lot of folks. I wouldn't start my projects there, but I'm also a self-hoster that runs my own git. But I'm also not heads down trying to create the next open social network app. 😁 lol

@ikklegemzuniverseplus@ohai.social ​What email issue is that?