Kainoa (@kainoa)
calckey.socialCalckey/Firefish is based off of Misskey, a powerful microblogging server on ActivityPub with features such as emoji reactions, a customizable web UI, rich chatting.
Wow, what a wild ride, huh? From those first brainstorming sessions that sparked Calckey, to the epic journey that brings us here today, rebranding as Firefish - Iâve gotta say, Iâm seriously blown away.
One year ago, Calckey was just my side project, after being a Misskey contributor for a while. But when yâall jumped on board, you made it so much more. You transformed it from my dream to our reality.
Firefish isnât just a cool name. Itâs everything weâve been working towards. Itâs late nights, strong coffee, wild ideas, laughs, and even the occasional tears. Itâs our little space on the web where weâre constantly pushing for the next big thing, and always looking out for one another.
So here we are, at the start of something new. Firefish is more than just a rebrand - itâs a celebration. A celebration of you, me, and us. Itâs a tribute to the amazing community weâve built together. Firefish is all of YOU.
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If itâs technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if theyâre wrong, or use a Linux distro you donât like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
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This communityâs icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
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I adore Calckey/Firefish. Itâs amazing software, but these are both pretty bad names. lol
I guess Firefish is better, because it sounds like software youâd want to use and not something you have to put up with to file a tax return, but also⌠why?
Yeah⌠Theyâre definitely 0-2 on namingâŚ
Calckey is functionally 39584882x better than Mastodon but Iâve tried several servers now that are all pretty weak.
Really donât know how they thought of the name Firefish without thinking it would make people think of Firefox first. Like how did they brainstorm this name, it makes me wonder
This may be intentional. Wouldnât be the first time.
Was Lavafish taken?
Huh interesting. I immediately had a positive reaction to the name because of this. Love Firefox. already loved Calckey err I mean Firefish though so I suppose I am not objective.
It really conveys the open and user control centric nature of the project. An homage to the fox. You have now not just the fox but the fish with which you can tame the raging fires of the web. Fish makes more sense than fox too cause the web is like an ocean. Idk just thoughts
âFirefish isnât just a cool nameâ
Yeah, itâs also a generic name that isnât very good?
It also sounds too much like Firefox. But either way, it doesnât sound like accounting software anymore which was my issue with calckeyâs branding prior to now anyway lmao
But itâs by far the best fediverse platform Iâve used from a functionality standpoint and Iâm quite fond of it so hopefully this puts more eyes on it
Agreed. I just wish they had native mobile apps. The PWA on iPhone is good, but not as snappy as a native app. The design otherwise is soooo nice.
A lot of issues with PWAs on iPhone are due to Apple limitations. Maybe one day Apple will improve their support for PWAs. The thing is that they have no incentive to make the experience as good as apps, since they canât charge their Apple Tax (30%) for purchases in a PWA.
@pixel any recommendations for some cool Calckey instances to try?
Iâm on Sakurajima.social because it was partered with the small anime-oriented masto instance I used previously so it felt like an easy swap and i could trust the moderation policy but my advice is, if you wanna use it like mastodon find a small instance where you can trust the mods and talk to them, and if you want to use it like its own platform (using channels, namely) find the biggest instance thatâs catered towards the niche youâre most passionate about. Channels are a big feature sell of firefish for me so being on an anime-centric instance makes a lot of sense for me :)
Cheers. Itâll be fun to explore.
Firefox, but make it wet
(I donât know if itâs a worse than âcalckeyâ tbf)
Waterfox is already a thing
Itâs not just specific to Clackey, but I really hate when sites hijack the right-click menu, either to remove options, or to modify it for âthemeâ. I get that it looks pretty wrt to the siteâs theme, but seriously, leave browser controls the fuck alone.
You can hold shift while right-clicking in Firefox to bypass any custom right-click code and always show the browserâs native context menu.
At least I think itâs shift. Might be alt.
Firefish sounds like what someone would call malware targeting Firefox users. I was hoping the name would be better.
Anyone remember Firesheep?
Calckey now Firefish seems really cool, but tbh I really canât say Iâm a fan of this rebrand. Calckey was distinct. Firefish sounds either like a Mozilla product, or a Firefox browser fork, or else bland office software. Definitely a downgrade imo.
Calckey sounds like it should be a spreadsheet name
CalKey would have cause a little less choking when trying to pronounce itâŚ
Calckey was a bloody awful name because it was hard to say and difficult to know how to say.
Firefish fixes that but is honestly quite generic.
Either way, I wish them the best.
So what actually is calckey/firefish? Is it just trying to be Twitter? Is it meaningfully different to Mastodon?
Itâs Mastodon with a better featureset and UX. Forked from the well-established Fediverse platform MissKey. Some things I like:
Could you elaborate on this? lol
Your avatar gets cat ears (more like extra triangles like cat ears on your avatar)
Well thatâs pretty fun. Thanks for sharing.
Antennae are such a neat feature that I have yet to play around with.
Imo more people would use them if they were called something clearer. Saved search. Custom timeline or feed. Something like that. But yeah they are awesome
Firefish nĂŠe Calckey is a microblogging platform like Mastodon, but thatâs about all it has in common. Firefish has extra features like emoji reactions (like Facebookâs, but you can use any emoji, including custom emoji), quote posts, and better support for deep threads (it displays replies in a tree view like Lemmy or Kbin, unlike Mastodon which tries to linearize them and makes them a confusing mess). it also supports text formatting like bold, italics, headings, custom link text, and even animations (donât worry, they donât autoplay). itâs even themable, and supports migrating posts from other accounts so you donât have to start over!
The name is way too similar to the Firefox trademark and could create the impression that Firefish is associated with Mozilla. I suspect some lawyers are currently in a huddle trying to figure out how to send a Cease and Desist letter that wonât completely piss off the community.
(Trademark law, at least in the US where Mozilla is headquartered, requires organizations to actively defend their trademarks. So just ignoring Firefish would be risky, even if they donât actually mind the similarity.)
Whatâs the reasonable extent of their trade mark? Anything involving âFireâ + âanimalâ ⌠or âanimalsâ starting with âfâ? Actually, now that I think that through, âfishâ alliterating with âfoxâ, and the non-trivial amount of âfoxâ/âfurryâ love on the platform does make this seem like a less trivial issue.
But still ⌠it seems to be in the space of similar but not trade mark infringement no?
Good question! Whether itâs actually infringement is a legal judgment Iâm certainly not qualified to make. đ But my understanding is that it hinges on whether a court thinks a âreasonable personâ could be confused. For example, a clothing brand called âFirefoxyâ would probably be in the clear since Mozilla isnât in the clothing business. And maybe even a clothing brand named âFirefoxâ might be okay! For example, Apple Computer and Apple Records (founded by The Beatles) coexisted nicely for a long time until Apple Computer started getting into the music-selling business. I forget how it got resolved (maybe a licensing agreement?) but The Beatlesâ music wasnât available on the iTunes Music Store for a looooong time while that dispute was going on.
Firefish is an online service and software package, the very space Mozilla operates in, so thereâs at least a case to be made that reasonable people might incorrectly assume itâs from Mozilla. Itâs come up many times in this discussion already, and we as active Fediverse users are already pretty well informed about this!
Yea it might fall into the âsimilar, but not really infringement, but similar enough to cause some headaches especially for a very small volunteer run social media platformâ territory.
Thanks for the response!!
https://mas.else.social/@choyer/110746384528095273
Someone checked and thereâs already an existing trademark for Firefish in software specifically, at least in Europe. Apparently they make HR solutions of some sort.
https://jobs.firefishsoftware.com/about-us/meet-the-team.aspx
Wow, if they havenât already cleared this with the existing company or lawyers, this is embarrassing.
Wouldnât you do a quick search as an early step in any branding exercise?
Hopefully it doesnât cause any issues
I like that theyâve read the memo about fediverse projects being named after animals, but firefish doesnât fit. They should have gone with Coelacanth or something like that⌠but easier to spell.
Wow checking out the site now, Calckey/Firefish looks great. Is this meant to be another Fediverse replacement for Twitter?
Replacement yes, but also its own thing that doesnât really care about replacing Twitter. I like to think of it as kinda a fusion of MySpace and Twitter.
MySpaceâŚthatâs a name I havenât heard muttered in yearsâŚ
Will Tom be my friend?
Iâve heard it compared to Tumblr
Not a tumblr user, but AFAIU, the post length or lack of character limit kinda tracks, but on the fediverse character limits like twitter and mastodon are much more forgiving basically everywhere else, so Iâm not sure thatâs a major factor. Plus, the colorful graphics and theme customisation and UI options are a big part of firefish/calckey, and Iâm not sure thatâs a thing on tumblr.
Any recommendations for good instances to try?
Iâm on calckey.social ⌠now probably firefish.social (as in theyâre making the change today).
Itâs the main flagship-style instance. But theyâve been having performance issues for a month or so that arenât fatal but not ideal. Thereâs a good chance the move to the new server (ie firefish.social) will fix all that but I wouldnât guarantee that.
Other than that Iâm not really sure. blahaz.zone seems to be run well. the admins of infosecexchange and mastodon.world also run instances, but Iâm not sure how theyâre going. So, firefish.social is probably the best recommendation ⌠though there are actually a number of instances out there!
Cool! Thanks - Iâll check them out.
Fire⌠fish? OkaaaayâŚ
Iâm trying to figure out what posts will be. Blubs? Fins?
EDIT: My partner said âbubbles.â Sheâs much smarter than I am it seems.
Not making fun; I think the name is fine⌠and the new features look promising too!
Why canât it just be âposts?â
Whereâs the fun in that?! Every service needs a silly and relatively useless term to designate its posts. Like⌠maybe Misskey could have⌠I dunno⌠uWus? (I kid, I kid.)
Bubbles is less bad than toots.
Did they come up with the new name in some kind of software name generator? Sort of like the hip hop name generator that Donald Glover used to come up with Childish Gambino?