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Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development

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Re: Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development

#311

Post by [deleted] »

ehsankia wrote: post #265
TulliusCicero wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also what's up with this new trend of having the main content width-restricted, but not the header [0]? For extremely wide screens it obviously looks awkward, but the idea seems sound in principle. IIRC, the reason you'd want to restrict width of content is that it's hard for your eyes to track back all the way left, to the start of the content, when you need to go down a line. But the header is just a single line,…

But often these sites start doing the right thing and then restrict it, tkaing a step backward. Before: https://i.imgur.com/sgODcLW.png After: https://i.imgur.com/8j7P1YE.png The latter is objectively worse. I understand that > 1080p monitors are a small fraction of your user base, but that's still not reason to not test your UI on larger resolutions, for a site as big (and prominently used by devs with large screens…

[deleted]

Re: Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development

#312

Post by TimJRobinson »

rglullis wrote: post #196
rolleiflex wrote: post #151

We have something similar to this, Aether. https://getaether.net . (code at github.com/nehbit/aether) Always glad to see more eyeballs on the space, so I wish then the best. Here are a few differences I can see at the first glance: - Aether is decentralised (as in torrent) this appears to be federated. That means Aether truly has no servers and every user is a peer, while federated means there are smaller ‘Reddits’ a…

> By another proxy, this means Aether avoids the issue of having a ‘middle management’ (...) so no one can control what you see. This right here is the main thing that will never let any fully-decentralized system become mainstream. Two problems: - Most people do want "middle-management". They don't want to deal with security risks, technical issues, understanding how the protocol works just to be able to share memes…

The trade-off is that when you run your own instance you have to then attract users to it for it to be useful, which burdens others.

In a fully decentralized network you can meet new people and moderate your own view of the world without putting any burden on others to adapt to what you want. Moderation can be done with a system like this: https://adecentralizedworld.com/2020/06/a-trust-and-moderati...

Re: Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development

#313

Post by Karunamon »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #304
buzzkillington wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also, it seems like with user sovereignty and decentralization, that there will be various objectionable or even vile communities is inevitable, right? [...] I imagine responding to tech blogs with, "yes, there are white supremacist sub-communities, but you don't have to see them if you don't want to" won't come across as a very satisfying answer from their perspective. We comply with the letter of the law for the j…

Describing journalists concerned about bigoted communities present on your platform as "a mob" is certainly a hot take.

Allow me to add one of my own: Journalists' jobs aren't to share their "concerns", it's to report the facts. So much of the media's pathology is a result of the problem that news doesn't even try to be impartial anymore.

If you want to "share your concerns", the place to do that is an op-ed, or a blog post, or twitter, or something. But it isn't journalism anymore.

Re: Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development

#315

Post by buzzkillington »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #304
buzzkillington wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also, it seems like with user sovereignty and decentralization, that there will be various objectionable or even vile communities is inevitable, right? [...] I imagine responding to tech blogs with, "yes, there are white supremacist sub-communities, but you don't have to see them if you don't want to" won't come across as a very satisfying answer from their perspective. We comply with the letter of the law for the j…

Describing journalists concerned about bigoted communities present on your platform as "a mob" is certainly a hot take.

Not really. The yellow press has been creating violent controversies ever since the printing press was invented.

That they have moved on from urging the burning of heretics and infidels alive to making sure racists and bigots can't afford food and shelter is progress of a sort, but not one I would have chosen.

Still I might be speaking too soon. I wouldn't put it past them to reinvent the 30 Years War over which race is more virtuous for more clicks.

Re: Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development

#316

Post by IgorPartola »

The problem with Reddit isn’t the technology. I mean, yes open source is good, and I want more of that. Even Android is a good thing even if only one company actively contributes to it. At least when you hit a bug or don’t understand how something works, you can go read the code. But the problem with Reddit is community management, and re-writing it won’t solve that.

Reddit has been a mostly free for all in terms of moderation, and it is explicitly set up to allow thought bubbles, which gives rise to communities that dox activists, that incite violence, that promote conspiracy theories, etc. I love Reddit’s good parts and really detest its bad parts. Problem is that you can only solve that with strong application of content guidelines, or by not even pretending to be a good place a la 4chan. There is no model as far as I’ve seen, not even an academic one, that allows for mostly moderation free or self-moderated content while also not prominently featuring at least one neo-Nazi group using it to communicate and coordinate.

Re: Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development

#317

Post by chrisan »

_8j50 wrote: post #305
TulliusCicero wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you choose to opt out of email then you also choose to opt out of email support and being able to reset passwords via email. And the users will get mad and blame the service provider. That said users are dumb/wrong or whatever is irrelevant, what matters to the business is that they're pissing off users and getting a bad reputation. Thus, requiring emails from the user is entirely rational and in fact is a good…

No, making it a default makes sense. Users will not get mad if they get a warning telling them email support will no longer be possible. Alternatively you can opt with giving them a recovery code by which they can contact support or with which email will be enabled for an account when the user forgets their password. The only time you can't turn on email on your account is if you lose the password. Email is not secur…

> Email must die. No buts or ifs. It must die. You are a poor or ignorant engineer and architect if you build new things that depend on email in 2020.

You have three fingers pointing back at yourself

Re: Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development

#318

Post by dpau »

jimbob45 wrote: post #286
ryder9 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nothing wrong with pedophilia or nazis

You’ve got to give people a space to consider both sides of every argument. Better to cordone off that space than have that discussion elsewhere. If you tell someone NEVER GO INTO THE LAST DOOR ON THE THIRD STORY, they’ll endlessly wonder what’s inside. If you show them that it’s your amateur paintings, they’ll never care again.

bit of a difference between educating people about nazism vs. giving actual neo-nazis a space to use for communication and recruitment.

Re: Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development

#319

Post by rglullis »

comex wrote: post #270
rglullis wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By another proxy, this means Aether avoids the issue of having a ‘middle management’ (...) so no one can control what you see. This right here is the main thing that will never let any fully-decentralized system become mainstream. Two problems: - Most people do want "middle-management". They don't want to deal with security risks, technical issues, understanding how the protocol works just to be able to share memes…

> Those that want to keep full control over their system can easily do with a federated system: they just run their own instances. Is running your own instance hard? Then at best you’ll inevitably have some users who lack the know-how or time to set up their own instance. At worst, federated systems often link identity to home instance, so you can’t switch to a new instance without giving up your profile. Or they may…

> Then at best you’ll inevitably have some users who lack the know-how or time to set up their own instance.

Yes, and those users will use managed services, something that the "principled" decentralized community (not your keys, not your money/not your identity/etc) is completely against and invariably leads to re-centralization of the system around market players that go to serve this market. Case in point: Github, Coinbase, MtGox, Signal, any of the big cloud providers...

> At worst, federated systems often link identity to home instance

Why? I can have a domain name and move email providers freely. Same for XMPP, Matrix, websites in general, etc. The identity part of the system can be separate from the service provider.

If anything, this idea is more of an argument against decentralized services. It is an all-or-nothing approach: do you want to run this service with your identity? Great, then you need to be responsible in managing the service and secure your identity.

> Or is running your own instance easy? So easy that anyone can do it?

There is no such thing. Nevermind the case for those simply can not control the hardware where they run their systems, UI/UX of decentralized systems is always an afterthought. Even something as "easy" as bittorrent requires so much of a learning curve that most people simply do not want to be bothered to learn.

Besides, it's not just "running". It's keeping it up. Paying for operational costs. Decentralized systems by definition need to be able to do everything by themselves. There is no way to achieve any kind of economies of scale.

Worst of all: it's not having any one to blame/be responsible for things when it breaks. Oh, you got scammed into downloading a keylogger: fuck you, you lost all of your keys. Oh, you "just" bought something with Bitcoin from a site that seemed legit, but they delivered a counterfeit product? "Consider it an lesson in how to look for things online"

What I am trying to say is that decentralization vs centralization should be considered as a continuous spectrum of choices and trade-offs that need to be made by users. Federated systems allow basically everyone to be whatever is best for them on this spectrum, while this "decentralize all the things!" and treating it as binary choice does little to non-technical users and basically guarantees they will be confined in the walled gardens.

Re: Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development

#320

Post by IgorPartola »

jimbob45 wrote: post #286
ryder9 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nothing wrong with pedophilia or nazis

You’ve got to give people a space to consider both sides of every argument. Better to cordone off that space than have that discussion elsewhere. If you tell someone NEVER GO INTO THE LAST DOOR ON THE THIRD STORY, they’ll endlessly wonder what’s inside. If you show them that it’s your amateur paintings, they’ll never care again.

I don’t need to have a discussion with a guy who beats his wife because he never got help for his PTSD to know it’s wrong. Giving it a platform treats it like a point of view and not a gross fucking crime.

I don’t need to talk to a Nazi to know that gassing Jews and gays is wrong.

People seem to think that there are some unexplored ideas here that merit further discussion. We have already established that this shit is not what we want. Those in doubt can read accounts of domestic violence victims or a couple of history books to educate themselves.

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