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Our experience with the Fediverse, and why we left

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Re: Our experience with the Fediverse, and why we left

#161

Post by richard_todd »

_0ffh wrote: post #151
richard_todd wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was replying to a post claiming the only novel part of mastodon compared to old message boards is federation. I’m merely pointing out that many old message boards did have federation. To your points (1) yes, everything was slower back then (2) people could and did post streams of their work within the BBS framework, everything from multi-part posts to “owning” a message-board topic, to text/ansi e-zines, but back t…

> yes, everything was slower back then Right, and still I was super amazed that I could send a message to someone halfway around the world, and it would arrive there only a couple of days later! Compared to a letter that's really fast!

It was cool stuff, for sure, and I'm glad I got to experience it when it was new. A little extra latency in our online discourse would probably do the modern world some good, not that anyone would go for it.

Re: Our experience with the Fediverse, and why we left

#162

Post by sdenton4 »

rbanffy wrote: post #154
dsr_ wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, the Usenet servers which took massive amounts of bandwidth and disk space take tiny amounts of bandwidth and disk space (assuming you don't allow binary posts). Maybe it's time for Usenet to come back. - Truly federated - Topic focus instead of people-focus - Killfiles! - Proper threading - Standards-based servers and clients

I really like NNTP, but spam was becoming a huge problem in the Usenet and its nature makes it harder to assert the identity of a poster.

I mean, if people want to give out helpful information about gland enlargement alongside links to where supplements can be purchased for the astonishingly low price of $12 a pill, who are we to try to stop them? Provide an unfiltered free speech platform and the stronger ideas will win, right?

Re: Our experience with the Fediverse, and why we left

#163

Post by glenstein »

S-E-P wrote: post #27

I would argue that what is described in this post is inherent in all social networks. The wonderful thing about the Fediverse is that depending on the node you connect to, or the people you choose to federate with (in the event that you have your own instance) that your experience will be vastly different. It’s given me some of the most enjoyable interactions I’ve ever had online in the last ten years. You need to ha…

>I would argue that what is described in this post is inherent in all social networks.

This is just what I was thinking. I can't imagine any platform that would meet some of the criteria demanded in this writeup. In what universe would you expect to close your account on twitter, move over to a new account, and migrate your history into a newly opened Twitter account? You can't do that on any private social platform. You also can't update posts on Twitter at all, let alone update and keep comments + replies. You can't know how many of your Twitter followers are "real" either; another thing not unique to Mastodon.

You actually can go past 500 characters on various instances. I'm on one that goes to 1024. As for character limits on "the fediverse" there are non-mastodon projects that let you go beyond 500 characters.

The larger project of federation is just so much more important than all these bizarre little idiosyncratic preferences. It's so maddening to listen to people who think the project of decentralized alternative to private social networks should live or die on whether it includes some new added feature that they can't even get on the private platforms.

Re: Our experience with the Fediverse, and why we left

#164

Post by lifthrasiir »

Barrin92 wrote: post #117
lifthrasiir wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The wonderful thing about the Fediverse is that depending on the node you connect to, or the people you choose to federate with (in the event that you have your own instance) that your experience will be vastly different. The same argument works with Twitter, and I genuinely believed so a decade ago (Twitter has been the only social network I still continuously use). I don't buy it at all after the decade-long expe…

Moderation alleviates those issues and the difference between Mastodon instances and Twitter is that the former can moderate content according to local community standards. It's wrong to think of Mastodon as a 'social network', it's literally what the name suggests a federation of 'micro nations' with their own rules, more like subreddits than Twitter.

If your instance is large enough or your instance is small but peering to other instances, there would be enough interactions that will bother you eventually. Otherwise there is no point using them at all, a small IRC or Matrix or Slack or Discord server would work better.

Re: Our experience with the Fediverse, and why we left

#165

Post by FalconSensei »

> Many Fediverse users claim to be the “better and open-minded alternative to Twitter.” We think that this doesn’t reflect reality, as explained below.

I also had my problems with Mastodon and Pleroma users. Unfortunately, there are idiots everywhere and, while federation helps to some degree, separating left/right extremists, trans people and transphobic people, you can still be in an instance focused on anime, and get attacked because you use Mac/Windows instead of linux.

Re: Our experience with the Fediverse, and why we left

#166

Post by josephg »

Zoo3y wrote: post #106

Most of the points they elaborated on are People problems, not Mastodon problems. The genuine critiques of Mastodon they listed are migration issues, updating posts (it makes sense 'edited' posts lose their clout), and character limit (already way bigger than twitter's). Also, aren't they falling into their own "Us vs. Them" argument by complaining about general Mastodon users?

People problems and technical problems aren’t so cleanly separated. People speak in pithy soundbites on Twitter in part because of who they are, and in part because of ergonomics of the platform (limited character counts, etc).

Mastodon is a place as much as a product. The technology affects how we interact, and how we interact in turn influences design choices.

Re: Our experience with the Fediverse, and why we left

#168

Post by WClayFerguson »

S-E-P wrote: post #27

I would argue that what is described in this post is inherent in all social networks. The wonderful thing about the Fediverse is that depending on the node you connect to, or the people you choose to federate with (in the event that you have your own instance) that your experience will be vastly different. It’s given me some of the most enjoyable interactions I’ve ever had online in the last ten years. You need to ha…

I have developed a solution that solves all problems described in the OP:

https://quanta.wiki/n/screencast

Re: Our experience with the Fediverse, and why we left

#169

Post by klyrs »

dsr_ wrote: post #99
richard_todd wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was replying to a post claiming the only novel part of mastodon compared to old message boards is federation. I’m merely pointing out that many old message boards did have federation. To your points (1) yes, everything was slower back then (2) people could and did post streams of their work within the BBS framework, everything from multi-part posts to “owning” a message-board topic, to text/ansi e-zines, but back t…

At this point, the Usenet servers which took massive amounts of bandwidth and disk space take tiny amounts of bandwidth and disk space (assuming you don't allow binary posts). Maybe it's time for Usenet to come back. - Truly federated - Topic focus instead of people-focus - Killfiles! - Proper threading - Standards-based servers and clients

> Killfiles!

Ah yes, censorship rears its ghastly head again. Or, what a quaint approach to spam.

Re: Our experience with the Fediverse, and why we left

#170

Post by klyrs »

richard_todd wrote: post #161
_0ffh wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yes, everything was slower back then Right, and still I was super amazed that I could send a message to someone halfway around the world, and it would arrive there only a couple of days later! Compared to a letter that's really fast!

It was cool stuff, for sure, and I'm glad I got to experience it when it was new. A little extra latency in our online discourse would probably do the modern world some good, not that anyone would go for it.

I've been mulling a "slow conversation platform" but so far my ideas aren't any more novel than Wikipedia with edit delays which just isn't compelling
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