Lemmy Instances are already blocking each other • Hacker News Board

Re: Lemmy Instances are already blocking each other

#51

Post by burnished » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 2:01 AM UTC

fariszr wrote: post #17

burnished wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you calling for centralization from a federated service?

Where did I call for centralization?

First sentence

As if being a federated network wasn't enough of a hurdle for new users, now we have instances blocking each other already.

If you cant make decisions about the sort of traffic your server receives and choose to defederate for pragmatic reasons then your service is not decentralized in fact.

Put another way - if your ideal service is identical to reddit, and each instance is connected to all, then your service is just as centralized. It just has an unusually fussy and bespoke database design.

Re: Lemmy Instances are already blocking each other

#52

Post by kitsunesoba » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 2:04 AM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #37

LeoPanthera wrote: post #29

Well, this kills the idea of Lemmy before it even got the chance to be born. Beehaw is the second largest instance by number of users - and LemmyWorld is the third. Them defederating from each other effectively shards the network into two halves, making the whole thing useless. Oh well. It was nice while it lasted.

> making the whole thing useless Why's that? The typical user problem isn't "see all the content", it's "see some good content". As long as the two halves have critical mass, it could well be fine. For example, the fact that Reddit and Twitter were separate networks didn't prevent both of them from growing pretty well.

In the past several years I've noticed a viewpoint gaining popularity, which is that if you can't be the biggest fish in the pond it's not worth bothering with, which is a quite odd to me. You even see it in online games where the majority of players all pile into a single server, then complain about the problems they've brought upon themselves by doing that (lag, instability, etc) instead of inhabiting a few moderate population servers.

Re: Lemmy Instances are already blocking each other

#53

Post by dahfizz » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 2:06 AM UTC

burnished wrote: post #13

fariszr wrote: post #2

As if being a federated network wasn't enough of a hurdle for new users, now we have instances blocking each other already. Lemmy has a great chance achieving what mastodon couldn't, because its the community that matters, not specific users, but with instance blocking each other, any hope of creating a community to rival reddit is going to be thrown out the window.

Why are you calling for centralization from a federated service?

Federated doesn't have to be fragmented.

Re: Lemmy Instances are already blocking each other

#54

Post by jrflowers » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 2:09 AM UTC

orangepurple wrote: post #22

The reasons for defederating: (...) our reason for defederating, by and large, boils down to: these two instances’ open registration policy, which is extremely problematic for us given how federation works and how trivial it makes trolling, harassment, and other undesirable behavior; the disproportionate number of moderator actions we take against users of these two instances, and the general amount of time we have t…

Here is a link to an archive page for those that have had problems reaching the page:

https://archive.ph/UooY2

“Lemmy instances are already blocking each other“ is a kind of weirdly editorialized headline here. It kind of implies that there was some sort of promise that fediverse servers weren’t going to block other servers, and that promise had been broken or something.

“Beehaw de-federates from two other servers following influx of trolls” would be more accurate.

Re: Lemmy Instances are already blocking each other

#55

Post by dahfizz » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 2:09 AM UTC

burnished wrote: post #51

fariszr wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did I call for centralization?

First sentence As if being a federated network wasn't enough of a hurdle for new users, now we have instances blocking each other already. If you cant make decisions about the sort of traffic your server receives and choose to defederate for pragmatic reasons then your service is not decentralized in fact. Put another way - if your ideal service is identical to reddit, and each instance is connected to all, then your…

Fragmenting the community is not good for anyone. Having the option to block other instances is important but shouldn't be encouraged.

Having the right to divorce your spouse is important. But nobody wants to date someone whose been married 4 times.

Re: Lemmy Instances are already blocking each other

#56

Post by burnished » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 2:13 AM UTC

fariszr wrote: post #38

starkparker wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't, though. The point of federation is to have the technical ability to post and follow across compatible servers. The point is not to require every instance to accept posts and followers from every compatible server. If anything, that's the opposite of the point .

Sure, what I'm saying is, its too early to do this. People have barely started migrating, and there is already infighting. Thats a problem because beehaw seems to be the largest with many established subreddit communities, which limits the usability of smaller servers.

What gives you the impression this represents infighting?

Genuinely, I think you will be relieved to read the announcement in TFA whenever it succeeds in loading for you; they just can't handle the moderating burden that the traffic from those servers brings, and given the almost completely unrestricted ability to create accounts in those instances it shouldn't be surprising. Beehaw would like more granular control but that isnt available (yet?), and they'd refederate once everything cooled down.

Re: Lemmy Instances are already blocking each other

#57

Post by chongli » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 2:16 AM UTC

vehementi wrote: post #30

starkparker wrote: post #12

Was this unexpected? Having instance-level control over federation is part of the point of federation.

The "are already" wording smells like reddit PR team trying to cool usage of lemmy

Yeah, I flagged it because the title is completely editorialized.

Re: Lemmy Instances are already blocking each other

#58

Post by calmlynarczyk » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 2:20 AM UTC

vyvyvy wrote: post #44

The problem is that it's still a feudal system like Reddit's is, with power concentrated in the administrative nobility. The only major difference with Reddit is that the latter has an additional, all-powerful layer of royalty that holds control over these lesser lords. Whereas Lemmy has them all fighting each other. Either way, the peasantry just has to put up with whatever nonsense battling the ruling class involve…

In theory, the idea of distributed, or at least decentralized online communities is something I like and want to see a return to. However, I think the folks championing this stuff need to set more realistic expectations.

Anyone whose spent awhile in a hobbyist forum or IRC network has likely experienced that they're just as, if not more prone to moderator drama than even Reddit. Wait until an admin rage-deletes a whole instance over an argument with someone or one community brigades/DOS's another and then you'll get to see the dark side of the "good ol'" community-run forum days.

Re: Lemmy Instances are already blocking each other

#59

Post by camdenlock » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 2:27 AM UTC

The Beehaw “about us” page is amazing. They elevate their favored ideology to “just being a good person”. Such self-blindness is quite entertaining.

… but also kinda creepy.

Re: Lemmy Instances are already blocking each other

#60

Post by notacoward » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 2:28 AM UTC

fariszr wrote: post #2

As if being a federated network wasn't enough of a hurdle for new users, now we have instances blocking each other already. Lemmy has a great chance achieving what mastodon couldn't, because its the community that matters, not specific users, but with instance blocking each other, any hope of creating a community to rival reddit is going to be thrown out the window.

Maybe they don't want to be a single community equal to all of Reddit. The goal is to be a way to host the equivalent of a subreddit, which is not the same as a place for that. There are many places, and many - including me - believe that's how it should be.

Also, blocking nodes in a distributed social network is neither new nor unhealthy. Usenet has killfiles. IRC has k-lines. Far from being injurious in themselves, they're essential tools to prevent some rando from setting up a bogus instance and using it to spray garbage all over everything. I already had to block one obvious ex-Redditor who had done exactly that on Mastodon, shitting all over a thread that had been going well until then. I was utterly unsurprised to see that they got defederated shortly afterward. That's what should happen when people can't stop misbehaving.

Do I wish that the fediverse had better moderation tools, both separate from defederation and for coordinating defederation decisions? Of course I do. AIUI coordination is done now - when it's done at all - with an ad hoc system based on tags, of all things, and that's a bit absurd. I have some ideas about how a better system might look or be implemented, but I certainly don't fault anyone for using the tools they have during a period of such rapid growth.