Can we expect another round of silly blocklists from the fediverse?
That would be the logical expectation. Fediverse maintainers can be worse than Reddit mods in how aggressively they ban users and instances
Tumblr to join the Fediverse after WordPress migration completes
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Re: Tumblr to join the Fediverse after WordPress migration completes
#12I'm befuddled that Automattic is still investing in adding features (e.g. federation) to Tumblr. There's just about no chance of them actually making money from it, because its users are just about the most monetization-hostile users on the Internet. It doesn't help that the CEO actively antagonized a large portion of the site not too long ago.
> It doesn't help that the CEO actively antagonized a large portion of the site not too long ago. I love that this statement could apply to either Tumblr or WordPress. CEOs are such an expensive liability lately.
It's the same CEO! Ol' Matt pissed off the Tumblr userbase and then followed it up a year later with the WordPress debacle.
Re: Tumblr to join the Fediverse after WordPress migration completes
#13Can we expect another round of silly blocklists from the fediverse?
It depends on the server operator.
Threads was preemptively shitlisted just for thinking of connecting to Fediverse, because a lot of instance admins are ActivityPub or Mastodon maximalists[0] and believed that everyone would just flock over to Threads immediately.
Then it was shitlisted again because Mark Zuckerberg started zucking on Trump, and decided to take their already threadbare moderation team and tie their hands further. This is a more practical concern as most Fedi admins do not have the time or ability to deal with one mega-instance that happens to be both indispensable and willing to flood everyone with garbage.
I could see Tumblr getting shitlisted purely on the grounds of "fuck Matt Mullenweg", because Fedi admins are also hilariously petty[1]. But in practice, "just link Tumblr up to Fedi" is going to be just as much of a problem as "just link Threads up to Fedi".
There's an underlying tension between the Fediverse's technical underpinnings - ActivityPub - and the community of Fediverse servers that use it. The technology wants to be widely adopted, but the community wants to be small enough to avoid harassment and attacks[2], and these are in conflict. The Fediverse's structure is already a lot more centralized than anyone would like to admit, and scaling the network makes this problem worse.
[0] As opposed to general enthusiasm for federated communications technologies. See also the pushback Cory Doctorow got for backing Free our Feeds, a plan to make good on BlueSky's currently vacuous federation promises.
[1] This is why I self-host Mastodon even though it's a total pain in the ass.
[2] Like that one time a bunch of Japanese skiddies decided to spam literally every server from whatever accounts they could register
Re: Tumblr to join the Fediverse after WordPress migration completes
#14I'm befuddled that Automattic is still investing in adding features (e.g. federation) to Tumblr. There's just about no chance of them actually making money from it, because its users are just about the most monetization-hostile users on the Internet. It doesn't help that the CEO actively antagonized a large portion of the site not too long ago.
Their play is not to make money from Tumblr users, but to grow the total number of users connected to ActivityPub. Then they can go to BigCos and say "here it is, you can drop Twitter/Threads/Instagram/TikTok and control your social media presence directly." It's not that different from what Facebook is doing with Threads. They are not interested in making money from social media, they are just hoping they can become…
basically bring your own domain like Google Workspace or O365. I'd love to see the Mastodon project (or any other AP implementation) adopt that managed services model.
Re: Tumblr to join the Fediverse after WordPress migration completes
#15If Matt wasn't so fixated on WPEngine, he could actually do something important and radical by pushing Tumblr as a true user-controlled (i.e. each user has their own TLD) alternative to Twitter, BlueSky, Instagram, Threads, etc.
(Pure) ActivityPub would be the wrong basis for this. Its federated model is not meant to give control to the end user. SOLID or ActivityPods, on the other hand...
>Its federated model is not meant to give control to the end user.
Can you elaborate on this? I would think giving control to the end user is exactly what a federated model would do.
Re: Tumblr to join the Fediverse after WordPress migration completes
#16Can we expect another round of silly blocklists from the fediverse?
I'd gamble that it'll be less so than the response to Threads. Tumblr users, on average, are generally a better culture fit than Facebook/Instagram ones.
Re: Tumblr to join the Fediverse after WordPress migration completes
#17"After migration completes," but they haven't even started it yet. Kinda skeptical that it's gonna happen at all.
Re: Tumblr to join the Fediverse after WordPress migration completes
#18Can we expect another round of silly blocklists from the fediverse?
It depends on the server operator. Threads was preemptively shitlisted just for thinking of connecting to Fediverse, because a lot of instance admins are ActivityPub or Mastodon maximalists[0] and believed that everyone would just flock over to Threads immediately. Then it was shitlisted again because Mark Zuckerberg started zucking on Trump, and decided to take their already threadbare moderation team and tie their…
Regarding [1], do you foresee this changing at some point? I'm interested in self hosting, bit have heard consistently that it is painful, so I've been waiting in the hopes that it will eventually improve.
Re: Tumblr to join the Fediverse after WordPress migration completes
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It doesn't help that the CEO actively antagonized a large portion of the site not too long ago. I love that this statement could apply to either Tumblr or WordPress. CEOs are such an expensive liability lately.
It's the same CEO! Ol' Matt pissed off the Tumblr userbase and then followed it up a year later with the WordPress debacle.
Oh shit, somehow I hadn’t put that together! Ha! Well played!
Re: Tumblr to join the Fediverse after WordPress migration completes
#20Can we expect another round of silly blocklists from the fediverse?
defederators are morons, but they're the same class of moron from Tumblr that invented things like the "DNI list"