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The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

berk.es

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Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#111

Post by OctopusLupid »

csande17 wrote: post #102
ekidd wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope! That part is pretty neat. It works a bit like "cell-phone number portability" in the US. You set your original account to point at your new account, and you tell your new account about your old account. All of your followers migrate to your new account automatically. Of course, you could still get burnt if your host just disappears one day, because it can't point to your new account. So there's an incentive to…

In order for that migration to happen, the original server needs to cooperate and publish a "this person moved their account" message of some kind, right? I wonder if instance admins ever prevent that from happening if they don't like the server you're moving to.

You're talking about the ActivityPub "MOVE" message. Yes, that would be possible I believe.

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#112

Post by OctopusLupid »

luckylion wrote: post #45
andreyk wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signing up and using it is no more complicated than Twitter once you choose an instance. The Gradient (which I am part of) set up a new Mastodon instance (sigmoid.social) last week for the AI community which now has 3.5k active users - it took off rather quickly. My hope is that Mastodon becomes like a cross between Discord and Twitter; specific communities such as AI people set up an instance for themselves via a si…

Are there stats on how much of the network uses managed hosts like MastoHost? That sounds like a giant target. It's nice that they allow off-migration and don't lock your community in.

Related to this: fedi.monster is a good alternative provider too.

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#113

Post by Turing_Machine »

csande17 wrote: post #99
dsr_ wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have a spam problem? Lacking a universal definition of bad actors does not prevent coordinated action to stop the bad actors.

Anti-spam measures exist in SMTP, but the broader moral imperative does not. I can disable my spam filter, and no one will know or care except for me (if I get a lot of spam). On the other hand, it is generally considered immoral to allow people to disable anti-Bad Person filters, because then two Bad People could use the network to communicate. That creates a lot of potential for drama, large public arguments, and n…

Define "Bad People".

People who use the service to plan murders? People who disagree with your politics? People who (accurately) quote a book written 200 years ago that uses a word you don't like? People whose skin color you don't like?

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#114

Post by mftrhu »

ilyt wrote: post #59
nyanpasu64 wrote: post #50

I'm convinced decentralization is viable for local applications and services like offline document editors and Syncthing, somewhat so for geographically dispersed but closed systems like 1:1 DMs and group chats/video calls (Tailscale sharing might work for static sets of people like friend groups and polycules), but I'm not sure the moderation and inter-server conflicts are workable for publicly visible posts where y…

I'm almost sure they are not. Moderator of some server deciding that their users do not deserve to communicate with someone from some other server is just terrible model from every perspective. It should be always up to user to decide who they want to communicate with. I want to decide to ban user, or ban topic/tag, or even ban server, not have decision deferred to whoever is running the server, that's no better than…

I don't see anything wrong with the people who manage and pay for the server - usually for themselves and their friends, or because they are passionate about decentralization, and hardly ever because they set out to provide a platform for everyone to be able to say everything to anyone else - to be able to decide who their server will interact with.

In the fediverse, after all, users who don't like that decision can always move to another instance, or set up their own - you can't do that on twitter, HN, Reddit, and the barrier to entry for setting up one's e-mail server is high enough that the capability to do that is only theoretical.

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#116

Post by mftrhu »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #62
bawolff wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although i think that's what most people want. One of the reasons centralization won out for email is dealing with spam can be absolutely exhausting, so gmail started to look really attractive for the average user.

This is why I think a big player needs to get involved. As soon as Google hosts a Mastodon instance, that will ease the entry for a lot of people.

An instance set up by Google would be likely de-federated on the next day, and it would be a good thing.

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#117

Post by ekidd »

luckylion wrote: post #108
dsr_ wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose that everyone who participated ran their own server, population 1. Then choosing to block other servers would be equivalent to blocking other people, which we agree is a good thing. Now someone comes up with an adblock list: subscribe to it, and these servers will not bother you. It's probably not perfect, but it improves your experience a lot. If you don't like it, switch to another, or don't subscribe to an…

Is it public which servers an instance is blocking / what servers they are federating with?

Normally, yes. Different kinds of blocks are listed at the bottom of an instance's "About" page. Often there's a note for each blocked instance, too, though some admins leave that blank.

I've seen a couple of servers which only show the block list to users with accounts. These tend to be restricted-membership servers, ones which don't publish their member directory or local feed, either.

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#118

Post by mftrhu »

ilyt wrote: post #64
ceejayoz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, just like the guy who poops in the produce section gets banned from all the local grocery stores. Freedom sometimes means no one wants to talk to you.

It quickly becomes "that moderator decided he doesn't like their worldviews and put it on banlist now 100s of servers subscribe to". That kind of list needs pretty good moderation to avoid that. Also, it's not really that effective considering offenders can easily move servers. Hell, it would be all to easy for adversarial group to just server hop and get a bunch of sites blocked purely because the mods of those site…

> Hell, it would be all to easy for adversarial group to just server hop and get a bunch of sites blocked purely because the mods of those sites are not on 24/7... or just allow for free speech

Nah. De-federating is manual. Such an adversarial group would need to join up, start spamming, and keep on spamming long enough for their instance to be added to a blacklist, and for other admins to pull that blacklist in, without the admin ever acting in the meantime.

It's not like the fediverse is that big, either - people talk to each other.

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#119

Post by mftrhu »

seydor wrote: post #90
homarp wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

except a Mastodon instance is a private property... so no freedom of speech protection there https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/about/faq/do-individua...

There is also no legal requirement for democracy. We re talking about the principle

Does this principle trump the freedom of association of the person who is actually hosting, and paying for, for each instance?

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#120

Post by CM30 »

irusensei wrote: post #35

I really need to remind you folks that you are transferring your trust to these local server administrators. They might mishandle your data. They might be even less prepared to deal with moderation than big social media. They might end up having to close their services due to lack of time or money. It’s all fun but please keep this in mind. Perhaps host your own instance?

So, like when using most websites? If you use Hacker News you're trusting Dang and the other folks running this place. If you use Facebook or Twitter, you're trusting Zuck, Elon and the folks working at Meta or Twitter. If you use independently run forums and community sites, you're trusting the people running those places.

Self hosting your own instance is great when possible (and I definitely think it should be possible for almost all services, at least in an ideal world), but you won't be able to do much in life without trusting at least someone along the way.

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