111–120 of 268 posts
> I mention the timing, as this change long pre-dated the current moderator strike and related policy changes. A mod strike? I hadn't heard about this. https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/389811/moderation-s...
This, along with recent Reddit goings-on has made me realize a major risk with the current structure of online communication. Take either Reddit or Stack Exchange as examples. They build a platform, and users contribute their time, thought, energy, and knowledge to build a community on that platform. Those companies can then gatekeep and restrict access to all that the community built, when all they did is provide th…
I'm kind of curious what is next.
This, along with recent Reddit goings-on has made me realize a major risk with the current structure of online communication. Take either Reddit or Stack Exchange as examples. They build a platform, and users contribute their time, thought, energy, and knowledge to build a community on that platform. Those companies can then gatekeep and restrict access to all that the community built, when all they did is provide th…
Really? The takeaway isn’t rather that rent-seeking AI models need to figure out a way to reimburse companies and communities who’ve stored up all this capital? Seems to me SO built and delivered huge, huge amounts of value and it’s now all at risk because multibillion dollar companies are free riding.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know that I agree. I think most people don't care about decentralization but they do care about the effects it brings. Email is a great example where most people wouldn't be interested in a version of email that only let's you email other @gmail.com users. Having a email address that can contact anyone, a phone number that can ring any other phone number etc instead of being locked into a single corporation n…
>Email is a great example where most people wouldn't be interested in a version of email that only let's you email other @gmail.com users. Having a email address that can contact anyone, a phone number that can ring any other phone number etc instead of being locked into a single corporation network is a clear value add that people care about. That is only because those technologies predate those companies. Normal pe…
I know a few people who are on exactly one platform, and don't mind it, but most everyone seems to need tendrils all over the place to keep up with a normal Internet social life.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>If you run your own email server and you get put onto Google's spam list - you're fucked. It's even worse than that- I ran my own email server, and for some reason gmail delayed any emails from their system to outside of their system. That meant that people would send me an email but I wouldn't get it for 20 minutes. These delays don't exist when using big email providers (it stopped being a problem when I switched…
Sounds like you need to allowlist google from your grey list. They have a long retry on their side. Once you tell a server to 'go away, come back later' it is really up to the server to decide when or if to retry. Additionally, If they use multiple sending IPs, you can end up grey listing again and again before they try back with a good ip. You'd either need to allowlist the big providers sending blocks or just drop…
it was always a broken system built on dodgy contracts, but it is still sad to see how unceremoniously everything implodes
will any lessons be learned? unlikely.
This, along with recent Reddit goings-on has made me realize a major risk with the current structure of online communication. Take either Reddit or Stack Exchange as examples. They build a platform, and users contribute their time, thought, energy, and knowledge to build a community on that platform. Those companies can then gatekeep and restrict access to all that the community built, when all they did is provide th…
How did newsgroups work in the days of yore? Depending on which ISP you used, you may or may not have all of the posts within a group if they even had the group. I remember paying for access to specific (can't remember the name) provider that had the most complete listing of newsgroups and had the longest retention of posts. viva a.b.m.a!!
Originally over UUCP (Unix Unix Copy Protocol) and done via dial ups at night (when the rest of the batch transfers were done - email too with the old bang path). The two servers would exchange all the batched email and news posts that were routed to the other side.
RFC 977 ( https://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc977/rfc977 ) has an example of how files are copied between the two systems (section 4.6) including fetching and receiving mail.
Note that not all posts outbound are necessarily of interest to the other server. An IHAVE message could come back with either a "I want it" type response or a "not interested"
> The IHAVE command informs the server that the client has an article whose id is . If the server desires a copy of that article, it will return a response instructing the client to send the entire article. If the server does not want the article (if, for example, the server already has a copy of it), a response indicating that the article is not wanted will be returned.
That's how some of the moderation worked - your server would say "I don't want anything that came by way of X host" or "not interested in that newsgroup."
One of the amusing things to me (looking back at this), if you're familiar with HTTP response codes, you'll likely get most of the way through the NNTP ones.
200 server ready - posting allowed
400 service discontinued
411 no such news group
500 command not recognized
This, along with recent Reddit goings-on has made me realize a major risk with the current structure of online communication. Take either Reddit or Stack Exchange as examples. They build a platform, and users contribute their time, thought, energy, and knowledge to build a community on that platform. Those companies can then gatekeep and restrict access to all that the community built, when all they did is provide th…
This, along with recent Reddit goings-on has made me realize a major risk with the current structure of online communication. Take either Reddit or Stack Exchange as examples. They build a platform, and users contribute their time, thought, energy, and knowledge to build a community on that platform. Those companies can then gatekeep and restrict access to all that the community built, when all they did is provide th…
A decentralized system will never work because 99% of users do not care at all; the centralized systems are easier to sign up for and use. It's been demonstrated over and over and over again. Even if the underlying tech is decentralized, the community will settle around one or a few big instances (for example, Gmail and GitHub) which often end up having significant control over the trajectory of the entire ecosystem.…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reddit’s value these days is as a super-forum. Instead of needing five logins and five accounts for separate hobbies, you can have one login, one account, and if you occasionally want to comment or ask questions about something else, you can do so without having to create another account. Doesn’t hurt that Reddit has a very good network effect.
That's how you use it, but I'd argue that 90% of Reddit's users don't operate the same way, considering they don't even have accounts to begin with. In fact, I would even argue that Reddit is actively trying to push users who use Reddit this way off of the platform, as they're not as easily monetized. Reddit is notorious for having low conversion rates on its ads and extremely high ad blocking rates.