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The Federated App Problem

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Re: The Federated App Problem

#141

Post by stereolambda »

badtension wrote: post #127
stereolambda wrote: post #107

If the goal is to talk about your interests with strangers (and not pull in your whole family and political and journalistic class), some minimal federation friction could be beneficial actually, as a soft filter. Maybe it's worth it to have some common pre-Eternal September spaces on the Internet, even it means not building unicorn empires. The latter seems to be a mindset people aren't able to shake off for some re…

The problem is discoverability. You don't know where to look for stuff or people. I wanted to check out this whole Lemmy thing and found almost completely dead (no comments) communities linked from their project page. Where do I go? How do I search for something worthwhile? There's no central space to find it, compare communities etc. I was curious but now I am kind of put off.

I checked and you can find a good number of communities by going to one of the larger Lemmy sites, clicking on the Communities tab and selecting All. If you want one directory from many instances (I assume this is what you meant by central space), someone would have to create it.

Re: The Federated App Problem

#142

Post by madeofpalk »

jojobas wrote: post #125
burnished wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isnt a caveat so much as a fearure

Imagine being unable to email someone because he holds an opinion that was the only one possible some 15 years ago, and think again.

This is the point of federation though. It allows for different standards of moderation to actually exist. If you don't like the way a server moderates, then don't join it (or transfer to another server, which you can mostly do with Mastodon). Hell, run your own mastodon server (or use a "mastodon-as-a-service" service) which is pretty trivial for micro instances.

The idea that there is one globally correct way to moderate is demonstratably completely untrue, regardless of what your actual views are. There must be multiple moderation standards that users can pick from.

Re: The Federated App Problem

#143

Post by californiadreem »

badtension wrote: post #127
stereolambda wrote: post #107

If the goal is to talk about your interests with strangers (and not pull in your whole family and political and journalistic class), some minimal federation friction could be beneficial actually, as a soft filter. Maybe it's worth it to have some common pre-Eternal September spaces on the Internet, even it means not building unicorn empires. The latter seems to be a mindset people aren't able to shake off for some re…

The problem is discoverability. You don't know where to look for stuff or people. I wanted to check out this whole Lemmy thing and found almost completely dead (no comments) communities linked from their project page. Where do I go? How do I search for something worthwhile? There's no central space to find it, compare communities etc. I was curious but now I am kind of put off.

I ran into this same issue. But I asked myself, if I passed through and left because no one was active, why not plant some seed content for the next person that passes through? I couldn't be the only one looking for smaller, more intimate communities.

I did this for a "dead" forum and after about a week of "squatting" there and posting for myself, other people started showing up and replying to it.

People should treat the digital silence of dead communities as an asset and free real estate to share their thoughts.

Re: The Federated App Problem

#144

Post by olex »

bluedemon wrote: post #76

Here's a rant by a person that is annoyed that redditors are not understanding the fediverse: https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/59927/rant-Why-is-th... And they still state that it's easy and the other posters are scratching their heads as to why don't people understand this. "Whyyyy???" They don't seem to understand that the average user doesn't find it easy to use. That's the biggest hint, but instead are act…

Funnily enough, clicking the link currently results in a very long load time followed by a 5xx error. Federated social media has more than just the "understanding" problem, and the problems also compound on top of each other nicely.

Re: The Federated App Problem

#145

Post by clnq »

It also costs money to host instances. And I wonder how will we be able to monetize them. Will we have ad-supported and premium instances? Is that possible with Lemmy?

As much as people don’t like websites making their behavioural profiles and selling that data or advertising with it, most people are also not willing to pay for access to social media. There are many who would be willing, but will there be “critical-mass” many?

So it will be very interesting to see how the instances can be made self-sustainable. Right now (but correct me if I’m wrong), I think it doesn’t make financial sense to run one. People can do this for a while to support “the movement”, but I wonder what happens when “the movement” is over.

Re: The Federated App Problem

#146

Post by andybak »

bluedemon wrote: post #76

Here's a rant by a person that is annoyed that redditors are not understanding the fediverse: https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/59927/rant-Why-is-th... And they still state that it's easy and the other posters are scratching their heads as to why don't people understand this. "Whyyyy???" They don't seem to understand that the average user doesn't find it easy to use. That's the biggest hint, but instead are act…

> They don't seem to understand that the average user doesn't find it easy to use.

It's not just "average users" that don't find it easy. It's just more complicated - for everyone.

Re: The Federated App Problem

#147

Post by andybak »

ccppurcell wrote: post #115

I don't get these posts. I've yet to hear someone developing federated social media whose goal is mass uptake. Mastodon is designed to avoid viral posts for instance. I use latex and vim to produce pdf documents. I wouldn't write a long post saying "I don't see this replacing ms office any time soon".

> I don't get these posts. I've yet to hear someone developing federated social media whose goal is mass uptake.

In which case it's being mis-sold. It will never replace the thing that people are claiming it will replace.

> Mastodon is designed to avoid viral posts

"viral posts" aren't inherently a bad thing. It's part and parcel of some of the good aspects of social media - the sense of having a collective conversation among a large group. Fragementation is fine up to a point (We're already fragmented between half a dozen large social networks) but I want people to find me easily if they are interested in what I'm posting.

Re: The Federated App Problem

#148

Post by Stephen304 »

jojobas wrote: post #73
Stephen304 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problematic users do tend to congregate on certain servers because they keep getting banned from better moderated ones. Eventually they find the ones that won't ban them, and now well moderated instances have an easy target to block them wholesale. That's how you end up with instances like explodingheads.

The only caveat is that what's well moderated and what's not depends on who you ask.

It doesn't really matter whether the entire world agrees, only that each community comes to an agreement. Mastodon.social collectively agrees on one definition that excludes explodingheads that involves one view on hate speech and spam, and explodingheads collectively agrees on another definition that excludes mastodon.social and involves censorship and free speech. Both groups are happy.

Re: The Federated App Problem

#149

Post by Paul-Craft »

badtension wrote: post #127
stereolambda wrote: post #107

If the goal is to talk about your interests with strangers (and not pull in your whole family and political and journalistic class), some minimal federation friction could be beneficial actually, as a soft filter. Maybe it's worth it to have some common pre-Eternal September spaces on the Internet, even it means not building unicorn empires. The latter seems to be a mindset people aren't able to shake off for some re…

The problem is discoverability. You don't know where to look for stuff or people. I wanted to check out this whole Lemmy thing and found almost completely dead (no comments) communities linked from their project page. Where do I go? How do I search for something worthwhile? There's no central space to find it, compare communities etc. I was curious but now I am kind of put off.

Check out https://lemmyverse.net/communities

Re: The Federated App Problem

#150

Post by cubefox »

madeofpalk wrote: post #142
jojobas wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine being unable to email someone because he holds an opinion that was the only one possible some 15 years ago, and think again.

This is the point of federation though. It allows for different standards of moderation to actually exist. If you don't like the way a server moderates, then don't join it (or transfer to another server, which you can mostly do with Mastodon). Hell, run your own mastodon server (or use a "mastodon-as-a-service" service) which is pretty trivial for micro instances. The idea that there is one globally correct way to mo…

I don't get why some people are so anxious to block alleged hate speech and supposed misinformation. Social networking sites already allow users to choose their own community simply by chosing whom they follow. Without federation. Why do we need additional segregation and polarization beyond that?
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