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Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

matduggan.com

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Re: Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

#171

Post by eudamoniac »

krapp wrote: post #139
scoofy wrote: post #129

I feel like there just something about " this thing is slightly difficult to get started using " that keeps normies out and keeps the place reasonable. It's the only way to prevent the Eternal September of a popular social network. I felt a similar experience to this on a trip to Scotland recently. My partner and I visited Iona, and it was just amazing. I suspect it was such a pleasant experience because, while the p…

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Re: Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

#172

Post by eudamoniac »

kemotep wrote: post #81
trentnix wrote: post #79

[flagged]

But Elon Musk literally made the website unusable because now it no longer shows profiles in chronological order and posts are now essentially just screenshots. 12 years of using twitter without an account and in a few months he made the site completely unusable. Ignoring anything else this is a massive change that was implemented shortly after he took over and now I cannot use the site anymore.

> Elon Musk literally made the website unusable

If it's literally unusable, how are millions of people still using it?

Re: Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

#173

Post by Arainach »

raffael_de wrote: post #161
Arainach wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"friends and followees" Only allowing posts between mutual friends is instant messaging, not a social network. Discovery, engagement, and platform growth comes from people wanting to hear from and interact with followers who they don't necessarily follow themselves.

i think you are trying to solve a problem that in my opinion should just be skipped. i don't want to be part of a social network where some algo decides what i see. all i care about is what my friends do and maybe the friends of my friends. and that's it. that was the golden era of social networks, when precisely this was just the norm until they discovered that they can make more money by messing with the feed. no i…

That may work for you, but it does not work for anyone running a platform and dealing with the needs of all users. That requires real moderation for both legal and practical purposes, as previously described.

Re: Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

#174

Post by nailer »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #37
nailer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to know exactly how far the Iranians have gotten against the IGRC in the last 24 hours. I subscribe to WSJ but they don’t have that details. X and Reddit do, with some obvious caveats (I do find Community Notes on X very good though).

Iranians are not rebelling against the IRGC because why would they? Generally an outside attack makes the government more popular, not less.

Yes they are. Or they were. That’s what the 30-50K dead people four weeks ago was.

Re: Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

#175

Post by neogodless »

satisfice wrote: post #128
madjo80 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you choose the provider of your email address? For Mastodon, you can check https://joinmastodon.org/servers to figure out what server you want to join. But joining one server doesn't mean you can't access people and communities from other servers. It's one big network, but with many different access points (the mastodon servers), each access point has their own niche. These access points each can have their o…

I run my own mail server, thank you. “It’s one big network” People say that as if its meaning is self evident. I don’t know what that means. Does it mean that I can do one search and find anything on any server? If it’s one big network, why does it matter what server I choose?

You could run your own Fediverse server.

Can you do one search on one server, and find any email address that exists anywhere? (not that I know of)

Can you send email regardless of what server the email lives on? (with some exceptions, but mostly yes)

Federation is not infinite or unlimited, so no, there is no "one search to rule them all" within the confines of a single instance. (But then there's no way to access all email, or search all email addresses across mail servers to find someone.) Still if you're on an instance, and go out and find people on the internet that interest you, regardless of how you find them or what instance you are on, you can follow them, and their content will begin to be federated into your feed, on the instance you use.

The server you choose matters, but it's also not something you can't change. (Like getting a new email address.) If you use Gmail, but someone uses a mail server that has been blacklisted because of bad players using a domain name or IP address, you probably can't get email sent from those servers.

But initially, you can either go with the biggest instance, or the first one you see on https://joinmastodon.org/servers that seems fine and then try it out for a while. It's not a single decision you have to make for the rest of your life. It's just something new, and a new way to have access to some people connected to each other through some instances, topics, follows, etc.

Re: Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

#176

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

alsetmusic wrote: post #159
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't want to join "an instance". People don't want to care about what "an instance" is which also means being asked to be aware of things like instance-specific moderation rules. And I don't know what it's like now, but cross-server following used to be quite annoying.

> People don't want to care about what "an instance" is which also means being asked to be aware of things like instance-specific moderation rules. I can tell you how this reads to me: "I consider myself among peers with coders, scientists, and founders. Being asked to understand pretty simple concepts is too much for me." I am a happy user of Lemmy. Was there more to understand than how to join Reddit? Yes. Is the f…

> "I consider myself among peers with coders, scientists, and founders. Being asked to understand pretty simple concepts is too much for me."

I think I can clarify the framing here. People of all walks are extremely uninterested in being told that they need to care about something that they do not care about. For most people, I bet almost all people, decentralization can really just get fucked, because decentralization is not what people are there for. Connection is. What federation offers is just not important to...as a percentage, almost anyone...in relation to what it removes.

Think about it this way: many things are too annoying for you to put up with, even if you technically are capable of dealing with them were you willing to give more energy than you believe is reasonable to give. See also, juice vs squeeze. See also, the iron imperative of writing ("don't waste the reader's time") applies to more than just writing.

Also...

> "I consider myself among peers with coders, scientists, and founders."

One might call it empathy to commiserate with the perspectives of people who are not those things. It's a judgement error to expect a platform to be something other than niche without that. One can also be all of those things and have zero patience for software that has an annoying user experience.

Re: Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

#177

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

robinsonb5 wrote: post #158
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

archive.org + website + linkhut search + username? (Endorsements can work by having the link of ln.ht profile itself being part of another user's Linkhut profile) For example: Suppose you went to fluxer.gg (Open source Discord alternative that I found cool) You searched it upon ln.ht: https://ln.ht/?query=fluxer.gg You can then find the username who uploaded it there (in this case, its me): https://ln.ht/~imafh You c…

It sounds really good - though obviously less automated than what I had in mind. What's needed is something with less friction - which could be achieved using a browser extension - but also needs something to prevent shilling and other forms of abuse. (Or, more to the point, a method by which any user who shills can be easily canned by other users.)

> though obviously less automated than what I had in mind. What's needed is something with less friction - which could be achieved using a browser extension

Yes, I completely agree with that but I suppose making a browser extension (for linkhut) is infinitely easier than the previous attempt and something which is more easily doable There is already an extension which can do the first part of adding a website into linkhut simpler (its named linkput[0]) for firefox and its open source. had to search it up.

> but also needs something to prevent shilling and other forms of abuse. (Or, more to the point, a method by which any user who shills can be easily canned by other users.)

I am not quite able to think of what you mean by that but I do think that there are some ways to do it but its a problem that internet faces at large of abuse in general and its a careful line between privacy and abuse.

That being said, I am happy to help you find this cool project haha :D

I think that if you build something like an extension for linkhut, it would be interesting so good luck with making that hopefully! Glad I could help.

[0]: https://git.sr.ht/~silasjelley/linkput

Re: Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

#178

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

Yodel0914 wrote: post #164
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't want to join "an instance". People don't want to care about what "an instance" is which also means being asked to be aware of things like instance-specific moderation rules. And I don't know what it's like now, but cross-server following used to be quite annoying.

Being able to join an instance with its own culture, while still being able to connect outside that culture, is the only reason I use any social media at all. I understand it can be confusing for people coming from Twitter or Facebook or wherever, the local instance culture is Mastodon’s greatest strength. That, of course, and the lack drive to turn a profit from users.

It sounds like we're on the same page. :)

Re: Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

#179

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

krapp wrote: post #170
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bluesky had the benefit of marketing, association with Twitter and the support of influencers Everywhere that people have ever asked why people join Bluesky and not Mastodon, the objections to Bluesky are always philosophical (not actually decentralized, corporate overlords, and so forth) and the objections to Mastodon are always practical (signup sucks[ed?], search sucks[ed?], feed curation sucks[ed?]). Bluesky's…

>Everywhere that people have ever asked why people join Bluesky and not Mastodon, the objections to Bluesky are always philosophical (not actually decentralized, corporate overlords, and so forth) and the objections to Mastodon are always practical (signup sucks[ed?], search sucks[ed?], feed curation sucks[ed?]). Untrue. People complain about Mastodon's politics and make many of the same "philosophical" arguments as…

> overstating how difficult Mastodon is because they view it as "leftist"

That's an absurd/hilarious thing to say given the demographic breakdown of Bluesky users. Ain't no rightwingers promoting Bluesky because of their opposition to leftism, my friend.

> I find it difficult to believe so many of the brilliant technically gifted minds on HN can't figure out how it works

This is specious on multiple levels. First, "can't figure out" and "not willing to give energy to" are different things. Second, reading this website has no bearing on being either brilliant or technically gifted. Third, there's a big world outside of this website. Fourth, nobody is responsible for what you find difficult, not even you. Fifth, wait a minute, did you just say you find it difficult to believe the perspectives of others? Shouldn't brilliance and giftedness make it easy?

Re: Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

#180

Post by DavideNL »

croes wrote: post #83
brookst wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m pretty close to being a free speech absolutist (side-eye to the guy who ruined the term), but IMO one of the worst things to happen to free speech is this conflation of “right to speak” with “right to be heard”. People have a right to ignore speech, and to establish standards for speech on their private property. If there is market demand for a service that filters out content based on ideology, whether mastodon.…

I have no problem getting blocked but my only block on the Fediverse was accompanied by a block for all users on the same instance as me.

This info is useless without the details;

Which instance are you referring to? Who specifically blocked you?

A single user’s action doesn’t represent the entire Fediverse.

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