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Guide to Finding Lemmy Communities (Subreddits)

tech.michaelaltfield.net

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Re: Guide to Finding Lemmy Communities (Subreddits)

#21

Post by lolinder »

newaccount74 wrote: post #10
unpopularopp wrote: post #5

>Don't overthink this. It doesn't matter which instance you use. Nah. Disagree and I don't even know why is this highlighted. It really does matter what you choose. Same with Mastodon. Each instance has an admin who can do whatever they want (eg delete the instance and permaban you) and on top of that each topic has a mod too. Plus your instance can be de-federated by others (what if your instance end up being a far…

I heard that the ActivityPub protocol is pretty inefficient when you have lots of small instances, so I would think joining an existing instance should be preferred. I'm not sure why you think that switching instances is too hard for avg people but running your own isn't?

> the ActivityPub protocol is pretty inefficient when you have lots of small instances

This seems like a pretty fundamental design flaw. It means that redundancy is there—you can always find another instance if you're made homeless—but self-sovereignty was not prioritized in the design.

The kind of person who's attracted to the idea of federation is going to be disproportionately likely to want to self-host, so the system should be designed from the outset for at least tens of thousands of instances.

Re: Guide to Finding Lemmy Communities (Subreddits)

#22

Post by jazzyjackson »

newaccount74 wrote: post #10
unpopularopp wrote: post #5

>Don't overthink this. It doesn't matter which instance you use. Nah. Disagree and I don't even know why is this highlighted. It really does matter what you choose. Same with Mastodon. Each instance has an admin who can do whatever they want (eg delete the instance and permaban you) and on top of that each topic has a mod too. Plus your instance can be de-federated by others (what if your instance end up being a far…

I heard that the ActivityPub protocol is pretty inefficient when you have lots of small instances, so I would think joining an existing instance should be preferred. I'm not sure why you think that switching instances is too hard for avg people but running your own isn't?

setup can be simpler than migration, no?

I'm reading through the docs now trying to understand how identity works, it seems like a blind spot to me, how to prove you are who you say you are when you move to a new instance. I don't know anyone that gets it right IMO, to allow self-soverign identities to post from multiple services, public-key-pair style. Mostly there's bad tradeoffs there for UX ("reset password" is just way nicer for everyone than "social key recovery") but I was recently swayed by KERI (key event receipt infrastructure) which seems to have thoroughly thought through these things, but it's new enough that no ones building with it that I've heard of.

Re: Guide to Finding Lemmy Communities (Subreddits)

#23

Post by Semaphor »

Kye wrote: post #11
bioemerl wrote: post #8

Please use kbin instead - It's not run by literal Chinese state apologists.

The neat thing about federated social media is you don't have to federate with tankies even if you use their software. kbin appears to have some trouble working with Mastodon. My experience so far is boosts and replies on Mastodon are the #1 driver of new signups to the Lemmy instance I'm on, so it matters.

Kbin works better with mastodon, but the software is also newer, and the main instance is run by the single dev. They are currently behind cloudflare which disturbs federation.

Re: Guide to Finding Lemmy Communities (Subreddits)

#24

Post by RobotToaster »

unpopularopp wrote: post #5

>Don't overthink this. It doesn't matter which instance you use. Nah. Disagree and I don't even know why is this highlighted. It really does matter what you choose. Same with Mastodon. Each instance has an admin who can do whatever they want (eg delete the instance and permaban you) and on top of that each topic has a mod too. Plus your instance can be de-federated by others (what if your instance end up being a far…

This is my biggest issue with current federation implementations, your ability to communicate with people on other instances depends entirely on the whims of your (and their) local BOFH.

Re: Guide to Finding Lemmy Communities (Subreddits)

#25

Post by csallen »

davewritescode wrote: post #20
icapybara wrote: post #16

I think we all want a viable Reddit alternative (and Twitter alternative), but the “fediverse” isn’t it. Why? 1. New user experience is very confusing. You have to learn a bunch of dorky sounding terminology right away (instance, fediverse/federated, etc), and there are a whole bunch of instances to choose from, but none of them may be particularly appealing or relevant to you specifically. 2. At least on Lemmy, I’m…

> New user experience is very confusing. You have to learn a bunch of dorky sounding terminology right away (instance, fediverse/federated, etc), and there are a whole bunch of instances to choose from, but none of them may be particularly appealing or relevant to you specifically. For technical discussions, this is a feature not a bug. Having a small technical hurdle to get over before contributing is a filter when…

Reddit is a massive social website. The vast majority of the value of Reddit comes from the fact that it's humongous. A niche community that tries to filter out most people isn't a Reddit replacement.

Re: Guide to Finding Lemmy Communities (Subreddits)

#26

Post by toomuchtodo »

jodrellblank wrote: post #13
greek_sven wrote: post #2

Reddit strike has begun: https://reddark.untone.uk/

What's to stop Reddit employees just ... reopening all these subreddits tomorrow?

As others have said, nothing, which is why it is important to those seeking to maintain some sort of online community to both stand up alternatives and backup as much of Reddit as possible for future reference and possible backfill capabilities.

Digg didn't go away, its audience left, for example. The value is in the ongoing community activity and participation.

Re: Guide to Finding Lemmy Communities (Subreddits)

#28

Post by newaccount74 »

lolinder wrote: post #21
newaccount74 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard that the ActivityPub protocol is pretty inefficient when you have lots of small instances, so I would think joining an existing instance should be preferred. I'm not sure why you think that switching instances is too hard for avg people but running your own isn't?

> the ActivityPub protocol is pretty inefficient when you have lots of small instances This seems like a pretty fundamental design flaw. It means that redundancy is there—you can always find another instance if you're made homeless—but self-sovereignty was not prioritized in the design. The kind of person who's attracted to the idea of federation is going to be disproportionately likely to want to self-host, so the s…

> The kind of person who's attracted to the idea of federation is going to be disproportionately likely to want to self-host

That's not my experience on Mastodon. Most people seem to be on shared instances. Very few people self host. It's mostly tech affine organisations who self host.

Re: Guide to Finding Lemmy Communities (Subreddits)

#30

Post by RobotToaster »

jodrellblank wrote: post #13
greek_sven wrote: post #2

Reddit strike has begun: https://reddark.untone.uk/

What's to stop Reddit employees just ... reopening all these subreddits tomorrow?

Reddit already has a process for anyone to claim subs who's admins are inactive. Usually they have to be inactive for several months, but I wouldn't be surprised if they made an exception in the near future.
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