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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

#211

Post by ilyt »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #113
csande17 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Bingo, that's the problem.

Even the "ban what is illegal by law", aside from some common stuff, varies from country to country. Anything above that is pretty much politics.

Like, it's fair to say "okay, this community is to discuss X, we don't do politics coz that's always divisive", but the moment mods try to play moral guide and decide what's wrong think and what isn't any bias they have will be magnified by the power they have.

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

#212

Post by berkes »

anotherrandom wrote: post #199

> ___ is inefficient but that's a good tradeoff Everyone who knows that a technology where decentralization is one of the requirements will know this, and they will also know that this is a required tradeoff when it comes to decentralization - no free lunch. A lot of people skewer blockchain-based tech for ineffeciency, but not a lot of those people realize it's supposed to be like that. I'm glad that people are at l…

And not just tech. In the article I tried to compare it to gardening.

But my initial idea was to compare it two political issues recently in my country. That story was far too unrecognizable though.

The issues are, where a decentralized police, that was governed by local mayors, was replaced by a central police force, governed by national government. Centralization that was sold as being much cheaper and more efficient. The cheaper was a lie, but only because the conversion itself turned out far more difficult. The more efficient is true. But only for a certain part of efficient.

Previously, e.g. mayors could micro target issues that were directly plagueing a small neighborhood. Now, this is still possible, but has to move through layers of bureaucracy first. In many parts, i'm told, it's less efficient. Overall, the sum, however obviously operates more efficient. Instead of each of the thousands of municipalities having some HR, there now is only one. Same for IT, etc etc.

The other issue is exactly reversed: mental service for Youth (youth care) a rather large institute, was decentralized: moved to municipalities. The promise was that this would allow far better detailed care. It is a fiasco, because the national government never considered that it would be far more expensive. They even promised it would cut costs.

Why voters fall for this, and think that both promise can be true (decentralized being more expensive and saving money) is beyond me. But the effect of decentralization on effincy is clearly visible here too.

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

#213

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

rakoo wrote: post #160
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How exactly is it hard to enter the fediverse ? Yes, you need to spend time to understand what you're going into, to understand the lingo, the rules, the etiquette. But it's normal, because Mastodon is not Twitter2, the fediverse is not the usual social networks. It's a new world, you have to understand why it's different. If Google ever speaks AP I won't be surprised to see it defederated from many instances. It wil…

Well, I found it straightforward, so you'd have to ask the many people who are saying they found it difficult. The most common issue I've noticed is "how do I pick a server". For that reason, I think 'big name' servers may be necessary for widespread adoption.

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

#214

Post by supermatt »

ekidd wrote: post #97
supermatt wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you migrate to another server, don’t you lose all your followers, who will still be following @you@oldserver ?

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…

Oh thats cool. Is this part of the activitypub spec? does it utilise the alias in some way? Do exisiting messages, etc get updated to the new alias?

Sorry for so many questions - do you know where can I read about the mechanics behind it?

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

#215

Post by supermatt »

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.

Thats interesting thought - if an instance is blocked, does that also prevent migration?

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

#216

Post by UncleOxidant »

Kiro wrote: post #176
UncleOxidant wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a lot of people are switching over to Mastodon. In the last 3 weeks or so it went from "welp, there aren't a lot of people to follow over here" to "wow, lots of interesting people I used to follow on twitter are here now!" It's really starting to hit a tipping point as more people make the jump.

What is a lot? The forum for a niche hobby that I'm a member of has more active users.

See an update from the fosstodon.org server team. This is only for one server.

https://hub.fosstodon.org/fosstodon-vs-twitter-round-2/

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

#217

Post by rakoo »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #213
rakoo wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly is it hard to enter the fediverse ? Yes, you need to spend time to understand what you're going into, to understand the lingo, the rules, the etiquette. But it's normal, because Mastodon is not Twitter2, the fediverse is not the usual social networks. It's a new world, you have to understand why it's different. If Google ever speaks AP I won't be surprised to see it defederated from many instances. It wil…

Well, I found it straightforward, so you'd have to ask the many people who are saying they found it difficult. The most common issue I've noticed is "how do I pick a server". For that reason, I think 'big name' servers may be necessary for widespread adoption.

But do we want widespread adoption ? It'd be nice if people used federated/decentralized means of communication, but the objective is not to reproduce the schema of domination and control by a few people in the majority; taking control back is the basis of building the Fediverse. As long as people don't go through the process of understanding the structures of power, we won't have made any progress.

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

#218

Post by dsr_ »

ilyt wrote: post #208
dsr_ wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning a server because it won't shut down a spammer is effective. A server that doesn't take responsibility for its users will soon find itself shouting into the void... as long as enough admins react. Gmail is the largest source of spam because other mail systems won't ban it because it's too big.

Sooo the server is banned, problematic users move off it coz they can't get anything from outside on it and... move on How that helps ? It just makes impossible for small server admin to take vacation...

Small server admin should not have open enrollment. Start friends-only. Quite possibly stay friends-only.

When comfortable, change to friends-of-friends.

And if you're going to grow past being comfortable with everyone on your server, have a backup admin you trust.

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

#219

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

rakoo wrote: post #217
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I found it straightforward, so you'd have to ask the many people who are saying they found it difficult. The most common issue I've noticed is "how do I pick a server". For that reason, I think 'big name' servers may be necessary for widespread adoption.

But do we want widespread adoption ? It'd be nice if people used federated/decentralized means of communication, but the objective is not to reproduce the schema of domination and control by a few people in the majority; taking control back is the basis of building the Fediverse. As long as people don't go through the process of understanding the structures of power, we won't have made any progress.

Well, just as I want as many people as possible to have email addresses that I can use to send messages to them, it would be useful for me for as many people as possible to have the equivalent for more public communication. I think that's a separate issue from power structures.
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