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Mastodon.technology Shutdown

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Re: Mastodon.technology Shutdown

#511

Post by solatic »

samatman wrote: post #42

My condolences to the admin, this is sad news. This strengthens my conviction that federation is a bad architecture for something like Mastodon. A fully distributed system, urbit being the easiest to try right now, can't stick someone with the responsibility to keep a bunch of other people online. It can't stick those people with the responsibility to move off the server. Each user runs a server process, locally or o…

> Each user runs a server process, locally or on a remote machine.

Mastodon (and similar services) would benefit greatly from (a) requiring users to own their own instances, via commoditized hosting providers, (b) one-click or few-clicks transition between hosting providers, and (c) enabling serverless-style pricing.

Requiring users to own their own instances safeguards users from admin-shutdown.

Ease of migration safeguards users from poor hosting providers.

Serverless-style pricing (e.g. pay per federated message, not by CPU) reduces the financial barrier to entry for new and lite users who are not yet fully committed users.

Re: Mastodon.technology Shutdown

#512

Post by wan_ala »

kixiQu wrote: post #510
wan_ala wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I think some big issues are that not everyone has a fast machine thats going to be up all the time to host the instance. It would be cool to implement something like BitTorrent but for websites.

hypercore :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaker_(web_browser) https://github.com/AgregoreWeb/agregore-browser/

Thanks, I have never heard of that!

Re: Mastodon.technology Shutdown

#513

Post by dredmorbius »

tootie wrote: post #496
dredmorbius wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current Affairs recently ran "NPR Is Not Your Friend", which highlights some of the issues: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/09/npr-is-not-your-frien... > The upshot of that piece is that NPR itself remains part of the neoliberal ideological propaganda apparatus: Like all press outlets, NPR has a particular point of view. Its bias is just as profound as the likes of MSNBC or Fox News. NPR’s ideological bias is tow…

That article has loads of assertions of personal opinions of the author and besides a glaring lack of evidence, didn't even bothering googling how the local public radio editorial policy isn't centralized. Consider that NPR does not have a radio broadcast at all. Affiliates do. Affiliates who can air any combination of content produced in house, by NPR or by other affiliates all catering to local markets. Local affil…

I'm not entirely on board with the CA article myself, though I think it does make a fair case for neoliberal bias. Chomsky's made a similar case for what it's worth.

Re: Mastodon.technology Shutdown

#514

Post by jacooper »

rglullis wrote: post #254
jacooper wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if only having your own server on Mastodon was realistic, instead its totally impossible to get discovered. There is fix for this, which is Fedverse Relays, but guess what ? Mastodons official servers don't use them.

I need to understand this obsession with "getting discovered via the application itself ". I mean, what's the problem of using other means of communication to publish/promote your identity? I am far from being internet famous, and I get at least one follower every week on Mastodon simply because I put it on my Twitter bio.

Then your Mastodon is totally dependent on getting discovered via twitter.

Re: Mastodon.technology Shutdown

#515

Post by jacooper »

proactivesvcs wrote: post #419
jacooper wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if only having your own server on Mastodon was realistic, instead its totally impossible to get discovered. There is fix for this, which is Fedverse Relays, but guess what ? Mastodons official servers don't use them.

That simply isn't true. I'm a nobody and plenty of folk have found me from seemingly inane posts. People have found me out of the blue, from across the Fediverse, and I have no idea why; all I do know is we now chat frequently and without either of us even looking for one another. What's impossible is to discover how to use a platform without reading the documentation, and assuming that algorithms will just do the wo…

If you use a popular instances your account will show up in searches, likes and other things.

But when using an independent server, one would need to type your full username, and then try and see if such an account exists. if you only type the display name, or username without the server address, nothing will show up.

Which is fine for chat apps like Matrix or E-Mail, but not for platforms where discoverability is important.

Re: Mastodon.technology Shutdown

#516

Post by groffee »

dredmorbius wrote: post #438
giantrobot wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until you learn about .json and .rss on Reddit threads! IIRC they used to work for subreddits as well but I have not tested either in...forever.

A few of the Reddit RSS features I've found / documented: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1sxfar/reddit_... >

That's crazy. I built an entire scraping engine just to get Reddit posts, I'm pretty sure .rss isn't documented anywhere at all, would have saved me so much work!

Re: Mastodon.technology Shutdown

#517

Post by dredmorbius »

groffee wrote: post #516
dredmorbius wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few of the Reddit RSS features I've found / documented: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1sxfar/reddit_... >

That's crazy. I built an entire scraping engine just to get Reddit posts, I'm pretty sure .rss isn't documented anywhere at all, would have saved me so much work!

Hate me later: https://www.reddit.com/dev/api>

Re: Mastodon.technology Shutdown

#518

Post by johnchristopher »

vidarh wrote: post #409
proactivesvcs wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mastodon and other Fediverse microblogging platforms aren't trying to recreate these abusive systems. They don't show boost/favourite counts, don't offer paid promotion or adverts, don't have the manipulation of the timelines or the other abusive dark patterns used to keep people hooked on the toxic pipes. I feel that being able to show appreciation for a post, or send it to the people who are interested in you, are…

It does show boost/favourite counts once you open a toot, and just like on Twitter you can also click to see the list of people who have boosted/favourited The other parts are true, but the "manipulation of timelines" is just a question of time because it's useful if you follow lots of people. As long as it remains opt-in and a setting it's a good thing . I'm planning an ActivityPub implementation for myself and "man…

I also believe character limits is a problem and that it ultimately leads to polarization.

Re: Mastodon.technology Shutdown

#519

Post by johnchristopher »

proactivesvcs wrote: post #423
johnchristopher wrote: post #295

> I want to give you as much time as possible to download your data and migrate to a new server. Does it mean you can download your messages and put them back in the global conversation ? How does that work ? Are those messages stored only on one instance ? Do they disappear forever when an instance disappears ? Will users switch to new identity from another instance and import messages or is this lost ?

You can download and save your social network, filters, block lists, profile and all of your posts. Separately there's a feature to move accounts, which redirect folk to your new account and performs an automatic follow of your network from your new account. Posts are not migrated. If an instance disappears, everything is gone.

Thanks.

Re: Mastodon.technology Shutdown

#520

Post by INTPenis »

seti0Cha wrote: post #399
INTPenis wrote: post #318

I'm going to be frank, as a long time federated node admin. In the last few years I've seen so many admins act just like Ash. They have a huge heart and a lot of passion for federation. So they open their doors to thousands of users. And I keep thinking that it's just not sustainable. I've worked in ops for over 20 years, I feel like that background has given me a healthy scepticism and a respect for Murphy's law. So…

How hard is it to get connected to other instances? Is this done through personal relationships or prior history or can a complete outsider get involved? I know exactly zero people using Mastodon (that I'm aware of) but this sounds interesting and makes me want to try to set something up.

The main tip for new and small instances is to use ActivityPub relays. There are curated lists in public git repos. They will make your public timeline pop, and allow your users to discover other users and instances to make real connections with.

So just allowing for personal connections will also work to federate but a lot slower.

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