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Pixelfed – An alternative to centralized image sharing platforms

pixelfed.social

81–90 of 110 posts

Re: Pixelfed – An alternative to centralized image sharing platforms

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which pod do I choose? That is actually a great UX question. For federated services how do you think we best solve this? I mean everyone wants to just not pick one. But different loss suits people better in terms of location/interests/something else. UX folks, what patterns would you suggest to help solve this?

with email it doesn't matter what domain name you pick... why does it have to matter for other things?

Not the domain name, but the provider definitely makes a difference. What's the spam filtering like? What's the privacy policy? What's the sending reliability (are you sharing the platform with spammers?) What's the uptime like?

Unless the auth database is also distributed and you get to log in as yourself from any pod, it does matter.

Re: Pixelfed – An alternative to centralized image sharing platforms

#82

What I really like is that thanks to ActivityPub it is possible to boost a Pixelfed post in Mastodon. Basically in the fediverse...

Replies to a Pixelfed post looks like Twitter in Mastodon, but looks like Instagram in Pixelfed.

I'm trying to justify to mysef how this is useful in any way but it sure _feels_ fascinating!

Re: Pixelfed – An alternative to centralized image sharing platforms

#83
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I recall the idea was to promote looking for a Pixelfed instance with a community that fits your needs and interests, which in turn makes the network stronger by distributing the userbase over a variety of servers. Keeping registrations open on what is often perceived as an "official" instance can lead to that instance getting most of the new users of the network, since it's usually the one you'll find if you sear…

That's a nice thought. I'm the kind of user that's going to give up and move on if my first attempt fails, and I imagine I'm in the majority here.

Why would Mastodon or Pixelfed need users who give up that easily? Those most probably won't be good citizens anyway and they would not post and create content because it's too complicated.

I don't think it makes sense to have non-active members just for faking the numbers if it's non profit anyway.

Re: Pixelfed – An alternative to centralized image sharing platforms

#85
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which pod do I choose? That is actually a great UX question. For federated services how do you think we best solve this? I mean everyone wants to just not pick one. But different loss suits people better in terms of location/interests/something else. UX folks, what patterns would you suggest to help solve this?

Which email provider do I choose? Email is a mature example of a federated system, and so if there is an answer to the general question, I'd expect we'll have figured it out in the context of email. So... what's the "general strategy for picking an email provider?"

Until recently most people just took the provider that cane with their isp because they were usually tied together. It was either that or AOL.

Nowawadys it’s either hotmail/office365/whatever other name it has or gmail. It used to be a federated system and still sort of is, but your experience is vastly diminished if you aren’t using one of the biggest providers because you’ll have deliverability problems.

Re: Pixelfed – An alternative to centralized image sharing platforms

#86
post #23

> Registrations are closed. I think the lack of a common name/URL is the biggest problem that is preventing federated open source social networks from gaining mass popularity. I remember when identi.ca came out as an alternative to Twitter. It seemed like it was starting to gain some traction, then they switched to pump.io and closed registrations. I haven't heard of anyone using either since. Look at Diaspora, that…

> Which [instance] do I choose?

The one your employer provisions your account on. Your account will be @user@company.domain

Re: Pixelfed – An alternative to centralized image sharing platforms

#87
post #13

I clicked the link and... have no idea what this is. It looks like instagram maybe? I can't even figure out how to figure out what it is. The only clickable thing I see is "@admin" which just takes me to what looks like an Instagram page. It doesn't even mention fediverse on that page, and even if it did, you'd have to know what the fediverse is. This feels like a huge barrier to adoption for them beyond the nerdiest…

pixelfed.social is a particular instance; https://pixelfed.org (the project home page) is probably a better overview.

Though - as that page points out - it's still a work in progress. There should probably be huge barriers to adoption for everyone regardless of nerdiness. But at the moment I'd guess they're targeting existing fediverse/Mastodon users.

Re: Pixelfed – An alternative to centralized image sharing platforms

#88
post #79
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

check out sqwok, new & starting beta https://sqwok.im

Gross, broke back navigation on my trackpad.

Sorry to hear that! It shouldn't have any issue w/back button so if it did it's definitely a bug. It's a very new project and hasn't been tested on a track-pad yet but thanks for reporting!

Re: Pixelfed – An alternative to centralized image sharing platforms

#89
post #49
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which email provider do I choose? Email is a mature example of a federated system, and so if there is an answer to the general question, I'd expect we'll have figured it out in the context of email. So... what's the "general strategy for picking an email provider?"

> So... what's the "general strategy for picking an email provider?" Pick Gmail unless you have a good reason not to. And if you don't know any reasons pick Gmail. Federation sounds nice until you realize that most people don't have particularly unique needs and a 'best for most people' will eventually emerge and dominate the market.

But instances aren't competing for users. There's no account fees, no ads, seems most big instances rely on voluntary donations to keep running.

You are also free to set up your own instance(s) and you can follow anyone.

Otherwise, stick to an instance with people like you (i.e. don't put your account on a gardening or knitting instance if you are primarily going to post and read about FPS gaming as it will mess up the instance timeline for everyone else and you'll have little use of the instance timeline.)

Re: Pixelfed – An alternative to centralized image sharing platforms

#90
post #57
post #28

On first glance, looks like a decentralized Instagram. A couple of questions: - What is the business model? If millions of people are on this and there's no ads/monetization -- how is the service covering costs? - If people had to pay, then it might limit adoption, how are you going to handle that? - How are you guys thinking about support, monitoring content (removing illegal/copyrighted content)

There is no corporation and no business model, and that's by design. Each instance can do what it wants regarding covering the cost of running the server. I plan to set up my own instance on my modest homelab for family and friends, and will not charge anything. Some bigger instances might choose to offer a certain amount of free storage before requiring to pitch in to cover the costs. My guess is that a big majority…

Moderation is important in today's world, compare the massive work twitter, instagram et al have had to do as a result of the Christchurch massacre.

How does this scenario work with pixelfed? I take it that the content is hosted on a specific server and that the pixelfed app is just a frontend that knows how to find that server. Is abuse reporting built in to the app somehow? How does the end user know that action is being taken? How can law enforcement close down pages?

Note that legal liability for hosting illegal content may be huge. There is one 18-year old in NZ who is being charged and threatened with 14 years jailtime for sharing the terrorist video from the mosque massacre. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&object...

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