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June 2023 Data Dump is missing

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Re: June 2023 Data Dump is missing

#81

Post by slg »

benrutter wrote: post #67
the_pwner224 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A decentralized system will never work because 99% of users do not care at all; the centralized systems are easier to sign up for and use. It's been demonstrated over and over and over again. Even if the underlying tech is decentralized, the community will settle around one or a few big instances (for example, Gmail and GitHub) which often end up having significant control over the trajectory of the entire ecosystem.…

I don't know that I agree. I think most people don't care about decentralization but they do care about the effects it brings. Email is a great example where most people wouldn't be interested in a version of email that only let's you email other @gmail.com users. Having a email address that can contact anyone, a phone number that can ring any other phone number etc instead of being locked into a single corporation n…

>Email is a great example where most people wouldn't be interested in a version of email that only let's you email other @gmail.com users. Having a email address that can contact anyone, a phone number that can ring any other phone number etc instead of being locked into a single corporation network is a clear value add that people care about.

That is only because those technologies predate those companies. Normal people don't care that you can't DM a Reddit user on Twitter or that your Instagram posts don't automatically show up on your Facebook page. People are generally fine with centralized corporate platforms as long as it isn't a restriction of a previously free technology and the network effect has done its thing to attract enough people to the platform.

Re: June 2023 Data Dump is missing

#82

Post by wahnfrieden »

b3morales wrote: post #78
lumb63 wrote: post #16

This, along with recent Reddit goings-on has made me realize a major risk with the current structure of online communication. Take either Reddit or Stack Exchange as examples. They build a platform, and users contribute their time, thought, energy, and knowledge to build a community on that platform. Those companies can then gatekeep and restrict access to all that the community built, when all they did is provide th…

This was one of the promises originally of Stack Overflow: all the content is Creative Commons licensed so that if they "turned evil" (I believe it was Joel that put it this way) the community could, in a way, create a fork. https://web.archive.org/web/20230203170609/https://stackover... Unfortunately the dumps themselves are not a legal requirement, just a gentleman's agreement, so realistically exercising this abil…

So it's time to community fork?

Re: June 2023 Data Dump is missing

#83

Post by JohnFen »

the_pwner224 wrote: post #33
lumb63 wrote: post #16

This, along with recent Reddit goings-on has made me realize a major risk with the current structure of online communication. Take either Reddit or Stack Exchange as examples. They build a platform, and users contribute their time, thought, energy, and knowledge to build a community on that platform. Those companies can then gatekeep and restrict access to all that the community built, when all they did is provide th…

A decentralized system will never work because 99% of users do not care at all; the centralized systems are easier to sign up for and use. It's been demonstrated over and over and over again. Even if the underlying tech is decentralized, the community will settle around one or a few big instances (for example, Gmail and GitHub) which often end up having significant control over the trajectory of the entire ecosystem.…

> A decentralized system will never work because 99% of users do not care at all

Maybe, maybe not. It's worth a shot, though, isn't it?

Re: June 2023 Data Dump is missing

#85

Post by jupp0r »

lumb63 wrote: post #16

This, along with recent Reddit goings-on has made me realize a major risk with the current structure of online communication. Take either Reddit or Stack Exchange as examples. They build a platform, and users contribute their time, thought, energy, and knowledge to build a community on that platform. Those companies can then gatekeep and restrict access to all that the community built, when all they did is provide th…

Incentives in this structure go both ways though, ideally keeping everything in symbiotic balance. Companies that alienate their users tend to not do well shortly after.

Re: June 2023 Data Dump is missing

#86

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

the_pwner224 wrote: post #33
lumb63 wrote: post #16

This, along with recent Reddit goings-on has made me realize a major risk with the current structure of online communication. Take either Reddit or Stack Exchange as examples. They build a platform, and users contribute their time, thought, energy, and knowledge to build a community on that platform. Those companies can then gatekeep and restrict access to all that the community built, when all they did is provide th…

A decentralized system will never work because 99% of users do not care at all; the centralized systems are easier to sign up for and use. It's been demonstrated over and over and over again. Even if the underlying tech is decentralized, the community will settle around one or a few big instances (for example, Gmail and GitHub) which often end up having significant control over the trajectory of the entire ecosystem.…

Between gmail and your own email server, there are thousands of medium size email providers that work ok, so email is a bad example, decentralization still works there. As for GitHub, the coders of all people should have known better than to pile into one site and sell their s̶o̶u̶l̶s̶ code to devil for a little bit of convenience.

Re: June 2023 Data Dump is missing

#87

Post by ilyt »

lumb63 wrote: post #16

This, along with recent Reddit goings-on has made me realize a major risk with the current structure of online communication. Take either Reddit or Stack Exchange as examples. They build a platform, and users contribute their time, thought, energy, and knowledge to build a community on that platform. Those companies can then gatekeep and restrict access to all that the community built, when all they did is provide th…

That doesn't stop grumpy admin of a federated instance to just do exactly same thing.

> run by people we trust

People change, or retire, just like corporation goals change.

Focusing on more independent is not enough. If you want truly unbreakable stuff first part of the puzzle is saving user's handle and identity in a way that can't be removed.

Then finding out a way to link that to their content so when place of hosting it goes away people can follow to the new place

Then just have all of that content be signed by that identity so users can verify that it is really that person.

And I can't believe I'm saying that unironically but blockchain might just be the solution for that.

Something like immutable log of:

* user declaring "I'm jeff@example.com, here are my public keys". Servers then validate via DNS record or some .well-known location entry whether user is allowed to declare they are from @example.com * user declaring "behold! jeff@example.com stuff is , and and are addresses for various federation systems". Only passes if that request is signed with above privkey of course * user declaring "behold! My new public key is X and Y. And Z key is revoked!" * user declaring "behold! I am now george.effluent@company.com! Re-does checks but for new domain and users previously subscribed to jeff@example com get served redirect".

etc.

Then when server admin inevitably goes rogue you can take your posts and subscribers and go somewhere else.

And when @example.com owner decides "well I'm just gonna to redirect stuff to ads", you can just change your handle and direct people to right place, and other handle is forever taken.

Re: June 2023 Data Dump is missing

#88

Post by TX81Z »

expertentipp wrote: post #36

Everyone wants to be "smart" by web scraping, harvesting data, building models. No one bothers to build and sustain platforms where quality content can be crowd sourced. Parasitic arrangement is slowly starting a new era of the internet. Question how long until existing data dumps will become outdated and fall into irrelevance.

We just needed enough data to awaken the mega mind, now we may rest and the mega mind shall bring an era of peace, prosperity, and scientific achievement.

Praise the mega mind.

Re: June 2023 Data Dump is missing

#89

Post by b3morales »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #82
b3morales wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was one of the promises originally of Stack Overflow: all the content is Creative Commons licensed so that if they "turned evil" (I believe it was Joel that put it this way) the community could, in a way, create a fork. https://web.archive.org/web/20230203170609/https://stackover... Unfortunately the dumps themselves are not a legal requirement, just a gentleman's agreement, so realistically exercising this abil…

So it's time to community fork?

Assuming that the linked post is accurate and that the "approval from senior leadership" to turn the dump back on does not come...then yes, I would say so. Actually there is already Codidact, although if I recall correctly they explicitly ruled out importing SE data when they started up. https://codidact.org

Re: June 2023 Data Dump is missing

#90

Post by ignoramous »

abetusk wrote: post #72

As a reminder, all the SE sites have content under a Creative Commons, By Attribution, Share Alike license, allowing for, among other things, commercial re-use [0] [1]. Yes, it sucks that the SE sites are getting more draconian about allowing access to their content but the SE sites are well insulated against it completely disappearing precisely because they're under a libre/free license. Note that Reddit [2], nor HN…

Should petition Daniel Gackle et al to CC-BY user-generated content on HN.
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