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I'm betting on ATProto

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Re: I'm betting on ATProto

#81

Post by verdverm »

packetlost wrote: post #70
verdverm wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For real, trust online is an open and hard problem. It's only going to get harder with ai bots running amok.

I have some serious designs for a federated reputation system that is, as far as I can tell, novel but I haven't had time to really refine it and develop a proof of concept. Just a pile of notes for now

Have a look at how labellers work in ATProto. It forms a good foundation imo, perhaps sufficient as they currently stand. Good prior art if we abstract beyond just atproto, not sure what W3C might have already in the works that is similar enough.

https://bsky.social/about/blog/03-12-2024-stackable-moderati...

https://roost.tools is another group you may look into. They are broader in scope for Trust & Safety across the internet at large. Their current focus is a couple of OSS tools for builders, but the ambition is big and something to appreciate.

Re: I'm betting on ATProto

#82

Post by skybrian »

apitman wrote: post #32

> Social media was supposed to connect us, but most of it has turned into ads, division, and loneliness. I'm betting on ATProto as a way to fix that I disagree with the premise here. I think the core mechanics of social media, ie instant communication between random strangers about random topics, creates toxic interactions regardless of whether it's manipulated by engagement algorithms. Some of the most toxic convers…

I'm a fan of smaller communities that are semi-open: invite-only, but invites aren't that hard to get. Lobsters works that way. The BlueSky folks are designing "permission spaces" [1] that might be used to build that, though it's a bit early to say.

[1] https://dholms.leaflet.pub/3mhj6bcqats2o

Re: I'm betting on ATProto

#83

Post by skybrian »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #64

I haven't really tried doing anything with ATProto, but I do regularly see content from some folks who are into it, and the thing I like about ATProto is how generally cheerful and friendly and happy the ATProto community is. They're out there with all of the zeal of the old blockchain devs, except without the inky black evil of that movement. Mind you, being a happy community mostly means projects that are either do…

The people doing the building seem pretty positive, but on Bluesky there are some pretty vocal complainers who apparently hate everything.

Re: I'm betting on ATProto

#84

Post by jordwest »

zhivota wrote: post #80

The only social stuff I interact with anymore is a private forum that's paid, which is by far the best discussion on the internet for me, and other than that some discord servers for games I play. Global social networks are cancer no matter the protocol, that's my opinion after many years trying to carve out a use for them in my life. No matter how hard I try to curate my feeds, inevitably they make me more angry, sa…

I tend to agree, I’ve been thinking a lot over the years that this is the way we get out of this mess - lots and lots of smaller independently owned forums that splinter off onto small communities instead of monolithic single-identity mechanisms like social media & to some extent the fediverse.

> The only social stuff I interact with anymore is a private forum that's paid

Im curious when you say private, do you mean you can only post if you’re a member, or is all post content viewable only by members too? And if the latter, how did you discover the forum, and how did you decide to join?

Re: I'm betting on ATProto

#85

Post by skybrian »

bjt wrote: post #72

I like the future that the ATProto evangelists are painting. I would love for it to happen. But I am skeptical that a protocol is going to solve an incentive problem. In the beginning Twitter was very free and open with API access. There were plenty of alternative apps. Of course, that changed when they got serious about monetizing. Would it really be any harder for Bluesky to switch from ATProto to a proprietary API…

The Bluesky API's are much more open than the Twitter API's ever were. There are people building alternate implementations of the entire stack. The alternatives don't have many users (maybe a few hundred to a few thousand), but the infrastructure is pretty far along.

Re: I'm betting on ATProto

#86

Post by jimbokun »

bjt wrote: post #72

I like the future that the ATProto evangelists are painting. I would love for it to happen. But I am skeptical that a protocol is going to solve an incentive problem. In the beginning Twitter was very free and open with API access. There were plenty of alternative apps. Of course, that changed when they got serious about monetizing. Would it really be any harder for Bluesky to switch from ATProto to a proprietary API…

About the same number as would fork an open source project.

So not very many. But the possibility of doing so is invaluable.

Re: I'm betting on ATProto

#87

Post by skybrian »

pojntfx wrote: post #28
manifoldgeo wrote: post #22

I'd be curious to see how ATProto stacks up against ActivityPub in the long run. I was very excited by the prospects of Mastodon, PeerTube, and a few other Fediverse apps. I even started implementing my own ActivityPub library based on their RFC before I fizzled out. But, the Fediverse never really seemed to take off in the mainstream. Mozilla launched their own mastodon instance around 2023 and then closed it in 202…

Re:fediverse - it depends on which communities you're part of. Digital rights, politics here in Canada (see e.g. https://mstdn.ca/@avilewis ), politics in the EU ( https://ec.social-network.europa.eu/about ), basically anything that touches Linux is very much entrenched on the protocol. My local newspaper ( https://thetyee.ca/ ) has a Mastodon share button on the page even. Unlike with Bluesky, leadership has been ve…

Which fediverse leaders do you mean?

Re: I'm betting on ATProto

#88

Post by skybrian »

neelc wrote: post #41
manifoldgeo wrote: post #22

I'd be curious to see how ATProto stacks up against ActivityPub in the long run. I was very excited by the prospects of Mastodon, PeerTube, and a few other Fediverse apps. I even started implementing my own ActivityPub library based on their RFC before I fizzled out. But, the Fediverse never really seemed to take off in the mainstream. Mozilla launched their own mastodon instance around 2023 and then closed it in 202…

I could be wrong, but I hold the opinion that ATProto is the CDMA (3GPP2) of social media protocols, while ActivityPub is GSM (3GPP). CDMA had better radio tech than GSM, but at the expense of openness. Qualcomm basically owned CDMA, and still does, while GSM was cross-licensed among everyone. Likewise, ActivityPub is truly open while ATProto is "open" but you're basically a prisoner to Bluesky Social, the way CDMA p…

There are alternate implementations of the whole Bluesky stack, though they don't have many users yet.

Re: I'm betting on ATProto

#89

Post by zhivota »

jordwest wrote: post #84
zhivota wrote: post #80

The only social stuff I interact with anymore is a private forum that's paid, which is by far the best discussion on the internet for me, and other than that some discord servers for games I play. Global social networks are cancer no matter the protocol, that's my opinion after many years trying to carve out a use for them in my life. No matter how hard I try to curate my feeds, inevitably they make me more angry, sa…

I tend to agree, I’ve been thinking a lot over the years that this is the way we get out of this mess - lots and lots of smaller independently owned forums that splinter off onto small communities instead of monolithic single-identity mechanisms like social media & to some extent the fediverse. > The only social stuff I interact with anymore is a private forum that's paid Im curious when you say private, do you mean…

Nothing is accessible to non members. It's only $5/mo and the fee is explicitly to filter out people who don't care enough about the subject matter to pay a nominal fee.

I found it because someone I followed in my Twitter days hated how nasty conversations inevitably got there, and wanted a place to have in depth, non-ephemeral conversation with like minded people.

These days you'd probably discover it via X where they still post, or their Substack.

Re: I'm betting on ATProto

#90

Post by verdverm »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #64

I haven't really tried doing anything with ATProto, but I do regularly see content from some folks who are into it, and the thing I like about ATProto is how generally cheerful and friendly and happy the ATProto community is. They're out there with all of the zeal of the old blockchain devs, except without the inky black evil of that movement. Mind you, being a happy community mostly means projects that are either do…

One of the reasons I stopped hanging out in the "atmosphere" (the name for the broader, community driven ecosystem) is that I was personally attacked three times. The last straw was one of the leadership team jumping down my throat because I used the phrase "marketplace of ideas" that apparently triggered this individual.

It's not all pleasant. For me, I have a 3rd time's the charm rule I typically follow. Others may have more or less tolerance for this sort of thing.

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