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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

#91

Post by elsjaako »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #62
bawolff wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although i think that's what most people want. One of the reasons centralization won out for email is dealing with spam can be absolutely exhausting, so gmail started to look really attractive for the average user.

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.

I don't think that would be a good thing.

Google used to host the biggest xmpp server (google talk), and then they defederated from the rest of the network.

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

#92

Post by ekidd »

yunohn wrote: post #83
ekidd wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It should be always up to user to decide who they want to communicate with. I want to decide to ban user, or ban topic/tag, or even ban server, not have decision deferred to whoever is running the server, that's no better than twatter." You can pay someone to host a server for you, starting at $4/month. (Well, MastoHost is a little behind on signups this week, but they'll catch up.) If you do this, then you'll have…

> If you do this, then you'll have total control over your moderation policy. The solution to fragmented servers is not another self hosted disconnected server?

Why would your server be disconnected? Plenty of people are on self-hosted servers, and we can follow each other with no problem.

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

#93

Post by dsr_ »

yunohn wrote: post #83
ekidd wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It should be always up to user to decide who they want to communicate with. I want to decide to ban user, or ban topic/tag, or even ban server, not have decision deferred to whoever is running the server, that's no better than twatter." You can pay someone to host a server for you, starting at $4/month. (Well, MastoHost is a little behind on signups this week, but they'll catch up.) If you do this, then you'll have…

> If you do this, then you'll have total control over your moderation policy. The solution to fragmented servers is not another self hosted disconnected server?

Suppose that everyone who participated ran their own server, population 1.

Then choosing to block other servers would be equivalent to blocking other people, which we agree is a good thing.

Now someone comes up with an adblock list: subscribe to it, and these servers will not bother you. It's probably not perfect, but it improves your experience a lot. If you don't like it, switch to another, or don't subscribe to any.

And now we are back where we started: you can choose to either subscribe to a policy (join an existing server) or be independent.

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

#94

Post by dsr_ »

csande17 wrote: post #79
oaiey wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what is the difference to SMTP? That is literally the decentralized messaging platform which is alive for 40 (?) years and still kicking. There will be problems but there is evidence that it can work.

SMTP being created 40 years ago is probably why it still works today. Just like the telephone network, it has a historical exception from the moral obligation to prevent Bad People from using the network to say harmful or incorrect things. (Section 230 didn't exist back then, so it wasn't clear that that kind of moderation was even legal without taking full responsibility for everything users say.) Mastodon doesn't h…

You don't have a spam problem?

Lacking a universal definition of bad actors does not prevent coordinated action to stop the bad actors.

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

#95

Post by elsjaako »

scrollaway wrote: post #76
ilyt wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but in case of e-mail all it takes for you to "own" your identity is to own your domain at few bucks a year. Bit more work with setting up mastodon instance and dealing with all that mess. I do wonder how mastodon would handle influx of spammers. There is zero barrier to entry, and banning servers is ineffective if it is just an account doing the spamming.

More mastodon and mastodon-like hosts should allow for custom domain names. Then it would allow you to own your AP identity similarly to email.

That's just hosting your own, basically. You can pay someone to do that for you.

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

#96

Post by dsr_ »

ilyt wrote: post #60
bawolff wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although i think that's what most people want. One of the reasons centralization won out for email is dealing with spam can be absolutely exhausting, so gmail started to look really attractive for the average user.

Yeah but in case of e-mail all it takes for you to "own" your identity is to own your domain at few bucks a year. Bit more work with setting up mastodon instance and dealing with all that mess. I do wonder how mastodon would handle influx of spammers. There is zero barrier to entry, and banning servers is ineffective if it is just an account doing the spamming.

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.

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

#97

Post by ekidd »

supermatt wrote: post #89
davisoneee wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's an instance level ban, then you can vote with your feet by migrating to a new instance. You are not electing who goes on the list, but you are electing to follow certain lists implicitly by which instance you join. With mastodon/fediverse, you have a choice of numerous different 'twitters', rather than being stuck with the global twitter decision.

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 use a well-run server with a good track record and a reasonable funding model, I guess.

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

#98

Post by rvense »

supermatt wrote: post #89
davisoneee wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's an instance level ban, then you can vote with your feet by migrating to a new instance. You are not electing who goes on the list, but you are electing to follow certain lists implicitly by which instance you join. With mastodon/fediverse, you have a choice of numerous different 'twitters', rather than being stuck with the global twitter decision.

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

I don't think so. There's a way to move accounts.

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

#99

Post by csande17 »

dsr_ wrote: post #94
csande17 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SMTP being created 40 years ago is probably why it still works today. Just like the telephone network, it has a historical exception from the moral obligation to prevent Bad People from using the network to say harmful or incorrect things. (Section 230 didn't exist back then, so it wasn't clear that that kind of moderation was even legal without taking full responsibility for everything users say.) Mastodon doesn't h…

You don't have a spam problem? Lacking a universal definition of bad actors does not prevent coordinated action to stop the bad actors.

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 network fracturing that isn't present in legacy systems.

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

#100

Post by doener »

I think the author idealizes a bit strongly here. Internet infrastructure is not a garden, so I don't think the metaphor fits. And the exponentially growing requirements for hardware and power consumption are at least a real challenge - although certainly not as extreme as with proof-of-work blockchains.
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