The case for the decentralization of online forums • Hacker News Board

Re: The case for the decentralization of online forums

#91

Post by veave » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:03 PM UTC

colinsane wrote: post #90

janoc wrote: post #37

The problem is that people think that decentralization somehow solves the problem. It doesn't. In most cases, like Reddit or Twitter or Mastodon or whatever the issue isn't that something is centralized but that things actually do cost money to build and run . Even decentralized architectures like Mastodon need that - and very few people actually want to pay for it. That is why the various efforts to monetize the con…

> things actually do cost money to build and run. how much does HN cost to keep running, again? didn’t Stack Overflow notoriously run on hardware not that different from what some passionate devs keep in their home? the hardware is cheap enough that the BoM cost angle is debatable today and will only be less true over time. the other costs (time commitments) fall into well-known buckets: moderation, and development.…

You can't compare HN or SO to reddit because they were written by technically competent people who wouldn't dare use python server-side.

Re: The case for the decentralization of online forums

#92

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:09 PM UTC

than3 wrote: post #19

viksit wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(author here) this is a great point, thank you for posting it. i've been researching this problem for a year now, and came across some interesting technical and social povs on moderation and network attacks. - moderation: my pov is that large companies with teams of moderators (such as twitter or facebook) wont and cant scale to varied moderation policies across the world. so the task of moderation has to be boiled d…

I'd like to add that looking at sybil attacks as just a network attack would be a mistake. These type of attacks apply broadly at many different levels, for example the minimum thresholds for amplification/de-amplification can be significantly lower than the 51% that's normally attributed by definition to these type of attacks. Any decentralized moderation system would run into issues with a sybil attack distorting r…

[deleted]

Re: The case for the decentralization of online forums

#93

Post by shagie » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:10 PM UTC

PrimeMcFly wrote: post #62

janoc wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usenet was literally decentralized before this was even a buzzword.

You're right. When I think of 'decentralized', and what I meant, was something offering anonymity and resistance to takedown orders, which are things it didn't have real protection against.

Anonymity isn't necessary desirable for the people running the servers - it means extra work for people attempting to moderate the content on their instance. There are numerous other discussions about why a lack of moderation is often a bad thing for people running the servers.

Take down orders are resisted by having it sufficiently decentralized. It may be possible to take down one server, but taking down every server (even trying to take down every NNTP server in today's world) is a significant effort.

Usenet is a perfectly acceptable decentralized system for sending messages to each other and the world.

Stand one up with the groups that I'm interested in and I'll point my copy of trn at it.

Re: The case for the decentralization of online forums

#94

Post by samsquire » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:15 PM UTC

I'm starting a decentralised blog network

I want people to create GitHub repositories for their blogs and just post to README.md in reverse chronological order.

Then email me your blog repository URL or reply here and I'll create a curated list of blogs.

Re: The case for the decentralization of online forums

#95

Post by anothernostrich » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:28 PM UTC

janoc wrote: post #37

The problem is that people think that decentralization somehow solves the problem. It doesn't. In most cases, like Reddit or Twitter or Mastodon or whatever the issue isn't that something is centralized but that things actually do cost money to build and run . Even decentralized architectures like Mastodon need that - and very few people actually want to pay for it. That is why the various efforts to monetize the con…

What if you could run your node on a raspberry pi in your closet, and interact with thousands of others doing the same (at the cost of a static IP address)?

https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/65.md

Re: The case for the decentralization of online forums

#96

Post by PrimeMcFly » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:29 PM UTC

ilyt wrote: post #87

PrimeMcFly wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. When I think of 'decentralized', and what I meant, was something offering anonymity and resistance to takedown orders, which are things it didn't have real protection against.

And a way to fight spam. You don't want users to be too anonymous, else someone can just post bullshit with zero ways to fight it.

Well, we just need a way to have reputation, basically. It shouldn't be karma, but it needs to be something that doesn't require linking to a real life identity.

Re: The case for the decentralization of online forums

#97

Post by naravara » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:29 PM UTC

seydor wrote: post #44

we have tried decentralization and it doesnt work because the internet is no longer in its baby state. People reminisce of those rosy times where only a few select highly educated people were online but this is not going to be the case ever again. Trust is not a solved problem The best we can hope is we can build AI-moderated content systems where the AI is subject to some form of self-governement by the community by…

> People reminisce of those rosy times where only a few select highly educated people were online but this is not going to be the case ever again.

It doesn’t need to be. Forums can just be unfriendly to people who don’t meet the standards for discussion. They can do this overtly, through moderation that shoves out low value contributors, or more subtly through design choices and cultural factors that discourage low tier posting.

Re: The case for the decentralization of online forums

#98

Post by nordsieck » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:30 PM UTC

waboremo wrote: post #57

hayst4ck wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and very few people actually want to pay for it. I think this is a core assumption that I'm not sure I believe in. Works for the public deserve public (distinct from government) funding. There are many things that say "if you don't give us money, we can't continue to exist." "We need enough money to function" is a completely different sell than "we want to 1000x our investors investments." Reddit's enshitification[…

And now we get to actual solutions: public funding. But it's something a lot of people don't want to admit. We skirt around the issue, this relies on donations, that relies on the goodwill of the owner, all of it to ignore the fact that what we really want is public funding for crucial software such as forums/social networks (and hosting them).

> what we really want is public funding for crucial software such as forums/social networks (and hosting them).

Maybe some people want that. Your "we" is putting in a lot of work.

Re: The case for the decentralization of online forums

#99

Post by jjav » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:31 PM UTC

rsync wrote: post #17

We are holding this discussion on a classic, centralized, web1.0 forum which - from my vantage point - is one of the most valuable and enriching forums currently online. What's wrong with HN ? What's wrong with metafilter ? What's wrong with letsrun or doom9 ? The problem is the mistaken notion that these can be big businesses. If you can let go of the economics there is no technical - or usability - hurdle. We know…

> The problem is the mistaken notion that these can be big businesses.

Exactly that. A community communicating can't be the huge profit center that a corporation needs it to be, without it being ruined.

> We know this because we're already doing it right here.

Exactly.

Re: The case for the decentralization of online forums

#100

Post by PrimeMcFly » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:34 PM UTC

shagie wrote: post #93

PrimeMcFly wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. When I think of 'decentralized', and what I meant, was something offering anonymity and resistance to takedown orders, which are things it didn't have real protection against.

Anonymity isn't necessary desirable for the people running the servers - it means extra work for people attempting to moderate the content on their instance. There are numerous other discussions about why a lack of moderation is often a bad thing for people running the servers. Take down orders are resisted by having it sufficiently decentralized. It may be possible to take down one server, but taking down every serv…

Anonymity is key in the sense that it shouldn't require linking to a real life identity. The same way now I can sign up for reddit 'anonymously' for example. There should be some reputation, some kind of check the person is human, maybe other things, but there needs to be the freedom to post separate from a real life persona, without fear of being doxxed. For so many different reasons.

Usenet, I think, has a strong hierarchy structure rather than just being a 'web', although it is that as well. So if the takedown order is directed at a server in high enough position, it is essentially removes it from all of Usenet - and it's not just takedown orders, but actors with the ability to remove content unilaterally.

Usenet really isn't sufficient simply because of how old it is. We can do much better, and I believe there are already numerous superior systems that exist but simply have not been adopted yet, likely due to ease of use and/or lack of need, the former can be improved, and the latter will happen naturally.