… Here?
Yes, exactly like here! But you know, let’s make it centralized and maybe closed-source, that’ll teach those corporate overlords! /s
We can only hope Meta comes to rescue us /s
People just want easy. They dont like change, and they don’t want to use their brains too much.
Exactly this. Looking at the top response it details it’s hard due to a ton of costs like operating costs and hosting costs and stuff, but with federation these costs can be spread around so that it’s more manageable for each individual instance (as content doesn’t need to be viewed from the original instance but gets spread around).
The mass-scale casual interaction producing flashes of surprising relevance can’t happen when the conditions aren’t pulling in so many people that the 1 in 300 million person with the answer doesn’t casually happen across the question that only he/she can answer. That’s the unique content from Reddit.
Link aggregation, message boarding, messaging, all that stuff is merely tech that lots of other places have. Reddit’s moat is the user presence which other platforms can’t just replicate. Reddit needs to die first so that 1 in 300 person stops going there and goes to other places and somehow runs into the question there, hopefully in a way that they turn up in Google search.
Is the fediverse where that happens? Seriously asking because I’m no expert on it. It doesn’t seem like the concept can scale distribution at that level. There will be pockets of interaction, but not everything is shared everywhere.
I don’t want a second Reddit, I want something better than it.
Yup. Moreover, i want clients and implementations that help summarize and reduce doomscroll behavior. Social networks have value (imo), but they also have a cost and i’m tired of paying that. Reddit built a habit in so many of us to go back to it during any downtime, doomscroll more time than we wanted or expected, become overly invested in karma, arguments, etc. Reddit also has zero incentive to fix any of this, as it was perfect for engagement. Reddit is Facebook is Twitter, and i’m tired of those applications drugging my brain.
I definitely do not want Reddit. I want the value we got from Reddit, without the cost.
Buddy, doomscrolling is your own issue. Are you old enough to remember “doomscrolling” cable television for hours at night? We’re all choosing to distract ourselves from something else or we’re just bored. It’s nothing new.
I mean, if you’re having trouble stepping away from something, it almost sounds like you’re describing an addiction problem. Everyone should make it a practice to step outside themselves for a moment and assess all their habits.
You’re not seriously suggesting that a platform prevent its users from using it, are you? LOL where have I seen that in the news this week?
You’re not seriously suggesting that a platform prevent its users from using it, are you? LOL where have I seen that in the news this week?
Jeez, this feels quite hostile.
I’m a developer. I’m working on this problem myself. You can craft features which promote a behavior or inhibit it. For example focusing only on live oriented features, making sure that posts show up constantly and with little ability to see what previous came, i would argue, focuses behavior on addictive FOMO. Features that help summarize historical posts to leave you with less of a feeling of FOMO does the opposite. Quite difficult to get FOMO if the summary of posts only changes once every 5 hours, right? You should see the ideas here. All of which i want to explore.
Features promote behavior. Some drive engagement, some reduce engagement. I seek features which reduce engagement by way of inhibiting FOMO and promoting the feeling of being informed on what it is you were seeking.
I’m suggesting a platform which focuses on features that help users avoid what i feel are negative outcomes. Which is wholly different than saying that all platforms need to do this. Why is this controversial to you? Should i, and users like me, not be able to use a platform which tries to eradicate (as best able) FOMO? Is FOMO other people experience somehow essential to you?
You can have whatever platforms you like. Just because an option exists does not mean it is hostile to your preferences. To me your reply seems short sighted, entirely focused on your individual use case and ignorant of a wide array of methods people want to use to interact with these products.
I am focused on my slice and my pie. You can have yours too, it’s okay.
You can craft features which promote a behavior or inhibit it.
To add to your point, let’s not forget that a certain social media site used their algorithm to boost content that angers people because it also boosts engagement. It shouldn’t be controversial to want a social media that, like, doesn’t exploit negative behaviors to generate more dollars, and I think your working towards something that specifically doesn’t do that is admirable.
This argument that a social media platform not doing evil things also exclusively means it cannot attract an audience in some other way is a false dichotomy.
Seconding everything here — hostile/destructive platform design is so normalized for users (of Reddit and in general) that designing services that don’t encourage doomscrolling/“anger-tainment”/FOMO/etc feels completely foreign to them, or even impossible. But it’s gotta happen, otherwise we’ll just repeat the worst parts of Reddit (and other platforms) all over again.
Just to say, I 100 percent would pull RIF up in downtime but doomscrolling is not ubiquitous; I would pop into really specific communities to read about specific interests and shit that didn’t expose me to current events. I am an extremely politically plugged-in person, despite avoiding it almost entirely on reddit (unless I was in the mood), but I found shit like RIF actually allowed me to be more selective about what content I want at any given time. That kind of fine-tuned control of my information intake, of course, is completely lost on New Reddit with its barrage of random recommendations.
@UnshavedYak for real. It’s so refreshing not having to see loads of wasted awards on the most facile, idiotic comments. Or the obnoxious avatars people made in place of their pfp. It seems so hyperbolic but it genuinely feels great not having to see all that anymore.
Yeah, the lack of awards is nice. Also people seem to be much less focused on getting upvotes and more focused on actual quality content.
That’s exactly what I was thinking. Even with federation off it feels like it’s already turning into a smaller version of what we had before. Not so much with post content or comments per se, but more for the already established “power users” and recreation of the exact same garbage, popular subs. I can’t believe how many people I’ve already blocked that I got sick of seeing on every single post.
With black jack and hookers?
I just find ActivityPub kind of confusing. It works for Mastodon because that’s user-centric, and most people only have an account on one site. But the same communities can exist on multiple sites, and it’s confusing to navigate all of that.
This sounds like someone who hasn’t even tried. These instances aren’t difficult to navigate, they’re just setup a little differently. It’s like refusing to go to another country because they use metric instead of imperial (or vice versa).
Frankly, you’re incorrect. It’s an incredible pain in the neck to try and deal with the Fediverse beyond local content. Without better community merging or centralization, browsing instances becomes no different than dealing with having mail on three or four non-multiplexed BBSes, or talking on forums before we had tabbed browsing. It’s incredibly annoying, and pushes people right back to centralized systems.
With respect to lemmy/kbin I am literally browsing these threads from startrek.website and it feels totally normal.
Genuinely I don’t understand the issue? You can search the Fediverse from one instance using the Magazines tab in Kbin to find places to sub, or sub to communities you find in all feed etc? Is the issue to do with the duplication of communities at present and lack of clarity which ones are more active?
For me at least the federated set up works well, but I need more visibility of total community sizes when searching Magazines. The search shows me the number of users subbed from this instance, where as I’d also like to know the total number of users subbed across the fediverse to guage how big that community is overall.
Also as you mention, it would be good to see duplicate communities merged across instances - but some of that is the reddit migration with 1000s of new users creating the communities with the same name on multiple instances in a short amount of time. Consolidation will take time (and sometimes there may be a good reason to have two separate communities with the same name) but long term there does need to be tools to allow communities to migrate base from one instance to another or merge; otherwise there is a risk a community could die if an instance falls over.
But I’m not switching between instances - I was initially and realised it was pointless. I have chosen to be on 2 instances - Kbin.social and Feddit.uk, deliberately to keep my UK and generic feed separate for now, and also to have a Kbin and Lemmy experience. I personally strongly favour Kbin at the moment. I don’t get the analogy of tabbed browsing or separate forums; you can see the whole fediverse from one instance (barring defederated instance like Beehaw). What am I missing?
Genuinely I don’t understand the issue?
It seems like it boils down to four things.
You can search the Fediverse from one instance using the Magazines tab in Kbin to find places to sub, or sub to communities you find in all feed etc?
This is the first thing. I think this might not always be turning up everything due to the delays with federation. While we might be able to agree that this is good enough, I think another reasonable person can look at this and say that there’s room for some technical improvements.
Is the issue to do with the duplication of communities at present
This is the second one. As others have also pointed out, reddit has the same issue so it’s not unique to federation (tho this person seems to get hung up specifically on the precise naming to make it federation specific). I think we can adapt the reddit solution (multireddits) to here as well though to solve this (i.e. come up with a scheme for multimagazines).
But I’m not switching between instances
This is the third one, but I think this is not valid. As you say, one can choose to have multiple accounts on other instances, but it’s not needed to participate on the other instances. This person says it’s their choice to have the other accounts - but then makes a big stink over the effort of having multiple accounts. Like if it’s that much trouble then just don’t do it.
long term there does need to be tools to allow communities to migrate base from one instance to another
I thought that this might be an issue but actually I raised this point and it wasn’t responded to.
The fourth one is that this person seems to consider kbin.social its own distinct platform - which doesn’t make sense in light of federation - and seems to prefer centralization in general (despite seeing the good from multiplexing BBSes), but I’m waiting on a response as to why this should be the case. Like what are the specific arguments to prefer centralization to a single server or a single instance?
It does occur to me however that if a paid shill were to try to promote a centralized service over an open source federated one, a way to win folks over might be to present oneself as a highly experienced technical person with direct expeirence in both kinds of systems, but who ultimately prefers centralization and has good technical arguments to back it up, including pointing out flaws or gaps with the existing federated system. And also insist that more people flock to the single overloaded flagship instance, perhaps causing it to overload and die off.
Not saying for sure that this is the case here, but food for thought.
Not saying for sure that this is the case here, but food for thought.
Nah, I don’t think it is the case here at all. The guy had an opinion and was expressing it. I didn’t agree, but it’s good to see some proper discussion going on.
FWIW The biggest thing I would like to see implements sooner rather than later is a way to handle multi magazines, chiefly because it’s not actually that much of an issue yet. A bigger deal seems to be people asking is there a community for X, y, z. So if there’s a plan in place then that would be good.
But even the way on some Reddit subs mods sometimes have a list of ‘Associated Subs’ (so a Reading sub might basically give a shout out to Books, Literature, etc… would be good
Nah, I don’t think it is the case here at all. The guy had an opinion and was expressing it. I didn’t agree, but it’s good to see some proper discussion going on.
You’re probably right, I may have been overreacting. I guess I’m a little bit paranoid about this because of a recent reveal, see https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/92172/Why-Reddit-and-u-spez-must-win and https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/121064/You-are-winning
FWIW The biggest thing I would like to see implements
I think @kbinMeta is the typical goto for things of this nature.
But even the way on some Reddit subs mods sometimes have a list of ‘Associated Subs’ (so a Reading sub might basically give a shout out to Books, Literature, etc… would be good
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me too.
It’s different, it’s not that difficult, only mildly annoying with some compatibility issues for platforms that are still basically in their alpha phase (like kbin).
It’s incredibly annoying, and pushes people right back to centralized systems.
Yet the community of active users continues to grow.
You and I will have to agree to disagree on this. Yes, active users continues to grow - on already dominant platforms. And by that I mean KBin.social as a platform, not all KBin instances; or Mastodon.Social, or even Lemmy.ML. Yes, there’s not a singularity yet, but even this limited plurality shows that it’s a pain in the neck to deal with the Fediverse as a whole, so pick your local poison and go for it.
Frankly, you’re incorrect. It’s an incredible pain in the neck to try and deal with the Fediverse beyond local content.
What issues have you specifically noticed with this? I’ve only seen a few - the main one is sometimes it’s hard to find magazines from elsewhere unless you already know the name of it and the instance it is on (but folks are creating websites to help others find this, so this is a problem being solved right now). The other one is that sometimes federation is slow, so posts and comments on the hosting instance can take hours to show up on another one. But there are technical fixes to this as well (I’m thinking that maybe the next version of activity pub should include a pull action, so other instances can ask for the latest content on behalf of their users from the hosting instance).
Without better community merging or centralization, browsing instances becomes no different than dealing with having mail on three or four non-multiplexed BBSes,
I wasn’t around this far back. Can you elaborate on this a bit? What’s the issue with “having mail on three or four non-multiplexed BBSes” ?
or talking on forums before we had tabbed browsing. It’s incredibly annoying, and pushes people right back to centralized systems.
This I remember well. Sounds like you are trying to create an account on each instance and are constantly logging out of one and into the next to keep up on the latest posts and comments. This … is not really the way to do it.
Yes, active users continues to grow - on already dominant platforms. And by that I mean KBin.social as a platform,
Don’t confuse terms. kbin.social is an instance, the platform is kbin the software.
not all KBin instances;
Actually it’s well understood that kbin.social is getting too large and it’s not good for instances to get this big in general - so it’s kinda a good thing that other instances haven’t exploded as much. See https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/122067/Jim-is-invading-the-finer-things-club-aka-kbin-social-is and
or Mastodon.Social,
I’d argue that this is a technically a different platform - microblogging vs what reddit/lemmy do. But by the magic of federation we get both in kbin.
or even Lemmy.ML.
There are problems here with this instance that go far beyond what you are saying. But that’s the nice part of federation - even problematic owners can be dealt with. Can’t say the same for a centralized service.
Yes, there’s not a singularity yet,
Why use this term? What does it even mean in this context? A singularity is a term from physics and represents when the existing rules break down, like in a black hole (collapsed star).
but even this limited plurality shows that it’s a pain in the neck to deal with the Fediverse as a whole, so pick your local poison and go for it.
Again, this suggests you don’t really understand federation. Barring one problematic instance, there aren’t any serious issues accessing all the instances you mentioned from, say for example, kbin.cafe
You and I will have to agree to disagree on this.
Certainly.
What issues have you specifically noticed with this?
The issue I’ve noticed first and foremost is that there is more than one identically named group. Don’t tell me that rpg@kbin.social, rpg@lemmy.ml, and rpg@foo.bar are different communities. They’re identically named communities. I’d rather have as false positive of a gun user’s instance with threads about rocket-propelled grenades, rather than having to go to each group to browse. Don’t tell me to just use the “subscribed” view. That doesn’t pick up everything in a topic, nor does it help me to find those - again, identically named - communities on other servers. Whenever a new server comes online with an RPG community, they’ll be in their own corner. They can participate as foreigners with another group, but that’s not theirs. There’s no central place for hosting these communities. If there was a server set up just to host groups, and the rest were for users, that would make sense. I immediately grew tired, trying to find all of the communities related to my interests so I can subscribe to all. I did that back in the day, joining forums and setting up a personal homepage with frames. In theory anyone can join any group, but they have to find it first.
If devs and leaders of the ActivityPub community are going to continue pushing the idea that everyone can talk to everyone else, we absolutely need some form of community merging for identically-named communities. For instance, a kbin.social user should be able to subscribe to cooking and see posts from cooking@*.* , not just cooking@kbin.social. That’s a UX issue just as much as a technical one.
I wasn’t around this far back. Can you elaborate on this a bit? What’s the issue with “having mail on three or four non-multiplexed BBSes” ?
Back in those days, BBS mail was less “email” and more “text stored on server”. To get all of your mail from multiples, you had to connect to each of the servers in sequence, download your mail, and then read it offline and reply (any good BBS software would remember where itwas from, and offer to call back and send each message). Multiplexing meant that you could have a BBS in the NYC area, it would be able to contact and download from one in, say, PA or wherever, and they could each download threads and messages, aka federated content. The pain has been massively reduced over time, and I’m glad. My next point bounces off yours:
This I remember well. Sounds like you are trying to create an account on each instance and are constantly logging out of one and into the next to keep up on the latest posts and comments. This … is not really the way to do it.
You’re right, except in cases where I want a different psudonymity; my choice. In this case, I can’t check for new posts in, continuing with the same example, rpg@*.* without checking the group from each federated server. Posts are neither mirrored nor transcluded. That’s the point I’m getting at. I should be able to just open up m/rpg and have it cover all compatible groups.
Don’t confuse terms. kbin.social is an instance, the platform is kbin the software.
Actually it’s well understood that kbin.social is getting too large and it’s not good for instances to get this big in general - so it’s kinda a good thing that other instances haven’t exploded as much. See https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/122067/Jim-is-invading-the-finer-things-club-aka-kbin-social-is andI disagree with your latter point. kbin.social has hit a reasonable mass of users to have a strong local community and become a platform unto itself, running on kbin software. I’m not interested in a smaller community. I joined Reddit because it was the largest single-site community on the Web. I want the monolithic community, and I accept the costs that incurs, including ads or ad-first design. Right now, the fediverse is just fragments at the foot of the tower of Babel, each speaking a separate tongue, even if some are intelligible to others.
I don’t care about the difference between Mastodo, kbin, & Lemmy. They’re web software which are trying to replace a monolith, and have seen imited success. I don’t care about political leanings. I’m talking about a UX issue. If you want to defed from a site, and receive no more content, then so be it, that’s the right of an Admin.
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There’s still chaos in terms of instances and softwares. Until we all settle on one software that does the job, and until we have a way to have a single community again, Reddit remains the superior option. There is only one r/RPG, it works on Highlander rules - there can be only one. How many groups in the Fediverse named m/RPG or c/RPG are there? Why must each user be forced to answer that question?
That’s what would fix things for me; make the federation 100% behind-the-curtain so that I don’t have to think about it. I don’t care about the backend, I’m not hosting, the value to me is ad views only, not cash. I’d argue a solid 80% of users on corp-owned social media wouldn’t understand even if you simplify it. The fediverse/threadiverse is not a drop-in replacement for Reddit. Until it is, I’ll keep one foot in spez’s yard. If Meta’s Threads product does become an ActivityPub community and solves this issue, I’ll move there
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Apologies for any typos or bad formatting, I ran up against the 5000 character limit, and tried to edit down - and the ‘more’ popup actually pops under the next comment in my browser. I’m sure I could fix it somehow, but I believe everything is still intelligible.
Honestly like, the dude you’re responding too is referencing BBSes and using the web before tabs. If a user like that is expressing some confusion, disorientation, or irritation, you should regard it the way you might your grandfather critiquing your home. He could be cantankerous, but he probably does have some insight stemming from decades of experience. NTOG and I have been on opposite sides of almost every thread I’ve encountered them in but it’s pretty clear they know their way around message boards, so if something is confusing them it might be a bit confusing yet.
I’m just as old as he is, maybe only a few years younger. I started to learn computers on a Commodore VIC 20 and 64, used tape drives for storage. I entered into BBS near the end of its popularity, however I used chat boards, AOL, and Geocities…old forums as well. I also moderated a forum for a few years on a Star Wars fan site before the admin shut it down and I moved to Reddit.
I have a lot of experience navigating forums as well…Fediverse sometimes takes a little bit more digging to find what you want. The point I was also trying to make is that these platforms are also in their infancy, their alpha programming state. So things will change, the platform will develop. This kind of thing isn’t built in a day, yet IMHO it’s so much nicer not having ads forced down my throat on desktop every five posts.
If this person doesn’t like the experience here, then there’s nothing saying he can’t go back to Reddit.
But the same communities can exist on multiple sites, and it’s confusing to navigate all of that.
I mean, on Reddit the same communities can exist on the same site. I’m a member of r/europe and r/europes, and of r/introvert and r/introverts…
Federation isn’t the cause of competing communities. What happens on Reddit is that eventually enough of a mass of people congregate around one sub for a topic, and that becomes the de facto main one. The same thing will happen here.
True, and this is also a side effect of the mass migration from reddit. People have created multiple versions of the same community name on different instances. Things will consolidate over time, and people will navigate to the most active community (or communities).
But the other aspect of the fediverse is you can have more than one community with the same name; thats a benefit. Like why should there be only 1 “PCGaming”; different groups of users might want to form their own community which approaches the matter in their preferred way. So you could have 2, 3, or many different communities reflecting different ethoses, based on different instances. That’s not a bad thing, but might be hard for people to get used to initially coming from the monolithic approach on Reddit.
