4 ms·

I think the thing is, if the admin of your instance de-federates with another instance, you don't have much in the way of options if you want to follow someone

I think the thing is, if the admin of your instance de-federates with another instance, you don't have much in the way of options if you want to follow someone on that instance. Or, if, due to bad luck, you originally sign up with an instance that becomes the 8chan of instances, you don't really have much in the way of options if you don't want to be there. You can't take your account elsewhere. You're pretty much limited to creating a new account on a new instance, and then you have to communicate to all your followers that you've moved.

rainbowmverse 9y ago
>>I think the thing is, if the admin of your instance de-federates with another instance, you don't have much in the way of options if you want to follow someone on that instance. This doesn't happen often in practice, especially once they added a way for users to block instances on an individual level. Early on, some instances just weren't a good mesh for a lot of the early users, and their aggressive, boisterous ways tended to push out and silence those early users. Blocking was the only way to keep the community from being overrun, but someone who enjoyed being screamed at by strangers didn't have a say in it without moving to another instance. Now that's not the case. >> You can't take your account elsewhere. You're pretty much limited to creating a new account on a new instance, and then you have to communicate to all your followers that you've moved. You can export a list of people you follow and import it on the new one. Most people will refollow you. People move to new instances all the time and don't seem to have trouble recovering their following.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  >>I think the thing is, if the admin of your instance de-federates with another instance, you don't have much in the way of options if you want to follow someone on that instance. >This doesn't happen often in practice, especially once they added a way for users to block instances on an individual level. Not yet, but I think we can all foresee an instance or two becoming a haven for trolls, etc. >You can export a list of people you follow and import it on the new one. Most people will refollow you. People move to new instances all the time and don't seem to have trouble recovering their following. I feel that's something that doesn't scale well, though. And, how do they know it's me?
  - pfg 9y ago
    There's some work being done to support "nomadic identities" via Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs)[1] in ActivityPub[2]. I'm not sure about the current status is, and whether Mastodon plans to implement it, but this could potentially solve this issue. [1]: https://w3c-ccg.github.io/did-spec/ https://w3c-ccg.github.io/did-spec/ [2]: https://github.com/WebOfTrustInfo/rebooting-the-web-of-trust-fall2017/blob/master/topics-and-advance-readings/activitypub-decentralized-distributed.md https://github.com/WebOfTrustInfo/rebooting-the-web-of-trust...
throw2016 9y ago
This just changes the arbitrariness from Twitter to someone else. The Mastodon admin having power is not decentralization, the user having it is. Might as well stick with Twitter, at least you can create a ruckus. Given new solutions are developed to address the issues of centralization it gives one pause if basic issues around censoring, silencing and dis-empowering individuals has not been thought about. Then Mastodon or anything else is pretending to be a solution but is actually just another actor cynically using 'decentralization' to jockey for influence and not really addressing the core issues of twitter. And using Ruby which is known for not being user friendly for setup and installation is counterproductive to any goal of decentralization.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  I mean, you can run your own instance, so I don't feel it's nearly that bad. And, if one instance becomes overrun with spammers, I think most would appreciate their instance's admin blocking the entire instance.

rainbowmverse 9y ago

>>I think the thing is, if the admin of your instance de-federates with another instance, you don't have much in the way of options if you want to follow someone on that instance. This doesn't happen often in practice, especially once they added a way for users to block instances on an individual level. Early on, some instances just weren't a good mesh for a lot of the early users, and their aggressive, boisterous ways tended to push out and silence those early users. Blocking was the only way to keep the community from being overrun, but someone who enjoyed being screamed at by strangers didn't have a say in it without moving to another instance. Now that's not the case. >> You can't take your account elsewhere. You're pretty much limited to creating a new account on a new instance, and then you have to communicate to all your followers that you've moved. You can export a list of people you follow and import it on the new one. Most people will refollow you. People move to new instances all the time and don't seem to have trouble recovering their following.

s73ver_ 9y ago
>>I think the thing is, if the admin of your instance de-federates with another instance, you don't have much in the way of options if you want to follow someone on that instance. >This doesn't happen often in practice, especially once they added a way for users to block instances on an individual level. Not yet, but I think we can all foresee an instance or two becoming a haven for trolls, etc. >You can export a list of people you follow and import it on the new one. Most people will refollow you. People move to new instances all the time and don't seem to have trouble recovering their following. I feel that's something that doesn't scale well, though. And, how do they know it's me?
- pfg 9y ago
  There's some work being done to support "nomadic identities" via Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs)[1] in ActivityPub[2]. I'm not sure about the current status is, and whether Mastodon plans to implement it, but this could potentially solve this issue. [1]: https://w3c-ccg.github.io/did-spec/ https://w3c-ccg.github.io/did-spec/ [2]: https://github.com/WebOfTrustInfo/rebooting-the-web-of-trust-fall2017/blob/master/topics-and-advance-readings/activitypub-decentralized-distributed.md https://github.com/WebOfTrustInfo/rebooting-the-web-of-trust...

throw2016 9y ago

This just changes the arbitrariness from Twitter to someone else. The Mastodon admin having power is not decentralization, the user having it is. Might as well stick with Twitter, at least you can create a ruckus. Given new solutions are developed to address the issues of centralization it gives one pause if basic issues around censoring, silencing and dis-empowering individuals has not been thought about. Then Mastodon or anything else is pretending to be a solution but is actually just another actor cynically using 'decentralization' to jockey for influence and not really addressing the core issues of twitter. And using Ruby which is known for not being user friendly for setup and installation is counterproductive to any goal of decentralization.

s73ver_ 9y ago
I mean, you can run your own instance, so I don't feel it's nearly that bad. And, if one instance becomes overrun with spammers, I think most would appreciate their instance's admin blocking the entire instance.