7 ms·

I was replying to a post claiming the only novel part of mastodon compared to old message boards is federation. I’m merely pointing out that many old message bo

I was replying to a post claiming the only novel part of mastodon compared to old message boards is federation. I’m merely pointing out that many old message boards did have federation. To your points (1) yes, everything was slower back then (2) people could and did post streams of their work within the BBS framework, everything from multi-part posts to “owning” a message-board topic, to text/ansi e-zines, but back then the focus was much more on following topics than people.

dsr_ 6y ago
At this point, the Usenet servers which took massive amounts of bandwidth and disk space take tiny amounts of bandwidth and disk space (assuming you don't allow binary posts). Maybe it's time for Usenet to come back. - Truly federated - Topic focus instead of people-focus - Killfiles! - Proper threading - Standards-based servers and clients
- tlavoie 6y ago
  Usenet over UUCP worked just fine, with UUCP serving up email too on the dial-up batch syncs.
  - numismatex 6y ago
    So did FTP over e-mail. The tech evolves. UUENcode sucked, btw. And the NZB-based file aggregation and directories served up were pure trash.
- rbanffy 6y ago
  I really like NNTP, but spam was becoming a huge problem in the Usenet and its nature makes it harder to assert the identity of a poster.
  - sdenton4 6y ago
    I mean, if people want to give out helpful information about gland enlargement alongside links to where supplements can be purchased for the astonishingly low price of $12 a pill, who are we to try to stop them? Provide an unfiltered free speech platform and the stronger ideas will win, right?
    - coderaptor 6y ago
      Just provide more effective tools allowing users to tune their own feeds.
      - vkou 6y ago
        With a profit or ideological motive, I can spam you, and shout over all meaningful communication much faster than you can block me.
    - jjoonathan 6y ago
      Yeah, and the idea of a spam filter won.
      - saurik 6y ago
        Spam filters can be opt-in. Spam filters can be federated. Spam filters can be local. It simply isn't true that decentralized censorship resistant systems fundamentally require users to be inundated with spam.
        jjoonathan 6y ago
        I wish that were the case.
- klyrs 6y ago
  > Killfiles! Ah yes, censorship rears its ghastly head again. Or, what a quaint approach to spam.
  - indymike 6y ago
    As I recall, killfiles couldn't keep up with the glut of spam that happened.
  - dsr_ 6y ago
    The charitable explanation is that you don't know what a killfile is. It is a personally created and maintained list of subject lines and/or poster addresses that you don't want to see. They can be limited to specific groups or be universal; they can be used to remove entire threads or just the messages that match. In other words, it's a personal filter on incoming information. It's Joo Janta Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses. If it is censorship, it is a censor who works for you, obeys your commands, and never imposes your opinions on anyone else. And it's not particularly good for spam, nor does anyone think that is its purpose. A killfile works against persistent trolls and idiots.
_0ffh 6y ago
> yes, everything was slower back then Right, and still I was super amazed that I could send a message to someone halfway around the world, and it would arrive there only a couple of days later! Compared to a letter that's really fast!
- richard_todd 6y ago
  It was cool stuff, for sure, and I'm glad I got to experience it when it was new. A little extra latency in our online discourse would probably do the modern world some good, not that anyone would go for it.
  - klyrs 6y ago
    I've been mulling a "slow conversation platform" but so far my ideas aren't any more novel than Wikipedia with edit delays which just isn't compelling
    - marcus_holmes 6y ago
      I've been kicking some ideas around. My favourite so far is that instead of posting immediately, the system comes back to you after half an hour and says "do you still want to post this?". Hopefully any emotion has had a chance to work itself out in the half hour.

dsr_ 6y ago

At this point, the Usenet servers which took massive amounts of bandwidth and disk space take tiny amounts of bandwidth and disk space (assuming you don't allow binary posts). Maybe it's time for Usenet to come back. - Truly federated - Topic focus instead of people-focus - Killfiles! - Proper threading - Standards-based servers and clients

tlavoie 6y ago
Usenet over UUCP worked just fine, with UUCP serving up email too on the dial-up batch syncs.
- numismatex 6y ago
  So did FTP over e-mail. The tech evolves. UUENcode sucked, btw. And the NZB-based file aggregation and directories served up were pure trash.
rbanffy 6y ago
I really like NNTP, but spam was becoming a huge problem in the Usenet and its nature makes it harder to assert the identity of a poster.
- sdenton4 6y ago
  I mean, if people want to give out helpful information about gland enlargement alongside links to where supplements can be purchased for the astonishingly low price of $12 a pill, who are we to try to stop them? Provide an unfiltered free speech platform and the stronger ideas will win, right?
  - coderaptor 6y ago
    Just provide more effective tools allowing users to tune their own feeds.
    - vkou 6y ago
      With a profit or ideological motive, I can spam you, and shout over all meaningful communication much faster than you can block me.
  - jjoonathan 6y ago
    Yeah, and the idea of a spam filter won.
    - saurik 6y ago
      Spam filters can be opt-in. Spam filters can be federated. Spam filters can be local. It simply isn't true that decentralized censorship resistant systems fundamentally require users to be inundated with spam.
      - jjoonathan 6y ago
        I wish that were the case.
klyrs 6y ago
> Killfiles! Ah yes, censorship rears its ghastly head again. Or, what a quaint approach to spam.
- indymike 6y ago
  As I recall, killfiles couldn't keep up with the glut of spam that happened.
- dsr_ 6y ago
  The charitable explanation is that you don't know what a killfile is. It is a personally created and maintained list of subject lines and/or poster addresses that you don't want to see. They can be limited to specific groups or be universal; they can be used to remove entire threads or just the messages that match. In other words, it's a personal filter on incoming information. It's Joo Janta Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses. If it is censorship, it is a censor who works for you, obeys your commands, and never imposes your opinions on anyone else. And it's not particularly good for spam, nor does anyone think that is its purpose. A killfile works against persistent trolls and idiots.

_0ffh 6y ago

> yes, everything was slower back then Right, and still I was super amazed that I could send a message to someone halfway around the world, and it would arrive there only a couple of days later! Compared to a letter that's really fast!

richard_todd 6y ago
It was cool stuff, for sure, and I'm glad I got to experience it when it was new. A little extra latency in our online discourse would probably do the modern world some good, not that anyone would go for it.
- klyrs 6y ago
  I've been mulling a "slow conversation platform" but so far my ideas aren't any more novel than Wikipedia with edit delays which just isn't compelling
  - marcus_holmes 6y ago
    I've been kicking some ideas around. My favourite so far is that instead of posting immediately, the system comes back to you after half an hour and says "do you still want to post this?". Hopefully any emotion has had a chance to work itself out in the half hour.