4 ms·

Does it have the same mastodon problem of separate namespaces? I'm having a tough time getting enthusiastic about federated social media that has disjoint name

Does it have the same mastodon problem of separate namespaces? I'm having a tough time getting enthusiastic about federated social media that has disjoint namespaces. Is there no way to have a federated-but-shared namespace so I don't have to lose my username when an instance shuts down?

pphysch 4y ago
Isn't that the point of federation? That there is not a centralized (naming/identity) authority?
- riffic 4y ago
  but I want everyone to perform the same landgrab for handles every time a new service comes along. Don't worry about where ambiguities exist, it'll be handled via first comes first serve, trademark law, or just by reselling names on the black market /s
lifty 4y ago
Unfortunately the only way to achieve that in the fediverse is by hosting your own instance, or at the minimum using your own domain and having someone manage the instance for you.
riffic 4y ago
that's a feature, not a bug! one shared namespace is problematic for reasons. You can figure email though, right? DNS is a solved problem and we're never going to see anything better come along because DNS has survived the test of time (see the Lindy Effect - DNS is old, crusty, and like the Art of War or Shakespeare, it's worth learning).
- meltedcapacitor 4y ago
  That argument works better if 1 user = 1 domain rather the mastodon model where users are under a random domain they have no control of. (In passing, using top level domains as user id may be a good idea in some cases. In tech communities the friction may be bearable.)
  - riffic 4y ago
    I prefer to place emphasis where content is produced rather than who consumes content.
- swores 4y ago
  Is this gpt-3, or have you just coincidentally written 3 paragraphs that seem, at a glance, relevant and on-subject but that actually are saying nothing at all?
  - riffic 4y ago
    You can ask specifically what isn't clear and we could discuss that particular topic for clarification. I assume you aren't familiar with the Lindy effect though and I apologize for making an arcane reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect
    - swores 4y ago
      Sorry, it genuinely looked machine generated to me. After posting I went to look at your profile and realised you are a real person, but you'd already replied by the time I tried to delete my comment. OK then: > "that's a feature, not a bug! one shared namespace is problematic for reasons." Is just saying "I'm right you're wrong and I refuse to explain why". > "You can figure email though, right?" Are you saying that being able to understand email means one should find the benefit to separate namespaces in social media? Or that email is everyone's definition of perfect and so everything should be like it? Or something else, considering it took me a bit of guessing to even think of those first two explanations? > DNS is a solved problem First, are you suggesting DNS is 100% perfect at what it does and nobody could ever have any complaint about it? Second, it's not clear to me how it being a solved problem for what it currently does means it's necessarily the right approach for any new uses? I need to get a tire on my car replaced tomorrow, and I really hope they don't tell me "you don't need a new tire, you need DNS - haven't you heard, it's a solved problem". I'm genuinely not trying to be sarcastic I just don't understand any argument you're trying to make.
- deleted 4y ago
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bredren 4y ago
I agree it is confusing for products intended to be global, networked and hyper social to have overlapping usernames. People expect and understand username exclusivity. I rarely think of a distributed ledger as the useful answer for something, but I wonder if there are other ways a social network like lemmy or toot toot could agree on something like this.
cyborgx7 4y ago
That sounds like it would get rid of a significant portion of what makes federation worthwhile. I see this request a lot, so I'm sure it has merit to a decent amount of people, but I can't help but feel like the people requesting it are simply missing the entire point of the thing. It feels like people are so captured by the way centralized walled gardens work, they can't even conceive of a world without them.
yogthos 4y ago
I keep seeing this repeated over and over every time the discussion of the Fediverse comes up, but I don't actually see this being a problem in practice. It’s perfectly fine if the network consists of a bunch of loosely connected islands without the ability to propagate information across the entire network because there is a limited number of people you can interact with meaningfully. Federation favors smaller communities where the interactions are more personal while still facilitation interaction between different communities. Even a centralized site like reddit is ultimately broken down into subreddits because nobody wants to see all of reddit all at once.
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  This is an issue because people want social media to be an identity that they control. Suggesting it is fine to lose your identity and all the work you spent building connections whenever an instance shuts down is nonsense. People are looking for reasons to move away from Twitter, not for more reasons to stay on Twitter. Federated identity is something that can be added but Mastodon doesn't have something like this to the best of my knowledge.
  - riffic 4y ago
    some identities are not directly yours to control, but are roles assigned to you by your membership in a group. Employment, for example. Luckily good orgs use directories to manage membership (LDAP, etc). What I'm thinking about here is something like my particular city (Los Angeles) delegating social media accounts to people involved in government, like city council members or spokespeople in certain departments (LAFD? you get the picture). https://riffic.rocks/city-hall-on-the-fedi/ https://riffic.rocks/city-hall-on-the-fedi/
    - encryptluks2 4y ago
      Federation implies that users identity should not be tied to a single instance but that they should be able to access their account from any federated instance.
erisian 4y ago
I'm not sure this is a huge issue if you set up user expectations adequately. Just like JoeAsshole@gmail.com isn't the same account as JoeAsshole@hotmail.com. A workable alternative would be using a pubkey fingerprint with an mutable display name, but who wants to help their family sort that out?
deleted 4y ago
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pphysch 4y ago

Isn't that the point of federation? That there is not a centralized (naming/identity) authority?

riffic 4y ago
but I want everyone to perform the same landgrab for handles every time a new service comes along. Don't worry about where ambiguities exist, it'll be handled via first comes first serve, trademark law, or just by reselling names on the black market /s

lifty 4y ago

Unfortunately the only way to achieve that in the fediverse is by hosting your own instance, or at the minimum using your own domain and having someone manage the instance for you.

riffic 4y ago

that's a feature, not a bug! one shared namespace is problematic for reasons. You can figure email though, right? DNS is a solved problem and we're never going to see anything better come along because DNS has survived the test of time (see the Lindy Effect - DNS is old, crusty, and like the Art of War or Shakespeare, it's worth learning).

meltedcapacitor 4y ago
That argument works better if 1 user = 1 domain rather the mastodon model where users are under a random domain they have no control of. (In passing, using top level domains as user id may be a good idea in some cases. In tech communities the friction may be bearable.)
- riffic 4y ago
  I prefer to place emphasis where content is produced rather than who consumes content.
swores 4y ago
Is this gpt-3, or have you just coincidentally written 3 paragraphs that seem, at a glance, relevant and on-subject but that actually are saying nothing at all?
- riffic 4y ago
  You can ask specifically what isn't clear and we could discuss that particular topic for clarification. I assume you aren't familiar with the Lindy effect though and I apologize for making an arcane reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect
  - swores 4y ago
    Sorry, it genuinely looked machine generated to me. After posting I went to look at your profile and realised you are a real person, but you'd already replied by the time I tried to delete my comment. OK then: > "that's a feature, not a bug! one shared namespace is problematic for reasons." Is just saying "I'm right you're wrong and I refuse to explain why". > "You can figure email though, right?" Are you saying that being able to understand email means one should find the benefit to separate namespaces in social media? Or that email is everyone's definition of perfect and so everything should be like it? Or something else, considering it took me a bit of guessing to even think of those first two explanations? > DNS is a solved problem First, are you suggesting DNS is 100% perfect at what it does and nobody could ever have any complaint about it? Second, it's not clear to me how it being a solved problem for what it currently does means it's necessarily the right approach for any new uses? I need to get a tire on my car replaced tomorrow, and I really hope they don't tell me "you don't need a new tire, you need DNS - haven't you heard, it's a solved problem". I'm genuinely not trying to be sarcastic I just don't understand any argument you're trying to make.
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deleted 4y ago

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bredren 4y ago

I agree it is confusing for products intended to be global, networked and hyper social to have overlapping usernames. People expect and understand username exclusivity. I rarely think of a distributed ledger as the useful answer for something, but I wonder if there are other ways a social network like lemmy or toot toot could agree on something like this.

cyborgx7 4y ago

That sounds like it would get rid of a significant portion of what makes federation worthwhile. I see this request a lot, so I'm sure it has merit to a decent amount of people, but I can't help but feel like the people requesting it are simply missing the entire point of the thing. It feels like people are so captured by the way centralized walled gardens work, they can't even conceive of a world without them.

yogthos 4y ago

I keep seeing this repeated over and over every time the discussion of the Fediverse comes up, but I don't actually see this being a problem in practice. It’s perfectly fine if the network consists of a bunch of loosely connected islands without the ability to propagate information across the entire network because there is a limited number of people you can interact with meaningfully. Federation favors smaller communities where the interactions are more personal while still facilitation interaction between different communities. Even a centralized site like reddit is ultimately broken down into subreddits because nobody wants to see all of reddit all at once.

encryptluks2 4y ago
This is an issue because people want social media to be an identity that they control. Suggesting it is fine to lose your identity and all the work you spent building connections whenever an instance shuts down is nonsense. People are looking for reasons to move away from Twitter, not for more reasons to stay on Twitter. Federated identity is something that can be added but Mastodon doesn't have something like this to the best of my knowledge.
- riffic 4y ago
  some identities are not directly yours to control, but are roles assigned to you by your membership in a group. Employment, for example. Luckily good orgs use directories to manage membership (LDAP, etc). What I'm thinking about here is something like my particular city (Los Angeles) delegating social media accounts to people involved in government, like city council members or spokespeople in certain departments (LAFD? you get the picture). https://riffic.rocks/city-hall-on-the-fedi/ https://riffic.rocks/city-hall-on-the-fedi/
  - encryptluks2 4y ago
    Federation implies that users identity should not be tied to a single instance but that they should be able to access their account from any federated instance.

erisian 4y ago

I'm not sure this is a huge issue if you set up user expectations adequately. Just like JoeAsshole@gmail.com isn't the same account as JoeAsshole@hotmail.com. A workable alternative would be using a pubkey fingerprint with an mutable display name, but who wants to help their family sort that out?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]