5 ms·

The author asked why you’d choose this over Mastodon - the answer is that the AT protocol is designed to be a much better solve for decentralized social media t

by gfodor 4y ago

The author asked why you’d choose this over Mastodon - the answer is that the AT protocol is designed to be a much better solve for decentralized social media that avoids the scalability and centralization problems of mastodon. That’s the entire point, it’s weird you would have access to this without understanding the entire motive for its existence.

nicce 4y ago
After getting used to Mastodon’s 10k character limit, I won’t touch a platform with 256 character post size. It enforces polarisation and hate speech.
- Zetice 4y ago
  No, it enforces brevity and distillation of content down to its barest minimum.
  - nicce 4y ago
    Exactly; it means that you need to use strong words and attack in any argument to get user engagement. Everyone loves attention and wants to get their words heard, and this will happen when you have only few words to use.
    - Zetice 4y ago
      I see no problem with this; the goal of non-experts communicating is not to be the most accurate, nor should it be.
      - nicce 4y ago
        The problem is that political combats and campaings have been made on the same platform, and those might decide the future of the country and many people. E.g. Twitter is not for really for general people to provide content, it is mainly for those with large audience already. And they want attention.
        Zetice 4y ago
        “Provide content” you say this like there’s some objective measure for “good” and “bad” content, but there isn’t. I happen to enjoy political banter on Twitter.
        nicce 4y ago
        > “Provide content” you say this like there’s some objective measure for “good” and “bad” content, but there isn’t. There is. The algorithm decides what you see and not see. If someone has already larger follower list, it is likely that their posts will appear to others feeds whom are not following them, if the post causes strong interactions.
        Zetice 4y ago
        So? That's not relevant to whether or not short content is somehow objectively "bad".
- rektide 4y ago
  There's these weird semi-accepted articles of belief/truth that are all over Mastadon. I really have never understood, nor seen evidence, nor even really explanation. Believing a stream of short posts promotes hate speech is one of these articles of faith. (Right now Im pretty skeptical.)
  - nicce 4y ago
    When your word amount is strictly limited, you cannot really discuss about things. Algorithm-based platforms pick usually posts based on extreme ends. People are interested on posts which rise emotions on them. If someone says something you don't like, you are more likely to like or share a reply, which somehow outsmarts and counters this original post. And as your word amount is limited, you will need to use stronger words to get attention and rise emotions on people. You are rewarded for expressing extreme opposite in a smart way. Soon you will be in vicious cycle, since things get quickly personal, as there is no room to articulate anything properly, and you need to win this conversation with few words. Writing well articulated multi-post replies won't get much attention, as they usually don't rise emotions for masses, and algorithm won't pick them anyway as attention is not in single post.
    - rektide 4y ago
      A lot of factors here. In general, my high level note is kind of non-specific, that I am extremely hestiant to govern by fear, that too often it generalized specific niche behaviors while ignoring very positive healthy aspects of the subject. Fear without demonization is difficult to pull off, but I can confess, this is a bit of a slippery slope argument. Still, I far prefer regulation based on positive behaviors, based on better lights. There's a lot of really good comments, challenges & issues you'be raised here. Im not trying to refute here, but there's a lot of things Im not certain on or have comments on. > When your word amount is strictly limited, you cannot really discuss about things. I've never felt this limit. I quite like having a series of replies, where I can break up my responses into different pieces. And I like how people can reply to individual parts of my reply. It makes it clear how people align with the various pieces of a discussion, rather than writers and readers having to figure that out for themselves. The constraint on size creates a much richer structure of information that greatly aids discussion, in my view. > Algorithm-based platforms pick usually posts based on extreme ends. Im not sure how longer posts changes the algorithms fairly blind desire to drive engagement, which yes, can exacerbate/amplify extreme positions. > If someone says something you don't like, you are more likely to like or share a reply, which somehow outsmarts and counters this original post. And as your word amount is limited, you will need to use stronger words to get attention and rise emotions on people. You are rewarded for expressing extreme opposite in a smart way. Feeling very dualist on this. I heavily agree & disageee. This is a pretty interesting section to me, good challenge. I think we overascribe how much people tailor their toots to get amplified. Brevity is the soup of wit, because it feels good: the simple appeal of something small & compact that makes sense. We're not writing short & hot because we are forced to. We're doing it because we can reduce the situation down, provide a neutron-star dense distillation of perspective, a place to see the dielectic from. That is enormously rewarding to compact the idea & concerns & reply, to pull off a real view, briefly. But it of course risks reductionism, and it doesnt leave a lot of explanation, or acknowledge the subtleties, or meet in the middle. I still have hard time seeing post-size as having a strong relation to the specified problem here. We can make longer posts, with threads, and do... when the situation calls for it. > Writing well articulated multi-post replies won't get much attention, as they usually don't rise emotions for masses, and algorithm won't pick them anyway as attention is not in single post. I dont think allowing longer posts will change this dynamic in any way. Long posts are less appealing & less popular, broken up across multi-replies or not. The way I can see myself being wrong about this is that upvotes are distributed over a wider range of posts, rather tham concentrated into a single post. But there's two other counter-factors. Often on HN I run into comments where Im absolutely loving the post, so happy to see something expressed so well. But then it takes a turn. Something goes off the rails or it uses a bad argument or comes to a bad conclusion. Being too big is huge risk. Also, for a long thread, many people will have multiple upvotes. There wont be a single comment with massive upvotes, but in aggregate the thread probably has many more upvotes total. If the algorithms arent properly looking across threads to promote & surface, that doesnt seem like it should mean changing the medium to adjust to the algorithm, it seems like changing the algorithm to understand the medium should also be a considered possibility.
- paxys 4y ago
  Hate speech doesn’t depend on character count. The reason you see a better experience on Mastodon is that all the political flame wars are still on Twitter. If/when the platform grows and starts attracting those audiences, it will have the same problems.
  - nicce 4y ago
    I doesn't depend on it, but it encourages. Algorithms have no chance to pick better articulated longer posts, since the content is shared over multiple posts. It is hard to get attention for those. You probably get larger audience on a single post, which causes bigger emotions in people.
- Zak 4y ago
  Last I checked, Mastodon defaults to a 500 character limit which involves a bit of work to charge (it's hardcoded in 2-3 places). I think both the character limit and the default image crop are design flaws.
- recuter 4y ago
  pbpaste | wc -c 155
- Hamuko 4y ago
  The biggest issue I have with Mastodon is that I can't automatically block instances that have a 10k character limit. If I wanted to read 10k long messages, I'd go look up blogs.
- hbn 4y ago
  Twitter Blue users can tweet 4000 characters now
solarkraft 4y ago
The Bluesky team and Jack have failed to publicly acknowledge ActivityPub to the point of me wondering whether they haven't done any research or are ignoring it on purpose. So somebody being confused about the differences doesn't surprise me at all.
- james_pm 4y ago
  It's mentioned in the FAQ on the AT Protocol website: https://atproto.com/guides/faq#why-not-use-activitypub https://atproto.com/guides/faq#why-not-use-activitypub
  - ch71r22 4y ago
    Also covered in their ecosystem overview: https://gitlab.com/bluesky-community1/decentralized-ecosystem/-/blob/master/README.md https://gitlab.com/bluesky-community1/decentralized-ecosyste...
  - ploum 4y ago
    When Jack first started speaking about bluesky on Twitter, years ago, ActivityPub was a lot more niche and he ignored any message related to it. It definitely looked like a NIH as he could have started to discuss activitypub specification. I was myself heavily invested in decentralized protocols (from blockchain to activitypub) and really tried to understand what he was trying to achieve. My feeling was, in the end, clear: he wanted a "decentralised protocol" on which he had full power (aka "VC-style decentralisation"). You have to keep in mind that those successful in the valley know only one kind of thinking: raise money, get users, sell off. They can’t grasp decentralisation other than as a nice marketing term to add to their product (and, as Ripple demonstrated during the Cryptobubble, they are completely right when it comes to make tons of money with shitty tech). To my knowledge, acknowledgement of ActivityPub came after the huge Mastodon burst caused by Elon Musk. It’s more a "oh shit, we are not the first" kind of reaction. Also, you don’t simply design a decentralised protocol behind closed doors then expect everybody to adopt it. You need to be transparent, to discuss in the open. People need to know who is in charge and why. They also need to know every single decision. Decentralisation cannot be done without open source paradigms. That’s the very point of it. I think we can safely assume that Jack has simply hit his mental glass ceiling. He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t have the mental model to get it. He will probably never get it (he became a billionaire by "not getting it" so there’s no reason for him to change). The whole project is simply him throwing money at a few developers telling him what he expect to hear in order to get pay.
soneca 4y ago
If the differentiation is better scalability, it only matters when there is scale. That is not a reason for a user to choose AT over Mastodon. I don’t think Blue Sky’s app is more decentralized that Mastodon currently. So I interpret your point as being: the reason to use Blue Sky’s app (or another new app with AT protocol) is that the protocol, in the future will be better. I agree with the author that I see no reason for a user to choose this over Mastodon at the moment.
- gfodor 4y ago
  I listed two reasons: scalability and centralization. You ignored the latter, which is relevant to users today from a pure immediate value proposition standpoint, but people do actually adopt technologies sometimes not based on their current form but because they want them to succeed so they can lead to a better overall outcome.
  - soneca 4y ago
    I didn’t ignore.
rpgbr 4y ago
I've been on Mastodon/ActivityPub since 2019 and, honestly, this problem Bluesky is trying to fix has never been an issue there.
- Alifatisk 4y ago
  There is literally no option no export / import your data from one instance to another. It’s a real issue and the the opened issue about it has been up for years. Post migration is very important and is a part of the decentralization.
saghm 4y ago
> That’s the entire point, it’s weird you would have access to this without understanding the entire motive for its existence. Not sure if the author posted it here or not, but it seems like at least somebody decided to share the article with the entire community here, and I'm not sure why you'd assume that anyone who happened to click the article here would already know the details.

by gfodor 4y ago

nicce 4y ago

After getting used to Mastodon’s 10k character limit, I won’t touch a platform with 256 character post size. It enforces polarisation and hate speech.

Zetice 4y ago
No, it enforces brevity and distillation of content down to its barest minimum.
- nicce 4y ago
  Exactly; it means that you need to use strong words and attack in any argument to get user engagement. Everyone loves attention and wants to get their words heard, and this will happen when you have only few words to use.
  - Zetice 4y ago
    I see no problem with this; the goal of non-experts communicating is not to be the most accurate, nor should it be.
    - nicce 4y ago
      The problem is that political combats and campaings have been made on the same platform, and those might decide the future of the country and many people. E.g. Twitter is not for really for general people to provide content, it is mainly for those with large audience already. And they want attention.
      - Zetice 4y ago
        “Provide content” you say this like there’s some objective measure for “good” and “bad” content, but there isn’t. I happen to enjoy political banter on Twitter.
        nicce 4y ago
        > “Provide content” you say this like there’s some objective measure for “good” and “bad” content, but there isn’t. There is. The algorithm decides what you see and not see. If someone has already larger follower list, it is likely that their posts will appear to others feeds whom are not following them, if the post causes strong interactions.
        Zetice 4y ago
        So? That's not relevant to whether or not short content is somehow objectively "bad".
rektide 4y ago
There's these weird semi-accepted articles of belief/truth that are all over Mastadon. I really have never understood, nor seen evidence, nor even really explanation. Believing a stream of short posts promotes hate speech is one of these articles of faith. (Right now Im pretty skeptical.)
- nicce 4y ago
  When your word amount is strictly limited, you cannot really discuss about things. Algorithm-based platforms pick usually posts based on extreme ends. People are interested on posts which rise emotions on them. If someone says something you don't like, you are more likely to like or share a reply, which somehow outsmarts and counters this original post. And as your word amount is limited, you will need to use stronger words to get attention and rise emotions on people. You are rewarded for expressing extreme opposite in a smart way. Soon you will be in vicious cycle, since things get quickly personal, as there is no room to articulate anything properly, and you need to win this conversation with few words. Writing well articulated multi-post replies won't get much attention, as they usually don't rise emotions for masses, and algorithm won't pick them anyway as attention is not in single post.
  - rektide 4y ago
    A lot of factors here. In general, my high level note is kind of non-specific, that I am extremely hestiant to govern by fear, that too often it generalized specific niche behaviors while ignoring very positive healthy aspects of the subject. Fear without demonization is difficult to pull off, but I can confess, this is a bit of a slippery slope argument. Still, I far prefer regulation based on positive behaviors, based on better lights. There's a lot of really good comments, challenges & issues you'be raised here. Im not trying to refute here, but there's a lot of things Im not certain on or have comments on. > When your word amount is strictly limited, you cannot really discuss about things. I've never felt this limit. I quite like having a series of replies, where I can break up my responses into different pieces. And I like how people can reply to individual parts of my reply. It makes it clear how people align with the various pieces of a discussion, rather than writers and readers having to figure that out for themselves. The constraint on size creates a much richer structure of information that greatly aids discussion, in my view. > Algorithm-based platforms pick usually posts based on extreme ends. Im not sure how longer posts changes the algorithms fairly blind desire to drive engagement, which yes, can exacerbate/amplify extreme positions. > If someone says something you don't like, you are more likely to like or share a reply, which somehow outsmarts and counters this original post. And as your word amount is limited, you will need to use stronger words to get attention and rise emotions on people. You are rewarded for expressing extreme opposite in a smart way. Feeling very dualist on this. I heavily agree & disageee. This is a pretty interesting section to me, good challenge. I think we overascribe how much people tailor their toots to get amplified. Brevity is the soup of wit, because it feels good: the simple appeal of something small & compact that makes sense. We're not writing short & hot because we are forced to. We're doing it because we can reduce the situation down, provide a neutron-star dense distillation of perspective, a place to see the dielectic from. That is enormously rewarding to compact the idea & concerns & reply, to pull off a real view, briefly. But it of course risks reductionism, and it doesnt leave a lot of explanation, or acknowledge the subtleties, or meet in the middle. I still have hard time seeing post-size as having a strong relation to the specified problem here. We can make longer posts, with threads, and do... when the situation calls for it. > Writing well articulated multi-post replies won't get much attention, as they usually don't rise emotions for masses, and algorithm won't pick them anyway as attention is not in single post. I dont think allowing longer posts will change this dynamic in any way. Long posts are less appealing & less popular, broken up across multi-replies or not. The way I can see myself being wrong about this is that upvotes are distributed over a wider range of posts, rather tham concentrated into a single post. But there's two other counter-factors. Often on HN I run into comments where Im absolutely loving the post, so happy to see something expressed so well. But then it takes a turn. Something goes off the rails or it uses a bad argument or comes to a bad conclusion. Being too big is huge risk. Also, for a long thread, many people will have multiple upvotes. There wont be a single comment with massive upvotes, but in aggregate the thread probably has many more upvotes total. If the algorithms arent properly looking across threads to promote & surface, that doesnt seem like it should mean changing the medium to adjust to the algorithm, it seems like changing the algorithm to understand the medium should also be a considered possibility.
paxys 4y ago
Hate speech doesn’t depend on character count. The reason you see a better experience on Mastodon is that all the political flame wars are still on Twitter. If/when the platform grows and starts attracting those audiences, it will have the same problems.
- nicce 4y ago
  I doesn't depend on it, but it encourages. Algorithms have no chance to pick better articulated longer posts, since the content is shared over multiple posts. It is hard to get attention for those. You probably get larger audience on a single post, which causes bigger emotions in people.
Zak 4y ago
Last I checked, Mastodon defaults to a 500 character limit which involves a bit of work to charge (it's hardcoded in 2-3 places). I think both the character limit and the default image crop are design flaws.
recuter 4y ago
pbpaste | wc -c 155
Hamuko 4y ago
The biggest issue I have with Mastodon is that I can't automatically block instances that have a 10k character limit. If I wanted to read 10k long messages, I'd go look up blogs.
hbn 4y ago
Twitter Blue users can tweet 4000 characters now

solarkraft 4y ago

The Bluesky team and Jack have failed to publicly acknowledge ActivityPub to the point of me wondering whether they haven't done any research or are ignoring it on purpose. So somebody being confused about the differences doesn't surprise me at all.

james_pm 4y ago
It's mentioned in the FAQ on the AT Protocol website: https://atproto.com/guides/faq#why-not-use-activitypub https://atproto.com/guides/faq#why-not-use-activitypub
- ch71r22 4y ago
  Also covered in their ecosystem overview: https://gitlab.com/bluesky-community1/decentralized-ecosystem/-/blob/master/README.md https://gitlab.com/bluesky-community1/decentralized-ecosyste...
- ploum 4y ago
  When Jack first started speaking about bluesky on Twitter, years ago, ActivityPub was a lot more niche and he ignored any message related to it. It definitely looked like a NIH as he could have started to discuss activitypub specification. I was myself heavily invested in decentralized protocols (from blockchain to activitypub) and really tried to understand what he was trying to achieve. My feeling was, in the end, clear: he wanted a "decentralised protocol" on which he had full power (aka "VC-style decentralisation"). You have to keep in mind that those successful in the valley know only one kind of thinking: raise money, get users, sell off. They can’t grasp decentralisation other than as a nice marketing term to add to their product (and, as Ripple demonstrated during the Cryptobubble, they are completely right when it comes to make tons of money with shitty tech). To my knowledge, acknowledgement of ActivityPub came after the huge Mastodon burst caused by Elon Musk. It’s more a "oh shit, we are not the first" kind of reaction. Also, you don’t simply design a decentralised protocol behind closed doors then expect everybody to adopt it. You need to be transparent, to discuss in the open. People need to know who is in charge and why. They also need to know every single decision. Decentralisation cannot be done without open source paradigms. That’s the very point of it. I think we can safely assume that Jack has simply hit his mental glass ceiling. He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t have the mental model to get it. He will probably never get it (he became a billionaire by "not getting it" so there’s no reason for him to change). The whole project is simply him throwing money at a few developers telling him what he expect to hear in order to get pay.

soneca 4y ago

If the differentiation is better scalability, it only matters when there is scale. That is not a reason for a user to choose AT over Mastodon. I don’t think Blue Sky’s app is more decentralized that Mastodon currently. So I interpret your point as being: the reason to use Blue Sky’s app (or another new app with AT protocol) is that the protocol, in the future will be better. I agree with the author that I see no reason for a user to choose this over Mastodon at the moment.

gfodor 4y ago
I listed two reasons: scalability and centralization. You ignored the latter, which is relevant to users today from a pure immediate value proposition standpoint, but people do actually adopt technologies sometimes not based on their current form but because they want them to succeed so they can lead to a better overall outcome.
- soneca 4y ago
  I didn’t ignore.

rpgbr 4y ago

I've been on Mastodon/ActivityPub since 2019 and, honestly, this problem Bluesky is trying to fix has never been an issue there.

Alifatisk 4y ago
There is literally no option no export / import your data from one instance to another. It’s a real issue and the the opened issue about it has been up for years. Post migration is very important and is a part of the decentralization.

saghm 4y ago

> That’s the entire point, it’s weird you would have access to this without understanding the entire motive for its existence. Not sure if the author posted it here or not, but it seems like at least somebody decided to share the article with the entire community here, and I'm not sure why you'd assume that anyone who happened to click the article here would already know the details.