5 ms·

It's weird how "decentralized" means something different to every individual. Having the ability to choose where to host my images is what I'd call decentralize

It's weird how "decentralized" means something different to every individual. Having the ability to choose where to host my images is what I'd call decentralized.

mikae1 3y ago
Perhaps the greatest problem with this setup is that the post content is separate from the post itself. I hope that most of us remember what a giant mess hosting images for forums on free image hosting services (that were later shut down) caused.
kvathupo 3y ago
As I understand it, the raison d'être of nostr is to use relays to store your data, which is presented on clients. So if a front-end bans you, then you can grab your data off any relay. If imgur shuts down, you're out of luck! Bluesky goes further with the AT protocol for more general data and algorithms iirc
- kevingadd 3y ago
  And as it happens, imgur is revising their TOS and deleting a bunch of content
- drexlspivey 3y ago
  Relays don't (have to) store your data, they relay in real time via websockets. Clients should store the data if they care about persistence
  - derefr 3y ago
    How is this not just IRC then? The thing that makes Twitter/Mastadon/etc not just IRC, is that in these, you can scroll back as far as you like—specifically, past where your client joined the network.
    - partialzero 3y ago
      Yeah, seems like a (barebones/underspecified) IRC.
    - nunobrito 3y ago
      Because IRC still needs a lot of things to keep running (be usable) and works mostly for chat messages. NOSTR isn't twitter nor IRC, you can take your posts which can contain just about any type of data inside and build an art gallery, a forum or dump for meteorological information. You can scroll back in the past. It is up to the relay if they have interest in keeping your data or not. If nobody cares about your data, you can still preserve it yourself without barriers for that.
      - derefr 3y ago
        I’m not a publisher/journalist; I don’t have any posts. I’m a historian and archivist. And in those roles, I care about being able to retroactively access data that neither publishers nor relays considered to have value / be worth preserving at time of publication, but which instead was preserved due only to the “accident of history” of them publishing in a durable medium. Compare and contrast: digitized newspapers available on microfiche.
        nunobrito 3y ago
        I'm also an archivist. I've created http://arquiva.me/ http://arquiva.me/ from scratch which is archiving tweets (and other sources) related to people in Portugal. That archive preserves history in open format that anyone in the next centuries can access. As archivist, we both need to pick our sources manually at some point. Nostr is quite a good tool for archives, since its format is flexible (long term preservation) and can work even fully offline.
      - jeroenhd 3y ago
        Does this mean that if I want a normal social media feed I need to program my own relay server? Or is there a relay server somewhere that I can tell to store the accounts I'm interested in? That seems like a major flaw. I've downloaded an app for nostr and I'm not very impressed with the posts on the main timeline. They mostly seem to spam cryptocurrency ads and bad memes, most of them carrying some kind of American right wing propaganda angle. If these are the kinds of people who are attracted to nostr, I can't say I'm sad to see the nostr project decide not to federate with ActivityPub.
  - scsibug 3y ago
    Practically all relays will store your data if they are going to act as a relay for you at all. Very few things on Nostr work with ephemeral events alone.

It's weird how "decentralized" means something different to every individual. Having the ability to choose where to host my images is what I'd call decentralized.

mikae1 3y ago

Perhaps the greatest problem with this setup is that the post content is separate from the post itself. I hope that most of us remember what a giant mess hosting images for forums on free image hosting services (that were later shut down) caused.

kvathupo 3y ago

As I understand it, the raison d'être of nostr is to use relays to store your data, which is presented on clients. So if a front-end bans you, then you can grab your data off any relay. If imgur shuts down, you're out of luck! Bluesky goes further with the AT protocol for more general data and algorithms iirc

kevingadd 3y ago
And as it happens, imgur is revising their TOS and deleting a bunch of content
drexlspivey 3y ago
Relays don't (have to) store your data, they relay in real time via websockets. Clients should store the data if they care about persistence
- derefr 3y ago
  How is this not just IRC then? The thing that makes Twitter/Mastadon/etc not just IRC, is that in these, you can scroll back as far as you like—specifically, past where your client joined the network.
  - partialzero 3y ago
    Yeah, seems like a (barebones/underspecified) IRC.
  - nunobrito 3y ago
    Because IRC still needs a lot of things to keep running (be usable) and works mostly for chat messages. NOSTR isn't twitter nor IRC, you can take your posts which can contain just about any type of data inside and build an art gallery, a forum or dump for meteorological information. You can scroll back in the past. It is up to the relay if they have interest in keeping your data or not. If nobody cares about your data, you can still preserve it yourself without barriers for that.
    - derefr 3y ago
      I’m not a publisher/journalist; I don’t have any posts. I’m a historian and archivist. And in those roles, I care about being able to retroactively access data that neither publishers nor relays considered to have value / be worth preserving at time of publication, but which instead was preserved due only to the “accident of history” of them publishing in a durable medium. Compare and contrast: digitized newspapers available on microfiche.
      - nunobrito 3y ago
        I'm also an archivist. I've created http://arquiva.me/ http://arquiva.me/ from scratch which is archiving tweets (and other sources) related to people in Portugal. That archive preserves history in open format that anyone in the next centuries can access. As archivist, we both need to pick our sources manually at some point. Nostr is quite a good tool for archives, since its format is flexible (long term preservation) and can work even fully offline.
    - jeroenhd 3y ago
      Does this mean that if I want a normal social media feed I need to program my own relay server? Or is there a relay server somewhere that I can tell to store the accounts I'm interested in? That seems like a major flaw. I've downloaded an app for nostr and I'm not very impressed with the posts on the main timeline. They mostly seem to spam cryptocurrency ads and bad memes, most of them carrying some kind of American right wing propaganda angle. If these are the kinds of people who are attracted to nostr, I can't say I'm sad to see the nostr project decide not to federate with ActivityPub.
- scsibug 3y ago
  Practically all relays will store your data if they are going to act as a relay for you at all. Very few things on Nostr work with ephemeral events alone.