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That diagram doesn't make a lot of sense to me, hierarchy wise. At the top the diagram contains, "inhabited by [...] trolls", and at the bottom "the only way in

That diagram doesn't make a lot of sense to me, hierarchy wise. At the top the diagram contains, "inhabited by [...] trolls", and at the bottom "the only way into 8chan". If the hierarchy is "public visibility", then I believe the dark net to be more visible than a private WhatsApp group.

dahwolf 3y ago
The "Digital garden" part also makes very little sense. Notes on personal wikis. What? How is this part of the social web?
- lolinder 3y ago
  She's got a whole article explaining what she means by "digital garden"—it's a public personal wiki. https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history
- muyuu 3y ago
  I don't see any rhyme or reason to the top down hierarchy. Perhaps the author's subjective sense of public utility.
mylasttour 3y ago
It really is an arbitrary diagram. Any regular user of any of these levels can confidently say all levels have "decomposed morals". All levels have videos of animal abuse, posts for teen prostitution, et cetera. And there really is nothing cozy about data-hoarding closed mega-corp software like Discord and Snapchat. As convenient as they are, 'cozy' is not the word. The writer likely just thinks "LinkedIn and Facebook == Bad!" and "My two Discord servers with my friends == Good!" and just made huge generalizations from there.
- rainonmoon 3y ago
  The second paragraph quotes them as being "slum-like spaces" so I'm not sure where you derive cause for reducing the author's viewpoint to naive idealism like that. If anything this seems like a pretty conventional viewpoint these days, that the web has shifted from broadcasting to smaller peer-to-peer interactions. It doesn't seem particularly controversial.
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  Sometimes a decomposing carcass ends up resting on the forest floor instead of buried or scavenged. ... but not for long, and it's not the expected common-case continuously-observed scenario when one walks in the woods. The point is that such a thing is a transient, unstable configuration at one layer and the expected configuration at another layer.
lolinder 3y ago
It's not intended to be a data graphic with clear X and Y axes, it's visual poetry. It's meant to communicate a feeling about the concepts far more so than it is to be a navigable map.
- jprete 3y ago
  “Visual poetry” is an excellent phrase.
- red_trumpet 3y ago
  But it /has/ a clear vertical axis and separate layers. Why make that artistic choice if it doesn't mean anything?
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    What does it mean that the forest has surface trees, a shallow surface-dweller layer, and deeper decay and bedrock layers? Is there something meaningful (in terms of linear continuity) on the y-axis of a forest? Or are you looking for a continuous function to apply where the metaphor isn't asking for one?
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      Each layer on the y-axis of a forest has logical and physical relationships to those above and below it.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
RobotToaster 3y ago
Not to mention it has "trolls" at the top, but I'm pretty sure the whole idea of the cosy web started on 4chan.
quadrifoliate 3y ago
> At the top the diagram contains, "inhabited by [...] trolls", and at the bottom "the only way into 8chan" Your comment seemed sensible to me, until I realized that it's likely because we are both old and think about trolls as being on 8chan. But if you look at pretty much any time since about 2015, the most notable trolls have been large public figures with an extremely wide reach, saying the same sort of things that get a rise out of people on 8chan and Reddit. To take the most recent example, Elon Musk's upending of Reddit can be seen at least partially as an instance of a large public trolling. On a more distributed plane, phrases like "own the libs" are common enough in the public consciousness to be used by angry 45-year old commenters on Facebook who have never been to 4/8chan. That is why trolls are at the top of the diagram, because it's a diagram as of 2023 -- whereas you're thinking of trolling from 2013 or maybe even 2003.
DoItToMe81 3y ago
The whole thing seems incredibly wrong and strikes me as being made by somebody very unaware of the ecosystem around them.

dahwolf 3y ago

The "Digital garden" part also makes very little sense. Notes on personal wikis. What? How is this part of the social web?

lolinder 3y ago
She's got a whole article explaining what she means by "digital garden"—it's a public personal wiki. https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history
muyuu 3y ago
I don't see any rhyme or reason to the top down hierarchy. Perhaps the author's subjective sense of public utility.

mylasttour 3y ago

It really is an arbitrary diagram. Any regular user of any of these levels can confidently say all levels have "decomposed morals". All levels have videos of animal abuse, posts for teen prostitution, et cetera. And there really is nothing cozy about data-hoarding closed mega-corp software like Discord and Snapchat. As convenient as they are, 'cozy' is not the word. The writer likely just thinks "LinkedIn and Facebook == Bad!" and "My two Discord servers with my friends == Good!" and just made huge generalizations from there.

rainonmoon 3y ago
The second paragraph quotes them as being "slum-like spaces" so I'm not sure where you derive cause for reducing the author's viewpoint to naive idealism like that. If anything this seems like a pretty conventional viewpoint these days, that the web has shifted from broadcasting to smaller peer-to-peer interactions. It doesn't seem particularly controversial.
shadowgovt 3y ago
Sometimes a decomposing carcass ends up resting on the forest floor instead of buried or scavenged. ... but not for long, and it's not the expected common-case continuously-observed scenario when one walks in the woods. The point is that such a thing is a transient, unstable configuration at one layer and the expected configuration at another layer.

lolinder 3y ago

It's not intended to be a data graphic with clear X and Y axes, it's visual poetry. It's meant to communicate a feeling about the concepts far more so than it is to be a navigable map.

jprete 3y ago
“Visual poetry” is an excellent phrase.
red_trumpet 3y ago
But it /has/ a clear vertical axis and separate layers. Why make that artistic choice if it doesn't mean anything?
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  What does it mean that the forest has surface trees, a shallow surface-dweller layer, and deeper decay and bedrock layers? Is there something meaningful (in terms of linear continuity) on the y-axis of a forest? Or are you looking for a continuous function to apply where the metaphor isn't asking for one?
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    Each layer on the y-axis of a forest has logical and physical relationships to those above and below it.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

RobotToaster 3y ago

Not to mention it has "trolls" at the top, but I'm pretty sure the whole idea of the cosy web started on 4chan.

quadrifoliate 3y ago

> At the top the diagram contains, "inhabited by [...] trolls", and at the bottom "the only way into 8chan" Your comment seemed sensible to me, until I realized that it's likely because we are both old and think about trolls as being on 8chan. But if you look at pretty much any time since about 2015, the most notable trolls have been large public figures with an extremely wide reach, saying the same sort of things that get a rise out of people on 8chan and Reddit. To take the most recent example, Elon Musk's upending of Reddit can be seen at least partially as an instance of a large public trolling. On a more distributed plane, phrases like "own the libs" are common enough in the public consciousness to be used by angry 45-year old commenters on Facebook who have never been to 4/8chan. That is why trolls are at the top of the diagram, because it's a diagram as of 2023 -- whereas you're thinking of trolling from 2013 or maybe even 2003.

DoItToMe81 3y ago

The whole thing seems incredibly wrong and strikes me as being made by somebody very unaware of the ecosystem around them.