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If I host my own identity server can I bypass the need for an invite? Maybe it's this? https://github.com/bluesky-social/indigo https://github.com/bluesky-socia

by grose 3y ago

If I host my own identity server can I bypass the need for an invite? Maybe it's this? https://github.com/bluesky-social/indigo https://github.com/bluesky-social/indigo

jeroenhd 3y ago
It's pretty funny how this supposedly decentralized platform is currently invite-only.
- gfodor 3y ago
  It's not funny, it's called a smart rollout strategy by people who actually know how to build a decentralized social network that stands a chance of beating twitter.
  - Kye 3y ago
    I don't know much about the people behind it. What Twitter-scale decentralized social network did they build before to get that know-how?
    - whyrusleeping 3y ago
      Hi, i'm the guy who built IPFS and Filecoin which are moderately large decentralized networks, and both me and Martin Kleppmann are technical advisors to the project. Additionally, Jeremie Miller (of XMPP) is on the board. The core team consists of developers who have many years of experience working on decentralized technologies (Jay, Paul, and Daniel have been in that space for a long time) and the others have plenty of other relevant experience (Including Docker and the Internet Archive). Sure, nobody has ever built a decentralized social network at scale before, but we're not blundering our way into this.
      - Kye 3y ago
        I was asking about their specific claim. People bring all kinds of genuinely impressive credentials to efforts like this and still can't pull it off. I've used just about every social network since the first, and it seems like the problems are always human, not technology. Social networks seem to bring together and amplify all the problems of every other technology. It's the final boss and no one's cracked it. You gave me a list of people and technologies they worked on, but you didn't answer the question. How do you bring that together into a decentralized system that can absorb and succeed Twitter?
        whyrusleeping 3y ago
        While I totally get where you’re coming from, its a bit of an unfair question, “how are you going to do the thing you are attempting to do??” Is hard to answer without just saying “watch and see”, but ill try. From a technical perspective the architecture is very similar to Twitter or other social networks internally, just pieced apart with some cryptography added to allow different components to not have to fully trust eachother. Thats to say, the components individually scale the same as twitter does (probably better tbh, we’re building this with 2023 tech not 2005 tech). Im happy to dive into that more but I actually dont think the technology is the hard part. The bulk of the work is culture and community building and maintenance. One of the biggest things we’ve been focused on getting right is moderation, and the federated architecture helps a lot here. Allowing “third party” labeling to be integrated into the experience seamlessly allows communities to choose their own way of curating their experience. Instead of relying on a single company to dictate “the rules” you just pick “the rules” you want and go from there. There’s obviously a lot more to it, so id encourage you to check out some of our other blog posts: https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog
        archagon 3y ago
        Has the team written anything about the architecture and/or guiding philosophy of Mastodon vs. Bluesky? Scanned the blog but couldn’t find anything. EDIT: I see https://atproto.com/guides/faq#why-not-use-activitypub https://atproto.com/guides/faq#why-not-use-activitypub was linked below, but it would be nice to read something a bit more in-depth than that.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
dgellow 3y ago
Yes you can run your own PDS, but not federate. Federation hasn’t been completed yet but is expected to be done in the coming 1-2 weeks. Go to https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto, clone it, build and run via the makefile. There are already some instances running but as said they do not federate at the moment.
- grose 3y ago
  Understood, thank you!
- mnd999 3y ago
  Err what? Federation is the whole point. This is just twitter again without it. Perhaps the aim is the idea of federation but in practice have everyone sign up to server they control.
  - dgellow 3y ago
    It’s in development… Federation is expected to be done in the coming weeks. The team is very small and is dealing with a lot of things at the same time. But nobody asks that you join now, just wait for federation if that’s what you care about.
    - wahnfrieden 3y ago
      Can you share what limiting growth helps with?
      - dymk 3y ago
        - Easier to keep up with increased demand on server resources due to user growth. - Screwing something up impacts 100k people and not 10M people. - Users have some expectation of "hiccups" in something presented as a beta product. - Prevents bots from taking over the platform as the anti-spam / anti-abuse systems mature.
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago

by grose 3y ago

If I host my own identity server can I bypass the need for an invite? Maybe it's this? https://github.com/bluesky-social/indigo https://github.com/bluesky-social/indigo

jeroenhd 3y ago

It's pretty funny how this supposedly decentralized platform is currently invite-only.

gfodor 3y ago
It's not funny, it's called a smart rollout strategy by people who actually know how to build a decentralized social network that stands a chance of beating twitter.
- Kye 3y ago
  I don't know much about the people behind it. What Twitter-scale decentralized social network did they build before to get that know-how?
  - whyrusleeping 3y ago
    Hi, i'm the guy who built IPFS and Filecoin which are moderately large decentralized networks, and both me and Martin Kleppmann are technical advisors to the project. Additionally, Jeremie Miller (of XMPP) is on the board. The core team consists of developers who have many years of experience working on decentralized technologies (Jay, Paul, and Daniel have been in that space for a long time) and the others have plenty of other relevant experience (Including Docker and the Internet Archive). Sure, nobody has ever built a decentralized social network at scale before, but we're not blundering our way into this.
    - Kye 3y ago
      I was asking about their specific claim. People bring all kinds of genuinely impressive credentials to efforts like this and still can't pull it off. I've used just about every social network since the first, and it seems like the problems are always human, not technology. Social networks seem to bring together and amplify all the problems of every other technology. It's the final boss and no one's cracked it. You gave me a list of people and technologies they worked on, but you didn't answer the question. How do you bring that together into a decentralized system that can absorb and succeed Twitter?
      - whyrusleeping 3y ago
        While I totally get where you’re coming from, its a bit of an unfair question, “how are you going to do the thing you are attempting to do??” Is hard to answer without just saying “watch and see”, but ill try. From a technical perspective the architecture is very similar to Twitter or other social networks internally, just pieced apart with some cryptography added to allow different components to not have to fully trust eachother. Thats to say, the components individually scale the same as twitter does (probably better tbh, we’re building this with 2023 tech not 2005 tech). Im happy to dive into that more but I actually dont think the technology is the hard part. The bulk of the work is culture and community building and maintenance. One of the biggest things we’ve been focused on getting right is moderation, and the federated architecture helps a lot here. Allowing “third party” labeling to be integrated into the experience seamlessly allows communities to choose their own way of curating their experience. Instead of relying on a single company to dictate “the rules” you just pick “the rules” you want and go from there. There’s obviously a lot more to it, so id encourage you to check out some of our other blog posts: https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog
        archagon 3y ago
        Has the team written anything about the architecture and/or guiding philosophy of Mastodon vs. Bluesky? Scanned the blog but couldn’t find anything. EDIT: I see https://atproto.com/guides/faq#why-not-use-activitypub https://atproto.com/guides/faq#why-not-use-activitypub was linked below, but it would be nice to read something a bit more in-depth than that.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

dgellow 3y ago

Yes you can run your own PDS, but not federate. Federation hasn’t been completed yet but is expected to be done in the coming 1-2 weeks. Go to https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto, clone it, build and run via the makefile. There are already some instances running but as said they do not federate at the moment.

grose 3y ago
Understood, thank you!
mnd999 3y ago
Err what? Federation is the whole point. This is just twitter again without it. Perhaps the aim is the idea of federation but in practice have everyone sign up to server they control.
- dgellow 3y ago
  It’s in development… Federation is expected to be done in the coming weeks. The team is very small and is dealing with a lot of things at the same time. But nobody asks that you join now, just wait for federation if that’s what you care about.
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    Can you share what limiting growth helps with?
    - dymk 3y ago
      - Easier to keep up with increased demand on server resources due to user growth. - Screwing something up impacts 100k people and not 10M people. - Users have some expectation of "hiccups" in something presented as a beta product. - Prevents bots from taking over the platform as the anti-spam / anti-abuse systems mature.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago