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I don't think full P2P or Lemmy-style federation is the right way to make a decentralised Reddit alternative. P2P systems aren't great for mobile devices that c

by dvdkon 3y ago

I don't think full P2P or Lemmy-style federation is the right way to make a decentralised Reddit alternative. P2P systems aren't great for mobile devices that can't/shouldn't be full peers, not to mention moderation issues. And ActivityPub-style federation where accounts belong to one instance and content is copied across instances has many problems, which a Reddit alternative needn't have. Reddit content is already perfectly stratified into subreddits, so I think anything that's primarily a decentralised Reddit alternative should use the same principles. Instances should host subreddits with floating user identities, and content from one instance should always stay on that instance. This solves things like moderation (it basically stays the same as on Reddit, but you get to choose your instance) and legal content attribution. In a way, it's a continuation of the "independent web forum" model that Reddit supplanted.

remram 3y ago
What you're describing is actually very much like Lemmy. Communities are on a specific server, you just use federation to post from your account (instead of creating a local account every time) and as not much more than a frontend. Your local instance just provides your customized browsing interface and identity and talks to the server hosting the community over the API.
- dvdkon 3y ago
  I'll admit I don't know much about the specifics of Lemmy, so I assumed it has the same issues as Mastodon. There's still the issue of defederation? And notifications (new post/reply) are sent to the home instance of every subscribed user and include content, right? I think it would be better to send only small "something's new" push notifications, having the client reach out for any data or even metadata. Also, having user identities be cryptographic keys could solve the defederation problem, but I understand that the user experience would be very atypical. Restricting moderation drama to one particular instance is to me a very important feature of decentralised systems, and the possibility of being excluded from the larger community over such drama is a serious fault, even if that's probably less likely with Lemmy.

by dvdkon 3y ago

remram 3y ago

What you're describing is actually very much like Lemmy. Communities are on a specific server, you just use federation to post from your account (instead of creating a local account every time) and as not much more than a frontend. Your local instance just provides your customized browsing interface and identity and talks to the server hosting the community over the API.

dvdkon 3y ago
I'll admit I don't know much about the specifics of Lemmy, so I assumed it has the same issues as Mastodon. There's still the issue of defederation? And notifications (new post/reply) are sent to the home instance of every subscribed user and include content, right? I think it would be better to send only small "something's new" push notifications, having the client reach out for any data or even metadata. Also, having user identities be cryptographic keys could solve the defederation problem, but I understand that the user experience would be very atypical. Restricting moderation drama to one particular instance is to me a very important feature of decentralised systems, and the possibility of being excluded from the larger community over such drama is a serious fault, even if that's probably less likely with Lemmy.