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There's nothing wrong with them, but reddit's size lets it gather a lot of extremely specific knowledge that, were all subreddits separate forums, would be lost

There's nothing wrong with them, but reddit's size lets it gather a lot of extremely specific knowledge that, were all subreddits separate forums, would be lost. Sure, many of these communities are strong enough to run their own infrastructure, but more of them are not.

PrimeMcFly 3y ago
Before Reddit, almost immediately before, that's what Usenet was for. Google kind of ruined it by hijacking it with Groups, then Reddit took over. Weed need a decentralized equivalent to Usenet.
- jjav 3y ago
  > Weed need a decentralized equivalent to Usenet. That is ... Usenet. That's exactly what Usenet is (not was, because it's still there, even if not many people use it. I still read it on many days.)
  - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
    It's not decentralized in the modern sense, and doesn't offer the functionality I would want from a modern decentralized solution.
    - jjav 3y ago
      What are those "modern" characteristics you seek? I'll note that everyone who has claimed to build a better email or better Usenet for the last 4 decades has invariably failed. So there's that. In the short term, it's very easy to build a more sleek and fancy communications platforms. Hundreds have been built and they can be nice for a while. All of them eventually fail due to the inherent limitation of proprietary profit-seeking closed systems. Of course I'm not claiming NNTP and Usenet are perfect. Sure we could tweak them for this and that improvements. But the fundamental principle of decentralized peer to peer distribution is the core strength. Without that, any solution will ultimately fail in the long run.
- bsder 3y ago
  Usenet was decentralized, and Google (amazingly) didn't ruin it. Dejanews was the last man standing and they were going bankrupt. Nobody wanted to pony up. It's that simple. Nowadays, a bunch of people have gigabit to their house. Colo is $400/mo for a cabinet and gigabit. 3U servers are under $500 and probably under $200 if you dig. I can go on. You could resurrect Usenet easily, but nobody is doing it. Why? Because it's a pain in the ass. People forget that a lot of the early internet stuff relied on a bunch of people providing free labor (generally at universities) to keep it all afloat.
  - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
    Huh, I thought Groups was after Dejanews. Usenet was decentralized, but not in the current sense of the term IMO. When I think of 'decentralized', and what I meant, was something offering anonymity and resistance to takedown orders, which are things it didn't have real protection against. I think the free labor issue could be circumvented by users having their own killfiles, and a fediverse approach of only syncing with 'good' servers.
    - bsder 3y ago
      > Huh, I thought Groups was after Dejanews. Groups was contemporaneous with Dejanews. But Dejanews was basically going under when Google bought them. If it hadn't been for Google, Dejanews would have gone poof and we wouldn't have had any archiving of Usenet stuff at all.
- janoc 3y ago
  Usenet was literally decentralized before this was even a buzzword.
  - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
    You're right. When I think of 'decentralized', and what I meant, was something offering anonymity and resistance to takedown orders, which are things it didn't have real protection against.
    - ilyt 3y ago
      And a way to fight spam. You don't want users to be too anonymous, else someone can just post bullshit with zero ways to fight it.
      - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
        Well, we just need a way to have reputation, basically. It shouldn't be karma, but it needs to be something that doesn't require linking to a real life identity.
    - shagie 3y ago
      Anonymity isn't necessary desirable for the people running the servers - it means extra work for people attempting to moderate the content on their instance. There are numerous other discussions about why a lack of moderation is often a bad thing for people running the servers. Take down orders are resisted by having it sufficiently decentralized. It may be possible to take down one server, but taking down every server (even trying to take down every NNTP server in today's world) is a significant effort. Usenet is a perfectly acceptable decentralized system for sending messages to each other and the world. Stand one up with the groups that I'm interested in and I'll point my copy of trn at it.
      - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
        Anonymity is key in the sense that it shouldn't require linking to a real life identity. The same way now I can sign up for reddit 'anonymously' for example. There should be some reputation, some kind of check the person is human, maybe other things, but there needs to be the freedom to post separate from a real life persona, without fear of being doxxed. For so many different reasons. Usenet, I think, has a strong hierarchy structure rather than just being a 'web', although it is that as well. So if the takedown order is directed at a server in high enough position, it is essentially removes it from all of Usenet - and it's not just takedown orders, but actors with the ability to remove content unilaterally. Usenet really isn't sufficient simply because of how old it is. We can do much better, and I believe there are already numerous superior systems that exist but simply have not been adopted yet, likely due to ease of use and/or lack of need, the former can be improved, and the latter will happen naturally.
- bigbillheck 3y ago
  > almost immediately before Reddit didn't come along until 2005, and the way I remember it is by then usenet--binary groups aside--was was pretty much dead.
  - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
    I was definitely still using it in 2004, I'd be surprised if it were still entirely dead in 2005.

PrimeMcFly 3y ago

Before Reddit, almost immediately before, that's what Usenet was for. Google kind of ruined it by hijacking it with Groups, then Reddit took over. Weed need a decentralized equivalent to Usenet.

jjav 3y ago
> Weed need a decentralized equivalent to Usenet. That is ... Usenet. That's exactly what Usenet is (not was, because it's still there, even if not many people use it. I still read it on many days.)
- PrimeMcFly 3y ago
  It's not decentralized in the modern sense, and doesn't offer the functionality I would want from a modern decentralized solution.
  - jjav 3y ago
    What are those "modern" characteristics you seek? I'll note that everyone who has claimed to build a better email or better Usenet for the last 4 decades has invariably failed. So there's that. In the short term, it's very easy to build a more sleek and fancy communications platforms. Hundreds have been built and they can be nice for a while. All of them eventually fail due to the inherent limitation of proprietary profit-seeking closed systems. Of course I'm not claiming NNTP and Usenet are perfect. Sure we could tweak them for this and that improvements. But the fundamental principle of decentralized peer to peer distribution is the core strength. Without that, any solution will ultimately fail in the long run.
bsder 3y ago
Usenet was decentralized, and Google (amazingly) didn't ruin it. Dejanews was the last man standing and they were going bankrupt. Nobody wanted to pony up. It's that simple. Nowadays, a bunch of people have gigabit to their house. Colo is $400/mo for a cabinet and gigabit. 3U servers are under $500 and probably under $200 if you dig. I can go on. You could resurrect Usenet easily, but nobody is doing it. Why? Because it's a pain in the ass. People forget that a lot of the early internet stuff relied on a bunch of people providing free labor (generally at universities) to keep it all afloat.
- PrimeMcFly 3y ago
  Huh, I thought Groups was after Dejanews. Usenet was decentralized, but not in the current sense of the term IMO. When I think of 'decentralized', and what I meant, was something offering anonymity and resistance to takedown orders, which are things it didn't have real protection against. I think the free labor issue could be circumvented by users having their own killfiles, and a fediverse approach of only syncing with 'good' servers.
  - bsder 3y ago
    > Huh, I thought Groups was after Dejanews. Groups was contemporaneous with Dejanews. But Dejanews was basically going under when Google bought them. If it hadn't been for Google, Dejanews would have gone poof and we wouldn't have had any archiving of Usenet stuff at all.
janoc 3y ago
Usenet was literally decentralized before this was even a buzzword.
- PrimeMcFly 3y ago
  You're right. When I think of 'decentralized', and what I meant, was something offering anonymity and resistance to takedown orders, which are things it didn't have real protection against.
  - ilyt 3y ago
    And a way to fight spam. You don't want users to be too anonymous, else someone can just post bullshit with zero ways to fight it.
    - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
      Well, we just need a way to have reputation, basically. It shouldn't be karma, but it needs to be something that doesn't require linking to a real life identity.
  - shagie 3y ago
    Anonymity isn't necessary desirable for the people running the servers - it means extra work for people attempting to moderate the content on their instance. There are numerous other discussions about why a lack of moderation is often a bad thing for people running the servers. Take down orders are resisted by having it sufficiently decentralized. It may be possible to take down one server, but taking down every server (even trying to take down every NNTP server in today's world) is a significant effort. Usenet is a perfectly acceptable decentralized system for sending messages to each other and the world. Stand one up with the groups that I'm interested in and I'll point my copy of trn at it.
    - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
      Anonymity is key in the sense that it shouldn't require linking to a real life identity. The same way now I can sign up for reddit 'anonymously' for example. There should be some reputation, some kind of check the person is human, maybe other things, but there needs to be the freedom to post separate from a real life persona, without fear of being doxxed. For so many different reasons. Usenet, I think, has a strong hierarchy structure rather than just being a 'web', although it is that as well. So if the takedown order is directed at a server in high enough position, it is essentially removes it from all of Usenet - and it's not just takedown orders, but actors with the ability to remove content unilaterally. Usenet really isn't sufficient simply because of how old it is. We can do much better, and I believe there are already numerous superior systems that exist but simply have not been adopted yet, likely due to ease of use and/or lack of need, the former can be improved, and the latter will happen naturally.
bigbillheck 3y ago
> almost immediately before Reddit didn't come along until 2005, and the way I remember it is by then usenet--binary groups aside--was was pretty much dead.
- PrimeMcFly 3y ago
  I was definitely still using it in 2004, I'd be surprised if it were still entirely dead in 2005.