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I think what's happening with Twitter and Reddit is actually a good thing in that it's exposing the failures of centralized networks. The thing is, these failur

I think what's happening with Twitter and Reddit is actually a good thing in that it's exposing the failures of centralized networks. The thing is, these failures aren't big enough yet for people to jump ship and I think the main problem is none of the decentralized social networks have provided a solution that's better. Mastodon is theoretically a better version of Twitter, but normal people get lost the moment someone starts talking about "instances". It's this gap we need to cross somehow. How do networks provide all or most of the pros of being centralized without being centralized?

whimsicalism 3y ago
also, do search engines even index mastodon? i've never seen a mastodon result in my life, compared to reddit.
- unshavedyak 3y ago
  It's a good question. Regardless of Twitter, Kbin and Lemmy (and maybe others?) will be even more important for ensuring they get indexed properly. The organic/real nature of Reddit comments (at least those not astroturfed .. heh) were valuable to search. We (devs) need to make sure Fediverse stuff provides that value. At least in my view. Is there something Mastodon/Kbin/Lemmy might be doing that could cause poor indexing? I'm working on yet-another-lemmy-thing and i'd like to not commit sins on this front.
  - frickinLasers 3y ago
    I only know Mastodon: There's a large LGBTQ+ community who don't want to be indexed out of concern for their safety (because, for example, there are small far-right communities on other instances looking to cause mayhem). The ability to be oneself online without worrying about getting brigaded, doxxed, or whatever, is a selling point. Indexing runs counter to that.
    - unshavedyak 3y ago
      Agreed, but is it a choice or a requirement from the software? I love choice, that instances (and users!) can and should get to choose the level of indexing. If it's software wide, not sure i can get behind that. Especially since .. doesn't ActivityPub sort of ruin that? Ie any instance you federate with could expose your data, regardless of Mastodon's rules. Federated instance data visibility and agreed visibility rules of course come into play. But if i understand this right it would mean you can only federate with instances or software that agrees to your privacy rules. Which is totally viable, but that also then means Mastodon can't federate with, for example, a Reddit clone that wants to be indexed. It's a complex web of requirements. Definitely something i'll be thinking on as i implement my own ActivityPub instance.
      - frickinLasers 3y ago
        I don't know enough/anything about ActivityPub, but maybe different...apps? (Mastodon et al vs kbin/lemmy) could have different agreed-on rules. The forum-style ones would be appropriate in search results, so they could be indexed. People linking to Mastodon posts on lemmy might be unavoidable I guess, but there's at least a bit more separation.
        unshavedyak 3y ago
        One thing i do hope though is that if instances that want to hide content, or users hide content, that the instance also publishes that data during syncing. Which is to say, i want to write a custom instance but i don't want to mistakenly leak something someone wanted to be private. In theory it's a well understood problem-space in the Mastodon stack, so hopefully they only federate/publish what they are okay with being public. But it's concerning regardless.
  - lamontcg 3y ago
    Pretty sure Mastodon doesn't allow indexing because that can be used to brigade users and they're trying very hard to actively avoid creating the dogpiles that twitter almost actively incentivizes.
    - unshavedyak 3y ago
      Oof, seems like that should be a instance setting (with user override), not the whole software. Good to know.
    - whimsicalism 3y ago
      Does not seem to be a worthwhile tradeoff to me. Twitter is also not really well-indexed.
- ocdtrekkie 3y ago
  Google absolutely does crawl quite a bit of Mastodon, but the community is largely against crawling and indexing so in many cases Google may be blocked.
DirkH 3y ago
It is stunning to me that Mastadon still hasn't come up with a simple onboarding solution to sidestep the issue of "instances" I completely agree with you. Mastadon even loses techies like me due to the decision fatigue of having to pick instances before I can even start exploring.
- ajayyy 3y ago
  They did. The mobile app by default signs you up on mastodon.social now
  - willio58 3y ago
    Is this not a centralizing measure? This is where things fundamentally break down for me.
    - travisporter 3y ago
      No it’s not in my opinion because it’s a default setting
    - capybara_2020 3y ago
      I am curious, why don't you like centralization? It seems like no matter the crowd, people need centralization. Atleast to begin with, then they are ok breaking off into subgroups. Like what happened with reddit. You start on the popular frontpage. Then the longer you stay, the more subreddits you start using.
      - johnnyanmac 3y ago
        historically speaking, I don't like putting all my eggs in one basket. We've seen sites rise and fall, some fall from grace and others outright shut down. And often times, no one is prepared enough to move. In many cases they may not even care about the lost knowledge and move on in life. Sometimes I do care tho and I spend way too much of my time trying to find any data hoarders who may have also cared. This is a huge hassle. So in theory, a decentralized network should solve this. If one part goes down, you host another instance, migrate, and have that new instance rise, with minimal impact to your community since all of this is happening under the surface. They may change their URL, but they will still feel like they are on their favorite site, hopefully with most of the people intact. >Like what happened with reddit Yes, a great example of why I don't like centralization, given current times. While I support the blackout, if there was some important bookmark to a piece of content that I needed, I may not be able to access it. If reddit was federated, I coudl simply clone those important posts to a new instance ahead of the blackout and keep on keeping on. Maybe have some way to redirect the URLs as well (I'm not too versed in how configurable these instances are).
oefnak 3y ago
Use torrents as a hosting protocol?
orange_fritter 3y ago
I agree that decentralization would be great for social media because anything successful would have to solve some interesting problems that would push social media forward as a tool. Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, email etc all have fairly complex vocabularies for curating your experience: Domains, Subscriptions, Hashtags, Likes, Subscriptions, Downvotes, Bans, Replies, Subreddits, Groups, Posts, Retweets, Follow, etc. These concepts caught on because they were presented in a gradual, simplistic way, even though they represent the workings of a complicated organism. Basically what I'm saying is that Federation may be one more layer of complexity, but the vocabulary is already present for users- they've had a pretty long tutorial on social media. 99% of social media sites are aware that user growth requires removing friction and that includes typically dumping people into a "default" area, then allowing them to customize their experience. I think this kind of funnel would be necessary for federation, even though a "default experience" is kind of the antithesis of federation.
lamontcg 3y ago
Maybe the solution isn't federation, but a nonprofit foundation with an open source and relatively simpler codebase like Wikipedia. Wikipedia is the 800# gorilla in that space, but there's no ads and no perverse incentives and they aren't trying to lock down to prevent "theft" from AI companies, and the decentralization is through people being able to relatively easily setup specialized wikis. I'm not sure the problems of federation are ever going to be solved at massive scale. Usenet and IRC were always problematic back in the 90s. Not even e-mail works well due to spam.
- dynamorando 3y ago
  I have often wondered (I realize this is American centric) why NPR or PBS doesn’t have their own social network.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    social networks are a disaster. Many news websites used to have their own dedicated forum space, but they all died down over the decade, or moved to Discord/Reddit. It's just that big a headache. Hosting user generated content is very costly. If not in server hosting, then in the emotional toll of moderating that forum and making sure it's not spammed to all hell, or worse. Bad apples ruin the barrel, as usual.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

whimsicalism 3y ago

also, do search engines even index mastodon? i've never seen a mastodon result in my life, compared to reddit.

unshavedyak 3y ago
It's a good question. Regardless of Twitter, Kbin and Lemmy (and maybe others?) will be even more important for ensuring they get indexed properly. The organic/real nature of Reddit comments (at least those not astroturfed .. heh) were valuable to search. We (devs) need to make sure Fediverse stuff provides that value. At least in my view. Is there something Mastodon/Kbin/Lemmy might be doing that could cause poor indexing? I'm working on yet-another-lemmy-thing and i'd like to not commit sins on this front.
- frickinLasers 3y ago
  I only know Mastodon: There's a large LGBTQ+ community who don't want to be indexed out of concern for their safety (because, for example, there are small far-right communities on other instances looking to cause mayhem). The ability to be oneself online without worrying about getting brigaded, doxxed, or whatever, is a selling point. Indexing runs counter to that.
  - unshavedyak 3y ago
    Agreed, but is it a choice or a requirement from the software? I love choice, that instances (and users!) can and should get to choose the level of indexing. If it's software wide, not sure i can get behind that. Especially since .. doesn't ActivityPub sort of ruin that? Ie any instance you federate with could expose your data, regardless of Mastodon's rules. Federated instance data visibility and agreed visibility rules of course come into play. But if i understand this right it would mean you can only federate with instances or software that agrees to your privacy rules. Which is totally viable, but that also then means Mastodon can't federate with, for example, a Reddit clone that wants to be indexed. It's a complex web of requirements. Definitely something i'll be thinking on as i implement my own ActivityPub instance.
    - frickinLasers 3y ago
      I don't know enough/anything about ActivityPub, but maybe different...apps? (Mastodon et al vs kbin/lemmy) could have different agreed-on rules. The forum-style ones would be appropriate in search results, so they could be indexed. People linking to Mastodon posts on lemmy might be unavoidable I guess, but there's at least a bit more separation.
      - unshavedyak 3y ago
        One thing i do hope though is that if instances that want to hide content, or users hide content, that the instance also publishes that data during syncing. Which is to say, i want to write a custom instance but i don't want to mistakenly leak something someone wanted to be private. In theory it's a well understood problem-space in the Mastodon stack, so hopefully they only federate/publish what they are okay with being public. But it's concerning regardless.
- lamontcg 3y ago
  Pretty sure Mastodon doesn't allow indexing because that can be used to brigade users and they're trying very hard to actively avoid creating the dogpiles that twitter almost actively incentivizes.
  - unshavedyak 3y ago
    Oof, seems like that should be a instance setting (with user override), not the whole software. Good to know.
  - whimsicalism 3y ago
    Does not seem to be a worthwhile tradeoff to me. Twitter is also not really well-indexed.
ocdtrekkie 3y ago
Google absolutely does crawl quite a bit of Mastodon, but the community is largely against crawling and indexing so in many cases Google may be blocked.

DirkH 3y ago

It is stunning to me that Mastadon still hasn't come up with a simple onboarding solution to sidestep the issue of "instances" I completely agree with you. Mastadon even loses techies like me due to the decision fatigue of having to pick instances before I can even start exploring.

ajayyy 3y ago
They did. The mobile app by default signs you up on mastodon.social now
- willio58 3y ago
  Is this not a centralizing measure? This is where things fundamentally break down for me.
  - travisporter 3y ago
    No it’s not in my opinion because it’s a default setting
  - capybara_2020 3y ago
    I am curious, why don't you like centralization? It seems like no matter the crowd, people need centralization. Atleast to begin with, then they are ok breaking off into subgroups. Like what happened with reddit. You start on the popular frontpage. Then the longer you stay, the more subreddits you start using.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      historically speaking, I don't like putting all my eggs in one basket. We've seen sites rise and fall, some fall from grace and others outright shut down. And often times, no one is prepared enough to move. In many cases they may not even care about the lost knowledge and move on in life. Sometimes I do care tho and I spend way too much of my time trying to find any data hoarders who may have also cared. This is a huge hassle. So in theory, a decentralized network should solve this. If one part goes down, you host another instance, migrate, and have that new instance rise, with minimal impact to your community since all of this is happening under the surface. They may change their URL, but they will still feel like they are on their favorite site, hopefully with most of the people intact. >Like what happened with reddit Yes, a great example of why I don't like centralization, given current times. While I support the blackout, if there was some important bookmark to a piece of content that I needed, I may not be able to access it. If reddit was federated, I coudl simply clone those important posts to a new instance ahead of the blackout and keep on keeping on. Maybe have some way to redirect the URLs as well (I'm not too versed in how configurable these instances are).

oefnak 3y ago

Use torrents as a hosting protocol?

orange_fritter 3y ago

I agree that decentralization would be great for social media because anything successful would have to solve some interesting problems that would push social media forward as a tool. Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, email etc all have fairly complex vocabularies for curating your experience: Domains, Subscriptions, Hashtags, Likes, Subscriptions, Downvotes, Bans, Replies, Subreddits, Groups, Posts, Retweets, Follow, etc. These concepts caught on because they were presented in a gradual, simplistic way, even though they represent the workings of a complicated organism. Basically what I'm saying is that Federation may be one more layer of complexity, but the vocabulary is already present for users- they've had a pretty long tutorial on social media. 99% of social media sites are aware that user growth requires removing friction and that includes typically dumping people into a "default" area, then allowing them to customize their experience. I think this kind of funnel would be necessary for federation, even though a "default experience" is kind of the antithesis of federation.

lamontcg 3y ago

Maybe the solution isn't federation, but a nonprofit foundation with an open source and relatively simpler codebase like Wikipedia. Wikipedia is the 800# gorilla in that space, but there's no ads and no perverse incentives and they aren't trying to lock down to prevent "theft" from AI companies, and the decentralization is through people being able to relatively easily setup specialized wikis. I'm not sure the problems of federation are ever going to be solved at massive scale. Usenet and IRC were always problematic back in the 90s. Not even e-mail works well due to spam.

dynamorando 3y ago
I have often wondered (I realize this is American centric) why NPR or PBS doesn’t have their own social network.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  social networks are a disaster. Many news websites used to have their own dedicated forum space, but they all died down over the decade, or moved to Discord/Reddit. It's just that big a headache. Hosting user generated content is very costly. If not in server hosting, then in the emotional toll of moderating that forum and making sure it's not spammed to all hell, or worse. Bad apples ruin the barrel, as usual.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]