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As if being a federated network wasn't enough of a hurdle for new users, now we have instances blocking each other already. Lemmy has a great chance achieving

As if being a federated network wasn't enough of a hurdle for new users, now we have instances blocking each other already. Lemmy has a great chance achieving what mastodon couldn't, because its the community that matters, not specific users, but with instance blocking each other, any hope of creating a community to rival reddit is going to be thrown out the window.

Solvency 3y ago
I've been trying to sign up all day just to see what the talk is about. It's failed. Over 15 times. Over a 12 hour period.
jrflowers 3y ago
> any hope of creating a community to rival reddit is going to be thrown out the window. I haven’t been following lemmy, can you elaborate on this? Isn’t the idea of blocking instances part of the point? Like if I made “GoatseLemmy: Where Every Post Is Goatse” I wouldn’t expect content on it to be available for everyone without any input from admins that pay to run other servers.
- fariszr 3y ago
  Why not? As long as people stick on topic, they should be able to post from other servers, that's the whole point of federation.
  - starkparker 3y ago
    It isn't, though. The point of federation is to have the technical ability to post and follow across compatible servers. The point is not to require every instance to accept posts and followers from every compatible server. If anything, that's the opposite of the point.
    - fariszr 3y ago
      Sure, what I'm saying is, its too early to do this. People have barely started migrating, and there is already infighting. Thats a problem because beehaw seems to be the largest with many established subreddit communities, which limits the usability of smaller servers.
      - burnished 3y ago
        What gives you the impression this represents infighting? Genuinely, I think you will be relieved to read the announcement in TFA whenever it succeeds in loading for you; they just can't handle the moderating burden that the traffic from those servers brings, and given the almost completely unrestricted ability to create accounts in those instances it shouldn't be surprising. Beehaw would like more granular control but that isnt available (yet?), and they'd refederate once everything cooled down.
- epiccoleman 3y ago
  Um, hey, sorry but please expect a letter from my lawyer. That's my startup idea.
  - jrflowers 3y ago
    My Burning Man art installation is ruined!
burnished 3y ago
Why are you calling for centralization from a federated service?
- dahfizz 3y ago
  Federated doesn't have to be fragmented.
- fariszr 3y ago
  Where did I call for centralization?
  - burnished 3y ago
    First sentence As if being a federated network wasn't enough of a hurdle for new users, now we have instances blocking each other already. If you cant make decisions about the sort of traffic your server receives and choose to defederate for pragmatic reasons then your service is not decentralized in fact. Put another way - if your ideal service is identical to reddit, and each instance is connected to all, then your service is just as centralized. It just has an unusually fussy and bespoke database design.
    - dahfizz 3y ago
      Fragmenting the community is not good for anyone. Having the option to block other instances is important but shouldn't be encouraged. Having the right to divorce your spouse is important. But nobody wants to date someone whose been married 4 times.
      - burnished 3y ago
        Why not? All that practice, they must have gotten pretty good at matrimony. But more seriously - I don't see how you can remain marri.. federated, when one or more instances operates as a much more popular open relay. I don't have the words for this, so please interpret charitably and correct candidly, but there is an expectation that each instance performs its own vetting and policing, so everyone can work together as individual fiefs without a central authority, and each piece can be as big or as small as it needs to be to sidestep that 'small unreachable team with enormous surface area' thing that we're doing so much of everywhere else? Yes? If I have that right then this seems like a perfectly appropriate time to block with a similar emotional tenor as closing a water main to deal with a leak.
TMWNN 3y ago
> Lemmy has a great chance achieving what mastodon couldn't Why would you expect that? Don't Mastodon instances also routinely block each other?
- fariszr 3y ago
  IMO mastodon failed to replace Twitter because high profiles didn't migrate. but in Reddits case, you follow an interest instead of a specific person, meaning if enough people are active in the tech community on Lemmy it can replace reddit much faster than mastodon can replace twitter, as it doesn't matter which users migrated.
  - ziml77 3y ago
    This is why I think Reddit will be easier for people to move away from. For the most part you're not interested in any individual, just the topics.
ric2b 3y ago
Reddit also bans subreddits, the difference here is that you have more than one option if you don't like the communities that your instance is banning.
- LinAGKar 3y ago
  Reddit bans individual subreddits. They don't ban whole swathes of subs that happen to be stored on the same server, along with all the users stored on the same server.
starkparker 3y ago
Lemmy, as both a project and community, could start by addressing the problems that make blocking the best option: https://discuss.online/post/12787 https://discuss.online/post/12787
sp332 3y ago
When you say "community", do you mean you want everyone to be in there? Or do you mean certain people who make up an actual community? Because moderation is an important part of growing a community.
notacoward 3y ago
Maybe they don't want to be a single community equal to all of Reddit. The goal is to be a way to host the equivalent of a subreddit, which is not the same as a place for that. There are many places, and many - including me - believe that's how it should be. Also, blocking nodes in a distributed social network is neither new nor unhealthy. Usenet has killfiles. IRC has k-lines. Far from being injurious in themselves, they're essential tools to prevent some rando from setting up a bogus instance and using it to spray garbage all over everything. I already had to block one obvious ex-Redditor who had done exactly that on Mastodon, shitting all over a thread that had been going well until then. I was utterly unsurprised to see that they got defederated shortly afterward. That's what should happen when people can't stop misbehaving. Do I wish that the fediverse had better moderation tools, both separate from defederation and for coordinating defederation decisions? Of course I do. AIUI coordination is done now - when it's done at all - with an ad hoc system based on tags, of all things, and that's a bit absurd. I have some ideas about how a better system might look or be implemented, but I certainly don't fault anyone for using the tools they have during a period of such rapid growth.

Solvency 3y ago

I've been trying to sign up all day just to see what the talk is about. It's failed. Over 15 times. Over a 12 hour period.

jrflowers 3y ago

> any hope of creating a community to rival reddit is going to be thrown out the window. I haven’t been following lemmy, can you elaborate on this? Isn’t the idea of blocking instances part of the point? Like if I made “GoatseLemmy: Where Every Post Is Goatse” I wouldn’t expect content on it to be available for everyone without any input from admins that pay to run other servers.

fariszr 3y ago
Why not? As long as people stick on topic, they should be able to post from other servers, that's the whole point of federation.
- starkparker 3y ago
  It isn't, though. The point of federation is to have the technical ability to post and follow across compatible servers. The point is not to require every instance to accept posts and followers from every compatible server. If anything, that's the opposite of the point.
  - fariszr 3y ago
    Sure, what I'm saying is, its too early to do this. People have barely started migrating, and there is already infighting. Thats a problem because beehaw seems to be the largest with many established subreddit communities, which limits the usability of smaller servers.
    - burnished 3y ago
      What gives you the impression this represents infighting? Genuinely, I think you will be relieved to read the announcement in TFA whenever it succeeds in loading for you; they just can't handle the moderating burden that the traffic from those servers brings, and given the almost completely unrestricted ability to create accounts in those instances it shouldn't be surprising. Beehaw would like more granular control but that isnt available (yet?), and they'd refederate once everything cooled down.
epiccoleman 3y ago
Um, hey, sorry but please expect a letter from my lawyer. That's my startup idea.
- jrflowers 3y ago
  My Burning Man art installation is ruined!

burnished 3y ago

Why are you calling for centralization from a federated service?

dahfizz 3y ago
Federated doesn't have to be fragmented.
fariszr 3y ago
Where did I call for centralization?
- burnished 3y ago
  First sentence As if being a federated network wasn't enough of a hurdle for new users, now we have instances blocking each other already. If you cant make decisions about the sort of traffic your server receives and choose to defederate for pragmatic reasons then your service is not decentralized in fact. Put another way - if your ideal service is identical to reddit, and each instance is connected to all, then your service is just as centralized. It just has an unusually fussy and bespoke database design.
  - dahfizz 3y ago
    Fragmenting the community is not good for anyone. Having the option to block other instances is important but shouldn't be encouraged. Having the right to divorce your spouse is important. But nobody wants to date someone whose been married 4 times.
    - burnished 3y ago
      Why not? All that practice, they must have gotten pretty good at matrimony. But more seriously - I don't see how you can remain marri.. federated, when one or more instances operates as a much more popular open relay. I don't have the words for this, so please interpret charitably and correct candidly, but there is an expectation that each instance performs its own vetting and policing, so everyone can work together as individual fiefs without a central authority, and each piece can be as big or as small as it needs to be to sidestep that 'small unreachable team with enormous surface area' thing that we're doing so much of everywhere else? Yes? If I have that right then this seems like a perfectly appropriate time to block with a similar emotional tenor as closing a water main to deal with a leak.

TMWNN 3y ago

> Lemmy has a great chance achieving what mastodon couldn't Why would you expect that? Don't Mastodon instances also routinely block each other?

fariszr 3y ago
IMO mastodon failed to replace Twitter because high profiles didn't migrate. but in Reddits case, you follow an interest instead of a specific person, meaning if enough people are active in the tech community on Lemmy it can replace reddit much faster than mastodon can replace twitter, as it doesn't matter which users migrated.
- ziml77 3y ago
  This is why I think Reddit will be easier for people to move away from. For the most part you're not interested in any individual, just the topics.

ric2b 3y ago

Reddit also bans subreddits, the difference here is that you have more than one option if you don't like the communities that your instance is banning.

LinAGKar 3y ago
Reddit bans individual subreddits. They don't ban whole swathes of subs that happen to be stored on the same server, along with all the users stored on the same server.

starkparker 3y ago

Lemmy, as both a project and community, could start by addressing the problems that make blocking the best option: https://discuss.online/post/12787 https://discuss.online/post/12787

sp332 3y ago

When you say "community", do you mean you want everyone to be in there? Or do you mean certain people who make up an actual community? Because moderation is an important part of growing a community.

notacoward 3y ago

Maybe they don't want to be a single community equal to all of Reddit. The goal is to be a way to host the equivalent of a subreddit, which is not the same as a place for that. There are many places, and many - including me - believe that's how it should be. Also, blocking nodes in a distributed social network is neither new nor unhealthy. Usenet has killfiles. IRC has k-lines. Far from being injurious in themselves, they're essential tools to prevent some rando from setting up a bogus instance and using it to spray garbage all over everything. I already had to block one obvious ex-Redditor who had done exactly that on Mastodon, shitting all over a thread that had been going well until then. I was utterly unsurprised to see that they got defederated shortly afterward. That's what should happen when people can't stop misbehaving. Do I wish that the fediverse had better moderation tools, both separate from defederation and for coordinating defederation decisions? Of course I do. AIUI coordination is done now - when it's done at all - with an ad hoc system based on tags, of all things, and that's a bit absurd. I have some ideas about how a better system might look or be implemented, but I certainly don't fault anyone for using the tools they have during a period of such rapid growth.