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>what instance do I join? The answer is "both of them". Pick a client that makes it the easiest to connect to separate instances on separate accounts, then ch

by qball 3y ago

>what instance do I join? The answer is "both of them". Pick a client that makes it the easiest to connect to separate instances on separate accounts, then choose the same-ish username. Federation is, fundamentally, an anti-feature that exists solely to create liabilities for the end user as, by design, it empowers people who should not be empowered to destroy your social graph arbitrarily (the "not sharing my ban list is bannable" problem plagues the Fediverse). This is not something the people writing the documentation understand (or worse, the above is a feature for them), but the correct way to use the service is to engage atomically under multiple different identities rather than be caught in the fallout of petty admin slapfights, just like signing up for a bunch of different phpBB forums was before the rise of Digg/Reddit.

crayboff 3y ago
> The answer is "both of them". Pick a client that makes it the easiest to connect to separate instances on separate accounts, then choose the same-ish username. That actually reveals even more complexity: having to understand what federation is, researching and experimenting with clients, how to find different communities across the fediverse. Each added complexity cuts how many people would be willing to make the switch
- yareally 3y ago
  I feel like there's a need for a client application that makes signing up and connecting to both appear to be unified network to the end user
  - crayboff 3y ago
    Absolutely, the only way for these to take off is if you have a single place you direct people that makes the whole process braindead simple. Sign up has to be simple. Finding content has to be simple. Keeping updated has to be simple. The branding also has to be really welcoming as well.
tuchsen 3y ago
I can't verify this is true, but I've seen stuff pop up on Lemmy that Reddit accounts are getting banned for promoting Lemmy/Kbin/etc. Being resistant to unseen administrators destroying your social graph is literally a selling point of federation.
- qball 3y ago
  >Being resistant to unseen administrators destroying your social graph is literally a selling point of federation. And that "selling point" is grossly inaccurate. (Unless you make a separate account everywhere, which obviously defeats the entire point of federation.) ActivityPub implementations all suffer from the same "you're pre-emptively banned from subreddit X because you commented in subreddit Y" problem that Reddit currently has, but with cascading effect across half the network. Good for admin egos and power trips, bad for long-term usability and stability from the end user's perspective. As things of this nature have always been.
jeena 3y ago
For now my own solution has been to spin up my own Mastodon, PeerTube and Lemmy instance, and because I'm such a small one person instance I don't bother anyone and therefor nobody defederated me yet.
LexiMax 3y ago
> Federation is, fundamentally, an anti-feature that exists solely to create liabilities for the end user as, by design, it empowers people who should not be empowered to destroy your social graph arbitrarily. My Twitter-using friends have complained that their feeds have become a ghost town and has lost most of its utility as a social network in the past year. Part of the reason why people were so upset at Reddit is because of justified fears that it's going down the exact same path. I have seen countless people myopically and unjustly banned from most major social media sites. How are these things anything other than a destruction of a social graph? The thing is, this kind of vitriol isn't uncommon, and I've been trying to rack my brain trying to figure out what would cause such a reaction. Is it a misguided feeling of patronizing empathy for end-users? A distaste for the tech-enthusiast types that champion them? Or is it distasteful from a business POV since it is antithetical to walled gardens?
zem 3y ago
> the "not sharing my ban list is bannable" problem plagues the Fediverse i had to google around a bit to figure out what you meant by that. do you mean "server A blocks server B, you run server C and want to federate with B but if you do then A will block you too"? if so, that's not "empowering people to destroy your social graph", indeed, from A's point of view it's the only way they can contain a potential infection by posts from B. but as an end user you could easily have accounts on both A and B, and a client that merged them, you just can't use your server C to join A and B into the same graph when A does not want to be connected to B.

by qball 3y ago

crayboff 3y ago

> The answer is "both of them". Pick a client that makes it the easiest to connect to separate instances on separate accounts, then choose the same-ish username. That actually reveals even more complexity: having to understand what federation is, researching and experimenting with clients, how to find different communities across the fediverse. Each added complexity cuts how many people would be willing to make the switch

yareally 3y ago
I feel like there's a need for a client application that makes signing up and connecting to both appear to be unified network to the end user
- crayboff 3y ago
  Absolutely, the only way for these to take off is if you have a single place you direct people that makes the whole process braindead simple. Sign up has to be simple. Finding content has to be simple. Keeping updated has to be simple. The branding also has to be really welcoming as well.

tuchsen 3y ago

I can't verify this is true, but I've seen stuff pop up on Lemmy that Reddit accounts are getting banned for promoting Lemmy/Kbin/etc. Being resistant to unseen administrators destroying your social graph is literally a selling point of federation.

qball 3y ago
>Being resistant to unseen administrators destroying your social graph is literally a selling point of federation. And that "selling point" is grossly inaccurate. (Unless you make a separate account everywhere, which obviously defeats the entire point of federation.) ActivityPub implementations all suffer from the same "you're pre-emptively banned from subreddit X because you commented in subreddit Y" problem that Reddit currently has, but with cascading effect across half the network. Good for admin egos and power trips, bad for long-term usability and stability from the end user's perspective. As things of this nature have always been.

jeena 3y ago

For now my own solution has been to spin up my own Mastodon, PeerTube and Lemmy instance, and because I'm such a small one person instance I don't bother anyone and therefor nobody defederated me yet.

LexiMax 3y ago

> Federation is, fundamentally, an anti-feature that exists solely to create liabilities for the end user as, by design, it empowers people who should not be empowered to destroy your social graph arbitrarily. My Twitter-using friends have complained that their feeds have become a ghost town and has lost most of its utility as a social network in the past year. Part of the reason why people were so upset at Reddit is because of justified fears that it's going down the exact same path. I have seen countless people myopically and unjustly banned from most major social media sites. How are these things anything other than a destruction of a social graph? The thing is, this kind of vitriol isn't uncommon, and I've been trying to rack my brain trying to figure out what would cause such a reaction. Is it a misguided feeling of patronizing empathy for end-users? A distaste for the tech-enthusiast types that champion them? Or is it distasteful from a business POV since it is antithetical to walled gardens?

zem 3y ago

> the "not sharing my ban list is bannable" problem plagues the Fediverse i had to google around a bit to figure out what you meant by that. do you mean "server A blocks server B, you run server C and want to federate with B but if you do then A will block you too"? if so, that's not "empowering people to destroy your social graph", indeed, from A's point of view it's the only way they can contain a potential infection by posts from B. but as an end user you could easily have accounts on both A and B, and a client that merged them, you just can't use your server C to join A and B into the same graph when A does not want to be connected to B.