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Yeah, I agree it all feels very disconnected. I think this problem extends to the communities on federated platforms too. Taking a look at the Reddit like feder

Yeah, I agree it all feels very disconnected. I think this problem extends to the communities on federated platforms too. Taking a look at the Reddit like federated alternative (lemmy), there's multiple instances of the same 'subreddit' on different servers. Makes it hard for everyone to gather. I think federated projects really look at federation as an add on to their platform, not a core feature. E-Mail did this well where everything was automatically federated by default (I.e you can send email from anywhere to anywhere for the most part) whereas some fediverse software, specifically lemmy, require that federation be enabled (and I believe you choose to federate with servers on a per-server basis). Where I work we're working on a solution to this where your identity remains sovereign between servers [1]. We currently have a Twitter-esque microblogging demo setup [2]. [1] https://gitlab.futo.org/polycentric/polycentric https://gitlab.futo.org/polycentric/polycentric [2] https://polycentric.io https://polycentric.io

lolinder 3y ago
The big problem with federation-by-default in the current incarnation of federated software (at least Lemmy, I'm less familiar with Mastodon) is that you will likely end up publicly hosting any content from instances that you choose to federate with. With email, it doesn't really matter if someone is using your email platform to spread controversial political ideas or using it to share pirated media or whatever, because you're not hosting it for the general public to consume. With the fediverse it's different. If I own fedifoo.app and allow my app to federate with neonazis.app or tankies.app, then eventually neonazi or tankie content will be accessible at fedifoo.app/c/unpleasantcommunity. I don't want that, so I defederate, but now the fediverse is fractured and "it doesn't really matter which instance you choose" is no longer true. Disabling federation by default helps protect new hosters from the unintended consequences of federation, which is good, but it leaves us starting out on a fractured footing.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  The solution to this is to have a unified namespace which is distinct from hosting. So then /c/unpleasantcommunity is only hosted by instances that choose to mirror it, but if anybody goes to /c/unpleasantcommunity and their default instance doesn't mirror it, it redirects to an instance that does. Then you don't have to host anything you don't want to but you still have a unified network.
  - nickorlow 3y ago
    Yeah, I also think having the option to censor communities in specific is a good way to do it. So you could just choose not to host /c/hatefulcommunity. I'd imagine blocklists and community reputation systems would be created much like what exists with e-mail.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      The generally right way to do this is to put actual censorship on the far side of impossible but give individuals good filtering tools. So then maybe your instance provides a default blocklist, but if something gets blocked, it isn't just silently invisible, it shows up as a collapsed comment that you can unfurl or a warning page that you can click through if you really want to. And if you don't agree with an entry your instance added by default, you can strike that one out and choose to always see it. The key is to never let anything like a central party impose censorship that can't be overruled by the user, but still allow them to filter out 99% of the crap by default.
      - nickorlow 3y ago
        Yeah, Polycentric lets server operators choose to censor individual posts or entire users. Your client can query anything that's censored from one server by querying it from another where the content was published. It's fairly easy to tell when a post is censored since each post has a logical clock per user that is incremented per post, so you can pick out any missing logical clock entries.
    - willi59549879 3y ago
      i quite like how censoring is done in the fediverse. there is no censoring but each user can chose to block content from showing up in the client. i don't like the idea of censoring. some authority decides what other people are allowed to see.
      - nickorlow 3y ago
        I like it in principal, but I think it's hard to keep up with spam in a manner like this.
- pdntspa 3y ago
  You can't censor content on a federated platform without fracturing that platform.
- z3t4 3y ago
  You can't login to Hotmail to read your Gmail email. You can however have an e-mail client that pull your mail from both.
tuukkah 3y ago
All I get from polycentric.io is "Please add Polycentric to your home screen" (Android browsers call it installing) - even after I added it to my home screen (Firefox on Android). Works on Chrome though.
- nickorlow 3y ago
  We'll look into it. Thanks for checking it out
  - vGPU 3y ago
    Same on safari on iOS 17.
  - nxtw0223 3y ago
    Both current Firefox for Android and Safari 17 (Beta) have a bug where display-mode: standalone doesn’t return true when running standalone, that’s probably what’s broken.
    - tuukkah 3y ago
      Perhaps a safer way is to use a different url (parameter) for the standalone mode.
- activiation 3y ago
  It somewhat works if you tell Firefox to get Desktop Site... But they also broke the back button
  - tuukkah 3y ago
    Wow, that's odd.
postpawl 3y ago
There’s an open issue on Lemmy’s GitHub about making it easier to combine multiple communities on separate instances: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/818 https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/818 Seems like something they’re thinking about solving.
ktosobcy 3y ago
But email is the same as xmpp or DMs on "social media" - you can comunícate with various instances. the problem arise with groups (so mailing list, multi user chat or "communities") - in case of email you have mailing list which is not federated and is tied to particular server / address... same issue so it wasn't exactly solved. it's just it's used slightly differently.

lolinder 3y ago

The big problem with federation-by-default in the current incarnation of federated software (at least Lemmy, I'm less familiar with Mastodon) is that you will likely end up publicly hosting any content from instances that you choose to federate with. With email, it doesn't really matter if someone is using your email platform to spread controversial political ideas or using it to share pirated media or whatever, because you're not hosting it for the general public to consume. With the fediverse it's different. If I own fedifoo.app and allow my app to federate with neonazis.app or tankies.app, then eventually neonazi or tankie content will be accessible at fedifoo.app/c/unpleasantcommunity. I don't want that, so I defederate, but now the fediverse is fractured and "it doesn't really matter which instance you choose" is no longer true. Disabling federation by default helps protect new hosters from the unintended consequences of federation, which is good, but it leaves us starting out on a fractured footing.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
The solution to this is to have a unified namespace which is distinct from hosting. So then /c/unpleasantcommunity is only hosted by instances that choose to mirror it, but if anybody goes to /c/unpleasantcommunity and their default instance doesn't mirror it, it redirects to an instance that does. Then you don't have to host anything you don't want to but you still have a unified network.
- nickorlow 3y ago
  Yeah, I also think having the option to censor communities in specific is a good way to do it. So you could just choose not to host /c/hatefulcommunity. I'd imagine blocklists and community reputation systems would be created much like what exists with e-mail.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    The generally right way to do this is to put actual censorship on the far side of impossible but give individuals good filtering tools. So then maybe your instance provides a default blocklist, but if something gets blocked, it isn't just silently invisible, it shows up as a collapsed comment that you can unfurl or a warning page that you can click through if you really want to. And if you don't agree with an entry your instance added by default, you can strike that one out and choose to always see it. The key is to never let anything like a central party impose censorship that can't be overruled by the user, but still allow them to filter out 99% of the crap by default.
    - nickorlow 3y ago
      Yeah, Polycentric lets server operators choose to censor individual posts or entire users. Your client can query anything that's censored from one server by querying it from another where the content was published. It's fairly easy to tell when a post is censored since each post has a logical clock per user that is incremented per post, so you can pick out any missing logical clock entries.
  - willi59549879 3y ago
    i quite like how censoring is done in the fediverse. there is no censoring but each user can chose to block content from showing up in the client. i don't like the idea of censoring. some authority decides what other people are allowed to see.
    - nickorlow 3y ago
      I like it in principal, but I think it's hard to keep up with spam in a manner like this.
pdntspa 3y ago
You can't censor content on a federated platform without fracturing that platform.
z3t4 3y ago
You can't login to Hotmail to read your Gmail email. You can however have an e-mail client that pull your mail from both.

tuukkah 3y ago

All I get from polycentric.io is "Please add Polycentric to your home screen" (Android browsers call it installing) - even after I added it to my home screen (Firefox on Android). Works on Chrome though.

nickorlow 3y ago
We'll look into it. Thanks for checking it out
- vGPU 3y ago
  Same on safari on iOS 17.
- nxtw0223 3y ago
  Both current Firefox for Android and Safari 17 (Beta) have a bug where display-mode: standalone doesn’t return true when running standalone, that’s probably what’s broken.
  - tuukkah 3y ago
    Perhaps a safer way is to use a different url (parameter) for the standalone mode.
activiation 3y ago
It somewhat works if you tell Firefox to get Desktop Site... But they also broke the back button
- tuukkah 3y ago
  Wow, that's odd.

postpawl 3y ago

There’s an open issue on Lemmy’s GitHub about making it easier to combine multiple communities on separate instances: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/818 https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/818 Seems like something they’re thinking about solving.

ktosobcy 3y ago

But email is the same as xmpp or DMs on "social media" - you can comunícate with various instances. the problem arise with groups (so mailing list, multi user chat or "communities") - in case of email you have mailing list which is not federated and is tied to particular server / address... same issue so it wasn't exactly solved. it's just it's used slightly differently.