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1) clients solve this, but also there are web extensions that solve this. I think this could actually be fixable with the current stack. (I use 'Graze for Masto

1) clients solve this, but also there are web extensions that solve this. I think this could actually be fixable with the current stack. (I use 'Graze for Mastodon' on firefox) 2) Choose your 'neighborhood' wisely. Some of these smaller to mid sized mastodon instances, especially those who espouse strong free speech doctrines might get you banned from federating with some other instance because of the actions of one of your neighbors when the 'HOA' (your neighborhood admin) refuses to do anything about them. 3) This goes with #2, choose your neighborhood wisely. As you discuss in your postscript I am one of those who chose to run my own 'neighborhood', just for myself at this point but I could see opening the door to a couple of close friends. I've been running my own mail/web/etc services for many years now. I will say that the main mastodon software kinda sucks for this, it's built to scale somewhat and therefore sidekiq and redis and all the rest, and that kinda sucks. They have some docker options that make it a little less of a pain but I would love to see a more streamlined version or a fully api compatible piece of software that is cleaner to run (maybe compiled into binaries so i don't have to deal with ruby)...

shadowgovt 3y ago
Twitter doesn't require the user to either use a custom client or a web extension. When you require either for an improved user experience, you can chop N% of potential users off your projections. Neither Twitter nor Facebook require you to choose a 'neighborhood.' It's all one tent. Having to build a red-string map of relationships to pick one is a real chore and a turn-off for potential users. Chop another N% off the projections. That having been said... It's entirely possible that all of that is fine! We don't need every user on the planet; this isn't a VC-driven startup idea, we don't need unlimited growth to make a stock market and some money-suits happy. And the things 1, 2, and 3 give users have value (privacy and anonymity, the ability to choose who you trust with your private information while still using the service, and not being obligated to rub elbows with Nazis because either daddy Musk or papa Zuckerberg have either not noticed they're Nazis or they've chosen not to care, because, hey, Nazis are part of that X% of total possible users too). Of all of them, (1) is the only one where I feel some change to the infrastructure of the web might be worth discussing. It would have to be done very carefully to preserve user privacy and anonymity, but I think a case can be made that the current domain-centric security model actually makes for soft incentive to centralize services (fewer auth bridges to build), which may not actually be a categorical good for the overall health and future of the web as a technology. Maybe we should expand the client-side trust model to allow for trusting a federation (in a way better than the [related website sets](https://developer.chrome.com/docs/privacy-sandbox/related-website-sets/ https://developer.chrome.com/docs/privacy-sandbox/related-we...) proposal, which in fact hyper-centralizes the understanding of trust behind the browser's control and is basically a way for the FAANG sites to link together their user experience across YouTube, Google, Blogger, et. al. without a lot of complicated server-side state passing).
- sleepybrett 3y ago
  Twitter does require you to deal with a bunch of fucking white power and libertarian assholes though so ... i'll take the tradeoff.

shadowgovt 3y ago

Twitter doesn't require the user to either use a custom client or a web extension. When you require either for an improved user experience, you can chop N% of potential users off your projections. Neither Twitter nor Facebook require you to choose a 'neighborhood.' It's all one tent. Having to build a red-string map of relationships to pick one is a real chore and a turn-off for potential users. Chop another N% off the projections. That having been said... It's entirely possible that all of that is fine! We don't need every user on the planet; this isn't a VC-driven startup idea, we don't need unlimited growth to make a stock market and some money-suits happy. And the things 1, 2, and 3 give users have value (privacy and anonymity, the ability to choose who you trust with your private information while still using the service, and not being obligated to rub elbows with Nazis because either daddy Musk or papa Zuckerberg have either not noticed they're Nazis or they've chosen not to care, because, hey, Nazis are part of that X% of total possible users too). Of all of them, (1) is the only one where I feel some change to the infrastructure of the web might be worth discussing. It would have to be done very carefully to preserve user privacy and anonymity, but I think a case can be made that the current domain-centric security model actually makes for soft incentive to centralize services (fewer auth bridges to build), which may not actually be a categorical good for the overall health and future of the web as a technology. Maybe we should expand the client-side trust model to allow for trusting a federation (in a way better than the [related website sets](https://developer.chrome.com/docs/privacy-sandbox/related-website-sets/ https://developer.chrome.com/docs/privacy-sandbox/related-we...) proposal, which in fact hyper-centralizes the understanding of trust behind the browser's control and is basically a way for the FAANG sites to link together their user experience across YouTube, Google, Blogger, et. al. without a lot of complicated server-side state passing).

sleepybrett 3y ago
Twitter does require you to deal with a bunch of fucking white power and libertarian assholes though so ... i'll take the tradeoff.