4 ms·
This feels like a decent idea that will never actually work (or matter) for most people, kind of like self-signed PGP emails and such? They're solving an unrea
by jrm4 2y ago
This feels like a decent idea that will never actually work (or matter) for most people, kind of like self-signed PGP emails and such?
They're solving an unreal problem that can be solved by "human trust" in a Mastodon-like system. Like, hey everyone, I'm no longer joebob@bluemastodon, I'm joebob@purplemastodon.
- mperham 2y agoAnd in fact, Mastodon has a mechanism to migrate your account between servers. It has serious limitations (your posts don't follow you, followers do) but it's the best they can do within the AP spec.
- wizzwizz4 2y agoThose limitations are due to the Mastodon software, not the ActivityPub protocol. ActivityPub provides a mechanism that can technically be used for both post and follower migration – not that I'd suggest using it for that – but Mastodon's account migration feature is something separate. There's no technical reason it couldn't support post migration, except that nobody's put the work (largely social) in to get it past Gargron and implemented.
- krapp 2y agoThe problem is, none of that is stopping anyone else from being joebob@greenmastodon unless you get there first.
- jrm4 2y agoThis is already an old-as-dirt, solved, if imperfectly, problem. See, e.g. steampowered.com
- cortesoft 2y agoAnd if someone else has created accounts for `joebob@<all the colors>mastodon`, what do you do? And what if they all start claiming to be the original joebob@bluemastodon?
- kstrauser 2y agoWhat if I register the email address cortesoft@gmail.com or cortesoft@outlook.com and claim to be the original? More broadly, there are lots of John Smiths in the world. Context is everything: the John Smith in my Bay Area office is different from the John Smith who makes the news in Boston.
- cortesoft 2y agoRight, but my point is that this is a problem that the AT protocol is trying to solve. You pointing out that it is a problem elsewhere is exactly the point; why not try to solve it? This is especially important for a federated system where individual servers may come and go, and you want to have the ability to move your account if the server goes down or starts doing something shady. Part of the reason people choose a centralized social media service is because they know their account will last and they can build a reputation. Unless you can move your account and maintain your reputation, a federated system won't have that trait.
- criddell 2y agoThe AT protocol is designed to fix this. If email ran on AT, you could take your cortesoft@gmail.com account and move it to Microsoft or even your own server.
- kstrauser 2y agoUnderstood, but... was that in dire need of fixing? We're all pretty acclimated to it over the decades we've used email. That isn't to say we can't or shouldn't improve things. It's more that I'm not convinced the problem here is important enough to justify the complexity of the solution.
- cortesoft 2y agoPeople have worked around this problem by choosing an account at a well known, long lasting, centralized service. This is why people have email accounts on gmail instead of a smaller provider; they know the email will last and they can maintain control of it. Same for twitter and facebook accounts. If the whole point is to get away from centralized services and move to a federated model, that problem needs to be solved.