Comment on Plebbit is a peer-to-peer Reddit alternative that allows you to self host and own your own community
Boomkop3@reddthat.com 5 days agoNo, it does not “seem”, it explicitly states.
A hash table is a way of storing data, I suppose you could call it a very primitive database. But that’s not the common usage of the word database. Hash tables are used in database indexes, hence why I called it “reinventing the wheel”.
The naming system is still a central part of any network, even if decentralized in design. So it will need some sort or central moderation.
One issue with ens though, is that the control over it is more centralized than dns. But without regulation, it’s worse than the existing solution.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
I haven’t used the service or reviewed the code, I’ve only read the whitepaper and read the website. Early stage projects like this have a habit of stating this things that aren’t yet true, hence the uncertainty.
It sounds like you’re limiting your definition of “database” to relationship databases, there are a lot of other types of databases out there. The most common use case for Redis, for example, is as a key value store, and a hash table would be a perfect way to implement that. I’ve used
redbin this project, which is a disk based key value database.Sure, but DNS systems are authoritative, meaning there’s only one right answer to a given query. This requires synchronization across the network, which creates a ton of complexity.
If we can avoid that synchronization, the design gets a lot simpler, which makes it more robust. In my design, I’m specifically avoiding mandatory deletes and updates, so the only operations my “database” needs to support are creates and reads. Communities are just topics you can post to, and moderation is just client-side filtering. The tricky part is getting the client side filtering good enough to not give spammers and trolls too much visibility.
Some nice parts about this:
Boomkop3@reddthat.com 5 days ago
Let’s hope it’s not true yet or ever. Did you mean relational? And no, that’s not what I said.
The current dns system works, and has it’s flaws. But ens is not an improvement, it’s worse.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
Yes, relational. Stupid auto correct…
And I’m not arguing for or against DNS vs ENS, I’m saying that whole concept is an unnecessary centralization for something that could be implemented without it at all. The only technical reason something like Reddit would need an authoritative answer for name resolution is for moderation (i.e. elevated privileges), so you can verify that you’re getting authoritative moderation.
If you can do distributed moderation, you get a lot of nice flexibility and resiliency. That’s what I’m interested in exploring, and my main criticism of Plebbit. If I take Plebbit to a region that blocks ENS or sending packets to the owner, I can’t use the service, which to me means it’s not truly decentralized. If I take my system there, I can keep using it with locals there provided I find a relay behind that firewall, and I can sync up with my usual peers later. The only hosting needed for my service is a relay to connect nodes, and someone needs to provide storage space on their client. That’s it, and relays are cheap.
Boomkop3@reddthat.com 5 days ago
Without names you wouldn’t have… names though? We’re still dealing with humans in the end, we like names