Kichae
@Kichae@lemmy.ca
- Comment on A new way to describe the Fediverse and its opposition to Big Tech 18 hours ago:
the Fediverse may be missing a clear, cohesive narrative.
I think this is because it’s not a clear, cohesive place. Developers keep trying to make it look like centralized social media, but I don’t think that’s going to work in the end; it certainly isn’t working now. Trying to dress it up as something that it’s not, just because that thing is currently popular with the masses, does nothing but set us up for failure.
Mastodon is a second rate Twitter, Lemmy is a second rate Reddit, etc. The existing model of trying to make all of this look like one, single, central location is uncanny, and people notice that.
Lemmy’s got some good theming options, and the templates are there to do custom theming work. There’s the potential for some real website branding there, in that. But if you look at Mastodon, the biggest player in the game right now, the developers go out of their way to homogenize the Mastodon experience. Every Masto website looks fundamentally identical to all of the others. It’s doing everything it can to make it look like “Mastodon” is a place on the Internet, in the same way that “WordPress” is not.
And that’s a problem. ActivityPub doesn’t really support that fiction.
Some ideas have been floated around in the microblog space, and tested in some places. Having ‘Local’ be the default timeline has worked out pretty well on Catodon. Strong community theming has kept tenforward.social on topic, with most people there discussing Star Trek. The art-based Masto instances work well, and seem to be fairly sticky. But generic, general “Mastodon” is failing to inspire folks, and lacks the pop culture discussion that the general public wants. Journalists have bounced, due to audience engagement tapering off. Communities of colour keep getting chased off of the big instances.
Attempts to occupy the “general” space and branch out into niche interests aren’t working. The focus really needs to be shifted back in the other direction.
- Comment on some fediverse and open web thoughts 18 hours ago:
I’ve been arguing for over 2 years now that the actual value proposition of the fediverse is Community+. There are several Lemmy and Mastodon instances that are built around this – tenforward.social is a Star Trek themed and focused Mastodon site, where the vast majority of local chatter is focused on Star Trek, and startrek.website, beehaw.org, midwest.social, ttrpg.network, etc. are all community or interest focused Lemmy-based websites – and they all seem to actually work in that model. People aren’t signing up to the Star Trek Lemmy site to talk primarily about Call of Duty or American politics. They get their Star Trek community, and they can engage in those general interest discussions that are being hosted elsewhere, and everybody wins.
The key to growth, then, really is getting enough special interest and community websites up and running on the fediverse, and letting people discover the the power of being connected to people on other social media websites without having to sign up over there, too.
If Bluesky was using ActivityPub, there’d be no issue here right now. We’d all be able to get Community+Bluesky and be all the happier for it. But they’ve created their own system that’s prohibitively expensive for the average person to utilize without having a direct connection to Bluesky’s hardware, meaning the control forever remains in the hands of corporate interests and the rich. And that’s just a play at being the next Amazon. We’re either locked out, or we’re under their thumb. And that’s not really where any of us who are engaged with this fediverse project wanted to be.
- Comment on What is the difference between lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works? 23 hours ago:
It also points to what the best use of a federated content sharing network is, and it’s not “create something that looks like it has unfettered access to some canonical whole”. It’s small networks of users with related interests having the majority of their discussions with each other, while also being able to pull content from other interest groups they may be interested in.
Like, a… to re-use a random example I pulled out of my ass in some other thread… Mazda enthusiast forum, where most people are talking about their Mazdas, but also one person’s really into the New York Yankees, and another also cares about their Dodge truck. The usage case is 80% local discussion, 20% off-site.
The currently attempted model is “everything is general interest, and you have to search for your niche, and it could be anywhere”, because that’s how it works on Twitter, or even on Reddit (subreddit squatting, subreddit splits, and early millennial internet humour come to mind). But it’s all being done to disguise what the fediverse is, and make it look like what already exists, rather than trying to usher in something different. And it just… can’t compete that way.
- Comment on Bluesky, decentralisation, and the distribution of 23 hours ago:
Do the volunteers want people to use what they make?
Because, I’ll be honest, based on how people on the fediverse talk about people coming from Twitter or Reddit or wherever, I’m not convinced that they do. Rather, they just want to pat themselves on the back for being high minded developers.
- Comment on Bluesky, decentralisation, and the distribution of 23 hours ago:
Everybody on Reddit is praising all the moderation capabilities of Bluesky
Bluesky is an unmoderated space. People don’t seem to know what “moderation” is anymore. It’s not the ability for end users to block other end users.
block lists and starter packs
This is a bigger issue than it seems, because the people building and using the fediverse care very strongly about things like trust and consent, and so discussions around stuff like this get stifled.
It’s not a technological issue with Mastodon. It’s a social one, with the fediverse at large. The place is swarming with people who will openly attack you for making the place more comfortable to less technically adept users, because they themselves were bullied off of Twitter.
Like, this is the real issue the fediverse can’t get traction. People will overcome other hurdles, and develop work arounds for other limitations. But being treated as unwelcome tourists by the people who are already here? No, they won’t do that.
The way you can verify your user by using your own domain as a handle.
This is a core feature of the fediverse. Run your own server, use your own domain. And mastodon offers secondary validation by adding an ID string to your website that it can check and verify.
- Comment on What is the difference between lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works? 1 day ago:
I feel as if it runs against the concept of federation itself.
So, you believe that operating a website using Lemmy obligates you to host content from other sites that you don’t want to have a relationship with?
Because the concept of ‘federation’ does not come with the expectation that you abandon editorial control over what you host. That’s an expectation you’re projecting on it.
- Comment on What is the difference between lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works? 1 day ago:
we all get the same content anyways, aside from defederation?
We don’t, though. We get whatever content people on our chosen instance have subscribed to. Even without blanket server bans, there are Lemmy-based websites that your host has never heard of, hosting content you do not have access to. Someone from your server has to introduce those sites, and subscribe to the communities on those sites, for your server to have their content.
The fediverse is subscription based. Shit doesn’t get sent around unless it’s specifically asked for.
- Comment on Mastodon's federation consistency is laughably bad. 1 day ago:
You’ve misidentified how a decentralized, federated network of content sharing works. Like many, many people, you seem to have conceptualized it as a hub-and-spoke model, with a centralized data store and remote terminals.
But it’s actually a subscription-based mesh network, where each update is only sent to places that have specifically requested it. Importantly, at the moment at least, things are not forwarded along to other servers due to secondary contact. If someone on my site (A) subscribes to you (B), and someone on a third website © comments on something you posted, if nobody on my website subscribes to C, C does not send that comment to my website, and your website does not forward it along, either.
There’s some buzz about forwarding replies and stuff like that possibly getting worked out. But even then, being on the fediverse means making peace with the idea that there’s no single source of truth for the whole network. You won’t see it all, ever. And it’s likely, and possibly even desirable, that the network splinters into loosely connected islands. But that can’t happen if what people keep demanding is a centralized service with a single benevolent dictator. And the single dictator will stop being benevolent at some point.
They always do.
- Comment on Is there any truth to this? 1 day ago:
I mean, it’s still going to be years. But maybe when it happens, it won’t be so damn sticky next time.
- Comment on Mastodon's federation consistency is laughably bad. 1 day ago:
User-level moderation isn’t moderation. It’s a downloading of responsibilities onto the user, but it’s not moderation. It’s the opposite of moderation.
- Comment on Mastodon's federation consistency is laughably bad. 1 day ago:
Yeah, block list sharing is something that has to come to the fediverse, and it needs to be platform agnostic.
- Comment on Reminder for all Lemmy moderators and admins. 1 day ago:
Umm, it’s November, and in Canada. Is it ok if I wait until April?
- Comment on Is there any truth to this? 1 day ago:
For a lot of Twitter users, this is their first collapse and migration. Usually these events make people more mobile in the future.
I wonder if and when they’ll start moving on from Bluesky? What event will trigger it next time? How much the experience will have to fall apart before they pack up and move? My money is on ‘way less than last time’.
- Comment on Is there any truth to this? 2 days ago:
The trolls and fascists do not exist on Twitter to hang out with other trolls and fascists. They’re there hunting for liberal tears. When their prey leaves, they follow.
Bluekky has been open about not moderating their platform. They’ve provided users tools to not see the shit they’re letting through the door – which, yes, is currently better than Twitter, where the current ownership believes that ‘free speech’ is deserving of a captive audience – but if the bsky algorithm thinks you have something – anything, really – in common with the Nazis, they’ll get shunted into your timeline, leaving you to play wack-a-mole.
- Comment on Mastodon sees a boost from the 'X exodus,' too, founder says 2 days ago:
People just very badly want to not know about other fediverse platforms for some reason.
- Comment on Weekends were a mistake, says Infosys co-founder Narayama Murthy 2 days ago:
And sitting on the couch with their dicks in their hands is “hard work” for them, but it’s just jerking off for the rest of us. These assholes consider themselves working when they sleep, because them being rested is “good for the business”.
- Comment on First Look: Loops, by Pixelfed 2 days ago:
It’s best use case is self-hosting by established creators funded primarily by patreon subscribers, rather than new creators. But established creators won’t abandon the platform with their viewers. So, it’s a bit of a jam.
Fediverse platforms also just seem terribly uninterested in supporting creatives’ business models, so we get a high minded desert.
- Comment on Niche Communities won't be able to reach their true potential until lemmy adds a sort that takes engagement into account. 3 days ago:
Yeah, but you are still treating them as subsets of a singular whole.
Don’t do that.
- Comment on Niche Communities won't be able to reach their true potential until lemmy adds a sort that takes engagement into account. 3 days ago:
This sounds like the sort of thing that’s best solved with a ‘favourite’ option that pushes posts from favourited communities to the top of the feed. No need to get in there and over-complicate it with bespoke weightings or anything.
- Comment on Niche Communities won't be able to reach their true potential until lemmy adds a sort that takes engagement into account. 3 days ago:
The “duplicate” communities are housed on different websites. Websites that could very well have their own norms, rules, and culture. Lumping them together and treating them as the same thing is just kind of invasive to them, and promotes bad netiquette.
Just pick one that you like best.
- Comment on Niche Communities won't be able to reach their true potential until lemmy adds a sort that takes engagement into account. 3 days ago:
- Comment on Niche Communities won't be able to reach their true potential until lemmy adds a sort that takes engagement into account. 3 days ago:
Blackbox echo chamber generators really should be avoided. They add to the angst and anger of the Internet, and of society.
Community search could be improved. And people should learn to actually use it, rather than being spoon fed whatever some programmer they’ve never met thinks they should eat based on the last 3 things they clicked on.
- Comment on Why are people preferring Blue Sky over Mastodon? 3 days ago:
Yeah, turns out weird, hostile, anti-social nerds are weird, hostile, and anti-social, and they probably ruined our best shot at freeing the web from VC backed corporate control of communication.
- Comment on Why are people preferring Blue Sky over Mastodon? 3 days ago:
I’ve read from Misskey/Forkey users that Misskey and the Forkeys actually have an easier-to-use Web UI than Mastodon
The *keys have a UI that has a similar design language to Twitter, but a fairly different layout. I think it’s close enough that people would recognize it as “Twitter, but different”, vs Mastodon’s “Twitter, but archaic, and also different, and therefore confusing”.
The *keys also had many of the features that Twitter migrants complained were lacking from Mastodon. But trying to talk to anyone on Mastodon about platforms that aren’t Mastodon was a total non-starter. Mastodon is a giant Mastodon circle jerk.
It made my soul sad.
But the real issue with Mastodon is that it has a significant population of people who believe it’s a sacrosanct cultural space, and that are very vocal about telling anyone coming into it that they need to learn the local customs or GTFO. The push-and-pull between “we want to be mainstream” and also “fuck the mainstream normies” is palpable, and super cringey, and it turns people away quickly.
- Comment on Something I do to help integrate new mastodonians. 3 days ago:
Thing is, one thing people want out of a microblogging experience is the validation of followers. If it was all about the hashtags, they’d be on Reddit or Lemmy, not Twitter and Mastodon.
- Comment on Bluesky, the Fediverse, and the future of social media 3 days ago:
The average user is hopping from phone app to phone app, following their favourite interner celebrity. They don’t care about the rest.
Meanwhile, VC backed businesses can buy internet celebrities, and on the cheap.
- Comment on Bluesky, the Fediverse, and the future of social media 3 days ago:
Can you come up with more examples? Because you’re coming across as “this happened to me, personally, once, therefore it’s run amok!”
No one is saying that defederation doesn’t happen. They’re saying it’s not the norm. And hexbear isn’t the norm, any more than lemmygrad, or poa.st are.
- Comment on Why BlueSky Isn’t the Alternative to X (Formerly Twitter) You’re Looking For — and Why Mastodon Is the Better Choice Over X, Threads, and BlueSky 4 days ago:
I mean, it’s a network of indeoendent websites. I’m not sure what kind of solution to this people want.
People seem to be able to choose which wrbsite they’re signing up for when looking at Twitter, BlueSky, and Threads. It’s not like it’t that weird of an idea.
They even grok the idea that different Wordpress-based websites are different from each other!
Maybe if we stopped treating “Mastodon” as a space, and talked about it like the webhost software it is, people would understand.
- Comment on Why BlueSky Isn’t the Alternative to X (Formerly Twitter) You’re Looking For — and Why Mastodon Is the Better Choice Over X, Threads, and BlueSky 4 days ago:
The fact that the fediverse has been mentally limited to “Mastodon and Lemmy” is so sad. The features many people complained weren’t on Mastodon were right there on Akkoma, Misskey, Friendica, Hometown, and others. But nobody would even look at them.
Even on the fediverse nobody wants to discuss the sea of alternative services.
- Comment on Why BlueSky Isn’t the Alternative to X (Formerly Twitter) You’re Looking For — and Why Mastodon Is the Better Choice Over X, Threads, and BlueSky 4 days ago:
There’s a lot of that. A ton of FOSS software is somewhat exclusionary because it’s made for the people who make it.
But a lot of the UX issues on Mastodon have nothing to do with the tech, nor the UI. They’re social in nature.The existing userbase skews technical, which affects what people discuss, and people looking for help are met with a deluge of tech savy people giving tech savy advice.
Oh, and there’s the mass of very vocal users on niche sites that have strong feelings about having their niche safe space invaded by “normies”, and who let it be known that new users should learn and adhere to “the rules” and respect the unlisted, unagreed upon nettiquite of social outcast “progressive” fedi or GTFO.
And then, on top of the social, there’s just the fact that most Internet users don’t really grok the Internet these days. Twitter or BlueSky aren’t websites to them/ they’re “apps”. The very nature of federation on the Fediverse runs counter to how they understand how thir “apps” work.
They don’t want to have to know about it, but they can’t avoid people talking about it, making judgements around it, and having to confront it when edge cases crop up or when admins decide they don’t like or trust the new crop of fedi websites that have sprung up this month or last.
On Twiiter or BlueSky, they don’t have to think about any of it.