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1. Flaky :blue_jay:​ (flaky@furry.engineer)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Dec-2023 15:13:02 JST Flaky :blue_jay:​

   It's funny how misinfo about fedi competitors get spread quite quickly because they don't care whether the info is actually right lol

   • Pawlicker (purpcat@clubcyberia.co)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Dec-2023 15:12:54 JST Pawlicker

     in reply to

     • 
     • arcanicanis
     • A* Ulven
     @arcanicanis @AlgorithmWolf @Flaky >Seeing all the responses to a post, versus the present ‘split-brain’ post discoverability: there’s an architectural reason that even if you have the server of the parent post track all the responses, that you couldn’t just have a remote server pull all the responses. Because even if the parent server lists all the known responses to a post (local and remote), that there’s no proof of authenticity for remote posts, thus every single remote reply would have to be re-queried. Think of hellthreads, and a sudden flood of +500 queries from just one server querying a thread, that’s obviously a bad idea.
     
     The problem with that is, it violates privacy according to the Signed/Authorized Fetch cartel. Unless you're willing to do what @mint does with a bunch of clever tricks for working around that, you're going to see the very real problem of "half the posts don't show up".
     
     Furthermore, Akkoma has it on by default, GoToSocial forces it IIRC, and anyone who runs those two stacks has issues federating which means that others are basically strong armed into implementing it because otherwise you'll find bugs like "THIS WON'T FEDERATE", etc.
     
     There are a lot of people who will break federation to chase the dragon of "nobody I don't like on my network", which Bluesky comes the closest to by being not that different from say Cohost as it is now.
      likes this.
   • arcanicanis (arcanicanis@were.social)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Dec-2023 15:12:55 JST arcanicanis

     in reply to

     • A* Ulven

     That reads a lot like the “Crypto/Web3 is going great” channels that are always circlejerking on sometimes incorrect information, just to have something to mock and reaffirm biases.

     Software can’t fix people, software can’t fix emotionally unstable admins, trying to consolidate everyone on one service (not implying that Bluesky is ‘forever a silo’ or anything) isn’t a solution either. The social problems that inhibit federated protocols and networks aren’t the problem, it’s the decay of moral standards and decorum that is the greater issue, because without that addressed you can’t have reliable federated networks. Even the internet itself is increasingly fracturing and becoming unreliable over social/political antics in recent years, like people pulling stunts on the continental internet backbone level, because they don’t like people being able to access content on a particular website. If you have protocol-level suggestions, I’d be glad to hear of ideas.

     You can’t have a mega-platform while also doing simultaneously doing gatekeeping to keep only “our guys” on it, just as especially of people ditching out from fedi just to escape “the Nazis”, when they’re only going to keep platform hopping on the next trigger they find.

     There’s been a handful of dissertations I’ve seen from others attesting to being some authority figure on the subject (regarding ActivityPub), that I strongly disagree with on the technical remarks of, that I want to get around to writing a response to at some point on a personal website.

     As for things that are being actively worked on and developed:

     Seeing all the responses to a post, versus the present ‘split-brain’ post discoverability: there’s an architectural reason that even if you have the server of the parent post track all the responses, that you couldn’t just have a remote server pull all the responses. Because even if the parent server lists all the known responses to a post (local and remote), that there’s no proof of authenticity for remote posts, thus every single remote reply would have to be re-queried. Think of hellthreads, and a sudden flood of +500 queries from just one server querying a thread, that’s obviously a bad idea.

     Thus, the solution to that is establishing a framework of ActivityPub object signing, of portable inline object signatures. Whereas: as long as the querying server has a cached copy of the actors in the thread, it can verify the authenticity of their posts mentioned in a ‘replies’ list on a discussion on another server, without having to directly query every single reply post from it’s respective originating server, as long as the whole object is in the ‘replies’ collection (not just the object IDs). There’s already extensions being experimented upon for object signing: https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/8b32/fep-8b32.md

     Then with object signing, as well as further extensions to cryptographically sign actors, and authenticating a key to represent an identity (e.g. FEP-c390), you can start to build an framework for portable objects and identities, such as recent proposed experiments of: https://codeberg.org/silverpill/feps/src/branch/main/ef61/fep-ef61.md

     It’s a patient process of formulating ideas and solutions to make something that works, rather than just dumping it all of it as a lost cause, and swapping over to some replacement that most people don’t even know the deep implementation technicals of yet (opposite of the notion “better the devil you know, than the devil you don’t”, or perhaps instead directly “the grass is always greener on the other side”). Some of it takes work and effort, but it’s absurd to just drop everything once the shortcomings are apparent: if there are shortcomings, you FIX them, you don’t just shrug it off and shuffle over to the next marketed gimmick.

   • A* Ulven (algorithmwolf@c.im)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Dec-2023 15:12:58 JST A* Ulven

     in reply to

     • arcanicanis

     @arcanicanis @Flaky There are a few shortcomings listed on https://t.me/fediverseisgoinggreat if you have Telegram.

     I'm not really interested in creating a dissertation right now, as you can imagine.

     The biggest flaws are cultural, and social, but enabled by poor technical controls and governance. But there are also severe technical issues.

   • arcanicanis (arcanicanis@were.social)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Dec-2023 15:12:59 JST arcanicanis

     in reply to

     • A* Ulven

     List the technical flaws then (and I don’t mean that in a sarcastic rhetorical tone).

   • A* Ulven (algorithmwolf@c.im)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Dec-2023 15:13:00 JST A* Ulven

     in reply to

     • arcanicanis

     @Flaky @arcanicanis it's funny how everyone is super quick to discredit Bluesky (funded by previous Twitter CEO, racism slider, whatever), but when someone points out the flaws of Fedi, they're told to:
     - Just use Twitter if you like it so much
     - Fedi isn't meant to be Twitter
     - Any possible flaw you can imagine is Good, Actually ™️
     - You are just using it wrong

     Or a myriad other excuses instead of working to address the problem...

   • Flaky :blue_jay:​ (flaky@furry.engineer)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Dec-2023 15:13:01 JST Flaky :blue_jay:​

     in reply to

     • arcanicanis

     @arcanicanis tbh I don't see as much misinfo about ActivityPub (or Mastodon even) from Bluesky, usually it's the other way around a lot more. On that end, people are just frustrated at the amount of friction it takes to join here while here they'll do anything to make fedi look better even though it has glaring flaws that made people move to Bluesky in the first place. I guess my issues are more cultural.

   • arcanicanis (arcanicanis@were.social)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Dec-2023 15:13:02 JST arcanicanis

     in reply to

     Well, it depends on what you’re referring to.

     There’s the promise that Bluesky will federate eventually, and there hasn’t been much indication of anything beyond whitelist-only federation that I’ve come across yet. Also they were boasting about having an ‘open protocol’ but yet there were significant disparities between their specification and what they had in production (even in a variety of light variations or typos of attribute names, etc).

     Are you sure you’re not mistaking the DNS aliases as federation? Because that’s like no different than someone thinking they “run a server” because they created a Discord guild (per the Discord’s misleading marketing).

     There’s also plenty of excuses and possibly ‘misinfo’ in their side as well regarding ActivityPub, of just making an excuse for making a whole separate protocol, where they initially hold federation exclusively to themselves for a period, so that they’ll always have a stronghold grasp on ‘their’ ATProto network (by user count and site age), and where development and direction on that network will be entirely dependent on whether the flagship instance bothers to ever support any third-party extensions to the protocol. It’s just as “decentralized” as the LBRY network of Odysee.

     Also, when you devise a protocol, you don’t just have one group make it, then it’s on everyone else to adopt it; you have two or more separate groups make their own implementations of it, to test if the standard is even sane, rather than just figure out and test interoperability later. It’s generally a prerequisite to most standards bodies for a reason.

     In regards of their remarks on ActivityPub: it’s operationally a meritocratic living standard; it’s not about what’s solely enshrined by the W3C nor how only one software (Mastodon) implements it, as their FAQ seems to imply their outlook on it. Also, majority of implementations just end up implementing it as plain JSON rather than full true JSON-LD support. There’s also no standard nor FEP that mandates double-at representation, that’s primarily a Mastodonism (more on the aspect of mandatory WebFinger resolution).

     Also the remark that identity and data portability as not being retrofittable to ActivityPub, yet there’s discussions and efforts with proposed FEPs to establish exactly that. I reasonably believe we’ll have ID/data portability in some ActivityPub implementations before the day that Bluesky is full open federation, built on much more matured codebases. Much of the complaints of ActivityPub are being resolved as a larger meritocratic group effort (by proving it with code and implementation), but users evidently want to throw out entirely everything, just to gravitate to the newest shiny Venture Capital funded start-up, learning absolutely nothing from ditching out from Twitter.

   • Pawlicker (purpcat@clubcyberia.co)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Dec-2023 15:14:17 JST Pawlicker

     in reply to

     • 
     • arcanicanis
     • Pawlicker
     • A* Ulven
     @arcanicanis @AlgorithmWolf @Flaky @mint The other elephant in the room here (har har mastodon pun) is that the fediverse is an open air containment site in the sense that nobody who isn't banned from Twitter (which you're banned for life if you are btw) sticks around.
     
     Who sticks around on fedi? The racist anime posters. The MAGA/Q boomers. The conspiracy schizos. The cunny posters. The "safe edgy" transgender and "dirtbag left" accounts who made too many jokes like H3H3's Vatican joke or NRA jokes (see videos for what I'm talking about, he ate a suspension for the second video btw). The pedophiles. They've all been given the banhammer from Twitter, Reddit, and more. They cannot go back if they try because they will be banned for ban evasion. There's also the paranoid /g/entoomen like P, but they're just too paranoid for Twitter.
     
     Anyone who can go back to Twitter always does because the interaction ratio is always higher, and there's a higher chance someone who craves being seen will be seen instead of competing on the patchwork of independent websites that might federate. Plus, the people you know use it and they won't be defederated.
      likes this.
   •  (mint@ryona.agency)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Dec-2023 15:16:18 JST 

     in reply to

     • arcanicanis
     • Pawlicker
     • A* Ulven
     @PurpCat @AlgorithmWolf @Flaky @arcanicanis I never had a twitter account in the first place. Tried making one to DM a question, got immediately locked out with a phone verification requirement, and it still sends spam to my mailbox without a way to unsubscribe from it without said phone.
   • A* Ulven (algorithmwolf@c.im)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Dec-2023 15:31:14 JST A* Ulven

     in reply to

     • arcanicanis

     @arcanicanis @Flaky initially I wasn't too sure what to make of this response but after carefully reading your (very long) posts on your profile, I see we are quite ideologically aligned in many respects. At a minimum, you also think large instances with abusive admins are extremely problematic, and (I believe you agree with me) Fediverse software enables harassment by giving emotionally unstable Fedi admins tools that are unnecessarily powerful for the job.

     I think a core criticism of Fedi in my opinion is that everyone is quick to compare it to email, the other large federated protocol.

     However, nobody has ever heard of a postmaster blocking an entire domain because a user in that domain has questionable ideologies (nazism et al). Blocking servers for spam happens all the time, and spam protection is built into the protocol through DMARC, DKIM, SPF and more. In the Fediverse, it's the exact opposite. The protocol is extremely easy to abuse, but the domain blocks tend to be ideologically motivated.

     I want the Fediverse to succeed, but I am also realistic, and I believe a massive cultural change needs to take place before Fedi gains any relevant adoption. And I also don't really believe this will happen anytime soon (or at all).

   • Pawlicker (purpcat@clubcyberia.co)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Dec-2023 15:31:14 JST Pawlicker

     in reply to

     • arcanicanis
     • A* Ulven
     @AlgorithmWolf @arcanicanis @Flaky
     >However, nobody has ever heard of a postmaster blocking an entire domain because a user in that domain has questionable ideologies (nazism et al). Blocking servers for spam happens all the time, and spam protection is built into the protocol through DMARC, DKIM, SPF and more. In the Fediverse, it's the exact opposite. The protocol is extremely easy to abuse, but the domain blocks tend to be ideologically motivated.
     
     We're only not there because TPTB have made it so the only way to easily host an e-mail server is to just spend money for the Google Suite (which your outsourced Indian IT guy will anyway). Otherwise it's a game of getting your e-mail server taken off the list. If e-mail was trendy for anyone under the age of 30 to self-host, you would see this too almost certainly.
     
     https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-twenty-three-years-i-have-thrown-in-the-towel-the-oligopoly-has-won.html
     
     I think the problem here is more of a culture issue. Big tech already has the mindset of The Good Censor and we all know that big tech companies have activist employees, but the truth is there also has to be a wrangler somewhere to keep them out of deeper shit, along with a well oiled PR machine.
     
     Most fedi instances are run by the Grafs or Are0hs of the world. They're run by some guy who wants to run it like his forum or Discord group, no matter if you like it or not. Someone I know avoided fedi for ages because instances would come and go or be run by bad admins, but the truth is you're not going to see the AOLs or Yahoos or MSNs of the world today setting up fedi instances for many reasons.
     
     A corporate run instance is either going to end up banning people to please the payment processing cartel, or it's going to end up in scandals thanks to an e-celeb doing something stupid among other things. Or it ends up like GMail and you end up having to jump through hoops to whitelist your server to avoid the "GMail users can't get emails" problem. Don't get me started on how the culture would be a monoculture like with Bluesky.
      likes this.
   • Pawlicker (purpcat@clubcyberia.co)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Dec-2023 15:32:37 JST Pawlicker

     in reply to

     • 
     • arcanicanis
     • A* Ulven
     @mint @AlgorithmWolf @Flaky @arcanicanis Which counts as well. If you can't make a Twitter account because of the phone bullshit, you inevitably end up here or BSky (which doesn't even verify emails LMAO, also I have 7 invites across 2 accounts and can't even give them away).
     
     The fedi isn't going to replace Twitter, and eventually you accept that because normies want to use "SNS" services for different reasons than we do.
      likes this.
   • re_l@ryona.agency's status on Wednesday, 06-Dec-2023 19:55:47 JST Re_L

     in reply to

     • 
     • arcanicanis
     • Pawlicker
     • A* Ulven
     @PurpCat @AlgorithmWolf @Flaky @mint @arcanicanis
     
     First of all you are forgetting the channers because a lot of them do not have mainstream social media accounts.
     >interaction ratio is always higher, and there's a higher chance someone who craves being seen will be seen
     Second, the vast majority of people are attention whores obsessed with status but this is not the kind of people you can have quality interactions with. It is the human relationship equivalent of slop.
     
     Fedi supports those that want the ability to see all posts by making their own instance.
     As for having an identity layer on top of it, what problem would that solve? When an instance goes down, people who had handles there make new ones and can then be identified by their friends and embed themselves in the network once again.
     Just like identity works irl, with national ID cards only being necessary when interacting with large corporations, the state, or when the state forces organizations to keep such lists.
      likes this.