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Fediverse @lemmy.world
Znatley @torishiro.com

The Problem with the Fediverse

The Problem with the Fediverse

I have no issues with the way it is implemented, I have no issues with it at all. For context, I left Twitter to join the Fedi, and it has been great so far! I use Misskey for microblogging, PeerTube for uploading videos, and Lemmy for Reddit-style discussions. The Fediverse is amazing!

Except, idk, for the fact that it is too fragmented? I hope I am using the right words. Like, the current instance I am on does not have support for communities, so i have to do it the hard way and mention @fediverse@lemmy.world so that I can post here. It's a good workaround, considering it doesn't have built-in support for communities.
But my point still stands. It's not a Lemmy/PieFed problem. It's mostly a fediverse problem. Implementing communities for every platform would help the Fediverse. Not only does it solve discoverability/algorithm issues of the Fediverse (since now when you follow a community, you get all posts from that community), but also it would interconnect every platform (Misskey, PeerTube, Mastodon, etc.)

Imagine you don't have to use your Lemmy account to check everything on Lemmy. Instead of creating channels in PeerTube, just post to an existing channel/community, and people subscribed to that channel/community can find you easily. I see this as an absolute win for everyone.

I understand this would require collaboration between all developers of all software. But hopefully, this is possible?
Or am I asking for too much?

If I am wrong, then is there any way in which we can solve this issue?

fediverse #problems #fediverseproblems

68 comments

  • The developers of Fedi software have different philosophies. Some developers are just not interested in implementing and supporting all kinds of AP actors, kinds of media, ways of attaching media etc. Because they want their software to focus on a certain thing.

    Others want to implement everything and interconnect with every platform.

    • @Microw@piefed.zip i understand and respect that in every sense. However, i think i made my point. Idk about other softwares, but Misskey has been dabbling around with "Channels" for a while, but the thing is, they're not federated to this day.
      Hopefully they work more on this.
      @fediverse@lemmy.world

  • Mbin has support for both microblogging and communities (so Twitter and Reddit like): https://fedia.io/ Maybe that's something that can interest you.

    It doesn't seem too popular, probably because the Twitter and Reddit crowd always had a limited overlap.

  • I really don't mind having a separate account for Lemmy and Mastodon. It's not pleasant to force different types of content into different website formats, even if the implementation is "ideal".

    That said, I am surprised Misskey doesn't allow you to follow @fediverse@lemmy.world as you would follow a user, Mastodon allows this (it's not as good as viewing inside Lemmy but it does work).

  • Implementing communities for every platform would help the Fediverse

    From Evan Prodromou, co-author of ActivityPub: The Fediverse should be more like the Facebook Platform (lots of client apps using the same social graph) rather than the Apple App Store (a bunch of one-feature apps that have to bootstrap their own social network each time).

    The issue here is that most developers and users are still thinking in terms of the siloed networks. We don't need "multiple, separate platforms". We need to get rid of the platforms! We need to build our tools around protocols.

    The WWW was incredibly successful because anyone could whip up some HTML and publish a webpage. The "protocol" of structured text alongside with links was simple to understand, any browser could do it. The Social Web should work the same.

    • @rglullis@communick.news for some reason, i disagree with you. A LOT OF developers have different visions for their software. I think the fediverse is in a good place at this point. I just feel like communities need to be federated everywhere...

      • It looks like that first you need to be able to better articulate what do you mean "federating everywhere", because I can follow a Lemmy community from Mastodon just fine, and you seem to be on Misskey, and we are communicating just fine.

        IOW, "federation" is already working.

        Perhaps you just mean that you want the UX from misskey to change depending on the source? And you are proposing that this should be done to all software?

  • If you will allow me to respectfully disagree, the mere fact that you can make this post at all is evidence against what you are saying, no?

    e.g. Reddit has "posts", which may have links to "YouTube" or "Wikipedia", or to "Tiktok" or "Instagram", or "Facebook" or "LinkedIn", etc. - each of those requires a different account (the former three at least allow anonymous viewing, the middle two make it extremely difficult but it can be done if someone has a link to a specific item of content, while iirc the latter two mandate having an account to view the content at all).

    Within each component of the Fediverse, it seems connected to a very high degree? e.g. the one we are discussing this on here now is the Threadiverse, which can be read, interacted with (voted, saved, links sent to) and commented on by people with accounts on any instance running Lemmy, Mbin, or Piefed (among Threadiverse software platforms I have also heard of nodeBB and flarum but I do not know what the current status is of their ActivityPub protocol integration). This level of interactivity is high.

    And beyond that, you can interact with it via Mastodon, Misskey, Friendica, etc. Granted, this level of interactivity is much lower... but at least it exists? So it is high compared to not being able to interact with it, if that makes sense? A better phrasing might be that something is better than nothing?

    And with effort put in by people donating their time & energies & attention & skills, it will improve. e.g. I am writing this to you from PieFed where new features are added practically every week (in fact it is nowhere close to being uncommon to see changes every other day). So what you are asking - it is happening, right in front of our very eyes! It might just seem slow to someone more used to "capitalistic" rather than socialist endeavors because it is not backed by corporate money that would seek a return on their initial investment, e.g. by selling user data, and instead requires the donations (especially of effort and skill, but money works too!) of individual people.

    • @OpenStars@piefed.social @fediverse@lemmy.world if you told me this about 2 minutes ago, i probably wouldve disagreed with you. But, seeing yalls responses, i realise that im asking for a ginormous favour from all developers. Id just make my own software instead of complaining about all of the devs hard word to keep everything interconnected whilst not overwhelming the users with every feature under the sun.

      You have proved yourself to be right. The mere fact that every platform is interconnected means that we are actually... connected!

      Its not perfect, but thats not a reason for me to just take a back seat and watch and complain.

      Id really like to see this grow to become a great community. To make projects like this for the sheer fun and goodness of it, and not expecting money back. Now thats something to applaud for!

      • Diagnosing an issue, on a matter that you feel passionate about, is a first step towards finding a solution for it. So now that you are walking partway down this pathway, I hope that you continue - donate or help directly if that sounds fun to you! :)

        And welcome to the Fediverse:).

  • I think what will eventually happen is much like what happened to email, it too was very fragmented feeling early on but more and more adopted it and more servers kept developing and popping up and then at some point more service providers became more similar than alike and then it became what it is now.

    The tricky part is that the concept and usefulness of a federated network mostly only grows in the long run and looks like its not going anywhere in the short term much like email and that is always what makes people question its efficacy.

    Participation in any and all forms is what establishes it more and more.

  • @mkmusic well well well
    Why ask when you can contribute(we, I need to do a project for my portfolio aswell)
    What do you say? Next year??

  • I have an issue with Fediverse, Lemmy to be exact. The platform is allowing an outside tool that was built for a mod or admin of a community to see votes, how people vote, but it is being exploited by users to spy/dox/harass, gang-up, and use as a tool to exploit other users nefariously. The tool is called Lemvotes. You can access the portal here. Here is a quote from a user (go $fsck yourself @ lemmy.world) who exploits this sharing how to use it with other users;

    There’s a few ways of seeing votes. IMO they should be visible all the time. Moderators can see the votes of posts and comments in the subs they moderate. Admins can see all votes federated to their instance. Users have to use a separate tool for it. In this case I used Lemvotes.

    This tool, imo, should be banned, or the platform to be "patched" to only allow this to work for admins, not users who abuse it.

    • There is no such thing as a "vote" in ActivityPub/ActivityStreams. This idea of "up/down votes" is just an abstraction of a message saying "Actor A liked B", where B is an Post/Comment (and a post/comment itself just being an abstraction of ActivityStreams objects).

      That is to say: there is no way to selectively hide the content a message. If you want federation to work and you want people outside your own server to see your posts, then the server needs to broadcast the messages to anyone listening.

      Tools like lemvotes are just exposing this information. There is no point in trying to censor the tool, because this information is available publicly, and any motivated person will be able to track this information.

      If you are concerned about what people think of your "likes" and "dislikes", then do not use a public social media service and only communicate with provably secure communication tools.

    • I think this is less a problem of "nefarious bad actors" and more a problem of expectations. Honestly, I agree with the quoted comment: I think they should be visible all the time, like they already are on Mbin. I think it would help change the way people think about votes so that they don't expect Reddit-style anonymous votes and instead it's a more public Facebook/Twitter-style like system.

      If you really want private votes, Piefed has feature that lets you anonymize your votes, but a determined bad actor could still deanonymize you. I think it's better to change expectations than to try to massage a fundamentally public platform into having private votes, but it's good there's an option for people since it's so highly requested.

  • For me and the clients and fwiends I talk to the issue with the fediverse for them is the decentralised nature. Most of them are NOT tech inclined and the suggestion that they would have to choose a server and that choice will influence the experience is a deal breaker - pure and simple. To follow up then if they do join, the sheer lack of numbers baffles them and they quit

  • @fediverse@lemmy.world edit (since Misskey doesnt have an edit button): yk what, yall make good points. Ill just make my own software, combining Peertube+Lemmy+Misskey into one instance, maybs even Matrix... and if i cant, just not bother complaining then. Coz i understand not all devs have the same vision... i respect that, but till then, keep growing Fediverse, love yall regardless...

  • There are different platforms that serve different uses. Using a common protocol enhances development and growth, and the flexibility of the protocol lets developers build on it without reinventing the wheel.

    • @gedaliyah@lemmy.world honestly, yall are amazing, ive learnt so much from you all. Ill just build my own platform instead of being lazy and complaining about it...

      • I'm not sure you understood the point I was making. Multiple platforms exist on the fediverse. Interoperability is a nice plus but it's not the core feature of the protocol.

        Mastodon is strongest around microblogging because that's what it's built for. Lemmy is strongest for community discussions because that's what it's built for. There are options like mbin that do more to bridge the gap in different ways.

        Success of a platform is mostly centered around doing a particular thing very well. There is nothing stopping someone from making multiple accounts across multiple platforms (or even the same platform).

        I'd recommend trying to set up different accounts and see if you find one meets your criteria better.

  • so i have to do it the hard way and mention @fediverse@lemmy.world so that I can post here. It’s a good workaround, considering it doesn’t have built-in support for communities.

    That IS the built in support.

    If I am wrong, then is there any way in which we can solve this issue?

    Yes you are wrong, just keep doing it the way you just successfully did in this. That's the solution.

68 comments