@maegul@hachyderm.io
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

maegul

@maegul@hachyderm.io

A little bit of computing and a little bit of neuroscience.

he/him/they

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maegul, to random
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Huh ... this feels historically ominous ...

the next chess world championship (open) will be contested by an Indian and Chinese person.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/apr/22/indian-teenager-gukesh-dommaraju-becomes-youngest-challenger-for-world-chess-title

maegul, to random
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Just zooming out on this rant a bit (on whether federating blogs into mastodon is actually good or not) ...

I think the viability of a multi-paradigm social media ecosystem is still an unanswered question.

Has it actually happened (yet)?

The success of federation so far seems to be limited to community ownership and moderation within a single platform/paradigm (eg microblogs).

Multi-paradigm federation though still seems like a wild west though.

https://hachyderm.io/@maegul/112319245679533802

maegul, (edited ) to ghost
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

I think the and federations pose interesting questions about what platforms can and should be.

Do we actually want blogs and feeds of blogs folded into a mastodon/microblog social feed?

Do we want to read and comment on blogs on mastodon?

Do we want all the diversity of the fediverse fed into a single platform's UI and hope that it works well?

Are we worried that some choices by our platform or instance admin might hinder this process?

I'm rather skeptical.

1/

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

I feel like this might be mistakenly conflating the strength of the diversity of the fediverse with the convenience of using a single platform or UI for "everything".

I don't think the former necessitates the latter. Moreover, I suspect that the former is suppressed by the latter. Feeding blogs, groups and forums, microblogs, video+audio platforms etc all into a single twitter-like UI/platform ... seems like maybe a bad idea.

2/

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

The first thing it misses, I think, is that platforms naturally develop vibes and cultures and that many naturally learn to match a particular activity and persona to a particular platform/vibe.

Along those lines, it would completely make sense for people to be a bit silly and shitpost-y on mastodon and then more academic over on a blogging platform.

One could even argue that this isn't just natural but healthy, where more focused vibes create more coherent interaction.

3/

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Presuming that a platform is a suitable "master" UI for everything looks to break this utility of platforms and online "spaces".

Moreover, mistaking that a "master platform" is possible for the promise of the fediverse may very well be dangerous if people embrace it with enthusiasm and hype to then be disappointed at how it doesn't work well and then question the value of decentralisation.

And I think that's important because federation doesn't guarantee a good UI. Probably the opposite.

4/

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

We've seen this already with the integration between the threadiverse (lemmy etc) and mastodon/microblogs.

It basically sucks because the platforms are fundamentally incompatible despite how close the protocol brings them together.

Incompatible platforms don't work together.

Federation and the protocol don't change that. People will just reroute around UI friction and basically ignore whatever federation is offering if its UI sucks. The lively app+frontend development indicates the same.

5/

maegul, (edited )
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Beyond having compatible UIs (which is tough if you're aiming for something relatively universal), there's then the issue of feed management.

The more that's pumped into your feed the more you need to filter and separate it out. That's a big UI challenge fediverse platforms don't seem up to either and which is generally tough. Not to mention that separate platforms or "spaces" actually become a feature here for helping one's feed management, as annoying as all the apps can be.

6/

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

So, is the promise of a diverse fediverse a pipe-dream? Are the platforms up to the challenge of integrating with all the others? Or are people happy with a single UI?

I think it's "no" to all three. Which means something is being missed here (this is new after all).

A similar conversation happened recently over on . It's a UI issue but at a system level and I'm not sure anyone has good solutions or is even thinking seriously about it.

7/

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

I fear this betrays the web2.0 origins of the fedi and may be short-sighted.

I don't think federating blogs into mastodon is going to be that great (hot take maybe). Too complex or confusing for many to manage and different platforms+accounts for different purposes is just natural/easy.

So ... why federate?

8/

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

I personally (and prob naively) look to the web browser's power to bring us the whole internet as an exemplar.

I think the fedi needs to be more about clients/apps than it is currently.

I think the magic of the fediverse's diversity doesn't materialise until it gets stitched together in the user's client ... and that we're still in an early phase of just laying out infrastructure in the cloud.

Federation is cool, but mostly just the beginning IMO.

9/9

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@Loukas
Cheers

I'm sure some enjoy the current system and make it work for them.

The risk here I think is that we're in a bit of "hype curve" moment and mistake some making it work for "it's a good system that many find useful".

I was prompted to write the thread by seeing some mention that they'd never seen blogs on mastodon before.

I think it'd be bad if down the track there's a "federation is kinda shit actually" moment because no one thought about UI issues.

Good polling could help?

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@Loukas

Sorry ... can't tell if that's sarcasm or not (which is ok by me either way)

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@mikedev

Which is all kinda part of my point.

For whatever reason, most simply didn't adopt these platforms.

And so there's a kind of lowest-common-denominator effect, where a feature doesn't actually exist on the fediverse unless the majority of users have access to it. Which is the sort of thing that disrupts widespread interop.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@Loukas

Cheers!

maegul, to random
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Ah ... hello "implicit update to a significant upgrade that introduces non-trivial to fix breaking changes, without any warnings or notifications, requiring github issue trawling to just make sure you're not going insane"-ness my old friend.

Seriously. Us users can be shit to devs a lot, but I will not ever the brazenness with which updates can be just dumped on us like we deserve the punishment or something.

ajsadauskas, to afl
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

Where to now for North?

Smashed by a fairly ordinary Hawthorn side, with some big injuries including Day, Lewis, Jiath, Wingard, and Breust.

The big question: Is the issue North's list? Or has the game gone past Clarko as a coach?

"Meanwhile, North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson concedes his side is still a long way off the pace after forecasting the match would be an indicator of where his rebuilding outfit sits in its development.

"He was left in no doubt and North has now lost 26 of 27 games since success in Clarkson's first two outings at the helm early last year."

https://www.afl.com.au/news/1113608

@afl

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@kiranc @ajsadauskas @afl

Didn't Malthouse openly attack the carlton management after he left by accusing them of not being willing to rebuild their list as much as they needed and being way too arrogant because they're carlton with 16 premierships?

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@kiranc @ajsadauskas @afl

ha ... checks out

maegul, to bluesky
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

People are actually on BlueSky

There's now a decent measurement of user numbers (https://bskycharts.edavis.dev/edavis.dev/bskycharts.edavis.dev/bsky_users_total.html) ...

They've got about 1.6M MAUs ...
& 0.8M Weekly unique users & 0.340M Daily.

That's not nothing!

Roughly double mastodon and 60% more than the whole fediverse (by MAUs, see fedidb.org).

Bluesky is quite "international" with large Japanese and Brazilian popltns, and there's real attrition happening IMO.

Still, let the protocol wars begin I suppose?

@fediverse

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@anderseknert @fediverse

LOL ... yea plenty right.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@anderseknert @fediverse

Fair (kinda the simple explanation why I'm anti-threads-federation).

While I'm no BlueSky-stan, the idea/promise of the system is a hybrid, which I think is generally worthwhile (especially while things like twitter and threads dominate) but also interesting.

How hybridised it becomes (and can become) is the question though with big outstanding questions.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@Loukas @fediverse

Comparatively, it's definitely a lot more into shitposting vibes, for sure.

I think their biggest problem right now is they don't have good community self-organising features (nor masto, but the boost culture corrects for that IMO), so those who want more serious sub-cultures aren't getting much footing (and may never).

Feeds are interesting but not very fruitful IMO and hashtags are new, so it's a bit flat community-wise there, and many users are "wait & see" I suspect.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@Loukas @fediverse

Agreed (and said the same myself)!

As I've said it ... alternative social has run its course in this post-musk-twitter moment. Everyone's settled down where they ended up.

And yea, either more major disruption or some new killer features (rather than clones of big social) will be needed to shake things up. Neither seem particularly likely in the short term ... your EU-meta smackdown is probably the best bet??

thomasfuchs, to random
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io avatar

Wish Apple would have spent the money wasted on the car and the VR stuff on a search engine that actually works

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@thomasfuchs

The “preparing for new platform wars when your competitors are just going to cede established territory on their own that will be relatively easy to pick up” trap … easy to miss.

deadsuperhero, to random
@deadsuperhero@social.wedistribute.org avatar

Okay, I admit it.

The Catch-Up Feed in is brilliant. Looking at screenshots, I was worried it was going to be super confusing…but, it’s honestly a lightning-fast way to catch up on everything.

Absolutely brilliant work.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@deadsuperhero

Has there ever been a better social media client feature?

Even if it’s only in the top whatever, I think it’s notable that it’s in a web client for the fediverse.

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