OC Some ramblings about the future

Tbh, this has been on my mind for the past two days, so I hope you guys don't mind if I unload it here. I tend to obsess and I figure if no one cares, then at least I can get it out of my head instead of thinking about it all the time. Also sorry for the length, I promise I have a doctor's note.

I don't overly mind all the duplicate reddit subs and I'm extremely interested to see what this place (and the fediverse in general) become. As a very recent, not-particularly-savvy ex-redditor, I didn't even know federation was possible. The rest of this may or may not come off as cynical (I can't tell), but I really do have high hopes for what this place could be.

It could go meh, and crash and burn in a fireball of shallow snark and cynicism like everything else in this day and age. But it could go so right if we play our cards right and learn to adapt to this instead of demanding the same things not a lot of us even liked, just because that's what's familiar.

It doesn't seem to be the majority opinion as yet, but I've been bothered that some are so geared towards making this a second reddit that, before our temporary cloudflare isolation, I already saw questions about which sub dedicated to Whatever out of all platforms everywhere is going to be the real main sub.

Instances have a different strength here than what reddit was used for, but I've been worrying this won't be recognized by those of us too used to reddit or too young to even remember forums.

The instinct, coming from a one-stop shop, is to recreate that. This isn't possible in the fediverse and is the exact opposite of its intent. There doesn't have to be just one "correct" community across every existing instance. Even usernames aren't sacrosanct here. We can spread out as far as we want and never reach the horizon.

The focus lends itself very well to the closer, kinder bubble communities found in the 90s and 00s. I miss able to recognize people by avatar, something that is already happening here that makes it feel home-y.

I miss being able to take part in anything resembling a kind and manageable community instead of my only socialization having to come from Asswipe # 8675309 in the only non-dead subreddit about Thing, that happens to be a 14 million strong screaming match.

I miss being able to speak respectfully without being dogpiled in a mad grab for internet head pats. We can do all that here if we want, but we have to set the precedent early.

I'd rather be subbed to 5 identical mags across 5 different instances, each with their own individual style of community, than be stuck with The Instance That Has The Hades Sub On It because that one got created first/on the largest instance.

And then, lost in the crowd, the fighting starts again because on the internet, hurling insults and winning arguments is the only way the faceless horde might give you a thumbs up before also beating you.

The way reddit functioned and interacted with itself was our norm, but when cloudflare is turned off and federation is in full swing again, please don't make this another reddit. I want the old internet back, and we have a chance.

Rexxiter,
Rexxiter avatar

I agree with you 100%. I'm interacting and contributing more on here in the last three days than over a decade on Reddit. I like that I can have a conversation with people here instead of a hive mind. I feel like I'm sitting in a comfortable chair drinking a coffee on here, actually enjoying content as it trickles in. Unlike what I was doing on Reddit which was more like slamming a monster while driving.

And the avatars! I forgot what it was like to recognize someone by their avatar.

This slower early internet feel has really been comforting in an honestly hectic point in my life. Regardless of what happens after the 14th or 30th or whatever, I'm staying here.

bee,
bee avatar

I feel like I'm sitting in a comfortable chair drinking a coffee on here, actually enjoying content as it trickles in. Unlike what I was doing on Reddit which was more like slamming a monster while driving.

Such a great analogy. I absolutely agree. There's a really cozy feeling here I haven't had from the internet in a long time.

AADrcw,
AADrcw avatar

I completely agree with you. Reddit has really gone down hill the last few years and coming here has made me realize it almost instantly. Its so refreshing to be able to have conversations and not be overwhelmed.

Also, I completely get you on the avatars! I miss the old forum days where you could easily and quickly tell who you were replying to or who wrote something by glancing at the avatar

Danny-Rachevaski424,

I'm currently trying both Lemmy, here in Kbin, and Mastodon. And you know what? I'm quite okay with it. Yes, it feels like the early internet, maybe way splintered with different instances, different communities. But that's really what I actually miss, to actually participate in the forums and rooms that I wanted. Honestly, treated like a product by Facebook, Twitter and now Reddit tire me out, a lot.

Maybe I'll continue lurking in here and see what I can participate in later.

Timwi,
Timwi avatar

What Lemmy instance are you on? I wanna try Lemmy, but both of the instances I tried won't let me log in (the login button is just broken).

1chemistdown,
1chemistdown avatar

Your comment gave me feels. You forget things after 10-13 years. Yes, the calmer sit back and have coffee and share with each other. But I need a functional app for my phone. I lose which tab I have what going in so fast on browser these days. Maybe I need to relearn how to live that way.

Nepenthe,
Nepenthe avatar

How sad is it that I've been dreading checking any of my notifications after posting this, because it would have 90% gotten me crucified on reddit. I feel all nice and fuzzy, you guys T_T

But I need a functional app for my phone. I lose which tab I have what going in so fast on browser these days.

It should be in the works, but I wonder how long that will be.. Won't lie and say I'm not a little jealous of Jerboa, though I'm happy with my kbin choice. As everyone else beat me to saying, the nearest we've got right now is pinning the website to your home screen. Since they covered the other two, it's under Menu in chrome and makes the website being pinned act like an app.

It's still not an actual app with app-y features and, to my aggravation, websites pinned this way will not listen if you've locked your phone screen in one orientation. There doesn't seem to be a way to make them listen. But aside from occasionally being subjected to what Kbin looks like in Landscape mode, it's a workaround

yeti,
yeti avatar

How sad is it that I've been dreading checking any of my notifications after posting this, because it would have 90% gotten me crucified on reddit.

I've been on Reddit a long time. I used to be very active in the pre-app days. As time went on, I found myself commenting less and less, until I just became a lurker. No matter what you say on there now, at least one person will come along with the most unnecessary, hateful response. I've already started commenting a bit on here and one of the other alternatives. It seems much easier to have a positive space with a smaller community.

Rexxiter,
Rexxiter avatar

Yeah, I do too. I don't know what it's called exactly, but on Firefox (and I think Chrome and Safari?) if you go to the Kbin tab and hit the three dots in the upper right, you can "add to home screen". That puts a dedicated "app" to that tab without it showing up in your browser app.

It works just fine for me while an actual app developes. I'm actually kind of excited to see the evolution!

discodoubloon,
discodoubloon avatar

If you’re on iOS you can make a web app with the share function in safari. It’s not bad for now.

Also 100% agree on the coffee vs Monster analogy. There is just such a crazy volume of stuff on Reddit that it almost meant never really absorbing anything either.

Rayspekt,

Beautifully written. I don't know how this will work out tbh, but in concept it sounds good that there isn't only one sub for each thing. What do you think would keep users from abandoning the smaller mags for topic xyz? How do you set up your "old web" bubbles? Sounds stupid to actually write this, but I guess I have become to comfortable with the one-stop-shop mentality that we have nowadays for everything in the web.

czech,
czech avatar

I think the missing piece is some kind of "multireddit" that allows us to combine "magazines" across multiple instances. Once thats in place the community can fragment without issue.

bedrooms,

I can ask questions and not downvoted again?!

Icalasari,

It's honestly a nice hybrid of forums and modern social media

cragsand,
cragsand avatar

Merging magazines across servers could be a future feature. It would take on interesting forms when you end up with moderation being separate for each instance.

maythebananabewithyo,
maythebananabewithyo avatar

Maybe not a merge, but "multi-reddit" type experience where you can subscribe to the multi-feed for a genre of communities and then unsubscribe from ones you don't want. Like, a gaming multi that would have all the top-level c/gaming, and things like gaming news communities, or multis based on all nintendo related communities or ps4 related or whatever.

Like if there could be a tag system where mods can tag their subreddits main theme (maybe from a list populated by matching, like "nintendo' and "Nintendo Games" would correct to "Nintendo" like what I have seen on LinkedIn for selecting job industries when you put in "marketing" it corrects it to "Advertising Services" or something. Then the tag would be the multi-community hub.

Nepenthe,
Nepenthe avatar

It was either you or someone else that mentioned that possibility elsewhere, and I find the idea really interesting. I like it. It seems like it would have to be the natural evolution of things while still feeling more dependable. All the relevant content put in one place while not actually being stored in one place, and if an instance goes Spez no one has to care.

princessofcute,
princessofcute avatar

That honestly would be really cool, before I was on the train of not having duplicate communities as that would a lot of bloat and it's difficult trying to find every single (using your example) Nintendo Magazine/Community but if there was a way to just mass subscribe to a topic that would solve that and it could also allow you to discover new fragment subs like you said if it includes similar but not exact ones. Like if you could subscribe to a "Cat" topic it would auto subscribe you to any new cat magazines that show up. I'd totally be down for a feature like that

Nepenthe, (edited )
Nepenthe avatar

For real, right? It would be a serious help in discovering subs that are definitely relevant but whose names are a little out there. Like r/AirplaneEars, r/drumstick, r/PeanutWhiskers, and r/TIGHTPUSSY were all about cats but I never would have known that on my own. I only found out either because a friend sent me a post once or because I had to use a whole website to find related subs other users of my subs popularly frequented. A super useful tool that I guess is gone with the dinosaurs, and now I've made myself sad.

The only possible downside may be the more niche things, especially how they would handle with overlap. If you wanted to have an easy-access collection about specific music, for instance, but your favorite is the scottish rock band Texas and now you and the sorting algo are both confused.

maythebananabewithyo,
maythebananabewithyo avatar

I think the key would be that unlike Reddit, where it would be anyone can create a multi-community, it would be up to the mods to tag it then all the back end would do is collect all the communities tagged with that into one multi. When it comes to more niche things, like you pointed out, I think that those things would eventually start evolving organically over time.

But an upside on your down side, say your favorite band is Scottish rock band Texas. They have a sub that is tagged Scottish Bands, you go "huh, let me subscribe to that," and now you found 5 more Scottish rock bands that are similar to Texas that you really dig and have great communities but are all on separate instances across the fediverse.

Kichae,

Thing is, really big communities like r/Nintendo are awful for actually, you know, discussing things. They're unfriendly spaces, and any time new users try to contribute, their posts or comments just sit at the bottom, totally unseen by most users.

Being in a hundred Nintendo communities sounds like a good thing, because you're used to "seeing it all", but in practice it's just FOMO speaking, and you never saw it all anyway, because the vast majority of stuff never made it into your view.

DaDragon,

Personally, I somewhat fear the re-Balkanisation of the internet even more. The internet used to be much too splintered to easily find all the topics you were interested in, platforms like Reddit allowed for everything to be easy to access (outside of restricted subs). You wouldn’t know that you need to access the 40% discord to find the community for 40% keyboards, for example. And not having a central ‘main’ place runs the risk of needing to have the same information repeated across 20 loosely synchronised repositories rather than one place that lets you know everything.

I do agree it’s been very calming on here, so far. I’ve enjoyed that too. But it’s also been really empty, with it being much harder to find all the places I want to be in, especially when federation is currently broken by cloudflare being active.

missingno,
missingno avatar

My concern is that for a lot of smaller niche topics, it just wouldn't be practical to expect multiple different communities for them to be active. Right now the Fediverse is small enough that for some of my interests I'd barely expect to find anyone at all that shares them, let alone multiple communities' worth. So it kinda is important to agree on one place to put these things.

speck,

Especially as people realize that you can traverse across instances, key communities will naturally emerge for any particular niche. That's what I reckon.

Happened amidst subreddits, happens when popular trackers go down. People seeking community find each other and we all tend to gravite towards where's the most members or activity.

Ignacio,
Ignacio avatar

I think that reddit, with its karma system, wanted to become the next influencer-like site, same thing Instagram, Youtube and Twitter did with their followers/subscribers/etc.

Yes, upvotes and downvotes also exist here, but the fact that karma doesn't exist, the only important thing is not the ego "I'm the biggest karma farmer here and you all are filthy peasants", but the content itself.

I absolutely agree with everything you wrote. But changing our mindset doesn't occur in matter of days. We need to get rid of our old reddit and other social media traits.

speck,

So glad for the absence of karma

lunar2m7,
lunar2m7 avatar

Seriously. What I love about here, the only thing people have to gain from participating is... participating. No points, reputation, just genuine, human contact. Things already feel more human, now that people are sharing real thoughts and ideas, not locked behind the filter of "what will get me the most karma."

onceuponaban,
onceuponaban avatar

...Wait, isn't there a reputation counter sitting right there on everyone's profile?

lunar2m7,
lunar2m7 avatar

I did not see that lmao, well...

Nepenthe,
Nepenthe avatar

There is, but I have no idea what it's in reference to. All three of us have differing reputations, but if you look up what that is on your profile, all you'll see is one or more unexplained dates. No time attached, just a date. Clicking on it does nothing. I thought maybe they were to mark moments you posted something especially well-received, but how many dates there are has nothing to do with how many points you actually have.

I'm not sure what to think about it. A little annoyed, as I would be with anything threatening a popularity mindset, though we could just as easily play the games twitter and tumblr do where the amount of followers a person has determines their worth as a human. Then again, knowing someone is trustworthy is useful for weeding out any eventual bots, and I remember speaking with someone earlier who mentioned Tilde choosing who has mod powers based on democratic up/downvotes. I'm curious if something similar may eventually be instilled here?

I'm not certain if there's a good argument for having a counter or not.

iNeedScissors67,
iNeedScissors67 avatar

It looks like right now, downvotes apply -1 point to reputation, boosts apply +1, and upvotes apply +/-0. I am sitting at -1, so a total of 2 downvotes, but I have well over a hundred upvotes scattered around. No boosts yet, hence my -1.

Nepenthe,
Nepenthe avatar

Hmmm, ok, that does seem to scale better. I was at 1 like two days ago and then shot up since posting this, since it appears to have boosted a lot.

It's been upvoted way more, but those really must account for almost nothing, because some 80+ in total seems to equate to like 2pts.

I guess it makes sense to do it that way. Posting is easy, but posting something other people like enough to reblog is a different matter. Unfortunately, I forsee that leading to a lot of reblog spam once accounts start gaming the system

r4venw,
r4venw avatar

Glad you shared your thoughts.
I think we as humans aren't wired to handle reddit-sized communities. Hopefully we can have the smaller communities that we naturally gravitate towards while still being able to easily share thoughts and ideas with anyone across the fediverse.

Rainbright,

I love it! Hopefully this is just the next evolution in social media that brings back some of the good bits and reduces the toxicity.

Otome-chan,
Otome-chan avatar

I actually agree a lot with the sentiment here. On reddit I was already used to subscribing to multiple near-identical subreddits with slightly different names just for the same content. The only difference is that here they'll have the same name lol. I think the "fluid" nature of posts being shared between reddit-clones and twitter-clones will also help mellow out stuff. On reddit it does feel like every post has to be serious, high quality, and as you said a "shouting match", whereas twitter-style posts always felt like a more mellow "sharing my thoughts". With kbin it feels like things are kinda a mix, which is cool.

I'm hoping people stick around and we can see more activity here. I'm already enjoying my time and am very excited to see when the "floodgates" open and federation is properly working.

LegendofDragoon,
LegendofDragoon avatar

It really is a mix here, since there are posts that are similar in scope and style as tweets, same then articles, links, pictures, and videos that get posted like Reddit links.

It's just crazy to think that we can't potentially have our cake and eat it too. We can have a small tight knit community that can freely and seamlessly interact with other, similarly small communities.

Hopefully we can find that balance and really have the best of both worlds, the sheer scope that the Internet offers and the closeness that comes from a small community.

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