Aral: share your concern about centralization and big single points of failure.
But wouldn’t the solution here be a “round-robin” where the app recommended a fast sign on - super easy - but changed every X sign ups to recommend a different server? Each one hand chosen to be of high quality, well federated, high uptime, etc?
That to me would give the best of both worlds. Address THE biggest pain point to new users, plus decentralize the new user glow around the Fediverse.
@tchambers@aral Given that a sudden influx of users means a sudden need for more resources, moderators, money? I can see why they haven't done that. It would be rather rude to spring that on any server you didn't control.
@tchambers@aral That's a great idea. Allowing a number of Mastodon servers on a round-robin or even random order will prevent the problems of centralisation of one server.
@jsamwrites@tchambers@aral
I'm still getting my sea legs on Mastodon, but is there a concern about asking people for a few hashtags first when they create their account?
Like, no one can sign up for a music streaming service without being asked about what they like to listen to, and get some recommendations.
Is there a way to start someone with a few interests (help them follow five hashtags), and from that data suggest a server for them to try?
@aral@Gargron Actually, when combining this decision with the recent trademark one of not allowing other instances to be named .mastodon. there might be a case for questioning Gargron's motives here.
... but I think this is the right move to enable frictionless signups. However, it's now critically important to implement the one-click complete account migration between servers as well.
Basically mastodon.social needs to encourage users to move on from spawn.
@troed@aral@Gargron I agree. Though as nefarious as both those decisions can appear, I think it's clearly about trying to reduce the friction for new users - even for the trademark changes. The biggest complaints during November last year were about picking servers and people ending up on 'mastodon' urls that aren't moderated.
@BenjaminNelan@troed@aral@Gargron@pixelfed True, I personally use the Mozilla (chat.mozilla.org) homeserver. I think on Mastodon the biggest UX issue is those not knowing what server to choose when signing up, so presenting a default/fallback option while displaying other good options to at least pique enough interest and make users aware is the best way to go.
@BenjaminNelan@troed@aral@Gargron@pixelfed So instead of being lost on 'here are tens of different servers to choose from before you join' it would instead be 'here is the main server and all you have to do is click join, but there are some good other options here if you'd like'
@aral@Nour Here lies the problem. You think of one server being the “main server”. You have a hierarchy. When there’s a hierarchy it can (will) be abused. Don’t hand over control to anybody. Take it for yourself.
@gabek@aral@Nour I fully agree with that idea (otherwise I wouldnt be doing what Im doing obviously), but I think the difficult part is about how and when do you explain this to new people.
Like, is the signup flow from an app really the best place to explain this? I think its hard to say that it is, but at the same time, lock-in and complacency will still mean that lots of people end up on m.s.
Personally, I think the best solution would be to get even more competing easy signup flows. Think this problem will get less relevant when things like mozilla.social launches and people can easily end up on their server with a SSO firefox account.
@laurenshof@gabek@Nour Interesting, isn’t it, that Mozilla, a for-profit Silicon Valley corporation that now has AI and venture capital arms (one of which is invested in a fediverse app called Mammoth) and makes almost all its money by enabling surveillance capitalist Google to violate the privacy of the people who use its browser in exchange for half a billion dollars every year, is going to be a force for good in a decentralised network.
@laurenshof@aral@gabek Agree with this. I think practically instance randomization can be a bit confusing or intimidating. It makes sense that when you download the official app, people see a familiar, 'official' looking mastodon.social recommended. The dispersion mainly happens when each app/client/website offers their own default server, and the server people land on would depend on how they joined or were introduced to the fediverse from.
@laurenshof@aral@gabek Regardless, instance randomization is perhaps something third party clients can offer. But it'd make sense that apps that are affiliated with their own instance offer a default option for the type of experience they're trying to curate. Many companies will have their own app/instance in the future and will offer SSO for their own instances, so dispersion will not be an issue long term IMO.
@laurenshof@aral@gabek Most people will also end up on a cluster of large company-related instances while more advanced users or hobbyists will be dispersed all over smaller instances.
@Nour@laurenshof@aral People only think mastodon.social is "official" because Mastodon says it is. The sign up form on almost all Fediverse instances looks exactly the same. But only one is highlighted by the people who write the biggest piece of Fediverse software, leading to conflict of interest and abuse of power. They're looking to grow Mastodon, the company, and their own instance.
@gabek@laurenshof@aral I mean in the sense that if I signed up to a randomized instance, I'd tell people my handle is @user@\this-random-url-I-got-assigned.tld which can cause confusion, compared to one that simply resembles 'Mastodon Social'. As the company and non-profit behind the platform, it will always have official stature associated with it. It gives a higher sense of authenticity because people gravitate towards and trust brands.
@Nour@laurenshof@aral If Microsoft Edge hid the address bar behind a button, auto-loaded store.microsoft.biz and called it the “official web site of the internet”, we’d all have problems with it. Having an “official node of the Fediverse” is the same thing. You are giving Mastodon so much control by being ok with this. There is no official on the Fediverse. We’re all equals.
@gabek@laurenshof@aral I definitely see your point. My feeling is just that in the long term things will even out. There will also inevitably be some dominant players like email currently, and I personally wouldn't mind if non-profits were among them. The nice thing about the fediverse is it's built on an open protocol. Apart from instances, there'll be a lot of other large and small platforms while still being able to connect with everyone.
@Nour
so, do you think it eill even out, or do you think there will be dominant players (i.e. it will be conquered by Google and Microsoft, who will then do their best to squeeze all others out by randomly blocking indeoendent providers)? @gabek@laurenshof@aral
@Mr_Teatime@gabek@laurenshof@aral I would look at email today. There's a dominant player, Gmail (previously used to be AOL/Yahoo/Hotmail). But there is massive variety in email providers that email as a protocol is not under the control of or dictated by any provider. There will inevitably be a bunch of big fish and whales in the fediverse, but there will also be lots of medium fish and lots of small fish.
Embrace. Use the email standards such as SMTP to talk to other email servers.
Extend. Encourage all email users to use your service by making it the default and positioning yourself as "the server" via applications and partnerships, eventually adding features that are limited to your mail interface.
Extinguish. Say that all other mail servers that aren't yours are spam and block them.
If you don't see how this could happen on the Fediverse today then I don't know what to tell you.
@gabek@laurenshof@Nour@aral@Mr_Teatime I guess these things cannot be prevented by any technology in itself, so will always be political choices (i.e. depending on the people in power, their preferences, principles and ideals, stakeholder leverage, etc)?
(this is a sincere question / 'hypothesis', this isn't my field so I don't know much about these dynamics 🙂)
@matherion@gabek@laurenshof@Nour@Mr_Teatime You can prevent it by designing technology that’s truly decentralised; tech that scales horizontally, not vertically. Tech specifically designed so there are no economies of scale.
@aral
There can never be a waterthight law, or 100% stable political system, or purely technical solution for a socio-economical problen.
but there are of course technical arrangement that make things easier or harder, and encourage/discourage certain behaviour, and anyone making technology and pretending otherwise is not honest. We absolutely need things that are better in this regard: empower people, and prevent domination.
@aral@gabek@laurenshof@Nour@Mr_Teatime So, if I understand properly, technology that's optimized less for 1-to-many and more for 1-to-few? Or is there another core difference that I'm missing?
@matherion@gabek@laurenshof@Nour@Mr_Teatime Optimised for one-to-one. One-to-many can be modeled on one-to-one. If individuals own the means of communication, they’re in charge. All nodes equal; no privileged nodes. The moment you privilege a node, that node will have incentive to scale.
@aral I have a really hard time wrapping my head around this for some reason. So, this isn't a model for the entire internet, right? E.g. Wikipedia needs to be accessible by many people simultaneously without becoming annoyingly slow. So this is in the context of social media, and then for dialogues, less for 'broadcasting'? Or am I completely misunderstanding?
@Natureshadow@gabek@laurenshof@Nour@aral@Mr_Teatime@Gargron Sorry if I wasn't clear. I meant that tech cannot solve these issues, so they need human solutions. That means it comes down to how you design the governance (e.g. democracy vs technocracy etc etc) and who is or are in charge at a given moment (and so, accountable, responsible, and therefore, mandated). If my hypothesis is correct, this would suggest that @Gargron trusts the current governance model (doesn't seem unreasonable).
@gabek@laurenshof@aral@Mr_Teatime There are lots in the privacy space alone, with Proton and Fastmail being the largest, apart from mainstream options and those offered by domain registrars. Hosting email is not something easy though, unlike an ActivityPub instance. Regardless, I don't rule out the possibility and agree with you, but I just personally feel that the fedi has way too many potential big players, since unlike email hosting, any person or company can easily spin up an instance.
@cmw@gabek@laurenshof@aral@Mr_Teatime For sure and I completely agree. This is unfortunately the case when it comes to the whole internet and not just email. As such, this will be inevitable when the Fediverse goes mainstream. As much as I enjoy having our little safe corner of the internet, regardless of the negatives it'd bring, I'd prefer the Fediverse going mainstream and to focus on its positives, as the overall net outcome will be a much healthier and more open web compared to now.
@BenjaminNelan
wouldn't a better (though harder-to-implement...) way be to have some sort of instance suggestion engine?
You give it some keywords and what's important to you and it gives you some instances and picks one at random if you're unsure which one to use.
I spent days choosing an instance, and of course that should be made easier. But we all know how immensely powerful defaults are -- this could go quite wrong.
@Mr_Teatime@troed@aral@Gargron Definitely. Someone shared this screenshot on GitHub and I think something like it (but with a roulette system to change the second screen so it doesn't start on .social) would be waaay better.
Having said that - I still don't know what a typical user's experience of this would be.
I got a warning on .party for being too political and on h
Small instance one of the admins tried to add me to a list of Autistic people and encouraged us all to put emojis in our name labeling ourselves Disabled.
You know who else loved making lists of disabled people? Not good people.
I'm happy on .social. there's moderation and plenty of people and people don't approach me with half-baked plans that any admin with half a brain would never ask someone to do.
@Gargron I've been sampling public opinion on this privately, and the overwhelming consensus agrees with @aral and @feditips
Among other consequences, this may dump all over those who have aggressively sold people on the idea that the fediverse was a new approach to social networking, not just a marketing hook for the Mastodon brand.
Why not a public onboarding server supported by all the servers who want to pull new users exploring 1st fedi access? Everyone is then on an equal footing.
@aral@Gargron
I disagree. I remember my first attempt to get onto Mastodon/Fediverse. First thing I had to do was choose a server — WTF? HowTF should I know which to choose? I felt shut out and overwhelmed, so I stopped.
The second attempt, later, a year ago, I chose a server that seemed local, but as I saw was home of a special community that I wasn't a part of. I had to change instances, quite annoying. Then after some senseless pondering I chose one with short domain name. >>
@juergen_hubert@Gargron The only two design choices available aren’t “funnel everyone to mastodon.social” or “present a list of thousands of servers.” The default button could automatically round-robin a large list of servers that are known to be run by good actors. This is a solved problem. The solution is not being used, in this case, because, clearly, mastodon.social does want to grow.
@aral@Gargron We need a good idea how to mitigate the issue with service selection. One proposed to call instances communities. It might also be an idea to direct people to local servers or topical servers by asking them where they live or what they are interested in, like: "To improve your experience, we want to show you communities near you or topics you relate to."
@prefec2@aral@Gargron I think it'd be cool if the onboarding site let you put a bunch of tags in and gave you a feed of conversations around those tags. Then when you want to jump in and contribute, have some script work out which the most appropriate server is based on the conversation you want to join.
@aral
The beautiful thing is that this can be going in the worst direction possible and I'm still gonna be unaffected, as I can defederate from the huge instance just as I stopped using twitter. Not using the official app anyway. @Gargron
In distributed systems like GNUnet or IPFS, every node entering the network empowers the whole system.
Node leaving the network does not disturb the consistency of network.
@smokku Oh, I know that, that’s why I’m working on the Small Web and not the fediverse. But the fediverse is a good stop-gap for now between Big Web and that. The longer it remains so, the better for those of us building the types of networks you mention.
@aral@smokku IPFS also seems badly designed in that it appears like it tries to connect to every peer on the network until it crashes domestic routers. For promiscuous content addressable distribution, one might as well build on libtorrent/webtorrent. Not entirely sure how IPFS got so big when better tech already existed. Probably the VC thing.
@aral@Gargron@feditips
My opinion on the subject is that such action doesn’t threaten the decentralization of Fediverse. The fact that there will be more people on one instance doesn’t change the fact that you can create your server, on your hardware, with your rules and still federate.
On the other hand, do we really need people here who are so lazy that they don't even want to choose a server, but instead are waiting for the button, which will do everything for them?
> "This is the sort of design a VC-funded startup would implement"
It extremely isn't. There's a "pick your own server" button right there. It's trying to smooth out the process for new users so the very first screen isn't a big explanation of what an instance is.
@aral@tomw
Aral: if on the server side there were a round-robin where it swapped out to which server was featured assuming a good mix of X number of different servers benefited - would you object to this UI/UX design from either Mammoth or others?
@tchambers@tomw I would object to Mammoth no matter what they did because it is VC-funded and we all know how that game goes and how it ends (and don’t get me started on Mozilla Corporation/Mozilla VC).
On the other hand, if the Mastodon app implemented round-robin, no, of course I wouldn’t have an objection to that. That’s how it should be.
@aral I disagree. Mastodon has a terrible onboarding problem because potential sign-ups are paralyzed into closing the browser and walking away when they see the list of servers. This GUI they offer eliminates that friction.
A more sensible goal is more seamless migration so that you can switch servers quickly and efficiently without losing your history.
The thing that seems to be totally forgotten is that Mastodon thrives on good instance moderation.
In November, POC accounts were getting banned and accused of racism which, I assure you, is what many people know Mastodon for now. No, that's not fair, but you only make one 1st impression.
How on earth is mastodon.social going to keep up with an exponential growth in users and need for smart experienced mods? I'd love to hear from server owners!
@aral this.
And also, I’m convinced that mastodon.social and mastodon.online are already too big today. Please, @Gargron, consider closing the subscription and invite newcomers to find an existing instance or create their own one.
We really should make sure Mastodon keeps being a decentralized network. 😔
@aral I know one of the complaints made about Mastodon has been an on boarding issue particularly choosing an instance as a first time user. I don't agree with @Gargron in the way it was done but do understand trying to address the issue.
@aral@Gargron@feditips Never gonna forget getting banned from my first Mastodon instance, which was on the recommendations page, for calling out scammers begging for money.
I'm just gonna say it: never donate to anyone on Mastodon.
The overwhelming majority of beggars are just scammers trying to take advantage of people's good will. It's a shame because this ruins it for the 1% of honest cases, but that's what we get for living in a scam society.
@aral@Gargron P.S. It's painfully obvious you are incapable of autonomous thought. Judging by your posts and your "professional" picture, you just do whatever you think will make you look good in front of your peers.
You'll parrot bullshit without even realizing it because you don't actually care about the subject, just your reputation.
People like you make me sick.
@aral@Gargron Please shut up. Suggesting a main server is one of the best design decisions the mastodon team has ever made.
It's so fucking sad watching people like you argue against pragmatism. It's why free technologies routinely fall by the wayside: stupid-ass input like yours that would cause you to lose your job in the real world gains traction among idiots.
Step 1: Implement actual account portability. Posts, likes, and everything.
Step 2: Create an instance and call it something like welcome.mastodon.social.
Step 3: All new accounts through the app go to welcome.mastodon.social. Still the same super easy onboarding which is what the current change does help with.
Step 4: After a few months, once they have had time to understand how things work with different instances, require people to move from welcome.mastodon.social and provide a list of many options to do so.
This way people can get into things without the challenge of picking a server right away (I myself balked at the task 3 times before finally making my account). I think that easy onboarding is a reasonable goal. But over time my approach avoids having one massive instance which signing everyone straight up for mastodon.social and not providing actual account portability does.
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