[Discussion] I don't think this format makes a lot of sense for the fediverse

A lot of us come from reddit, so we're naturally inclined to want a reddit-like platform. However, it occurred to me that the reddit format makes little sense for the fediverse.

Centralized, reddit-like communities where users seek out communities and post directly to them made sense for a centralized service like reddit. But when we apply that model to lemmy or kbin, we end up with an unnecessary number of competing communities. (ex: fediverse@lemmy.world vs fediverse@lemmy.ml) Aside from the issues of federation (what happens when one instance defederates and the community has to start over?) this means that if one wants to post across communities on instances, they have to crosspost multiple times.

The ideal format for a fediverse reddit-like would be a cross between twitter and reddit: a website where if you want to post about a cat, you make your post and tag it with the appropriate tags. This could include "cats," "aww," and "cute." This post is automatically aggregated into instantly-generated "cats," "aww," and "cute" communities. Edit: And if you want to participate in a small community you can use smaller, less popular tags such as "toebeans" or something like that. This wouldn't lead to any more or less small communities than the current system. /EndEdit. But, unlike twitter, you can interact with each post just like reddit: upvotes, downvotes, nested comments - and appointed community moderators can untag a post if it's off-topic or doesn't follow the rules of the tag-communities.

The reason this would work better is that instead of relying on users to create centralized communities that they then have to post into, working against the federated format, this works with it. It aggregates every instance into one community automatically. Also, when an instance decides to defederate, the tag-community remains. The existing posts simply disappear while the others remain.

Thoughts? Does this already exist? lol

Edit: Seeing a lot of comments about how having multiple communities for one topic isn't necessarily bad, and I agree, it's not. But, the real issue is not that, it's that the current format is working against the medium. We're formatting this part of the fediverse like reddit, which is centralized, when we shouldn't. And the goal of this federation (in my understanding) is to 1. decentralize, and 2. aggregate. The current format will eventually work against #1, and it's relying on users to do #2.

humdrumgentleman,

I agree your points represent challenges, but I think they are opportunities rather than fatal flaws.

  • Community collapse = intra-instance interaction = success of the model.
  • Community splintering among instances = greater opinionation, fit between user and community = success of the model.
  • Spicier domain names, content, and users are likely to attract eachother over time. Blocking that domain or choosing an instance that is defederated with it then becomes a powerful tool to shape your experience.
  • Unlike the corporates, instances don't need active users or growth to survive. They exist because someone with the skills and resources wants them to. If anything, some of them may benefit from users moving on to more popular instances.
  • I concede that getting a healthy supply of mods and content is the biggest challenge for Lemmy right now. However, I more would be lost than gained by replacing communities with tags. I'm tempted to go on here about the virtues of subreddits/communities vs. tags here, but I think anyone that's here instead of on Mastodon probably has an idea of that already.
  • To bring it home, I think this type of social network is inherently decision-focused. The federation model amplifies that, which is intimidating and challenging, but I think ultimately to its benefit rather than its detriment.
lusule,

I like the idea of articles and magazines, microblogs and tags, and collections.

You can build a collection of magazines and tags for whatever reason you choose. Apollo used to allow something similar, I had one for ‘news’ one for ‘Ukraine’ and one for ‘wholesome’ when reading the news or reading about Ukraine got to be too much. It could work well with this system (I’m familiar with kbin you can use whatever terms you like).

You can see a list of articles from all the magazines in the collection in article view, and all the tags in the collection on microblog view. You can choose to have your collection set to private, or you can share it as a public collection.

Other people could then subscribe to your public collection if they didn’t want to build their own collection from scratch.

You wouldn’t be able to post to a collection, and if you replied, the reply would go to whichever magazine article or microblog you replied to. If you wanted to post you’d have to post in the relevant magazine or system.

I don’t like the microblog firehose and I find tags confusing. I wouldn’t want them all muddled up in my nice categorised and indented article feed, but kbin’s ‘articles vs microblogs’ system gives you the best of both worlds by choosing which feed you want to look at separately according to your mood.

Knowncarbage,
Knowncarbage avatar

You can interact with and follow Lemmy & Kbin from Mastodon for a threadiverse approach.

FlowVoid,

I think you should question your assumptions.

If it's true that a bigger community is always preferable to a smaller one, then everyone will always sign up for the biggest community or migrate there. In that case, there is no need to worry about the existence of smaller communities.

On the other hand, it's possible that some people are trying to avoid big communities. They have their own problems, for example the futility of posting in a Reddit thread which already has 1k+ comments. And in fact, people already form splinter groups on Reddit itself so presumably they have some value.

But if it's true that small groups are valuable too, then we should not be forcibly aggregating them into a mega group where they will lose the advantages of their small size.

Ertebolle,

Yeah, this - honestly reddit was perfectly fun and usable in 2012 with 5% of its current MAUs; a fediverse replacement for reddit that doesn't strive to serve everyone but has enough users to produce interesting discussion on any reasonably popular topic would be wonderful. (plus, if reddit still keeps 95% of its users, the spammers / Nazis will continue focusing their energies there, much as they have with Twitter)

TerabyteRex,

this is not a bad idea, i think this needs to be figured out before its too late.. lets see if we can get the right people on board

Ragnell,
Ragnell avatar

For some reason I suck at long comments, they keep getting destroyed when I try to post.

I had a long written out response about how when you have multiple communities on one subject, moderation responsibilities get dispersed and become easier for everyone. They don't have to set up any division of responsibility on a single board, they don't even have to agree on the EXACT same rules. They simply have to federate and link each other so that the community members know to watch for threads from each, comment where they like, and post on the one that is closest to their instance.

If we throw away the idea of "Redundant" or "competing" boards and just accept that we can have all these spaces coexisting, things could work out pretty nice.

I mean, instead of ONE Sherlock Holmes board that might discourage sexuality discussions and ban BBC Sherlock, you can have 3 that have slightly different rules, different mods but still federate with each other and give you 3 spaces to discuss Sherlock Holmes that are all reachable from your homepage on your home instance.

RMiddleton,
RMiddleton avatar

I have had the issue of receiving error messages when I try to post. In my case, fortunately, my words were not erased. I would hit "Add comment" and be taken to a 503 Error (telling me to come back in a few days!). Sometimes the page would eventually load, or I would go back. My post would still be there in the compose window. While this problem exists I have taken to Select-All / Copying my posts before attempting to upload them.

Somehow it hasn't felt too frustrating. I LOVE how patient and understanding most of us are when it comes to this place! For one thing, I ask myself, "Do I really need to post that?" before deciding whether to attempt again. I also think we are all patient because we see the powers that be here as acting in good faith, trying their best, underfunded, and honorable... unlike our experiences with corporate ad & data mining sites.

Ragnell,
Ragnell avatar

That's a good tip, thanks.

Yes, I am so much less frustrated here than other places. And I think you hit on why.

FaceDeer,
FaceDeer avatar

Multiple communities allows for multiple approaches to moderation, and IMO that's a good thing. Ironically given Spez's latest "landed gentry" justifications for his actions, it really was a problem on Reddit that a subreddit name could be controlled by one guy and anyone trying to build a rival subreddit had to fall back to a less obvious name for it.

There's an issue for Lemmy to support some form of "multireddit" that would allow multiple communities to be "merged" as far as the end user is concerned. Wouldn't be surprised if Kbin has one too, I haven't dug for it. I think that's a better approach, that would let people include or exclude communities as they desired.

!deleted125603,

deleted_by_author

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    FlowVoid,

    And what happens when both pay their bills, and a comment or user is moderated by Melpomene but not Facedeer?

    !deleted125603,

    deleted_by_author

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    FlowVoid,

    Ok, suppose there is a unified magazine. I post to it, now which instance hosts my post? Then my instance defederates from that of one of the two magazines, but not the other. Do I now see only half the posts? If I engage in a comment chain, will users on the instances that defederated from mine see a weird half-conversation?

    I think there is a fundamental difference between centralized formats like Reddit and federated formats like this one. Trying to simulate one with the other will always be unsatisfactory. So if Melpomene and Facedeer really want to join forces, the best way is simply to close one community and let them comoderate the remaining one.

    4am,
    @4am@lemmy.world avatar

    When an instance defederates, it means they stop pulling in posts from the instance they defederated from. It doesn’t mean that older posts go away, and it doesn’t mean that other instances don’t see their posts anymore (unless those instances defederate back).

    FlowVoid, (edited )

    Right, that's my point. Suppose two communities on A and B form a "multi community."

    I'm on C and it mutually defederates from A, but C remains federated with B.

    I then engage in a comment chain with someone on B. You're on A. Do you just see half of our conversation?

    More generally, a "community" presumes a group of people who can all mutually interact, like people all having a conversation in the same room. But a "multi community" in a federated structure breaks this assumption. It's like being in a room where everyone is talking on different group calls via their phone, and you may or may not be allowed to hear parts of the conversation.

    !deleted125603,

    deleted_by_author

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    4am,
    @4am@lemmy.world avatar

    It also means that anything you post on here is also 100% out of your control, and even harder to scrub than it would be had it been posted on Reddit.

    Data longevity is baked into the system. Keep this in mind when posting here.

    !deleted125603,

    deleted_by_author

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    4am,
    @4am@lemmy.world avatar

    I mean it’s true that people need more guidance, but here especially; how can you GDPR A thousand instances? How does a small server maintainer deal with privacy laws in international jurisdiction? Especially when their server is only caching posts?

    This gets even more dangerous sounding when you get into revenge porn, CP, etc territory. Can you go to jail for caching a post that you’ve never seen or intended to capture because someone on your instance was subscribed to a community that got image-bombed by trolls? Is there some kind of audit trail or emergency fediverse-wide delete command for when mods clean out garbage like that?

    almino,
    almino avatar

    What if you could link communities in the settings? So that any posts to the linked communities also appears in your favorite instance's community.

    Maybe both communities have to approve the link to avoid SPAM or any other type of attack.

    4am,
    @4am@lemmy.world avatar

    We’ve already got linked servers through “federation”. Why not have automatic cross posting through “treaties”?

    masterspace,

    ex: fediverse@lemmy.world vs fediverse@lemmy.ml

    Isn't the point of federation that those communities would federate and then have merged comments sections? Or am I misunderstanding how it works?

    Ragnell,
    Ragnell avatar

    Right now it's basically you post on the one on your instance and follow the others and can comment anywhere. I think it's an eensy bit chaotic, but it works.

    noodlejetski,

    no. they're two separate communities, the federation makes sure that people on lemmy.ml can subscribe to fediverse@lemmy.world, as well as post and comment in there, and people on lemmy.world can do the same with fediverse@lemmy.ml.

    atypicaloddity,

    A post to fediverse@lemmy.world exists on lemmy.world and is mirrored to other sites, where users can see it and comment on it (and those comments are also visible on lemmy.world.

    But it wouldn't appear as a post in fediverse@lemmy.ml.

    TerabyteRex,

    right but if someone creates fediverse@kbin.social then you have completely different communities. this is currently happenung with startrek. the subreddit people created startrek@startrek.website (their own server) but if you search startrek on kbin, you get a magazine here thats full of startrek memes.

    atypicaloddity,

    And that's fine. If I make my own kbin instance for my friends and make a magazine called startrek filled with longform erotic roleplay about Picard, our posts shouldn't be automatically bundled into startrek@startrek.website's. Magazines with the same name on different instances don't necessarily cover the same topics.

    If you're on kbin and want to be part of the startrek.website community, just subscribe to their magazine instead: https://kbin.social/m/startrek@startrek.website

    4am,
    @4am@lemmy.world avatar

    No, “fediverse@lemmy.world” and “fediverse@lemmy.ml” are like different subreddits would be on Reddit. You can follow both (and you can see both from either instance), but posts from one are only on that one. You’d have to subscribe to both to see them all.

    mo_ztt,
    @mo_ztt@lemmy.world avatar

    So I get the concern, but honestly I think in practice fragmented communities are fine. If anyone's old enough to remember Fidonet and WWIVNet, they worked great -- you had some "local" communities with a lot of duplication and fragmentation, but smaller so you could start to recognize people and have some semblance of a community, and then you had bigger networked communities that were more akin to Reddit forums. They were both good things to have; I don't think it's automatically bad to have many smaller forums that cover more or less the same topics on individual instances.

    The tags thing sounds great too, of course -- it could be a good way to discover new communities or browse everything related to some topic if you decided you wanted to.

    sarsaparilyptus,

    You're right, Reddit totally never had a huge and unmanageable problem with fractious duplicate communities for the same thing, not at all.

    Balssh,
    Balssh avatar

    I beg to differ there were multiple subreddits for the same topic (and I'm sure this was more accentuated when the site was in its infancy). I guess over time the community will crystalize around a single instance for a given topic.

    cemeterysounds,

    deleted_by_author

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    spectre,

    redditors bringing their complete inability to recognize a joke that doesn't end with /s with them

    Naminreb,

    I thought you were being sarcastic until you added “with them.”

    Lilkev,
    Lilkev avatar

    I'm pretty sure @sarsaparilyptus was being sarcastic

    lucidwielder,

    Sarcasm lost on the internet, that never happens.

    WouldYouLikeAnyToast,

    Yes it does, as evidenced by this thread

    dan,
    dan avatar

    I’m pretty sure @lucidwielder was being sarcastic

    WouldYouLikeAnyToast,

    thatsthejoke.jpg

    digdug,

    I'm pretty sure @WouldYouLikeAnyToast was being sarcastic

    samus12345,
    @samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

    I'm pretty sure @dan was being sarcastic /s

    nyanix,

    I do like the idea of making x-posting nice and easy so we can hit several communities of similar topic at once

    konst,

    I'm not sure how this would work out with bans + comment moderation. I'd figure we wouldn't want to split up comments by tag and just have comments tied to the post. You can end up with a comment breaking rules of one community, but not another. Since you're following the rules of some communities, but breaking others, you might unknowingly rack up violations.

    This might still be fine if we can ignore moderation from other communities, causing blocked posts to be visible again if we don't like a set of rules.

    AbouBenAdhem,

    I remember arguing for a tagging approach on reddit, way back when subreddits were first introduced—I (correctly) feared the subreddit approach would fragment the community and create echo chambers of users who never interacted with anyone outside of their subscribed subs.

    But it does have some strengths that perhaps work better in a decentralized environment. One is easier and more explicit assignment of moderators: you mention “appointed community moderators” for tag-communities, but who would appoint these moderators? And what happens when people use new tags that don’t have existing communities?

    Another strength is the ability to create communities on the same topic with distinct moderating/curating styles. Take s/AskHistory and s/AskHistorians: both addressed the same general type of questions, but the latter’s more rigorous moderation resulted in a very different type of response and both had their place.

    I think it will take time for communities to develop distinct moderating policies and for users to become familiar with them; but in the case of redundant communities, eventually users will gravitate toward those with the best moderation.

    itadakimasu,
    @itadakimasu@lemmy.world avatar

    Fragmentation of communities is a huge concern for me and has me sitting at the edge of my seat constantly as I watch this unfold.

    I think a couple of things are going to naturally happen:

    (1) If a community is spilt, one will eventually win, as users want to join communities with a larger number of people. Users will eventually migrate from the smaller, failed communities, to the larger more mainstream community.

    (2) I suspect that one or two instances will eventually contain all popular communities. Smaller, more niche instances will close doors. I don't think any instance with a trashy name is going to survive (srsly wtf is up with shitjustworks? Are you going to browse that while on free time at work? Yeah, no.)

    (3) either something similar happens as described above, or eventually people get frustrated and lemmy/kbin fail as users move somewhere else that isn't as complicated.

    naoseiquemsou,

    Isn't it possible to have some sort of metacommunities that we could subscribe to and automatically feed us with the contents from several ones?

    itadakimasu,
    @itadakimasu@lemmy.world avatar

    That could work. Some type of "Super Community" that aggregates (participating) smaller communities with the same purpose could be a solution; at least I think so. I don't really know how moderation would work... perhaps "participating" communities of a "Super Community" agree to receive cross-moderation support, somehow.

    It all sounds kind-of complicated and likely not coming as a feature anytime soon.

    hikarulsi,
    @hikarulsi@lemmy.world avatar

    Super-community works for subscription

    Need another mechanism for posting, as different communities has different rules

    DudePluto,

    I suspect that one or two instances will eventually contain all popular communities

    I definitely agree. It's so much easier to find communities within your own instance, thus communities on large instances automatically have an advantage over communities on smaller instances. I'm currently having this issue with a community I moderate on lemmy.ml that isn't even showing up on searches across the fediverse

    Greenskye,

    This is an area that needs big improvement. The home instance advantage is currently driving things towards centralization, directly counter to the goal of Lemmy. An end user needs to be able to easily see all the options available to them in their federation.

    If that can't be improved quickly, then I'd suggest instance owners start to specialize on topics in order to better scale. Have a gaming hub, a lifestyle hub, a politics hub, etc.

    AbouBenAdhem,

    Regarding (2), I don’t think it’s a given that all popular communities will end up on the same instances. That may be happening now, when discovery is the main issue; but once communities become established and people become more familiar with them, they’ll gravitate toward the ones with the best moderation. (For example, if you know that most people with a particular interest are subscribed to multiple communities, you’ll post to the one where the mods will remove the troll replies.)

    There’s also a scaling issue: reddit’s operating at a loss, and any instance hosting a large number of communities will face similar server cost issues. Either performance will suffer, or they’ll do things like ads or sponsored posts to pay their expenses. Or there’ll be some scandal like reddit is currently facing, and users will switch to communities on other instances.

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