What would happen if kbin's admin (ernest), or any other admin of a server( by that I mean Mastodon, Lemmy, not an instance of kbin) one day decided he's going to pull a spez?

For kbin in particular, what would happen to an instance's Magazines(subreddits), the communities would just go poof?

I'm a rat who left the sinking ship that is reddit and I want to better understand how the whole fediverse thing works. I get that "everyone can host their own instances and access the federated fediverse servers/instances", but if a particular large one has gained traction and would one day implode, is there any way to prevent/mitigate it?

gilbertc,

Maybe we can aggregate instances at the magazine level? For example, a 'technology' aggregated magazine will be composed of 'technology@kbin', 'technology@lemmy.ml' and so on. Losing one of the instances would not impact the 'aggregate'.

LChitman,
LChitman avatar

I have been thinking that, while it might be good to browse individual magazines sometimes, it would be good to be able to view all of the tech magazines or all of the gaming magazines together. Basically a federated multireddit where you can select which magazines are shown.

joan,
joan avatar

This exactly. And then go one step further, anyone posting a microblog with a matching hashtag becomes a thread in the corresponding aggregate.

DeGandalf,
DeGandalf avatar

I read a comment earlier and if I understood correctly this part actually already works. I think you can add tags to your magazine, and then all posts containing it as a hashtag get added to it. (So you can use it for example to additionally add mastodon messages as microblogs to your magazine)

Please correct me if someone knows more, and I'm wrong, since I'm not 100% sure I understood it correctly.

Glamposhim,

Considering that's how it is by default on the "front page" as in all feds and see other feds, it's definitely a thing they know that keeps this fediverse going. They need to implement it deeper for individual subs.

Not sure if that's a kbin thing or a Lemmy thing. And to make it better when you post, you can choose which server to post it on.

DarkThoughts,

That's more so needed I think to make the fediverse take off properly. Right now all the communities are sort of fragmented across the various instances. Maybe there will be some that end up standing out that people flock to, but that already sort of defeats the point of the whole system and enables potential abuse again. Yes, you could technically go to a competitor, but that only works if enough other people jump on that with you, just like currently we need people to actually leave Reddit and use alternatives. If we had some sort of super instances that connect the various magazines / communities / whatever to one federated thing to subscribe to, then an abusive one would just fall out of it, while the rest of them continue to be strong and ongoing. There would just be no need to flock to one particular one since they're all interconnected anyway.

leveste,
leveste avatar

I'm also in support of this. Pretty sure lemmy already does the same(at least for lemmy instances; no idea if it also includes kbin). At the moment, it's a bit too fragmented.

BaldProphet,
BaldProphet avatar

Instance migration would definitely be a useful feature.

LollerCorleone,
LollerCorleone avatar

This is the reason why the more spread people are across instances, the better it is. That way no single instance will have too much power.

vizhal007,
vizhal007 avatar

I remember reading a similar question regarding mastodon and the answer was that the code is open source, every instance, server, community can download a copy of it and customize their experience. The Kbin admin or anyone else does not own all the servers that host the vast number of instances. So even if they were to sell the already open source code, or threaten to pull the plug on the project, the code is available for everyone to just continue like nothing happened, and for the community to take over and develop it how they see fit.

notabot374102,
notabot374102 avatar

The solution, in fact, is to be able to migrate your profile to a different kbin instance. Right now this is possible on mastodon. I've done it and it's very simple and had no issues. I saw a lot of people asking for this, so I hope in the future it will be implemented in kbin and lemmy too.

cwagner,

That is not the whole solution. Communities would still be lost. Even if someone then created a new one, only a fraction of the subscribers would join or even know about it.

ForthEorlingas,
ForthEorlingas avatar

Yes, the code for Kbin, Mastodon, Lemmy, etc. is open source, so anyone can spin up a new instance if they want. However, spinning up a new instance of Kbin would not save the content of any other instance if it were to go down.

If kbin.social shuts down tomorrow, then all the communities and user accounts that are hosted there are gone too. Kbin would still exist because there are other instances, but nothing @kbin.social would exist, if that makes sense.

vizhal007,
vizhal007 avatar

Yep, which is why we should encourage users to join a variety of .xyz servers and host magazines across the various servers to minimize such loss.

Glamposhim,

But there will still need to be a sort of "front page". That's what made Reddit so popular. It was a centralised link aggregator. What we need now is a not really centralised but a sort of aggregator for all the subs/magazines/instances across the fediverses.

Like if I go to /m/technology right now, I'm only seeing Kbin.social's. Ideally, it'd show all technology subs in that one page.

That way it actually combines the pros of Reddit and the Pros of the fediverse. Casual users still want a simple to use site. If they can be guided to jump on kbin.social or whatever, they need to see everything across the fediverse.

vizhal007,
vizhal007 avatar

Users would login using the instance they created their account on. For example you’d go to Gmail.com to access your Gmail account. The great part about fediverse is that once they are logged in over there they will be able to see all posts from communities they are subscribed to.

For people who want to view without logging in, they can just go to any instance’s landing page, doesn’t have to be the .social one, it should ideally show mostly the same front page if all the same instances are federated with it.

I get that most of the magazines right now have been created on .social, which is why it’s more important that new users be directed to other instances so magazines can be formed across various instances.

Spy,

While kbin.social's m/technology magazine can only show posts that are made there, the All page you see when you go to kbin.social does show posts from other instances, including lemmy.

Regarding magazines, I believe that over time two things can happen:

  1. Some magazines/communities will catch more traction and become popular and the default across instances. Mind you this is the same problem that reddit had in the beginning as well as there could be multiple similar named subs for the same thing, but one or few became popular over time.
  2. Tools can be develop that will handle similar named magazines as one and display them in a single feed.
Glamposhim,

Agreed with no.2 While no.1 is a thing that people will naturally do, it kinda defeats the point of this fediverse thing. But no.2 combines the best aspect of the spreadout fediverse while seeing everything in one area.

/m/technology only showing kbin stuff is kinda limiting though. I hope they change it so it becomes like the All page but for "technology" and so forth. I mean they already do show the "similar instances" in the side bar, just shove those posts into the page and it should be good. And if people don't like it, they can just filter out instances they don't like.

Spy,

The only issue I see with kbin itself doing that by default is that moderation might get a bit weird, as there would be no one team responsible for the page, while also complying with all the rules that might apply from different communities could also be problematic.
At the same time creating a post would be weird, if those communities are treated as one then where do you create a new post? Obviously not on all of them at once because then there will N posts in the "front page".

Perhaps having the ability to group magazines and read them as one would make sense, but i don't think it should be the default.

DaDragon,

I suspect that if someone like Internet Archive (or the equivalent of r/datahoarders) steps up to provide backups of fediverse servers, we will likely be able to cut off any one instance pretty easily. Since we are just requesting data from various servers from various clients.

threefriend,

Right. I can imagine someone with the pushshift-equivalent data of a fediverse server simply creating a new server with that data (kbin goes offline? Kbin2 gets started by a particularly motivated individual). I daydream, sometimes, of doing similar with the 2tb of reddit comments/submissions collected by pushshift... (can't do it now, obviously, cause I'd get sued, but maybe give it another few decades?)

logicus,
logicus avatar

A question: let’s say something illegal is posted; like a naked image of someone aka revenge porn and that person would like it removed. Does that mean contacting every admin for each server ?

skulblaka,
skulblaka avatar

Shit that's a good question. I imagine moderator tools can enforce deletion across federated instances? It would make sense for that to be an ability for them to have, just push an update that overwrites a given post on all listening instances.

For instances that received the post and then stopped following before the purge signal is sent though... That I don't know about.

OneMoreB,

deleted_by_author

    •
    pomi,
    pomi avatar

    When you create a new post it is first saved on your instance (where your user is registered). Then your post will be pushed to all other instances (servers) where any user has registered the magazine (sub) you are posting to. The instances will then save the post to their database.

    If you want a post to be deleted you have to contact the administrator of the original instance (as you said). once the post is deleted there, a delete message should be pushed to all other instances that received the post. The instances will then also delete the post to their database.

    Rhaedas,
    Rhaedas avatar

    So it acts as a mirror if a user here is subscribed to that instance, but that mirror would also reflect a take down by an admin. There's no protection of content possible.

    re,
    re avatar

    It's more of a "this was deleted, we suggest you do it too". Ultimately it's open source so anyone can modify this stuff to their liking and individual instances can choose to go along with a delete suggestion or not.

    You should theoretically also be able to tag something as deleted but only actually delete it after a week (for example). This would comply with regular delete suggestions and keep things synchronized as one would expect but would give a bit of time to defend against an instance going rogue and self destructing.

    lifeishard, (edited )

    These are just my speculations. I think the information/data will be lost and the communities will have to be rebuilt since these are not synced and would not exists on every instances.

    kitonthenet,

    I'll start a server and you can join it, and a hundred other people will also

    VulcanSphere,
    VulcanSphere avatar

    Thankfully, there is a multiple-instance system on the Fediverse

    steel-runner,

    So, reddit communities aren't going "poof", they'll still be around. However, /u/spez's actions will cause users to migrate to other communities, such as those hosted on Kbin. The short term effect will be fractured communities.

    I imagine something similar would happen if a fediverse admin pulled something similar. Users that don't approve would move to another instance, fracturing the community. The advantage of the fediverse is that creating a similar community on another instance is much easier than going from reddit to a completely different platform. This gives users more bargaining power, making unpopular decisions by admins less likely.

    I imagine hosting these instances isn't cheap, or at least won't be if many users migrate here. Some servers will opt to monetize in some way to pay for the operating costs. I think one of the exciting things about the fediverse is that instances will likely be subject to natural selection with respect to their operating costs and monetization strategies. In the long run, only the instances that can pay for their operating costs, while still being attractive to its users will survive.

    MunchyGut,
    MunchyGut avatar

    That's an interesting concept that I had her considered. Let the survival begin, I guess.

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