this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2024
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Fediverse

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A community to talk about the Fediverse and all it's related services using ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, KBin, etc).

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It's been difficult to broach the subject and explain the technical concepts to the average person. I did have some success in first sharing the email comparison, which lead into interoperability.

I'm just curious to hear people's success stories, if you have any.

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I don't, because it's my escape from most of their bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago

I left Reddit because of their shenanigans. The Tiktok crowd deciding Reddit was cool was what guaranteed I would never go back. Now if anyone asks me if I use social media, I just say "No".

[–] [email protected] 43 points 6 months ago (6 children)

Why would I tell them about "the fediverse"? Tell them that you use Lemmy or Mastodon or whatever. If they are interested then give them a link to a good instance. That's it.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago

Definitely. People don't care what's behind. They just want an app or a website.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I send a fiend of mine image macros and shitposts from here

They’re like “WHERE DO YOU GET THESE MEMES”

I say “Lemmy, it’s like Reddit minus so much corpo garb”

They say “the fuck is a lemmy”

I send the link to voyager and say “all you gotta do is sign up on one of these places I think you’d like”

They’re still just on tiktok

I have tried

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

That's all you can do 🤷‍♂️

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I don't tell people about the Fediverse.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

The first rule of the Fediverse.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

"It's like email. You can have an account on Gmail and still send emails to Outlook".

Edit: just saw that you mentioned email, so that's usually the easiest analogy.

About success stories, I don't have many, people I know IRL weren't interested in Reddit, so Lemmy is the same.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (3 children)

This is literally how I explained it to somebody tonight actually.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I just showed one of my friends the memes on it and they said tell me what this platform is

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I like using a mall as a really basic analogy for the shared social space:

There are multiple entrances to the mall through various shops, but once you're inside, you can go visit wherever you want.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

That's actually a great one.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

I like that analogy, thanks

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

I likened it to a room with bidirectional portals yesterday - your analogy is much better, and has been stolen for future use.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I just share posts/comments that others find useful

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Do you have anything specific, or do you just mean in general?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

I would say mostly general, and it also depends on context and relevance

  • like I'd send FFXIV memes to my friends who play it but not to anyone else.

For things that people aren't familiar with but is useful to know (like PC hardware) I tend to share fedi-links as sources/citations after providing context

EX:

  1. [Powercolor Hellhound RX 7900 XT], [Partner Model 4070 Ti] - Value Comparison
  2. [ZOTAC 4080 Super], [PowerColor’s Hellhound 7900 XT] - Value Comparison

I'm a nerd

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Makes sense, thanks for elaborating. Nerd!

:P

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I don't. When people say, "Do you use r/?" I reply with, "I left it during the blackout." That usually ends it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (3 children)

It really annoys me how often I see major media others citing reddit these days. It seems it really ramped up after the IPO. It's never anything good either. They're just either outsourcing basic journalism or complaining that reddit is too negative.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Why not tell them about Lemmy (or other alternatives) instead?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Most of my friends are fully entrenched in mainstream social media and i don't think there's much interest in doing something different. I have a couple of friends and family members who i think are probably here, but we don't talk about it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

i don’t think there’s much interest in doing something different

See that's the part that I don't really get though. Why is it so difficult to break free? People always want to complain but never want to be part of the solution.

Interesting that you don't talk about it. Is that just because you prefer to keep your identity here separate from real life, or some other reason(s)?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Most people i know don't complain a lot about the other places. When i bring up the constant marketing and such, they mostly don't care. When interacting with people you know on social media there's an expectation that you follow them, post/respond appropriately, etc. It's tiring. I would use a different account.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I'm not a weirdo, so I don't. My friends don't have to buy into my version of wasting time

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

^weirdlybacksaway^

[–] stoy 13 points 6 months ago

Don't talk about the high concept of federation, talk about the community that the different services offer.

The classic misstake is to oversell and miss the point that the other party is focusing on.

Don't: "Lemmy is so awesome, it can't be shut down, it is federated, you can even run your own instance and have total control"

What the other party hears: "Lemmy is awesome, and you have to do a lot of stuff to join."

Do: "Hey, have you heard about Lemmy? It is a Reddit clone with a much calmer community, I have had a lot of interesting conversations over there"

This puts the focus on the community rather than the service, people join social networks for the interaction, not the tech.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

Anyone I would tell about it is already on it. I don't usually meet people IRL that are at all interested in anything online.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago

I dont. Its honestly not great. I'd rather that effort went to preserving and repairing the existing tools of the free and open web -- the old protocols are extensible. Imagine if we had an RSS client with a "reblog" feature!

"Federation" adds overhead and honestly creates as many problems as it solves. It's not a selling point, its a price tag.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I usually wait till they complain about something related to one of the big corporate platforms, then throw out a "you know, the fediverse has an 'X' now, come join us!" Just replace X with reddit/tumbler/youtube/etc, whatever platform they were complaining about.

Alternatively, I'll share fediverse links in the process of showing memes to people.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

That seems like a good strategy. I should get into more meme communities.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Usually as loudly as possible while wildly gesticulating and showing huge quantities of bloodshot eyeball. Seems effective so far, will continue to report in.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

I'm going to need to see some evidence.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

What are these "people" to which you refer?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Subtly, not by pushing it on them directly. Instead, I share links to topics that might interest them. Show people the value.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I ask if they've heard of mastodon because most people with any ties to the internet have. Then I say there's a new wave of platforms that are all federated, kinda like how like someone could send an email from a user @aol.clm to a user @msn.com or whatever, which means there's no real way to centralize the platforms.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

I generally don't.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (5 children)

So far I don't. I'm still learning the platform. So far I think what I imagined Lemmy to be ISN'T what I imagined it as. It COULD be that. It chooses not to. Not only is there a lack of organization, but also the policies of the platform basically PROHIBIT them from becoming moderated in a fair balanced way. Yes I see that modlog. It does nothing if the moderation team is also corrupt.

I'm not saying it currently is or isn't corrupt. Thats not the issue. The issue is, a lot of people come from reddit because their automod is now banning things due to bad AI. Even if you appeal, they claim a human looks at it, but that's not true.

Instead, I come to Lemmy, thinking that each instances mod team ONLY had control over their instance. If that mod bans you, I THOUGHT they'd only ban you from that instance. You take your account to a new instance. Their mods could then choose to accept your migration, or deny it. You find an instance where a human reviews your reason for being banned, and if you did anything wrong you'd be rejected there too. If that instance finds you did nothing wrong, they accept you.

This allows mods to keep power over their individual bubbles. Yet not have the ability to gain authoritarian control.

And yes, it ALSO means that users who do ban worthy offenses WOULDN'T be banned platform wide. And at first glance that sounds wrong. It means that yes, the far right would have a place to fester. But also every other instance would defederate from that one instance. So they would essentially be an echo chamber that the rest of lemmy would never see. It also means if you're on an instance that is turning into a place you don't agree with, you can migrate before that instance becomes defederated.

As it is now, this is just reddit, with more steps, and more confusing.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

I really don't agree that it's 'just reddit with more steps...'

This place really feels different to me, and better. I like it here. Sorry you've been having mod troubles. I've not run into problems there, so can't really relate.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (5 children)

That level you describe also exists -- instances are self-policing their users, though it's an admin thing, not a mod one (mods are for communities).

lemm.ee just posted some numbers for the year and after kbin.social, which seems to get many spam accounts, they're mostly banning lemm.ee users for misbehaving. No great need to ban .world users because .world admins are keeping their own ship clean, "are your users a bother to me" is a big factor in federation politics.

OTOH not giving communities the ability to police themselves would leads to problems because the only way to deal with anything would be to choose the nuclear option: You might get heated in a discussion about your favourite comic book character and lash out, calling people names, but otherwise be perfectly reasonable, the mods temp-banning you from their community is the right approach, there, not making you switch instances, or depriving others of the furry porn you post to the same instance as the comic community is on, or whatnot.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

@technomad I’ve been keeping a lot of my friends aware of what’s going on in the fediverse (especially around Threads, which they’re more aware of) through a discord channel I run on our server that’s dedicated to what’s going on in the world of tech

Conceptually I prefer using the email analogy for how it actually works since that’s pretty close

Gatekeeping the fediverse isn’t good for it, get people to join up, you have control over what you see

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

"Reddit rapes us because they control it, not us. This is like that but we control it, not them, libre software. They can get fucked!"

Yes, literally, it works for me. Most people don't give a shit beyond that, that's all they need to join. But, start with a chat app first. Also, this is a replacement but they only need to add an app, not replace yet.

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