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Why can't magazines/communities aggregate content from other instances? (kbin.social)
submitted 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) by to c/fediverse@kbin.social
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When I look at https://lemmy.ml/c/startrek vs https://kbin.social/m/startrek I see two entirely different lists of posts. Why? It's the same topic, just on different instances. How can we have communities about topics without having them siloed into their own instance-based communities? Is this just related to that 0.18 issue with Lemmy/kbin not talking nicely, or is this how the Fediverse is?

Is it (at least theoretically) possible for me to post an article on https://kbin.social/m/startrek and have it automatically show up on https://lemmy.ml/c/startrek, or are they always going to be two separate communities?

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[–] 4 points 3 years ago (8 children)

I can make a new website with a forum if Reddit goes "bad," too, but that doesn't change anything

It doesn't change anything on Reddit, because Reddit doesn't federate with anything and nothing can federate with Reddit. People on Reddit would have to create a new account to interact with your forum.

Here on the Threadiverse, if you start a new community on a new instance then the users who were using the community on the old instance can seamlessly move over to start using the new community instead. The content would remain available to both, the users would remain available to both.

Migrating people from one site to another isn't easy

On the Fediverse migrating people isn't necessary, since users on other instances can interact with each other.

This is ultimately the point of Federation. There isn't a "critical mass" for each instance because they all share the same userbase in aggregate. As soon as a new instance comes online they instantly have as many users that can post there as an instance that's been around for years.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 3 years ago* (7 children)

    My problem was that I have to subscribe to an instance in order to see its posts. If I'm subscribed to !startrek@startrek.website, and they decide to shut off access to the Fediverse for whatever reason, all the content would be gone to me here on kbin, right? Also: I would need to subscribe to a new Star Trek community, because I could no longer connect with the old community? What do you mean by, "the content would remain available to both"? If they shut off the Fediverse, or blacklist my instance, wouldn't that mean I no longer have access to their content, even old content that I posted?

    And yeah, when I say, "migrate," I mean, "getting people to subscribe to a different instance, because the one they were using turned evil/shut down/disconnected from the Fediverse, etc." Wouldn't those scenarios still mandate action by the users in order to find a new community, and thus equate to migration? Just because a new instance has the same number of users that can post there, doesn't mean there will be the same number of users actively posting there. They will still be using the old instance, and it will take work to get them to start posting to the new instance. That's my point. From my understanding, the Fediverse decentralizes user accounts, but it doesn't decentralize content, and that's where I'm running into my expectations/wishlist issues.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago (6 children)

    My problem was that I have to subscribe to an instance in order to see its posts. If I'm subscribed to !startrek@startrek.website, and they decide to shut off access to the Fediverse for whatever reason, all the content would be gone to me here on kbin, right?

    No, only new content would be gone. My understanding is that when you subscribe the content starts being mirrored to your instance, so that's why you don't see anything from before the first person on your instance subscribed to it. Presumably that means you would continue seeing the old content, just not new stuff.

    This would be annoying, yes. But startrek.website would have absolutely no way to prevent everyone from switching over to startrek@lemmy.world, or startrek@kbin.social, or whatever other one ends up being the next-most-popular. The admins on startrek.website only have control over startrek.website. So it's not at all like Reddit, where the admins make decisions and everyone just has to take it.

    Wouldn't those scenarios still mandate action by the users in order to find a new community, and thus equate to migration?

    Sure, but that's no different from switching to a different subreddit, in the current case of Reddit.

    The difference is that there are no admins with power over the fediverse as a whole.

    They will still be using the old instance, and it will take work to get them to start posting to the new instance.

    Not really. No more work than posting on a different community on the same instance. Subscribing to communities on other instances from your "home" instance is pretty seamless (aside from the occasional bugs and rough patches, which are simply a result of the current newness of this stuff rather than inherent in the design).

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 3 years ago (5 children)

    Sure, but that's no different from switching to a different subreddit, in the current case of Reddit.

    Which doesn't really happen. The mods of r/news are idiots, but only a tiny number of users actually care about that. Most people either just stop using r/news, or deal with it. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement of how things should be. Hell, the only time I've seen people switch subreddits is when everyone went from r/antiwork to r/workreform after that disaster of a TV interview; even then, the former currently has 2.6 million subscribers, the latter has 700k, so it appears even that migration was a failure. I can't imagine this is seen as a good solution.

    Not really. No more work than posting on a different community on the same instance.

    People don't want to post in two communities that cover the same topic. Duplicating work like that leads people to seek out a single solution, even if it's the worse solution. Reddit is so popular because it has a giant number of people posting content to subreddits all the time, meaning even niche topics have a healthy amount of fresh content. If you fragment users into multiple instances (even if they don't have to worry about creating new user accounts for each one), then it just leads to problems. Eventually they will move towards a single mega-instance, but then you run into the problems above: people won't leave that instance for a new one until they absolutely cannot stand to be there anymore, and some people are going to have lower tolerances for bullshit than others, which means most people are still going to be using the old instance for a very very long time, splitting content between multiple instances. In other words: why go to !worldnews@kbin.social when there's so many more users, and so much more fresh content on https://reddit.com/r/worldnews?

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    There are plenty of news subreddits. I greatly preferred /r/anime_titties, for example.

    On Reddit, since there's only one "instance" and can never be any others, there can only be a single community named "news." If the name is really so important then the ability to "reuse" the name on other instances gives an advantage to the Fediverse.

    People don't want to post in two communities that cover the same topic.

    Then don't. I really don't understand what you think is going on here. If there's one community you prefer, stick with that.

    If you fragment users into multiple instances

    They are not fragmented. In what way are they fragmented? Everyone can participate in communities on every instance, no matter where they are.

    people won't leave that instance

    People don't need to leave that instance.

    In other words: why go to !worldnews@kbin.social when there's so many more users, and so much more fresh content on https://reddit.com/r/worldnews?

    Because Reddit's admins suck? Why else are you here?

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 3 years ago (3 children)

    There are plenty of news subreddits. I greatly preferred /r/anime_titties, for example.

    r/news has 26.34 million users. r/anime_titties has 0.47 (even you even somehow stumble upon r/anime_titties being a news/politics subreddit, as I didn't even know it existed until just now, and even then I didn't think "news" when I saw the name of it). Those are two drastically different experiences. Do you at least agree on that?

    Then don't. I really don't understand what you think is going on here. If there's one community you prefer, stick with that.

    I feel like you're not following the train of logic, here... we're discussing what happens when you can't/won't "stick with that".

    They are not fragmented. In what way are they fragmented? Everyone can participate in communities on every instance, no matter where they are.

    They are fragmented. Just because they can post somewhere doesn't mean they will. It's why !startrek@startrek.website has 4,870 subscribers, 190 threads, and 3,180 comments, and yet !startrek@kbin.social only has 810 subscribers, 10 threads, and 17 comments. If having the ability to post in multiple places meant people actually did post in multiple places, then !startrek@kbin.social would be a whole log more active, wouldn't it?

    People don't need to leave that instance.

    You're right, but they would need to start posting to whatever community/magazine I'm subscribed to, or else the community/magazine I'm subscribed to wouldn't have any content, and then why would I bother being subscribed to it?

    Because Reddit's admins suck? Why else are you here?

    If your only reason was because Reddit admins suck, you could have just quit the internet all together, but you came to kbin for a specific reason. You moved away from Reddit because of the admins, but you moved to kbin because of the content. Now imagine if there were no places with any content; you'd have nowhere to move to, and quitting the internet would be a more appealing option than posting in a magazine with 10 threads over 2 weeks.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (2 children)

    The suckiness of Reddit's admins is adversely affecting the content. It's preventing me from browsing it with my chosen tools, it's crippling the ability of mods to keep their big giant communities running, and so forth.

    I've come to the Fediverse to see content that's free of those restrictions. Unlike you, I don't see inherent value in having millions and millions of people subscribed to a given community. Small communities can still have plenty of interesting content. And these small communities are growing, if there's not enough content to your tastes right now then you can either contribute some or come back in a while to see if there's more.

    The earlier suggestion about multireddit-like functionality helps, too, by splicing together the content of multiple smaller communities. At the user's discretion.

    I feel like you're not following the train of logic, here

    Oh, the irony.

    we're discussing what happens when you can't/won't "stick with that".

    Then you go to a different community. On the Fediverse it's super easy. As I've been saying.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I don’t really get why the size of a community even matters beyond a certain point. As we’ve seen with default subs, vs more niche alternatives, communities generally go to shit once they get too big.

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