Fediverse

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This magazine is dedicated to discussions on the federated social networking ecosystem, which includes decentralized and open-source social media platforms. Whether you are a user, developer, or simply interested in the concept of decentralized social media, this is the place for you. Here you can share your knowledge, ask questions, and engage in discussions on topics such as the benefits and challenges of decentralized social media, new and existing federated platforms, and more. From the latest developments and trends to ethical considerations and the future of federated social media, this category covers a wide range of topics related to the Fediverse.

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Why can't magazines/communities aggregate content from other instances? (kbin.social)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

In a federated system, once up and running, "jumping ship" is much, much easier. Changing entire sites goes from new accounts, apps, and people, to just seeing where the users go, and following.

A community is its users, and in the fediverse, when a site goes bad, the users don't have to go with it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I would argue that a community is the content and its users. People don't use a new site/instance unless it's active with content to their quality standards (it's why so many people refuse to use new options that the far-right creates). The only exception is when there are major events like Musk purchasing Twitter to get Mastodon going, or the API changes leading to kbin/lemmy getting more popular. As an example: I'm still using https://reddit.com/r/worldnews because they have the daily update thread on Ukraine, but !worldnews doesn't.

You are very right with the apps, though. Creating a new account is easy, but having to install new apps and set them up is a royal pain. Another pain point is having to learn an entirely new interface, whereas I can spin up my own instance of kbin after using it for a couple of years and feel comfortable with the interface of the new instance, as opposed to going from Twitter to Mastodon which is quite the adjustment.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

There's one more benefit.

In a federation, you can join the new less shitty version, AND stay in the old one going downhill.

You can vote for the new thing, without giving up on the old. You simply switch which one you post to.

Imagine if you could have Reddit and Lemmy, in the same app, seamlessly intermingling, but actively reduce how much you contribute to reddit, while actively increasing how much you contribute to lemmy.

You could contribute to that change and improvement, with ZERO trade-offs. How many more people would support the next thing, if they could adopt the new without discarding the old?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That is an entirely valid point, and one I do like. The worst part of that is having to wade through duplicate posts, which isn't the end of the world, I suppose.

Well said.